Does it really matter who owns what? When foreign sovereign wealth funds, which these days are primarily rich Arab and Asian states, provide the lifeline to struggling North American banks, should we be thankful or worried?The willingness to sell strategic assets is just one manifestation of the "short-termism" that characterizes so much of economic activity today. Not to be confused with responding quickly to new market information, "short-termism" refers to a focus on immediate earnings rather than a long-term strategy. Examples include the compromise of research and development or long-term investments, the invention and contortion of corporate structures, and even executive compensation schemes that reward short-term performance.Not to excuse the responsibility of our corporate elites, but often less well considered is the burden - and the power - individuals bear in shaping the powers of the marketplace. Each of us, after all, represents a piece of the market place that, collectively, dictates the power of that market forces that shape our economy. For instance, if most of us are feeling optimistic about our earnings prospects, that "mood" will lead market forecasters to feel confident that consumer spending levels will remain high or even increase. If most of us are feeling "bearish" and apprehensive about our prospects, forecasters will tend to believe we will be prone to saving money and paying down credit cards and therefore less likely to be active spenders.Equally, our individual expectations regarding our investments will dictate how companies operate in order to meet investor expectations. If what we are looking for is a quick return on investment - a short term outlook - public companies and stock markets will behave differently than if we are more interested in the performance of our investments over time - a long term outlook.For many years now, some investment companies have offered "ethical" or "green" funds designed for individuals who want to get a sound return on their pensions or other investments but aren't willing to do so if it means they will be profiting from the activities of companies they believe are not behaving in a fashion consistent with their values. Talisman's withdrawal from its holdings in Sudan is a clear example of the role values-based investors can play.Few people understand this as completely as Jonathan Wellum, CEO, CIO and Portfolio Manager with AIC Ltd. Twice recognized as Canada's fund manager of the year and a former Top 40 under 40 designate, Wellum is a Senior Fellow with the Work Research Foundation. Somewhat uniquely for a financial analyst, he holds a master's degree in theology in addition to bachelor's degrees in business administration and in science.Economics, according to Wellum's inaugural paper for WRF, is "really a metaphysical science rather than a mathematical one in which spiritual values and attitudes are more important that physical assets, and the morality and virtue of the populace are as foundational as the money supply." In Wellum's view, our present economic challenges are a barometer of our social values. "Why are we surprised by our short-termism when we are surrounded by an instant credit, mass consumption culture in which delayed gratification is ridiculed and mocked as outdated and irrelevant?"Students of political science might be more familiar with this same theme, outlined by many thinkers, but explained succinctly by Thomas Jefferson in a 1792 letter to George Hammond when he said, "A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society." Substitute the word "market" for "society" and it's reasonably clear Jefferson and Wellum are speaking to the same issue.Making long-term intergenerational decisions has important long-term implications but requires a certain degree of self-sacrifice and philosophical perspective that seems in short supply in North America today. The CFA Institute warns that "an excessive short-term focus combined with insufficient regard for long-term strategy can tip the balance in value-destructive ways for market participants, undermine the markets credibility and discourage long-term value creation and investment."The map of the world we grew up with - the one with all the Commonwealth nations coloured in pink and dominated by the mass of the Soviet Union - has changed radically. Just as profoundly, the geography of the new global economy continues to shift. And as it does, the shape it takes has everything to do with the economic power of our communal conscience.Ray Pennings is vice-president of the Work Research Foundation, a think-tank specializing in the study of Canada's social architecture. www.wrf.ca t long-term implications, but requires a certain degree of self-sacrifice and philosophical perspective that seems in short supply in North America today. The CFA Institute warns that "an excessive short-term focus combined with insufficient regard for long-term strategy can tip the balance in value-destructive ways for market participants, undermine the market's credibility and discourage long-term value creation and investment."The map of the world we grew up with -- the one with all the Commonwealth nations coloured in pink and dominated by the mass of the Soviet Union -- has changed radically. Just as profoundly, the geography of the new global economy continues to shift. And as it does, the shape it takes has everything to do with the economic power of our communal conscience.Ray Pennings is vice-president of the Work Research Foundation, a think-tank specializing in the study of Canada's social architecture. www.wrf.ca.

Does it really matter who owns what? When foreign sovereign wealth funds, which these days are primarily rich Arab and Asian states, provide the lifeline to struggling North American banks, should we be thankful or worried?The willingness to sell strategic assets is just one manifestation of the "short-termism" that characterizes so much of economic activity today. Not to be confused with responding quickly to new market information, "short-termism" refers to a focus on immediate earnings rather than a long-term strategy. Examples include the compromise of research and development or long-term investments, the invention and contortion of corporate structures, and even executive compensation schemes that reward short-term performance.Not to excuse the responsibility of our corporate elites, but often less well considered is the burden -- and the power -- individuals bear in shaping the powers of the marketplace. Each of us, after all, represents a piece of the marketplace that, collectively, dictates the power of that market that shapes our economy. For instance, if most of us are feeling optimistic about our earnings prospects, that "mood" will lead market forecasters to feel confident that consumer spending levels will remain high or even increase. If most of us are feeling "bearish" and apprehensive about our prospects, forecasters will tend to believe we will be prone to saving money and paying down credit cards and therefore less likely to be active spenders.Equally, our individual expectations regarding our investments will dictate how companies operate in order to meet investor expectations. If what we are looking for is a quick return on investment -- a short-term outlook -- public companies and stock markets will behave differently than if we are more interested in the performance of our investments over time -- a long-term outlook.For many years now, some investment companies have offered "ethical" or "green" funds designed for individuals who want to get a sound return on their pensions or other investments, but aren't willing to do so if it means they will be profiting from the activities of companies they believe are not behaving in a fashion consistent with their values. Talisman's withdrawal from its holdings in Sudan is a clear example of the role values-based investors can play.Few people understand this as completely as Jonathan Wellum, CEO, CIO and portfolio manager with AIC Ltd. Twice recognized as Canada's fund manager of the year and a former Top 40 under 40 designate, Wellum is a senior fellow with the Work Research Foundation. Somewhat uniquely for a financial analyst, he holds a master's degree in theology in addition to bachelor's degrees in business administration and in science.Economics, according to Wellum's inaugural paper for WRF, is "really a metaphysical science rather than a mathematical one in which spiritual values and attitudes are more important that physical assets, and the morality and virtue of the populace are as foundational as the money supply." In Wellum's view, our present economic challenges are a barometer of our social values. "Why are we surprised by our short-termism when we are surrounded by an instant credit, mass consumption culture in which delayed gratification is ridiculed and mocked as outdated and irrelevant?"Students of political science might be more familiar with this same theme, outlined by many thinkers, but explained succinctly by Thomas Jefferson in a 1792 letter to George Hammond when he said, "A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society." Substitute the word "market" for "society" and it's reasonably clear Jefferson and Wellum are speaking to the same issue.Making long-term inter-generational decisions has important long-term implications, but requires a certain degree of self-sacrifice and philosophical perspective that seems in short supply in North America today. The CFA Institute warns that "an excessive short-term focus combined with insufficient regard for long-term strategy can tip the balance in value-destructive ways for market participants, undermine the market's credibility and discourage long-term value creation and investment."The map of the world we grew up with -- the one with all the Commonwealth nations coloured in pink and dominated by the mass of the Soviet Union -- has changed radically. Just as profoundly, the geography of the new global economy continues to shift. And as it does, the shape it takes has everything to do with the economic power of our communal conscience.

