Article Details
Article Added On: June 17, 2004 - over 7 years ago
Title: God in the Marketplace: Intro
Author: Douglas Todd
Publication: Vancouver Sun
Publication Date: January 01, 2003 - over 9 years ago
Themes: Religion and society
Abstract: Religion, like sex, is a volatile force. In the wrong hands, it can be used to overpower and oppress. The news bursts forth daily with grim reminders of how religious leaders in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />
In
In the right hands, however, religion and spirituality can be a source of rich values that will contribute to a civilized society.
Should God be brought into the cultural marketplace?
Description: The introduction to a series on God and the Marketplace by Douglas Todd, appearing in the Vancouver Sun in July 2003
Today, we launch a five-part Observer series exploring the public face of religion in society.
This series, by <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />
The grant permitted Todd to spend a total of four months in the fall of 2002 and spring of this year, including a trip to the
Religion, like sex, is a volatile force. In the wrong hands, it can be used to overpower and oppress. The news bursts forth daily with grim reminders of how religious leaders in
In
In the right hands, however, religion and spirituality can be a source of rich values that will contribute to a civilized society.
Should God be brought into the cultural marketplace?
Yes. Creative, non-coercive ways can be found to better integrate religious, spiritual and moral sensibilities into four spheres of Canadian life: politics and public policy, education, the news media and mass entertainment what s commonly called the public square.
Different forces still work to keep formal religion, as well as less institutionalized spirituality and ethical discussion, out of the public realm, however.
Some strong-minded secularists say organized religion is irrational and destructive; it should definitely never be imposed on them in a public forum.
Ironically, perhaps, some zealous religious people also don t want public spirituality. If their own brand of orthodoxy (in
In addition, some financial powerbrokers don t really want religion, spirituality and ethics to be seriously integrated into everyday discussion. Perhaps without realizing it, they worry the wide expression of spiritual perspectives in the marketplace will threaten what they assume is the ultimacy of economics.
Without dismissing these groups concerns (I also don t want to live in a theocracy run by priests or mullahs), this project points to how Canadians could become a less empty, more culturally complex and, frankly, interesting, country if we loosened the headlock that exists on public spirituality.
Today s theme is public policy, exploring how, without becoming a theocracy, the role of religious and spiritual people could be creatively expanded in Canada where religious observance is declining, even though roughly one of every three people attend a religious institution at least once a month and where more than four out of five believe in some sort of Supreme Being.
Leaders such as Preston Manning, Claude Ryan and Paul Martin should not be dismissed for expressing frustration over how, in light of Canadians suspicions about religion, it would be political suicide for them to publicly reflect on their deep theological beliefs.
Countering Prime Minister Jean Chretien s views that religion in
While Christian norms were dominant until the 60s, now secularism reigns as the supreme ideology. Canadians definitely don t need a state-established religion, like those in
Public debate could be enhanced if policy makers took seriously Canadian Catholics,
With more spiritual and ethical discussion at the governmental level, we would go a long way to resisting the deadening effect of mass culture, which concentrates on who is winning rather than what s good, true and beautiful.
