Mike Huckabee’s comments on the Colorado massacre: “We have a sin problem.” These are words no person however loosely affiliated with politics in Canada could or would ever utter. I’m not saying whether they should utter them, I’m simply saying that I find it interesting that you cross that magical 49th parallel and life here is different.
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Yes, Canada is different. It seems that a frequent Canadian comment is that the problem is the lack of self esteem and counselors. More of these and perhaps a dash of bio-chemical engineering and we would be on the right road.
The irony is that recent studies show that self esteem has never been more promoted and youth have never felt more positive about themselves. Digging deeper shows however that youth’s self esteem has become independent of what is actually going on in their lives. As long as they feel ‘good’ about themselves nothing else matters. This dissociative state certainly would lead to lack of meaning, meaningful relations and lack of recognition that actions are significant or affect anyone else.
Huckabee’s comment on the other hand implies a consciousness wherein a person sees that what one does is intrinsically involved with the world around oneself and either is with or against it. He uses the word sin in meaning ‘not true to what is’. Inherent in this line of thinking is the concept that a person who is a constructive and positive contributor to the world will have a good sense of self esteem. Perhaps Huckabee has got something here.
Why do you say that this kind of statement neither would nor could be made by any Canadian politicianator? There has been an understandable effort by Christians in Canada to learn how to talk in mainstream language in the public sphere rather than assuming that Christianese will resonate with the average citizen, but I sometimes wonder whether we have worsened the situation by self-censoring and thereby tacitly conveying the impression that Christian and/or other religious concepts don’t make any sense to normal people. The way humans think is heavily shaped by the language we use; if I submit to secular preferences about what ideas and rhetorical forms may or may not be employed in public, then I can’t complain when the full perspective that I wish I were permitted to voice does in fact become increasingly incomprehensible to the audience that I could have had. If we fail to talk about it, eventually they won’t in fact be able to understand it. The prophecy will have fulfilled itself.
Canadians know that there are religious people in political life, Christians already talk about their faith in the public sphere to some extent, and much of the citizenry knows that there are additional aspects of their beliefs which Christians don’t like to express in the public eye, for fear that it won’t go over well. Arguably, staying mum on the supposedly unattractive parts allows nonreligious people to suspect that there’s something sinister being hidden here, and does nothing to expand and correct the limited and sometimes inaccurate impression they have about where Christians are coming from. It’s important for religious people to avoid speaking only in religious language; we certainly have to demonstrate that we know how a given topic of discussion looks to secular people (or to members of another religion). But we shouldn’t be stopping there: better to converse with the CFRA listener or the Citizen reader or the Foucauldian sociologist in their own terms, and also to explain, when relevant (and with humour), that we actually subscribe to a different frame of reference, and why we find it compelling.
To paraphrase Chesterton, a person needs merely to read the newspaper to be presented with clear support for the idea of sin. Admittedly, the fact that people will recognize actions/attitudes as unacceptable, sleazy, unethical, or evil (all of which are terms that can work in secular contexts) does not mean they’ll be cool with calling them sinful, the latter obviously pointing to a religious standard of moral assessment. And yes, most people like to imagine that there’s a significant difference between the bad guys discussed in the news, on the one hand, and decent, ordinary me, on the other. And no, many people really would not like the claim that our own garden-variety selfishness and cruelties and dishonesty and self-indulgence are major contributors to sensational cases of wrongdoing like mass shootings. On the other hand, if you stop and think about it, there’s actually quite a widespread tendency in our society to blame this or that widespread social trend/practice (single parenthood or facebook or free trade or Conservative Party membership or multiculturalism or talk radio or lax schoolteachers) when a tragedy occurs, or when people wring their hands over How Stephen Harper/Dalton McGuinty Is Destroying Our Society/Province/Galaxy. The notion that something has gone wrong because a lot of us started making more stupid or selfish choices five or eight or fifteen years ago is not really uncommon at all. I’m not sure that sin-talk would be quite so alien to current modes of thought as we sometimes think.
Mike Huckabee is a political commentator, not a candidate for office. There’s no reason why certain commentators in this country couldn’t make the case that we Canucks are a bunch of sinners. (Just you wait, Margaret Wente’s gonna do so before long, even if she doesn’t technically believe in sin herself …) David Warren already has talked explicitly about sin a time or two, I believe, in his magnificent antimodern oeuvre. Yes, unlike mere journalists, Huckabee was an active political figure, but there happens to be a respected ex-politician, some guy by the name of Preston Manning, who has columns in the Globe from time to time. It might take guts and might be perplexing to figure out how to do it effectively, but he could write about sin. (And as others have pointed out, when you get right down to it, the concept of sin, and the idea that we are sinners, ends up being a far more hopeful notion than it first appears.)
I could be quite off-base in my thinking here, but ’tis the way it looks to me at the moment. Insincere apologies for a very long comment on a very short post.
Joel! I totally love your long comment on my short post. And if I weren’t so busy, I’d reply at greater length. Suffice to say, perhaps you need a column of your own! I’d read it.
That was excellent, Joel. You gave me quite a bit to think about.
Oh, when I say they “could not” utter it, I know they could but then they would have to be wholly and completely prepared for a public lambasting. Perhaps I’m wrong. But I know Stephen Harper ain’t gonna test my hypothesis. “Dear Prime Minister’s Office: I’m wondering if you will be publicly lambasted should Prime Minister Harper mention ‘sin’ in a speech. Could you please try it out?”
Since they won’t do that, we have good evidence to know he would be. I believe he said “God bless Canada” at one of his speeches and that received significant alarmist media attention.
As a final note, if I ever go into politics, which I doubt, but if I do, I shall create a fun list of provocative sayings to provoke the media and then we can watch the melee as it unfolds. (I’m not the type to be concerned about re-election. Which is precisely why I’m not in politics.)
Heh — yes, I was thinking that someone a little less prominent than the PM might be the best public figure to try out the sin theme. Perhaps a journalist who likes to flout polite opinion (Michael Coren, obviously), or who has the right blend of sixteen-syllable vocabulary and well-known inclination to defend the folks back home against the out-of-touch urban elites (hello, Rex Murphy), or who has a contrarian impulse and devotion to logic in the mould of Dan Gardner. Now if Gardner would just stop being an atheist, he could start proving to us that Canada’s main problem is sin …
Or maybe it could come from a different direction–perhaps one of the better voices for this kind of thing would be someone like Matthew Coon Come. On the other hand, what Coon Come experienced may be one of the best illustrations of how politically dangerous it is to point out people’s sins, even if you don’t use the word “sin.” So you’re probably right that this is a topic for kamikaze politicians.
I think Harper has used “God bless Canada” at the end of several of his speeches (all three of his election victory speeches, I believe, and perhaps a Canada Day address?). The first time, at least, he did catch some flak for it, as you say. But I want to hear him conclude a speech with “And may God have mercy on our nation.” If it were an election victory address, I think that closing line would actually go over quite well with his opponents, n’est-ce pas? 🙂
And if you ever go into politics, I will be eagerly watching the tube or reading the web to catch your media-provoking sayings, and shall cackle with glee at the consternation stealing across your listeners’ faces …