It?s a direct reference to Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke?s prescient 1790 critique of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment that informed it. Burke foresaw the mob rule that culminated in Robespierre?s Reign of Terror. He warned that if the democratic principle were allowed to run without check or limit, the French would lose freedom and the democratic majority would become a tyrant. It did. Radical democratic rule saw thousands of the French go under the guillotine. Sometimes people were arrested when denounced by a disgruntled neighbour and executed by a majority voice vote. While highly critical of the French Revolution, Burke defended the American Revolution. Burke supported the American revolutionaries who sought to recover freedom and to restore English institutional checks and balances that guaranteed liberty ? things taken away by the British Crown and colonial governors. The title also refers to the socialist revolutions of the 20th century. Marxists pursued revolution to achieve radical economic equality. Marxists in a hurry ? omelette socialists ? broke eggs to impose Marxist regimes by force around the world. The Black Book of Communism (1997) features Stephane Courtois?s mea culpa claiming Marxist totalitarian regimes were directly responsible for the deaths of 100 million people in the 20th century. Go-slow Marxists ? champagne socialists ? used democratic processes to achieve economic levelling, squelching job and wealth creation. By the 1970s, marginal income tax rates exceeded 90 per cent. As inflation, interest rates and unemployment figures strayed into double-digit percentages, free market capitalism was pronounced dead. Marriage and family, education and the church were attacked or put under stress by public policy, popular culture and ? astoundingly ? by church leaders. Alexander Solzhenitsyn famously observed in his 1978 Harvard commencement address that the West had lost its nerve and the will to live. Then came the revolutions of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Before the decade was up, Marxist communism around the world had fallen or was well on the way and the West enjoyed unprecedented growth. Even as world communism and democratic socialism wound down and free market capitalism surged, other developments were underway. At least as important as the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions, John Paul II led the Roman Catholic church to recover its nerve after the confusion and disarray of the 1960s and 1970s. Against the hedonism and nihilism of the 1970s and 1980s, John Paul called for a culture of life. Evangelicalism re-entered the public square and culture after a generation?s absence, residing in an evangelical ghetto at the margins of society. Evangelical influence re-emerged to be felt globally, leading people to belief in God, to a recovery of healthy family life and to the courage to resist political and social injustice in central Europe, in Africa and in Asia. Evangelical influence increasingly set much of the agenda of American public and foreign policy. Thirdly, radical Islam came into its own, directly ruling or influencing the rulers of Iran, the Arab kingdoms and dictatorships, Pakistan and the central Asian republics and the authoritarian regimes of Indonesia and Malaysia. This revolution began in 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomeini?s plane touched down in Tehran and Soviet tanks crossed into Afghanistan. I want to reflect on how these revolutions speak to the 21st century. But there?s another revolution I want to draw on. It began its life, utterly powerless, at the margins, underground. Yet for its first 300 years, it transformed the empire in which it lived. Its influence reformed the same legal code that declared it an ?illegal religion,? leading to stricter legal protections for slaves, women and children. The movement?s adherents roamed city streets at night, searching for infants left out to die of exposure, for orphans with no family to turn to and for widows who resorted to prostitution for food and shelter ? caring for them as for their own families. Illegal, yes. But for good works, known far and wide. By the time Constantine declared it legal and made it the Roman Empire?s official religion, Christian faith had already overwhelmed and transformed its oppressors. Recently, I spoke to a Canadian lawyer who had returned from a humanitarian visit to a central Asian republic governed by an officially Muslim regime. The regime has made Christianity illegal ? practice or conversion is punishable by imprisonment or, even, death. Yet Christians continue to meet underground and live the faith. They are known as the people who search for abandoned infants, for orphans and for prostitutes and take them in. Why ?Reflections?? The revolution continues.

Most Canadians don’t regularly attend church. Even though the majority of Canadians will say “Yes” when asked whether they believe in God, few argue that institutional religion is noticed in everyday affairs of contemporary Canadian society. Throughout our history, any conversation about God is almost always tied into a conversation about corollary religious institutions. However, as a recent Statistics Canada report confirmed, recently this connection has loosened. Over one-half of Canadians regularly engage in some religious activity, but less than one-third attend religious services regularly. This disconnect between spirituality and religious institutions has been well-documented in recent years . Furthermore, historic assumptions about references to the Christian God in Canadian society are less valid than they once were. Mosques, temples, and synagogues, not to mention yoga studios and wiccan houses, are buildings which can be identified with institutional religion in Canada. The significance of religious institutions for those who belong is self-evident. There are various ways to describe what attendees “get out of it.” For some, it provides a source of inspiration, of instruction regarding life’s bigger and smaller questions. For others, there is a sense of community and friendship, of identity and belonging. For still others, there are opportunities for service and a sense of place that emerges from living out of a particular tradition or in a particular lifestyle. What about those who don’t belong? Do religious institutions have anything to say to those who never set foot within their doors? Do religious institutions affect society beyond the square footage they happen to occupy? While they provide suitable, and generally more elegant space for families to engage in their “hatch ‘em, match ‘em and dispatch ‘em” rituals, is there a public function that religious institutions play in our shared life together? In our seemingly secular age, the answer to this question has been “No.” Religious organizations are private institutions that belong to their members, and are quite irrelevant to the rest of us. Historian John Webster Grant wrote that by the end of the sixties, “The nation had come to carry on its business as if the church was not there.” It is a rare voice that would argue much has changed in the thirty years since. For the non-religious, the religious world seems confusing and fragmented. There are a seemingly endless number of denominations; each convinced that its particular emphasis is right. The intramural squabbles that take place between religious folk, even those of the same religious tradition, are dogmatic and arcane, only emphasizing their seeming irrelevance to the rest of society. Even if religion was to have a voice in the public square, how can coherence emerge from this cacophony? How can that voice be understood and be meaningful to our shared public life together? I want to make the case that religious institutions play a vital part of our shared life together. Regardless of the religious convictions that one has, the influence and contribution of religious institutions to our shared life together is significant and, therefore, one can neither meaningfully understand society nor propose lasting solutions to our shared problems without at least accounting for how they are impacted by religion. While some aspects of the argument are utilitarian in that it focuses on what people do as a result of their religious convictions, other aspects are more basic. Religious institutions confront individuals, but by logical extension, they also confront society with core questions. Who are we? What are we doing here? Where are we going? How we answer those questions both individually and collectively inevitably shapes what society looks like. Just consider how the answer of a remote desert wanderer half a world away, Osama bin Laden, has impacted our lives in recent years. Thankfully, the impacts of religion work themselves out in various ways, but one cannot pretend that religion has no impact. I will use examples drawn from the Christian tradition. That is not intended to imply that there are not equally compelling examples that could be drawn from other traditions, but it is logical that I am most familiar with those from my own. I will also acknowledge that there are criticisms those outside of the Christian tradition can make regarding the sometimes confused voice, uncharitable tone, and smug dogmatism with which Christians have spoken in the public square. The fault for the present decline in the church’s contribution to the public square has to be borne as much by those who call themselves Christians as those who might have actively sought to diminish Christian influence. However, even while we acknowledge our imperfection in living out our deepest beliefs and convictions, the fundamental point is made: our beliefs do shape our behaviours. Our institutions are physical icons of those beliefs and behaviours, as enacted and lived in the public square. It is common amongst urban geographers to reference the highest and most impressive structure in a centre as the leading moral and physical force behind a city. It is apt to note that where cathedrals, mosques, temples and shrines used to dwell in the some of the world’s grandest cities, they are now outstripped by banks, insurance companies and trade centers. Yet, outstripped or not, these institutions remain. Though trade centers may tower overhead, faith institutions—against almost all predictions—have not merely survived, but continue to command the loyalty of the majority of the Canadian public, and certainly the world. The subsequent logical question is whether it’s proper for that loyalty to be public? After all, the definition of “public” is that which is shared; any system which allows private or religious beliefs to have sway in the public arena inevitably will result in conflict and chaos. Leaving aside the controversial definition of “public,” as something which can be bereft of individual belief, faith and philosophy , the case here to be made is that other people’s religious convictions have a significant impact on the public square, most specifically in the form of those institutions which they build within civil society. At one level, we can engage in the discussion by examining the consequences of this connection. What is the impact of faith institutions on society today? The first answer to that question must be general—it is far greater than is generally acknowledged. Especially if we consider society in its popular conception, shaped by the public media, few would argue that religion is neither widely covered nor well understood. National Post columnist John Fraser wrote in 2000:Religion, as a source of excellent stories of all sorts, is one of two great no-go areas in the contemporary