Presbyterian Church in Canada

An important part of what the Presbyterian Church in Canada means to me is that it welcomes people who have questions. If it didn’t, I would never have come back and stayed. It also welcomes diversity. Reaching out to other faiths was very much in evidence when St. Andrew’s in downtown Toronto welcomed overflow crowds for the state funeral of Jack Layton in August. The church, some said, had not been filled like that in a generation. The service was a triumph in bringing together diversity, aboriginal Canadians, Muslims, rainbow communities and other non – mainstream groups.
To reach out to these people, we need to respect their questioning of the status quo. Recently, the Record has gained recognition for respecting diversity through its respected article on Islam. Abed Daggaz, in his letter published in the September issue, called it, “A truly unbiased article that does not judge one faith over the other but shows how religion can be a commonality among us all.”