Yesterday's happenings at the Truth and Reconciliation gathering in Rideau Hall must be considered a watershed moment in Canadian history.
Dehumanizing social trends of the past should be deemed to have come full circle, allowing the nation to here on chart a fresh and new course for its future. But because so much of the focus of the study, analysis, findings, and suggestions to government and to Canadian society had to do with the educational mission of church denominations closely linked to colonial power in Canada, namely the Catholics and the Anglicans, and the United Church of Canada to a lesser extent, it is vitally important to ask what lessons the Church in Canada takes from the misgivings and misdeeds of the past.
I couldn't help but note that surely the Church was not the cornerstone of the colonial edifice that caused such systemic inequalities and injustices in Canada. That infamous privilege belongs to the dominant culture of colonial times as a whole.
Then, where did the Church go wrong, and why does it draw such flak?
The Church rightly is the target of blame and even spite because it betrayed its essential character and instead chose to stoop low to serve as a handmaiden of colonial interests.
The connection between the Christian Church and political power is an old one and has been studied threadbare. Most historians would argue that the losses the Christian Church has accrued unto itself through history because of this unholy alliance far outweigh the benefits to the Church because of it.
The Christian Church should hence learn never to be an instrument of any system of political power or of mainstream culture, even if the political power and/or culture claims to be Christian and professes to be doing God's work. The Church's existence and identity is of a spiritual nature, and the church must seek to operate within the perimeters of this realm.
Christians generally should also realize that if the Bible has any bias, then it is in favour of the poor and the oppressed. The Bible speaks of God as the defender of widows, orphans, and the weak. God was on Israel's side not because the Israelites had charming faces, were entrepreneurial, and practised cleanliness, but because they were the victims of history - abused and oppressed by their more powerful and often brutal neighbours.
God can never be on the side of a ruthless oppressor, whatever justifications an oppressor or an oppressing agency may have for his/its actions.
The church and its members are God's servants. Hence it's ironic that the Church would want to 'play God,' which of course it does and has been accused of doing innumerable times in history. The Church and its members are most effective in witness when they serve their cause with humility, powerlessness, love, and servitude.
In a world where leadership and dominance are coveted by many, Christians are called to be powerless servants like the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies to produce an abundance of seed. If Christians are so convinced of the 'rightness' of their beliefs and hence desire to spread them, they must then be willing to waste themselves away in the service of humanity exemplifying lowliness and selflessness.
Though there is a very thin line between serving God and playing God, and the line so often is crossed unawares and unintentionally, it amounts to the same sin of self-assumption that was in the Biblical tradition the very first sin - that of Lucifer.
Playing God is the most despicable form of arrogance and idolatry religious people can indulge in, leading to devastating effects on people who come under their sway.
I felt deeply hurt and broken when I heard it said on television that the residential schools had no play areas for the children, but had graveyards. Also that the odds of a child's death in residential schools was 1 in 25; worse than the odds of a Canadian soldier dying on the battlefield in the Second World War, which was 1 in 26.
For me, just one child's death in a Christian school is one too many.
What would have happened to the lives of those parents who saw their children forcibly taken away from them never to return? The pain is unimaginable. It is simply not acceptable.
And to then think that several of them were raped, beaten, starved, deliberately neglected, and allowed to die!
Well, this is not Christian at all!
But how do 'practising' Christians degenerate to such deadly callousness and coldblooded disregard? It happens due to several factors. But a most prominent one is the gradual setting in of a false sense of a privileged self because of the erroneous assumption that because one believes 'right' one also thinks and does right.
It is this sense of personal correctness that makes some people insensitive to their own wrong doing.
This is an opportune moment in our history as a nation for all of us regardless of faith and background to realize that to work without bias and prejudice upholding the highest human values and exhibiting great human character aimed at building a just and fair society is indeed the service of God.
The Church can and must show leadership in working towards these goals through its spiritual and philanthropic work.
Reuben Louis Gabriel is an instructor at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George, specializing in history and philosophy.