media (universities being the other)…. (A) s a general rule over the past few decades, stories on religion will break into the media only if they are (a) sensational, (b) bizarre, ? goofy, (d)gee-whiz, or (e) contemptuous.It may be an oversimplified stereotype, but there is probably enough truth in it to warrant its repetition: the contribution of religious institutions to public life in Canada today is probably identified with a few contentious social and political questions. The perceptions that one holds regarding these institutions probably corresponds to the position each one takes on those particular questions. Yet religious institutions fill a significant role in volunteering, donating and social services. Kurt Bowen, from the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, in Religion, Participation, and Charitable Giving, notes that,Though representing only 14 per cent of the Canadian population over the age of 15, religiously active volunteers make up 43 per cent of volunteers in Canada and account for a startling 50 per cent of all hours volunteered.Further,The 32 per cent of Canadians who are religiously active contribute 65 per cent of direct charitable donations. As one might expect, this group is responsible for 86 per cent of donations to religious bodies; yet even in the secular sector, the religiously active provide 42 per cent of the $2.1 billion raised by direct giving.Bowen concludes: “We would do well then to pay more attention to the enormous contribution already made by the faith community, [and] to tap into its great potential”. Paul Reed similarly writes that this is an oft neglected perspective.One factor, which my necessarily simplistic historical and scholarly reprise neglected, is the role of religious belief and values in motivating pro-social behaviour that is altruistic. In the Western and Mediterranean worlds—which dominate our own historical development—each of the three great desert religions has valued charitable and philanthropic behaviour as part of the individual’s spiritual journey. Maimonides was responsible for codification of an eight level hierarchical class of “degrees of charity” within Judaism. Zakat, the principles of charity within Islamic law, are the result of centuries of scholarly and spiritual study. Similarly, the Christian gospels and Pauline letters encourage charitable behaviour to those less fortunately placed, and admonish the mean spirited and greedy. In both Canada and the United States, a majority of financial donations flows through religious institutions into direct charitable activity.However, the institutions of religion are not alone in public service. Many organizations donate, volunteer and serve, including non-religious. Is the church just another one of these organizations? Is it the institution of choice of one segment of the population, while other groups are chosen by other segments of the population? A study of volunteerism in Canada by Statistics Canada a few years ago provides some thoughtprovoking data to consider. “Of the 31% of adults who reported having volunteered for a charitable or community association, the top third accounted for more than 80% of the total volunteer hours while the bottom third accounted for less than 3%.”10 That translates into about ten per cent of the adult population who do the overwhelming proportion of volunteerism in this country. And what do we know about those who are more likely to be volunteers? The study includes a profile:What is the overall picture of the active volunteer in Canada? This study sketches a portrait of a person who • has been involved in civic activities as a youth; • has an above-average education and occupation; • feels a sense of personal responsibility for or interest in community affairs; • feels a sense of satisfaction and control in life; • has children under the age of 17 living at home in a larger than average household; and, • engages not only in volunteering but in other forms of helping, contributing and participating as well, especially through religious organizations.”11Faith institutions are making clear, documented, and statistically significant contributions to the public square, and that square recognizes them every day in the lives of its citizens. Where would our cities be without the contribution of many religiously motivated groups—the Salvation Army being the most prominent, but certainly not only group—in providing shelter to the homeless and relief to the poor? What would be the foreign aid contribution of Canada if the activities of religiously minded relief organizations—the Mennonite Central Committee being the most prominent, but again hardly alone—were not included? How does one measure the value of the religiously-reminded organizations who visit prisoners, actively help in their reintegration into society, and run programs helping those who run afoul of the law become law-abiding citizens? If we were to go into any Canadian city and begin to measure what would happen if the churches in that city closed their doors and ceased the formal programs of outreach and service to the community, what would be the impact on society? Then there is the service that religious organizations provide to their own members. If the counseling, “meals on wheels,” and youth programs were transferred to society as a whole, what would be the impact? The evidence is not all one-sided. There have been abuses, misuses and mistakes in the name of religion, which have “cost society.” There are also perspectives advanced in the name of religion which unmistakably have as their objective the creation of a society that does not aspire to democratic values. This article is not a defense of everything that takes place in the name of religious institutions. However, it is an argument that any democracy that is worthy of its name must provide space for debate with all voices that raise arguments for the public good, within a democratic framework. The positive contribution of most religious institutions in Canada today is far greater than is generally acknowledged. Obviously the interplay between religious institutions and society as a whole has proven a difficult subject throughout history. To those who find themselves outside any religious tent, the challenge seems doubly difficult. They will acknowledge that much good happens in the name of religion, but how does one get the good works without the gory religious headlines? Can we have the care for troubled youths without the shooting of abortion doctors? For many these troubling questions have proved unanswerable. Hence, the wisest route seems to be to ignore religion and try to isolate it from any involvement in public life. Of course, that neglect of religious institutions in the public square for the past thirty years hasn’t really changed anything. We still must deal with the good and bad. The good works and their social benefits we have described have occurred without public encouragement or acknowledgement. Those aspects of religious life which many would prefer to see obliterated continue on, undeterred by the public shunning. Why is that? To answer this, let us turn specifically to the Christian church, Canada, and the world’s largest religious institution. The church is an institution like no other. It is an organic institution. Organisms must either be killed or contended with, but they cannot be ignored. There are at least three distinct features that combine to give the church her organic character. The first is a sense of truth. An orthodox Christian perspective begins with the fact that God created the world with a purpose, that evil came into the world when man sinned, and that God intervened with a plan of redemption and that the result of this will be a restoration of creation to God’s original purpose. This creation-fall-redemption framework has clear implications regarding all of life’s questions, and provides a story within which the challenges of society—including good and evil—will be met. The second feature that distinguishes a church is a sense of transcendent participation. There is more to life than meets the eye. The social challenges we face and the public discourses we engage in take place at a down-to-earth level, where the rubber hits the road, but simultaneously coram deo—before the face of God. God has an interest in what is occurring in the world, most clearly demonstrated by coming down to earth in human form in the person of Jesus Christ. While this sense of involvement in the divine plan is most intensely realized through participation in the sacraments, every aspect of the Christian life is to be lived out of a sense of “Christ in us.” The third feature that distinguishes the church is the sense of community. There is no church without community. The church is a body of believers, with a sense of obligation for each other and a mutual duty of service. There is a sense in which this community is felt by separation from society as a whole, a sense of being “called out”, but there is also a sense in which this community is felt through service to the community as a whole, a sense of obligation to show through word and action their belief that the entire world was created by, and is loved by, God. While different faith traditions would articulate what gives their particular religious institution its vitality in different ways, it is clear that membership in a religious institution is something that is experienced differently than membership in a community association or a service club. While this may not be equally or fully understood by those outside of any particular religious tradition, the consequences are real and need to be contended with. We live in a pluralistic society. While a secularist mindset—the belief that religion has no role in the public square—is alive and well in Canadian society today, so are religious institutions. Even Statistics Canada reports that if “the four dimensions of religiousity—affiliation, attendance, personal practices and importance of religion—can be defined into a simple ‘religiosity index’….40% of Canadians have a low degree of religiosity, 31% are moderately religious, and 29% are highly religious.” 12 By my math, that translates into a 60-40 split. If there are historic institutions deeply embedded into the fabric of civil society with the moderate to high religious loyalty of 60% of the Canadian public, I would say that makes faith institutions a relevant public dialogue partner. Further I am convinced that this concentration of the population has a significant impact on our urban centers, and though the majority of Canadians may be Christians of one stripe or another, we must broaden the dialogue to include atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews and other groups which maintain vital institutions of public significance. While the coloured glasses that we all bring to the dialogue mean that we see something different when we look through the stained glass of contemporary Canadian churches, I am quite convinced that any honest dialogue will recognize something of the positive contribution that an organic vibrant Christian church can make to our shared life together.     Notes 1. http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/060502/d060502a.htm 2. See especially Bibby, Restless Gods 3. Seven out of every ten Canadians identify themselves as either Roman Catholic or Protestant: http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/rel/canada.cfm 4. The prospect that “public” is value neutral, and therefore free of religious conviction, has undergone sustained assault in recent years. Many theorists who could be classified “postmodern” are quick to note that neutrality is often a catch phrase for a commonly agreed-upon ideology. In my opinion, the best author to offer a sustained criticism of neutrality in the public square, or in political philosophy in general, is Alisdair MacIntyre in After Virtue, and most significantly in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? 5. Quoted in Bibbly, Restless Gods p 9 6. http://www.givingandvolunteering.ca/pdf/n-vc1sen.pdf 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. http://www.carleton.ca/socanth/casr/Defining%20and%20Classifying.pdf 10. http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75F0033 MIE/75F0033 MIE00002.pdf 11. Ibid 12. http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/060502/d060502a.htm

