I am an insider of some 30 years to the Evangelical movement in
Canada.
I was surprised at the amount of research and digging that she has
done. It is by far the most thorough I have seen done by almost
anyone in Canada. I would give her her high marks for the breadth
with which she tried to cover the issues.
Evangelical Christians are concerned about issues such as abortion,
homosexuality, teaching of evolution in the schools and the
increasing secularization of the country as well as the plight of
the poor, drug addiction, homelessness and the provision of low
cost housing.
Where she fails seriously is in her interpretation of what she
found. She does not seem to realize that many evangelicals hold
views that are much more nuanced than she portrays them.
1) She fails to step outside her own world view and get into the
heads of those she studies. Many times she comes across as a
horrified liberal whose views are being challenged, and that her
views are the only legitimate ones. For example she mentions
hearing students at Laurentian Leadership Centre denigrate the
Charter of Rights but fails to address why they might do so. The
number of bizarre legal decisions made on the basis of 'Charter
Rights' may provide clues. For example the release of a drug dealer
caught importing cocaine into Canada because customs officials
'violated' his charter rights.
2) US connections seem to be prevalent in her thinking, which when
she finds she is quick to disparage. Frequently she starts down a
path discussing an issue and when she runs out of data, she quickly
jumps over into parallels with what she has seen in the U.S.A. and
continues as if she is discussing the same thing. For example she
mentions that Centre Street Church in Calgary (a large church) is
member of Willow Creek and therefore draws the erroneous conclusion
that somehow this makes the church part of the US megachurch scene.
Willow Creek is simply an association that offers training material
and aids that churches may want to use. It is almost as if she
wants to find an American connection, because then she can assume
guilt by association. The reality is that Canadian evangelicals are
much like other Canadians in their basic temperment, including
being non-political, and for the most part apathetic and passive.
3) She interviews and covers some who are considered fringe
elements within the evangelical community. They tend to be great in
their own minds only and the rest of us politely ignore them. It is
almost as if McDonald believes them. She certainly believes that
they are going to influence government.
4) She completly misses the mark on evangelical social engagement.
Christians are called upon to better their communities in whatever
way they can, and in a western democracy have the right (and duty)
as citizens to do so. All over Canada you will find evangelicals
involved in much humanitarian work. There are some who have chosen
to be involved in the political scene. McDonald chooses to conflate
this with the views of R.J. Rusdoony and the Christian right in the
US who have a much harder edge and an agenda to re-Christianize the
US.
My biggest criticism is that she seems to fail to realise that
Canada is a pluralistic society which means that not everyone will
hold the same views. She seems to go under the assumption that
pluralism = classical western liberal mindset (or progressive as
some label it). With the large amount of work she did she could
have tried a much deeper, engaging dialog to be able to winnow out
the best elements and actually generate some meaningful discussion
instead of the sheer swill we see in the Canadian media. Alas she
failed.
I feel like I had been led to believe she was out to do
investigative journalism but in reality she caved into her primal
fear of George Bush and Harper and thus interpreted everything she
saw through that grid, much the same way some of those she
criticizes do in looking at society through the apocalyptic grid of
the book of Revelation. In the process she severely maligns a large
segment of Canadian Christianity.
In conclusion, it was disappointing that a journalist of McDonald's
reknown was unable to step out of her own views to try to
understand others. The evangelical community in Canada is a
microcosm of Canada as a whole and is no where near as simple as
McDonald pretends. She conflates the views of various subgroups and
assigns them to the evangelical community as a whole. In her favour
I thought she was probably right with about 60% of what she
reported. This leaves 40% that is wrong. The problem is I can't
tell which 40% it is.