Oh Canada! Why are you the best?
By Shafer Parker
I just read an essay that celebrated Canada based on one simple idea; it’s a better place to live than almost anywhere else in the world. But while I agreed with the sentiment, I found myself thinking author Chris Nelson didn’t really understand what makes Canada great.
Here’s the short form of Nelson’s argument for Canadian greatness: (1) Canadians are nice people (little class consciousness, fair play and all that), (2) Canada is big and beautiful, (3) Canada has a much better economy than some other countries, (4) Canada is a better place to live than the old Soviet Union, and finally, (5) the crowning proof of Canada’s greatness can be seen by how people from all over the world are lined up to immigrate.
“If we Canadians do not know why our nation is blessed, we won’t have a clue as to how its blessings are maintained”
Canada is a great nation, and everything Nelson said should be celebrated on Canada Day, but nowhere does he explain why Canada is so great. And the why matters. If we Canadians do not know why our nation is blessed, we won’t have a clue as to how its blessings are maintained. I sometimes think that the Nelsons of this world—and they are legion—assume that a nation’s blessings are accidental, based on little more than geography, as if a nation’s well being is set almost the same way climate zones determine what will grow in a particular area. The theory seems to be that friendliness and good wishes toward all will automatically flourish in certain latitudes or on particular continents. This leads to the fallacy that because Canada is in the right political climate zone nothing will ever hinder its continued well being.
In fact, Canada is a blessed nation because its founding culture and its early laws were based almost entirely upon a Biblical, or Christian worldview. Some scholars have tried to downplay the spirituality of individual Fathers of Confederation, but the fact is that almost to the man those fathers were steeped in the Christian worldview of their Scottish Presbyterian and Roman Catholic backgrounds. It is no exaggeration to suppose that they were incapable of passing fundamental laws not based upon their in-depth understanding of God’s law, or building a society structured upon any other basis than humility and obedience before the God of the Bible. Moreover, some of those fathers were ardent Christians, such as Samuel Leonard Tilley, who coined the phrase “Dominion of Canada” after reading Psalm 72:8 as part of his regular morning devotions.
Of greater interest, however, is the Scripture engraved into the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. Since the completion of the current buildings in 1922 (with the Peace Tower completed in 1926) these verses have spoken to visitors and parliamentarians alike, to remind all readers that in our nation’s earlier decades the God of the Bible was looked to for wisdom, guidance and protection.
And guess what? As the Bible makes clear, the Biblical God is pleased to reward those who look to Him. “I will honour those who honour me,” God states in I Sam. 2:30. And then in Ps. 33:12, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord (Yahweh).” Some interpreters have argued the latter verse contains a blessing exclusively reserved for Old Testament Israel, but they are wrong. The very next verse reminds the reader that “the Lord looks down ... to see all the children of man.” He is the God who “fashions the hearts of them all,” Whose eye “is on (all) those who fear him, those who hope in His steadfast love.” Certain it is, then, that many of the blessings poured out upon Canada are a response to the honour constantly given to God as His Word speaks forth from the buildings and window frames of our nation’s core institutions.
A fascinating feature of the Scriptures found in the Peace Tower and on other buildings is that many of the verses are not blessings, but challenges, directed to Canadians to see if theirs is a costly faith, a faith that leads to obedience even in difficult circumstances. “Fear God, Honour the King (I Pet. 2:17) is found over the door of the Board Room of the Official Opposition in Centre Block. Mackenzie King and his Liberals may have meant that message as a warning to the Conservative opposition, but in the intervening years the “party of the 20th Century” has had occasion to meditate on this verse during their times in opposition. And perhaps in future they will have that opportunity again.
“Every time a visitor reads those [verses on the tower], silently or aloud, they are offering up a most needed prayer for our leaders. Let us never doubt that God has honoured that prayer many times over.”
Many Canadians are aware of the national motto on the East side of the Peace Tower, “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea” (Ps. 72:8), but less familiar, I suspect, is the admonition carved above the South window from the first verse of the same Psalm, “Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son.” Every time a visitor reads those words, silently or aloud, they are offering up a most needed prayer for our leaders. Let us never doubt that God has honoured that prayer many times over, but let us also repeat it in our own prayer chambers as we call upon the living God to intervene in the decisions being made by our current kings.
Other Scriptures in and on the Tower speak with equal power to present-day needs: “Where there is no vision (revelation) the people perish” (Pr. 29:18); “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble” (Nahum 1:7); “He shall execute judgment and justice in the earth” (Jeremiah 23:5); and “Judgment shall return unto righteousness,” (Ps. 94:15).
These last two verses raise the question, would there be so much emphasis on social justice (ultimately a false justice) if there was a renewed interest in what God means when He speaks of justice? It seems to me that a Biblical worldview must include the truth that God is a God of justice and wrath, as the Parliamentary Scriptures make clear. When that idea is lost and only love is preached, then a vacuum is created in people’s hearts. Into that vacuum will rush worldly ideas of justice, accompanied by a fleshly wrath that has no restraint, pursuing a justice that is never satisfied.
Let me finish this description of Canada’s public allegiance to the Living God with a reference to one of the most hopeful verses in all the Bible. At the direct request of Liberal prime minister Mackenzie King, we find engraved on the largest bell in the Peace Tower’s 53-bell carillon (10,160 kg ), “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men” (Luke 2:14). May this passage become once again a daily hope for our nation.
There’s an interesting sidelight on how all these Scripture verses came to be placed on the Peace Tower and elsewhere. As told in The Biblical Legacy of Canada’s Parliament Buildings, the Biblical references were not authorized by Parliament, but placed there by chief architect John A. Pearson at his own initiative. When the Scriptures were first noticed by observers a discussion took place in the House as to whether the architect should be forced to remove them. One MP even referred to them as “an absurdity” that did not “add anything to the beauty of the tower and is altogether inappropriate.”
An order was given to remove the verses, but when it was discovered that the inscriptions had been completed a decision was made not to take any action “at the present time.” Shortly thereafter the government was dissolved, and the new Parliament could not be bothered to take another look. Thus, the Scriptures remain as a witness and a challenge to the nation to this day. The initiative of the architect was honoured by the providential watchcare of a sovereign God who insured that His Word would continue to speak to generations yet unborn.
One wonders what might be accomplished if, like architect Pearson, or Phinehas of old (Num. 25:6-13), or David the shepherd boy (I Sam. 17), God’s people would simply ignore the naysayers and do what needs to be done to glorify His name. It seems to me that Canada Day is an appropriate time for God’s people, clergy and lay alike, to recommit to defend freedom of religion and freedom of speech by speaking the gospel freely, and freely declaring its implications to the people of our land (“those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed” I Sam. 2:30). One thing is certain, it would strengthen our message that Canada’s blessings are poured out by the God of the Bible and have nothing to do with geography.