There is an old legend told about the conversion of Russia to Orthodoxy in 988. Prince Volodymyr of Kyiv wanted to unite his people in a common religion, but was not sure which to choose. So he sent messengers out to the lands of Catholicism, Islam, Judaism and Orthodox Christianity. It was the impressions the messengers had of their visit to Hagia Sophia in Constantinople that won him over to Orthodox Christianity. Speaking of the worship they saw in the Great Church they said, "We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth. It would be impossible to find on earth any splendor greater than this...Never shall we be able to forget so great a beauty." I have always been fascinated by this story. I think there is something remarkable about the fact that the very foundation and establishment of the Russian Church's "conversion story" is based on their discovery of God through architecture.The magnificence of Hagia Sofia is of course legendary. Built on an unprecedented scale with a dome that seems to float on its pendentives like rims of light, its glory is said to have prompted the Emperor Justinian to declare, ?Solomon, I have surpassed thee.? Most certainly the wow factor of the building informed the opinion of Volodomyr's messengers, but I have always wondered if there was something more than the expression of sublime awe that prompted such avowal. While an impressive architectural feat, surely Volodymyr?s messengers would have reported that a larger dome capped Rome?s Pantheon. Or was there something more that spurred such praise of its splendor?Walking into Hagia Sofia, the vast unobstructed interior of the church leads the eye in two directions. While traditional basilicas draw the eye toward the altar and the eastern apse, Hagia Sofia also draws the eye upward, to the dome, the vault of heaven that appears suspended on a luminous bed of radiance. It is the tension between transcendence and the sacraments that makes this space so special. Surely, thought Justinian when he compared his church to the Temple, God is present here; this is a sacred space.For many Christians, especially conservative Protestants, this is where a red flag goes up. I was raised in an evangelical church where we called the main worship space an auditorium because ?sanctuary? seemed too close to suggesting that this space was any more special or sacred than another space. In this environment I learned to de-mysticize my faith. Since God was omnipresent, than everywhere, in theory, must be holy. In practice this equated to God living in the human heart, not in physical buildings. Later, while attending a Calvinist church, I learned that we should never make distinctions between the religious and the secular, that all of life is religion. But over the years my own experience has led me to challenge this. The calm still of walking through an empty cathedral, the smell of incense, the taste of the elements ? these things have given me an experience of the mysterium tremendum that seems connected to special places, or perhaps, places made special.C.S. Lewis once spoke fondly of special places ? imaginary woods where faeries dance and satyrs frolic. These are fictional worlds, but they can inform our perception of the real world nonetheless. The schoolboy, he argues, who reads about enchanted woods does not despise real woods because he has read of these special places. The reading, he argued, ?makes all real woods a little enchanted.? 1I wonder if we have lost something in our Protestant tradition by doing away with the idea of special places, places where art and architecture join together to simulate God?s presence in a way that makes the simulation not only desire the real thing more fully, but helps us to see the holy in the ?real woods? of our cities. I like the term sacred space for the same reason that Lewis likes the term enchanted. The ?magic? of the space is not about God living there ? it is about us setting space apart. While temples house gods, the Christian notion of church is communal, flesh and blood. The church as a building is a symbolic extension of this community, and as a physical space where Christians come together, it shapes, by means of design and placement, how we understand what it means to be a community.The term "sacredness? can be assigned to places for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it is a place where something important occurred, an event that defines the identity of a people. Mecca and Jerusalem are considered ?holy? cities because of their centrality to faith identities, but perhaps this distinction could be also stretched to cities like Boston and Plymouth in telling the sacred story of American civic religion. The term sacredness is also used to set apart places of great carnage and destruction, Lisbon, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Auschwitz; places which evoke a reverent ineffability otherwise connected to the divine. It?s also used to describe buildings that house important objects or remains, the relics of saints. But is there something innately sacred about certain architectural constructs, or to put it another way, are there architectural features or qualities evoke a sense of holiness?For me, the divide between sacred and secular is not a matter of style. That is, I would not say that the cathedral is ?sacred? architecture and the big-box store is ?secular?. When we begin to carve up creation in ways that elevate styles and conventions as ?sacred? over ?worldly? we begin to reassign those square inches of creation in ways that undermine the potential for all styles to fall under Peter?s blanket of kosher ? being set apart. I believe that cultural variety is the treasure promised by Christ?s redemption, and that hierarchies we develop along stylistic lines are not only culturally imposed, but are a sinful distortions of the treasure box. There is no godly ?style? for worship or architecture just as there is no godly style for painting or how we fashion our hair or the type of ice-cream we prefer. God delights in the multi-flavoured richness of variety. Although certain architectural styles do reflect particular sects or flavors of Christianity (for example the squared dome of Orthodox churches) I prefer to speak of the decorum or fittingness of architectural metaphors. While all of life is indeed religious, there is something peculiar about places of worship that distinguishes them from everyday or ordinary life. The place of worship is not simply a utilitarian space where people gather, it is place where we come together through the symbol of a body ? an image further reinforced through the Eucharist. Even the simplest images of a church family and a house of worship create metaphorical links between church communities and the intimacy of domestic relationships. While early Christians did worship together in private homes, the idea of the church as a house is a rich metaphor that reflects and shapes an image of Christian identity. Even the Puritan notion of a ?meeting house? has a significance beyond geographical space ? the idea of a ?meeting house? is a symbolic concentration of authenticity, simplicity and hospitality. There is something artificial about meeting together with other Christians to worship that extends beyond the pragmatic convenience of mass-delivering a message or sermon to a group. The very act of coming together, of coming to the table, suggests that the Eucharist is a symbolic destination. By setting these places apart as destinations where we meet or come, we impart meaning on them, we make them sacramental.I would like to suggest that even when conscious efforts are made to neutralize the set-apart quality of a church building or worship space, the very nature of communal worship as an abstraction or symbolic concentration of our service to God in which we are perpetually worshiping through word and deed, means that there can never be neutral or ?secular? worship spaces. Despite the best efforts of the Puritans to create a neutral worship space in which congregant would not be distracted from hearing the word of scripture, the act of moving the Eucharist off to the side and making the pulpit the center of worship was a powerful architectural metaphor. Historically, the placement of altars, pulpits and baptismal fonts have been some of the strongest indicators of fundamental doctrinal positions of a denomination. As a symbolic representation of Christian community, worship spaces do more than contain or shelter people, they reveal the character, theology and values of a community. This is why worship space is important.But what happens when the arrangement of a worship space suggests a different type of community ? an art museum perhaps or a sports stadium? Can the space itself effect a people's communal identity? To examine this question I would like to examine the architecture of two contemporary ?mega? churches: one American, the other Canadian.Big is beautiful. They say that everything's bigger in Texas, and in its own way, the architectural space of Lakewood Church in Houston is impressive. Able to accommodate an average attendance of 46,000, North America's largest congregation may have traded video projection screens for stained glass windows, but it maintains a grandiose vastness that could compete with the largest gothic nave. But despite its raw size, the building holds no architectural pretense. Avoiding ecclesiastical symbols and references to any traditional church form, Lakewood is an exercise in downplayed architecture. From the outside it resembles an outgrown Walmart, on the inside, a soccer stadium. In actuality, Lakewood is a sports arena, or it was. To meet the needs of increased attendance, Lakewood bought and converted Houston's Compaq Center, former home to the Houston Rockets.In an era when churches of almost every denomination are closing, mega-churches like Lakewood continue to grow. Some have argued that their success is due to their slick business-savvy approach to doing church. Noticeably absent is any visual reference to the cross. Instead, the church is festooned with its company logo, a blazing lamp. Each choice of song and prayer is a careful marketing decision. Lakewood has a clear corporate identity. They know who their key demographic is, and it know how to maintain their success rate. Others have argued that people flock to Lakewood because of the motivational power-of-positive-thinking that characterizes its Christianity-lite theology. Another explanation is the snowball effect of the megachurch. When a congregation reaches a critical mass, the size alone becomes a self-generating attraction. People are attracted by not only the size, but the belief that something important is happening in that place. Richard Ostling describes this as a ?social vortex? where growth begets more growth. 