Reply #11: I think it speaks a fair bit to Harper's "Christianity"

[iverglas]

I was reared Christian / Protestant, in the 60s mainly, when ecumenism was the word of the day. United Church, which is a product of ecumenism itself and was busily engaged in union talks with the Anglicans.

My family weren't fanatics, we were just regular churchgoers, except for my father, who wasn't. But I was told this stuff. When I went to stay for the weekend with my Anglican friend and attended church with her on Sunday morning, there were do-s and don't-s.

Do not take communion was the biggie -- the UCC and the Anglican Church did not have reciprocity at the time, and it would have been contrary to the rules of both to do so. In order to take communion in either church, one had to have been confirmed in that church.

The other was: no kneeling. They kneel, you sit quietly.

I can't imagine that Harper's church, whatever nutball faction it is, doesn't have rules. As, obviously, does the RC Church.

The fact that he doesn't know about them, and wasn't expecting this issue to arise, does say quite a bit about the depth of his own theology.

He has proclaimed himself a devout Protestant, parallel to Paul Martin's devout Catholic. Can you imagine Paul Martin not knowing the communion rules?

http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/thesearch/archive/2008/09/10/why-stephen-harper-keeps-his-evangelicalism-very-private.aspx

Trask said he and Harper have talked frequently, beginning in the 1980s.

That's when Harper was on an intense spiritual and political quest and becoming involved with the then-new Reform party of Preston Manning, an evangelical radio preacher.

"<Harper> didn't just believe what he was told. He had to rationalize what he was hearing about Christianity. He wasn't a blank slate. That's the best way to come to faith," said Trask (left).

About two decades ago, Harper shifted away from the mainline Protestant denominations of his father and began finding a home in the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, which has about 2.5 million members and 14,000 congregations worldwide. One fifth of its members live in North America, with Alberta a Canadian hotbed.

It doesn't ordain women, opposes stem-cell research (don't get it started on abortion), preaches that homosexuality is a sin ...

So he wasn't reared by wolves; he was reared with some Protestant affiliation. And he went on a "quest" and ended up, after rationalizing (good word) a lot, in a backwater dung heap of a church that plays well in Alberta.

And along the way, just never learned that those RCers aren't real Christians (just ask a fundie Protestant), and you don't swallow their wafers.

Hmm.

I didn't need anything to confirm my view that Harper's Christianity is a lie, but that kinda does.