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Lawrie McFarlane: Prayer ruling creates a dangerous vacuum

The Supreme Court announced last week that municipal councils may not open meetings with a prayer. In itself, the decision should come as no surprise. The Supremes have long since slipped the surly bonds of Earth and ascended to a higher plane.

The Supreme Court announced last week that municipal councils may not open meetings with a prayer.

In itself, the decision should come as no surprise. The Supremes have long since slipped the surly bonds of Earth and ascended to a higher plane.

Nor is there anything to be gained by scrutinizing the constitutional logic behind their judgment. Not because it’s stultifying, but because there isn’t any.

The Charter has nothing to say about religion in the halls of government. The court admitted as much. It felt compelled to reach this decision, we’re told, because “an evolving interpretation of freedom of conscience and religion” demanded it.

That’s not an act of legal reasoning. It is merely an appeal to sentiment, and the sentiment, moreover, of a noisy but scant minority.

The plaintiff who raised this case, an atheist scandalized that prayers were recited in his presence (one suspects he attended council meetings in hope of being offended) was awarded $30,000 in “compensatory damages.” Tell that to all the single mothers raising families on less.

But it’s the gratuitous ignorance pervading this judgment that troubles me. Religion, for all its tumultuous history, remains an important presence in many peoples’ lives.

It is a comfort to some, an inspiration to others, a bulwark in time of trouble. And strange as it may seem, religion can have a moderating influence on the affairs of state.

The idea that all authority is vested in government is a dangerous one. The idea that final authority is vested in a panel of judges even more so.

The court might say, well, we’re not taking all power in our own hands, only the secular variety. But when even trivial vestiges of religion are banished from the public square, like some corrosive and toxic pollutant, public discourse suffers.

Judeo-Christian teachings (I can’t speak on other religions) are often a counter to the harshness of modern politics. The notion that we should love our neighbour, or that he who is without sin may throw the first stone, are lessons worth repeating.

It’s no accident that extreme political ideologies, such as communism and fascism, drive church-going underground. Their project entails a complete redefinition of the role and duties of a citizen. In such a world, there can be no room for faith-based admonitions about moderation and virtue.

I’m not suggesting we bring organized religion into the conduct of public affairs in any substantive way. I want no part of doctrines such as Shariah law that demand a voice for church authorities in the councils of the state.

But extinguishing from civic life every trace of mankind’s devotion to a higher purpose is cultural suicide. Worse still, it creates a vacuum that devotees of other, and more dangerous, vanities may fill.

Can anyone say that modern politics, practised in its dog-eat-dog manner, devoid of principle or virtue, is a model worth promoting? And not just promoting, but raising to a position of absolute pre-eminence?

I saw the other day that Hillary Clinton is expected to spend $2 billion on her campaign for the U.S. presidency.

Brings to mind the Gospel of Matthew: “And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple … and said unto them … My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”

Is the court telling us this homily has no bearing on the workings of government? It certainly seems so.

Abolish religious symbols, regardless of the teachings they promote — humility, self-sacrifice and generosity. In their place, institute the sterile grinding of a faceless bureaucracy, and its legal companion piece — a court bereft of human instinct.

And what do you have? The modern judicial conscience.

jalmcfarlane@shaw.ca