2 Social psychologists are quick to point out that this also happens in sport fandom when people ?jump on the bandwagon? of fan identity. People want to identify with a winning team; it makes them winners.Perhaps we can consider the success of the megachurch as a cumulative effect of a number of factors which combine together to create a symbolic presence of vitality and growth in a contemporary society where mega-malls have translated the pursuit of happiness into a booming cultural norm of accessible goods consumption. Megachurches are almost always located in the suburbs of big cities ? the ever-expanding fringe where big-box stores dominate the landscape. Prominently located on large tracts of land visible from the highway, the megachurch competes with Target and Home Depot to attract consumers with promises of ample parking and convenient service. In this context it makes sense to have one more social environment where people can come together to enjoy the company of other people.As many observers have noted, the social phenomenon of the megamall has replaced the genuine social interaction of the marketplace with places that fulfill all the acquisitive needs of the market without fulfilling or honouring genuine communal requirements. People go the mall to be around other people without any real sense of belonging, without a sense of responsibility to that community. As David Guterson once pointed out, these malls are so thoroughly ?divorced from the communities in which they sit that they will appear to rest like permanently docked space-ships against the landscape, windowless and turned in upon their own affairs". 3 Whereas the traditional city marketplace that one still finds in areas like Toronto?s Kensington was a place vulnerable to the rhythm of the city, the mega-mall is a world set apart, a simulacra of the market -- untouched, alienated and generic. What then does it mean to have churches that also sit apart from the community? Does the ?space-ship? architecture of megachurches like Lakewood have implications for how they understand community? And what does it mean when the models for vitality and growth are drawn from the retail sector in which size and numbers are the gage for success?Which brings me back to Hagia Sofia... or Chartres or Cologne or St. Peters; is it the vortex of magnitude that makes a space bigger than life and a little brighter than mundane? In many ways, Lakewood epitomizes the big-is-better mindset of corporate America, but Lakewood, paradoxically, doesn't dominate the landscape in the same way as the great cathedrals. Its Mcstructure is self-conscious and patently bland. It has no spire reaching up to the heavens and no bell tower to toll the community together. The reach of its congregants is too vast, spread out across the endless sprawl of suburbia. As Paul Goldberger once observed, "the Gothic cathedral was designed to inspire awe and thoughts of transcendence. Megachurches celebrate comfort, ease and the very idea of contemporary suburban life." 4 There is an almost apologetic aesthetic at play in the building?s artifice, casually inviting you to kick up your feet and enjoy the game as it lazily slouches toward mediocrity.While Lakewood may fail to impress architecturally, it succeeds in comfort. There are no cheap seats where sound is lost or view of the liturgical action obstructed. Every sightline angle has been considered, all acoustic pockets accounted for. Its raised proscenium thrust stage provides creates a semblance of intimacy but allows enough distance for indulgent spectatorship. It is the architectural equivalent of a t-shirt and a pair of jeans ? a place of worship indistinct from everyday life.The desire of a congregation to make their place of worship a part of everyday life rather than a place apart is admirable, and on many levels I can understand the challenge of a church like Lakewood. Historically, the distinctions between popular forms of ?entertainment? and ?high? forms of ?art? (both in an out of the church) allowed the rich and educated to maintain their cultural superiority over the lower classes. Over a long period of time, as ?high art? lost touch with the lives of ordinary people, popular forms of art and entertainment began to play a vital role in shaping and reflecting everyday lived experiences. The church has not always had a strong record of dealing effectively with culture, and it is understandable that the church has traditionally aligned itself with the ?high-art? tradition in its endorsement of certain styles of worship and architecture. It is also understandable that a church like Lakewood, which has no theological or historical heritage, may not want to appropriate the architectural heritage of another Christian tradition and may be drawn to the architectural constructs of entertainment. The problem with a church like Lakewood is not the use of these forms, but the oblivious way in which they regard such forms as neutral. We should not confuse the sameness of the megamall with neutrality. Its structural homogeneity, isolated and windowless, is a powerful architectural symbol of identity in contemporary culture. It is an image which reminds me of another architectural symbol, the mirrored room, in which all we see is ourselves. I wonder too whether we can think of the big-box format of megachurch architecture as neutral space? If shopping, as Zygmunt Baumann, argues, is the fundamental metaphor for identity formation in the present world 5, what does this mean to have a church that embodies the meaning of a shopping mall?Embracing Shared SpaceOf course, there is redemption. Redemption cuts short any easy distinctions between sacred and secular by ?buying back? styles and genres and forms. Which raises another question: can space be redeemed through architectural conversion? Lakewood is an example of reclaimed space, a former sports arena converted into a church through $95 million in facility improvements. Does this mean that this space has been redeemed?One of the chief dangers in contemporary church architecture is the tendency to adopt all of the convenience and utility of building design and technology without thoughtfully reflecting on the way that space and technology inform how we think. The result is a re-run of old sermons with PowerPoint. But if we are going to take church architecture seriously we need to take seriously the impact of technology on our lives.We now live in a period in which we are experiencing some of the most profound media changes since the publication of the Gutenberg bible. As global electronic media transforms not only what kind of information we take in but how we take it in, we are experiencing what Thomas Kuhn called a ?paradigm shift? from a previously textual or print culture, a culture of words and the Word, to an electronic culture, a culture where we increasingly relate to reality through the interplay of sounds and images. The world of church practice that Lakewood represents assumes that electronic communication is just a tool or aid for communicating, but we need to recognize technology changes how we perceive and relate to reality in a postmodern world. It is not just a device for accessibility ? it is a unique language that we have learned through surfing and googling and watching MTV. For Protestants who have learned how to hone their message through clean logic and apologetic theology, the messiness of the contemporary cultural ?web? poses a threat. Some churches retreat into traditional form and liturgy as a reactionary measure; others adopt technology uncritically as a marketing nod to contemporaneous dazzle.What does technology mean for sacred space? The post-Christendom guru Leonard Sweet sees a link between physical space and the opportunities provided by living in a post-print culture. In his article, Church Architecture for the 21st Century, he writes, ?Today we are undergoing another kind of spiritual awakening as the church undergoes a postmodern reformation from print to screen. That revolution can?t happen without altering the physical space of church.? 6 To understand this, perhaps we need to look at the 16th century architectural revolution away from the late-Medieval cathedral to understand the significance of print culture to worship space.Walking through a Gothic church is a symbolic journey through salvation -- a microcosm of the universe and a prototype of the New Jerusalem. The metaphor is a journey in which you are drawn forward and upward by an exalted vision of light and height to the altar. The soaring vaults, stained glass and repeated vertical elements are designed to pull the believer through a portal of corporal torment to the altar of Eucharistic flesh. The Gothic Cathedral is the concrete expression of a holistic worldview in which space itself gives expression to the beliefs of the church. This experiential or sacramental emphasis, of course, stands in stark contrast to the Protestant emphasis on word revelation as the primary source of God's truth. It is telling, and of no coincidence that the invention of the printing press and the first stirrings of the Protestant Reformation occurred at the same historical points. With this new technology, Reformers were not only able to foster their ideas through a distribution of the story into the vernacular of the people, they were able to talk about faith in the abstract. People began to pray with their eyes closed and aurality was elevated above other senses through the hearing of the spoken word. The Eucharist table, the focus of the cathedral, was shifted off to the side. Since the Reformation, where the Bible as written word became the domain of the Protestant imagination, we have been struggling with the meaning and use of church architecture. What does it mean to live as embodied creatures who take in our whole world through the fullness of visual, tactual, auditory, oral and olfactory sensation ? but who worship in an aesthetically sterile environment of sensory deprivation?One of the concerns of the Taiz? Community in France and the Emergent church in North America is reconnecting to sensuality in worship. Many Protestants are now recognizing that one of sins of the Reformation was its rejection of God?s full gift of the five senses and are now looking for guidance to Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions that have preserved in their worship a sense of movement, colour and bodily resonance. But for many, this does not mean superficially appropriating historically grounded architectural styles. Many emerging churches, for example, find themselves gathering together in semi-permanent or multifunctional spaces. The challenge for them is not to build a sacred-style structure, but to create a God-glorifying places that embrace the changing nature of worship space itself ? to understand the value of improvisation and transiency when imagining sacred space.As an alternative to the megachurch architecture of Lakewood I would like to examine a Canadian megachurch that is part of the larger emerging church movement, The Meeting House. As its name suggests, the Meeting House is a church rooted in the Mennonite tradition. Congregants meet together in Silver City movie theatres running from Waterloo to Toronto. It is one of the fastest growing churches in North America. Its ?tagline?: a Church for people who aren't into Church.Like Lakewood, the Meeting House is reclaimed space. Aside from its permanent Oakville location, the architecture of church is established by Cineplex. This egalitarian transience has led the church to think through the meaning of creating a church space in a movie theatre without allowing church to be co-opted by the marketing strategies of Hollywood. On of the ways they have done this is by exploring the screen itself as more than a projection of words and images, but a space. As Bill Romanowski points out, the movie screen is ?not a surface but a space,? 