Moving Beyond

I don’t think that Dalton McGuinty’s suggestion that the daily recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in the Ontario legislature is necessarily a bad idea. From a secular or non-Christian perspective, this ritual privileges a single faith over the other faith traditions that exist in Canada. From a Christian viewpoint, how much do we want the Our Father to be associated with the decisions made by that legislature, anyway? Moreover, we should be wary of allowing the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer to become an empty and vestigial formalism divorced from a living faith.

That said, some of the news reports about this issue are very odd. Take this Canwest article:

McGuinty said it was time to "move beyond" the Lord's Prayer to a more inclusive custom that better reflects Ontario's multiculturalism.

In a letter to opposition leaders, the premier called for an all-party legislative committee that would seek input from citizens and religious groups before making recommendations to the legislature.

At this point, you would expect the journalist to throw in some of the usual commentary about how multicultural and multi-religious Canada has become. Instead, we get the following:

According to the 2006 census, one-third of Ontario's population was born outside Canada.

In the Toronto region, more than half the population was born in another country.

Um, is this relevant because only people born outside of Canada would feel comfortable with the Lord’s Prayer being said in the legislature? Apparently the location of one’s birth is the determining factor here.

I also found this somewhat amusing:

And they still say the Lord’s Prayer before proceedings at the Prince Edward Island legislature, but they do it behind closed doors before the chamber is open to the public.

It’s okay if you pray – just don’t let anybody hear you. Quintessentially Canadian, you might say.