7 a space where we enter other worlds, hear intimate conversations and follow the hero into battle. This is the magic of Hollywood.One way of rethinking the screen is to view it as a version of the stained-glass window, a place where stories of relevance to our faith are told. In a post-print culture the epic stories of Star Wars and the Matrix resonate with us in the way that the Medieval Christian carried on a spiritual dialogue with the saints and prophets whose narratives filled every window. The classic Hollywood film presents a mythic vision of life informed by assumptions about ourselves, our world and our relationship to God. Every sermon at the Meeting House begins with a movie clip. These assumptions, the worldview behind the movie, are often the point of departure for understanding the radicality of the Christian worldview in response to popular culture.This is one way in which the Meeting House uses its screen to create space, we might think of it as a Catholic sensibility ? through narrative images and sound congregants come to understand their own story. But there is another way that screen functions as space ? a way that reflects an Orthodox sensibility. Services at the Meeting House include a time for reflection on the screen while words, images and art are projected to a soundtrack of electronic ambient and trance music. The screen in this way functions less as a reflection of our lives than an open window that invites the presence of God through the work of the eyes and ears. In this way, the screen becomes a type of electronic icon. It does not recall or represent reality in the way that movies do, but rather, opens up a type of sacred visual and aural space for meditation, prayer and interaction with God.One of the ways that the emerging church movement has challenged traditional church architecture is to make us think about the relationship between time and space. The modern church, it could be argued, abandoned both history and geography in the push to translate Christianity into timeless abstract truths. This is why the architecture, for a church like Lakewood is arbitrary and hegemonious. What would does it mean to commit to a different set of values? What does it mean for architecture to commit to specific place, to the identity, sounds, flavours and images of a city? What would it mean to lose our cultural infatuation with the future and size and growth; to think about redeeming the time we live in now ? and to realize that this time is informed by the liturgical echoes that extend back before the reformation and even before the time of Christ. Can we begin to think about sacred space as a navigable thing, something that shapes us as we move through it?Modern church architecture seems to fall into two distinct camps ? those who avoid change at all costs and those embrace it fully, confusing novelty with relevance. The polemics of the so-called ?worship wars? are often split between those who are unwilling to accept change and those who celebrate it. The fact that we change and our world changes is inevitable -- it is how we deal with change that will define us. The message of Christ remains eternal ? but it is not conceptual idea above the fray. Christ, after all, established the church, he didn't write a book. The gospel is embodied in our hands, in our buildings in our cities. We live in a world that is much much smaller than it ever was before. Technology allows us to connect in ways that condense our shared global space. Can we begin to think of church as a place where we learn how to change together; a place where embrace the paradox of becoming more rooted in space while forging authentic relationship and sacred spaces through technology? Can we create shared space for the Desert Fathers and U2?If the idea of setting space apart as sacred or sacramental is too liturgically-bound, perhaps we may draw on another biblical concept to think about space: kosher. The Levitical injunctions about setting apart certain foods and practices, making kosher, are about being mindful ? mindful of what one does, how they do it and why they do it. This mindfulness extends to God, and in the keeping of kosher, the Jew is made aware of God?s presence in a spirit of holiness. Through the mundane practice of eating, food preparation, and cleaning, that holiness is imbued in every moment of life. Ultimately, in the light of Peter?s vision, 8 kosher has very little to do with the injunctions themselves. It is about the mindfulness of the food that is put into one?s mouth. We should understand sacramentality as a Christian extension of kosher that stretches to the fullness of God?s creation, in which we are mindful not only of how we use worship spaces, but how the space itself affects us. We should be mindful of how space encourages or discourages us from being aware of our bodies and senses as the fleshy sensual beings that we are. We should be mindful of how space invites us to explore the tension between a God who is both glorious and intimate. And we should be mindful of how space brings us together with other believers, bound to us, to use the most intimate of biblical metaphors, as parts of one body. Finally, we should be mindful of how a worship space interacts with its surroundings ? the place, the city, where it dwells ? not as a place above the city, but in it ? engaging and respecting other spaces and other communities. Thinking mindfully about space is how we begin to construct sacred spaces that shape us as much as we shape them.1. C.S. Lewis. Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. (Harvest, 2002) 29.2. Ostling, Richard N. "Superchurches and How They Grew." Time (August 5, 1991) 62-63. 3. Guterson, D. ?Enclosed. Encyclopedic. Endured. One Week at the Mall of America.? Harper's, (287, 1993) 49-56.4. Paul Goldberger. ?The Gospel of Church Architecture, Revised.? New York Times. (April 20, 1995) 5. See Zygmunt Baumann, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press 2000).6. Leonard Sweet. ?Church Architecture for the 21st Century? Your Church. (March/April 1999)7. Bill Romanowski. Eyes Wide Open. Looking for God in Popular Culture. (Brazos: Grand Rapids, 2001) 67.8. A reference to Peter?s vision in Acts 10:9-16

For the extent of my increasingly long Calgary memory, pundits have promoted the idea that the vast numbers of people who have moved to Alberta will bring values and inclinations from other parts of the country that will inevitably lead to change.Elections have failed to provide even the tiniest morsel of evidence to support this theory but you can expect it will be prayerfully offered up when the next opportunity rolls around. What this points to is a fundamental misunderstanding within the punditry of the dominant features of Alberta culture, the people who live here, move here and the subtle nuances that guide its society.Dr. Peter Hackett, president and CEO of Alberta Ingenuity, is among the province’s more articulate spokesmen on this point. “. . . Ingenuity is a defining characteristic of our culture here,” he said in one of his earlier speeches. “Risk and ingenuity is still very close to the surface here, it’s in the mountains, it’s at the rodeo and it’s under that limitless big blue sky. We have not forgotten what it was like here when we had to do new and risky things every day just to do anything at all.” “. . . We must build a culture of innovation in our grade schools, in our universities and in our companies, in the hearts and minds of our researchers, our employees and our managers. We need more entrepreneurs, willing to believe in themselves and their ideas, take risks and grow their companies.” There are other pithy descriptions of Calgary, in particular, as a place where failure isn’t so much considered a source of shame but a temporary affair that offers evidence of a man or woman’s courage to take risks.As the old saying goes, it’s not how hard you fall that matters, it’s how high you bounce.Certainly the people who come here are initially not so much motivated by cultural inclinations as they are by jobs and money and what it can buy – beer, for instance. A great many still arrive in rusty cars towing a U-haul trailer. But each has also at some point made that same, difficult and emotional decision to pack up, bid tearful (or perhaps relieved) farewells to family and friends and head to Alberta in the hope of a new life; a better life; a place where there is the freedom and opportunity to succeed. It doesn’t work for everyone.Today, as always, some go home broke and disenchanted. But most often the people who stay and become civically and culturally engaged and vote do so because their values are a generally comfortable fit with those that have dominated historically.Consciously or otherwise, they feel more at home here, more confident that they will be judged only on the strength of their ideas and effort than their heritage or what school they went to, than they did where they came from. And that rebellion against class structures and institutional barriers that are more prevalent in other parts of the country in turn leads to Albertans’ tendency to behave in a somewhat contrarian fashion.So, when people wonder why Alberta can’t be more like the rest of the country, the answer is pretty apparent. They came for jobs but they stayed because they discovered they didn’t actually want to be exactly the same as the rest of the country or felt like they didn’t fit in anymore “back home.” As a result they have, as country singer Paul Brandt puts in his song, Alberta Bound, “got independence in my veins.” The “new” Albertans are very much the same as the people who began pouring into this land after the barbed wire first went up.Whether they arrived here in 1905 or 2005, they are people who weren’t, or aren’t, afraid of adventure. The one thing they won’t leave to chance, however, is change that would put their culture of risk in peril.

“People are yearning to discover community. We have had enough of loneliness, independence and competition” (Jean Vanier, quoted in the National Catholic Reporter, Nov. 1, 2002 v. 39 i2 p. 14) It’s a warm summer night, one of May’s final hurrahs. My family and I pull up in front of a house in the suburbs of Hamilton’s ‘mountain’. By its exterior the house is just another bungalow, although we notice a few new modifications since our last visit, including a new roof above the front porch to ward off snow and rain. The unique life of the house only hits us once we step inside. “Hi! Birthday cake, anyone?” Raj calls from the kitchen. Looks like George is another year older. I’ve heard that the doctors predicted a short life for George, and here he has just turned 69. “Everyone’s downstairs,” Raj continues. We can hear voices coming from the basement; descending the stairs, we’re greeted by the sight of forty people sitting in a circle, including men women and children ranging in age from two to seventy-five. “Hi Tim!” It’s Mary, giving me one of her bear hugs. Dave salutes me from the corner “Hello, sir Tim!”, and Mike jokingly calls out, “Oh no, not you again!” Mike is holding a guitar; calmly strumming the strings; he stands beside a small keyboard played by Stephanie. Kevin, always quiet and polite, stands up to give me his seat, taking a place on the floor. My wife has brought her camera, and takes a picture of our oldest daughter and Janice. Pat calls out “Cheese! Take my picture”; my wife laughs and takes a shot of Pat giving her best smile. This is prayer night at L’Arche Hamilton. As an organization, L’Arche serves the needs of individuals with developmental disabilities. However, this simple description doesn’t capture the vitality of the L’Arche community. For example, as we settle into the circle I realize that someone coming for a first time would have some difficulty determining the ‘assistants’ (staff) from the ‘core members’ (individuals with disabilities served by L’Arche). There is little sense in this group of any unidirectional process of ‘care giving’. Instead, the group is a lively, sometimes slightly chaotic, bunch of people who all participate to some extent in the prayer night that we’ve come for. Everyone joins in a chorus of ‘happy birthday’ for both assistants and core members who have recently gained another year, children of assistants help with candle-lighting, core members participate in the drama about the apostle Paul, and everyone contributes their requests at prayer time. The songs are often spiritual (‘Give Me Oil in My Lamp’), sometimes with a distinct religious message (‘Holy Ground’), but always open to participation by everyone. Those who do not sing can join in the songs’ hand actions. At the end of the service, everyone exchanges a hug of peace and good will. This has been a special evening for us, even though we’ve been here a hundred times before. My daughters love coming, and we leave feeling fulfilled and connected. As night descends, the house disappears in our rear-view mirror, appearing once again as simply one of the city’s many suburban bungalows. __________ L’Arche Hamilton is only one local chapter of L’Arche Canada, itself only one national branch of L’Arche International. The organization traces its origins to Trosly-Breuil, France in 1964, when Jean Vanier (son of Canada’s former Governor-General) and Father Thomas Philippe followed a call from God to share their lives and homes with Raphaël Simi and Philippe Seux, two men with mental disabilities. Vanier and Philippe were following their interpretation of the Beatitudes as preached by Jesus Christ: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). The name ‘L’Arche’ refers to Noah’s ark, a haven of refuge in the midst of the storm. In spite of its humble beginnings, there are today over 130 L’Arche communities around the world. The first L’Arche communities in Canada were founded in 1969; the most recent Canadian community to be welcomed into the International Federation of L’Arche is Saint John. Communities in the ‘project stage’ include Halifax and Saskatoon. L’Arche Hamilton includes four houses and one apartment hosting nineteen core members, twelve full-time assistants and six part-time assistants. Three assistants work in the day program, which features a candle-making workshop. Six staff work in the central office. Although on a global scale L’Arche communities represent many different cultures, and reflect ethnic and religious traditions in their respective locales, they share a common philosophy and approach, expressed in the ‘Charter of L’Arche’. The aims of L’Arche are fourfold: 1. to build communities that welcome people with developmental disabilities, and in doing so respond to their sense of rejection and validating their place in society; 2. to reveal the gifts and contributions of core members, who constitute the very heart of their communities; 3 . to be a sign of welcome and respect for the weak and downtrodden; and 4. to be a sign of hope, unity, faithfulness and reconciliation in the world between people of differing physical and mental abilities, and of differing social and cultural origins and traditions. L’Arche is also founded upon social and spiritual principles. All people, regardless of their limitations, are part of a common humanity. While recognizing the need of each individual for personal growth, L’Arche also believes that people need to form relationships with others and with their larger communities. This growth requires environments of trust, security and affection—all are supported and accepted in real relationships. Everyone is of unique and sacred value, and has the right to life, care, to a home, education and to work, as well as the right to love and to be loved, to friendship, communication and the freedom to express spirituality through their own religious tradition. Although having its roots in the Roman Catholic church, L’Arche communities today are often interfaith. Even those communities that are focused on one faith recognize their calling to an ecumenical vocation and to work for unity. L’Arche affirms the gifts of core members, who serve as a reminder to us of the ‘essential values of the heart’ without which power, action and knowledge lose their meaning and purpose. Following this, weakness is not seen as an obstacle to spiritual fulfillment, but can actually foster spirituality. It is through identifying weakness that the love and strength of God are revealed. L’Arche communities have at their centre the wellbeing of core members. In a relationship of mutual love and respect, communities commit themselves to accompany these individuals throughout their lives, if core members desire to live their lives within community. L’Arche communities are places of hope and personal growth, where all members are encouraged to take part in decisions regarding their lives, as far as possible. All members of L’Arche are called to be one body, living, working, praying and celebrating together as a family. L’Arche communities are also integrated into the larger society, seeking to foster relationships with neighbors and friends outside the community, and with community social networks and centres of activity. In order to fulfill this goal, L’Arche communities work closely with the families and guardians of core members, professionals, government, and with all who seek a spirit of justice and peace for people who are disabled. This sense of family also unites L’Arche on a global basis, as communities assist and pray for one another. __________ In one of his letters dated August 2003, Jean Vanier identified the ‘essential’ element of L’Arche communities: “Presence: being present to people who are fragile; being present to one another.” For me, this is more easily said than done. Urban life is fast-paced, with penalties for those who fail to keep up. My first L’Arche experience was something akin to culture shock. I had just left my job as a manual labourer on a fuel ship, and I had applied to L’Arche through a friend of mine (who became my wife!). My experience of manual labor had not prepared me for the lifework of L’Arche. I found that I was searching for something ‘to do’ while I was being told to just ‘be’. Although I found a few toilets to fix, I quickly realized that my primary responsibility was to develop relationships with the core members and to assist them in their everyday lives, while allowing them the freedom to be as independent as possible. This wasn’t always easy. During my first summer at L’Arche I went on vacation to Ottawa with another assistant and several core members, one of whom had difficulty expressing himself verbally, and could become quite aggressive at times. When he was agitated, he would bite his hand, knock himself in the forehead with his fist, and growl. I found that I was afraid of this man, and longed to return to Hamilton. Over the week I gradually began to recognize Roger as a person, and began to overcome my fear. When Roger passed away several years ago, I could truly say that I missed him. I had come to see another side of Roger, that of a man who loved to joke and tease, and who loved music. During my time as a L’Arche assistant, I came to find strength through the friendships that I developed with Roger and with other core members. I loved to play guitar for Pat, who would sing along to familiar songs. Mike and I would jokingly tease each other. I developed similar friendships with Mary and Laurence. However, the one person who really taught me to rethink disability was Brian. Brian is a man in his forties who uses hand gestures and a symbol book more than verbal speech. When I first met him, I didn’t understand his vocalizations (grunts) or his symbol-book, but Brian understood my speech. I found that Brian was able to use a greater number of media for communication than I could, and yet Brian was the one who was considered to be ‘disabled’. I have Brian to thank for the inspiration behind my doctoral dissertation. As I began to question the artificiality of the labels that separated me from Brian, I also began to recognize the importance of breaking down the barriers between our small communities and the world outside of the L’Arche houses. I remember taking Roger to a farm with horse stables out in the country. He loved that job, and did a good job of shoveling manure. I remember participating in water aerobics at a local community centre with some of the women who lived in L’Arche Hamilton. As I have grown older and have a family of my own, I have also grown to realize the importance of connecting my own children to the L’Arche community. The core members have been important examples in the lives of my daughters, awakening them to the value of diversity. My oldest daughter still grieves the death of her friend Kathy. We need this connection for our larger societal community. If we forget to build community with those considered weak and poor, then we will all be the worse off. __________ One of the tensions of community-building exists between the tendency to become appropriated by the dominant culture of the times, and the tendency to become insular and reclusive. L’Arche Hamilton has managed this tension well, both receiving assistance from external supporters and contributing the gifts of core members and assistants to the building of a greater civil society. For example, assistants and core members value good relationships with their urban neighbors. One neighbor of fifteen years even attests that living next to a L’Arche house has made his neighborhood safer, as ‘there’s always people coming and going’. In return, this man used his own hydro to power the L’Arche house’s Christmas lights. Another neighbor became a friend and then the support assistant for the L’Arche Hamilton women’s townhouse. L’Arche booths can be found at local festivals, where passers-by can pick up brochures and buy candles made by core members at the day program. The tellers at a local bank know core members by name, and allow the sale of candles in the bank. Congregants at a local church also know core members, and allow L’Arche to use the church basement free of charge. The church that my family attends has also sent carolers to L’Arche at Christmas. Women’s church organizations provided donations when L’Arche Hamilton was in its early years, and the Knights of Columbus send an annual invitation to their Christmas party. The Best Buddy program at McMaster University provides volunteers on a regular basis, and L’Arche in turn provides co-op placements for students from several universities in southern Ontario. L’Arche communities across Ontario come together for retreats and celebrations, and communities across Canada often exchange houses for summer vacations. L’Arche communities also are connected on an international basis. The Hamilton community has a relationship of solidarity with L’Arche Honduras, which takes the form of Tuesday night ‘soup and sandwich’ suppers, where assistants and core members donate toonies and prayers for L’Arche Honduras. Assistants from L’Arche Hamilton have helped out in Australia, Mexico and Italy. Finally, L’Arche core members, assistants, board members and supporters come from a variety of cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds, and often find L’Arche to be a place where these differences can be both affirmed and celebrated within a common community.

Privacy has never been more vigorously protected by legislation than it is today and yet it is clear that the distinction between private and public worlds is rapidly eroding.Recent examples of people embarrassed publicly by statements they made privately include Saskatchewan Tory MP Tom Lukiwski, who apologized to the House of Commons and the Canadian public after the discovery of a 16-year-old videotape showed him making offensive remarks in a diatribe about homosexuals. Then there is U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama who, thinking he was speaking privately, spoke of how people in economically disadvantage towns "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Obama's comments, recorded by a "citizen journalist" were labelled as elitist by his opponent, Hillary Clinton, who said they raised questions about the strength of Obama's character.These are the latest high profile examples, but it is not unusual these days to hear of incidents in which employees, for instance, are disciplined for making disparaging comments about their employers to friends, only to realize that the forum or blog they were communicating through -- Facebook, for example -- is public and open for viewing by anyone, including their boss. Or that their comments were captured on a security video or just by a friend having fun with their cellphone. More personally, most of us have either experienced or sympathized with someone who wrote an e-mail in haste only to realize later that the words had become immutable, cast in stone for eternity. No number of apologies would ever erase the scar.Our past traditions were fairly clear in terms of defining private versus public. The former is something either never shared with others or, when shared, is confined to a small group of trusted friends. Words spoken publicly are for the purpose of influencing large numbers of people and create the public record upon which we expect to be judged.Traditionally, while we were raised to choose our words carefully when speaking in public, we haven't expected to be judged on what we say privately. This left us free to rant, muse, grumble, gripe or speculate among friends or with spouses. It also allowed us to speak of our fears and uncertainties, vent about our employers or employees and share our dreams with people whom we trust implicitly. This is also known as intimacy and it is a feature of life that is threatened by the blurring of private and public.Intimacy -- the sharing of private thoughts -- will die if we all must live in fear that at some point down the road these thoughts, fears or comments will be revealed by a "gotcha" journalist (citizen or otherwise) or an estranged spouse or other former friend turned enemy who is more than happy to embarrass us with our own words. Faced with this fear, it is quite possible that we will simply retreat into a world in which our private thoughts are only ever shared with ourselves. That, in turn, would threaten the very nature of our humanity.This threatens not only our private dialogue, but also our public conversation. There was a time when Parliament was home to eloquent debates and when political parties argued about real ideas. In the present world, it seems reduced to celebrity, talking points and gotcha games.It doesn't have to be that way. We can learn to distinguish between private and public and recognize that private acts or thoughts are those that shouldn't be recorded. We can be more conscious that the Internet is not a private place. And, perhaps most importantly, we can learn to articulate our thoughts and express ourselves honestly in ways that will allow us to be understood in context. Equally, we can learn to listen or read the thoughts of others in the same way.But developing thoughts is a group activity and requires institutions. These days, it seems the institutions most capable of assisting people with this and preserving the societal intimacy that comes when there is clear distinction between private and public thought are think-tanks and editorial forums. The former provides the space for the grinding of ideas; where the grist of our thoughts is milled into something substantive and palatable for public consumption. The latter offers the vehicle for the disbursement of these ideas in op-eds such as these and, through letters to the editor and rebuttals, reaction to them.If we can't put it into words, we can't really understand ourselves what we are thinking, let alone have others benefit from our insights. Words matter. They matter so much, in fact, that we need to treat them with a little more respect. We need to understand the difference between private words and public words, not to excuse offensive ideas, but to preserve the capacity to understand what offensiveness means, not to mention such noble concepts of beauty, wisdom, and truth.Ray Pennings is vice-president of the Work Research Foundation, a think-tank specializing in the study of Canada's social architecture. www.wrf.ca

The campaign of Senator Barack Obama to be the Democratic nominee in the 2008 United States Presidential election is prompting renewed conversation about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Both men are able to speak with an eloquence that engages voters who usually don’t follow politics. The civil rights movement is seen as incomplete until the presidency is filled by a person of color – something Obama seems able to achieve. So forty years after his assassination, Dr. King’s legacy lives on. Or does it? Few would argue with Dr. King’s international reputation is as a symbol for racial equality. But is it his theological or political legacy that is debated today?Michael Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, the second child of Rev. Martin and Mrs. Alberta King. His father was a prominent Baptist pastor and a major figure in the civil rights movement. In 1935, King Sr. had both his and his six-year old son’s name changed to Martin Luther King in honor of the Protestant Reformer.Martin Luther King Jr. was a gifted student. He entered college at 15 having skipped two grades of high school (although never formally graduating), and by the age of 26, had a BA in sociology, a BD from Crozer Theological Seminary, and a doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University. At the age of 24 while completing his doctoral studies, he became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.Although already active in the civil rights movement, he rose to national prominence when a local black seamstress, Rosa Parks, was arrested for not obeying the segregation laws in December 1955. She boarded a bus and selected a seat that was designated for colored people. However, as the bus filled with white people, the bus driver moved the section boundaries. Parks refused to move (her’s was now designated a white seat) and the police were called. In response, under the leadership of Dr. King, a bus boycott was organized. For 382 days, between 20,000 - 40,000 members of the black community who usually relied on the buses for transportation, walked (in some cases up to 20 miles or found other means of transportation. At last, a Supreme Court decision and the loss of revenues for the Montgomery Bus Company resulted in a changed policy. However, the momentum for civil rights change had been unleashed leading to the 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act.So where did Dr. King develop his passion for leadership and the strategy for non-violent protest that proved to be so effective? Since his seminary training in liberal theology, King considered himself to be “an advocator of the social gospel.” His sermons were blunt in denouncing the “racism, materialism, and militarism” of his times. He told his hearers that being a good Samaritan “was only an initial act.” He called them to work “see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed.”His seminary training built on ideas shaped in his youth. His preacher role models included his father and grandfather who used the pulpit to address the everyday concerns of the working poor. In a paper entitled “An Autobiography of Religious Development,” King recounts how at the age of seven, he came forward in a revival meeting and was baptized. However, “at the age of 13, I shocked my Sunday School class by denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus. From the age of thirteen, doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly.” However rather than driving him away from the church, King pursued theological studies. His theology borrowed from a neo-orthodox personalism which, to use his own words, “gave me a metaphysical and philosophical grounding for the idea of a personal God, and it gave me a metaphysical basis for the dignity and worth of all human personality.”Although his theological perspective was distinct, his roots in the African-American preaching tradition continued. “I am many things to many people,” he said, “but in the quiet recesses of my heart, I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher.” This provided his preaching with a very strong sense of the reality of sin, the importance of themes of brotherhood, and the hope of a better future. Unlike the focus in white Protestantism which, when thinking about religion and politics, looked nostalgically at America’s past, King’s combined his theology and politics to paint a hopeful picture of America’s future. He inspired his audience to hope for a time would come when they would experience justice, brotherhood and peace that at present seemed so foreign to them.Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-56 marked the beginning of a decade in which under King’s leadership, the civil rights spread across the United States. So did the opposition to it. King’s home was bombed, he was arrested and subjected to personal abuse but this served only to raise his profile and following. In the eleven years between 1957 and 1968, he made over 2500 speeches travelling to wherever there were examples of racial injustice to protest. In 1963, he organized a “March on Washington” which attracted over 250,000 supporters and at which he gave his famous “I have a dream speech.” That year, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him.As his popularity grew, there was tremendous pressure and expectation for him to be a candidate for the US Presidency. However, the civil rights movement was divided, with a more violent wing promoting a “Black Power” mantra. Dr. Martin Luther King did not accept. He decided to continue leading the movement and promoting his non-violent strategy. On April 4, 1968, while in Memphis, Tennessee in order to lead a protest march in support of striking garbage workers, Dr. King was killed by a sniper bulletin as he stood on his hotel balcony. He was 39. James Earl Ray was convicted of his murder, although many (including some of the King family) believed him to the victim of a conspiracy. The hope of many that a person of color would implement these changes as President was unfulfilled.It was a speech at the 2004 Democratic convention that brought Senator Obama into national prominence. He struck a King-like chord: “There is not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America – there’s a United States of America.” However, the issues facing Obama are quite different than those King addressed. Some suggest the civil rights movement has moved to a “post-racial” phase and is defined by advocating for affirmative action policies, the promotion of gay rights, and immigration reform. Obama himself tries to walk a delicate line on the question. He talks about seeing “a split screen” in which the progress on racial issues is acknowledged and celebrated while still “acknowledging the sins of our past and the challenges of the present without being trapped in cynicism or despair.”Like King, Obama does not shy from using religious language in doing his politics. He does not pretend his to be an orthodox evangelical faith. In defending his views in support of gay marriage he confesses that he is not “willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.” Instead, he says his faith provides him two clear political insights – a belief in the power to change and the ongoing reality of struggle. Christ serves an “ally in this difficult journey” and faith as “an active, palpable agent” of change that inspires hope for the future.Forty years after his death, Dr. Martin Luther King’s shadow still looms large in US Presidential politics. As a potential first black President, Senator Obama seems the natural heir to King’s legacy. But politics is a competitive sport. All of the candidates are generously quoting King in their speeches these days. It takes careful work to distinguish between a vision of human equality rooted creation; a secular liberal notion of rights that has little room for orthodox religion; or an updated version of liberation theology combined with identity politics – or for those entirely cynical, just empty rhetoric that has no consistent philosophy. In the meantime, King’s name will continue to be used as a metaphor for hope and change and it will take historians to sort out his real legacy.Ray Pennings is Vice-President of the Work Research Foundation (wrf.ca) and a media commentator on public affairs issues. He is a member of the Free Reformed Churches (frcna.org) and is based in Calgary, Alberta Canada.