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Accountability Is Not Enough, Canada Needs Moral Judges
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Once again Ontario's infamous Court of Appeals has declared war on the family and Canada's Judeo-Christian democratic tradition. Wasting no time to strike, the court ruled within a week of the New Year that a five-year-old boy can have three parents - one dad and two moms. If this isn't moral insanity, I don't know what is. Since the introduction of Bill C-38, the bill that changed the legal definition of marriage to include any two people regardless of their sex, the assault on the family and Canada's Judeo Christian democratic tradition has become increasingly more brazen. By now it should be clear to anyone paying attention that Canada's elites are at war with Canadians. As I argue in my book, Warned: Canada's Revolution Against Faith, Family and Freedom, this war began with the rise of Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau was the first Canadian leader of importance to strike at our Christian Common Law tradition. During his tenure we witnessed the decriminalization of sodomy, the acceleration of "no fault" divorce, the industrialization of "abortion on demand" and wave after wave of new humanistic social law (i.e. "human rights" codes) that rose to replace our Judeo-Christian democratic legal tradition. Trudeau was at war with God. Unfortunately, in those days few people recognized the dangerous course Trudeau had charted for Canada. But one person did. Perhaps the most outspoken and prophetic voice of his day, the Rev. Ken Campbell, in Pauline fashion warned that Canada's rejection of God would ultimately lead to a national moral blindness. "God will give Canada up to its own depravity to do that which goes against nature (Rom. 1:18-22)," he said. But in those early days, the culture war wasn't as obvious as it is now. The steady assault seemed almost benign. It was there, but just like a benign cancer, it seemed harmless because Canada was basically a decent society - it would never turn radical. But that was then. Today Rev. Campbell's prophetic predictions are manifestly manifold. And what these maniacal judges on the infamous Ontario Court of Appeals have revealed to us is that if Canada is going to have a future, it can't be with the likes of them as judges. Which leads me to ask a crucial question: is it enough simply to change the process by which we choose our judges, or do we first need to ensure that there is a pool of the right kind of people from which to pick judges? Do we really believe that reforming the judicial appointment process will do the trick? Clearly something has to be done. Judges have no right to run rough shod over our established traditions, institutions and constitutional limitations - they simply have no divine right, let alone political warrant. But I am not convinced that simply reforming the process and implementing greater accountability is the sole answer. If, in the end, the people who are appointed (or elected) are personally devoid of moral sanity themselves, we can only expect more of the same insanity. One might argue that if the culture is generally corrupt, how can you expect the leaders to be any different? Good point. There is no doubt that we need a culture wide reformation. But we also need a specific one in the judiciary, which is what I want to focus on here. An important reason for focusing on the judiciary is because right now Canada is a heavy top down state, where the prerogatives of a few elite chart the course for all the rest. That's why if we are going to turn this thing around and try, by God's grace, to rescue Canada from the brink of destruction, we really do need to focus on moral reform within the judiciary and not simply procedural reform. And here is why... First, there is a definite link between a person's moral philosophy and his service as a public servant. Canada's leadership class has been preaching for a generation that one's personal morality has no place in public service. Yet, what the Ontario Court of Appeals ruling reveals is that Canada's judges live by a double standard. While they don't want Christians to appeal to biblical case law when it comes to advancing radical liberalism, they gleefully seek occasions to impose their personal biases under the guise that they have a fiduciary duty to apply the new natural law (i.e. human rights) even if it means opposing a country's written constitution. Second, Canada's judiciary is intensely committed to a human rights fundamentalism; and the worst kind of fundamentalism. While they pretend to be advancing human liberty, tolerance and respect, they are in effect rejecting the very foundation of our nation's liberty - God. And to aggravate their error, our judges actually believe they are neutral and objective jurists. Third, if the pool of potential judges consists of these kinds of radical fundamentalists, it doesn't matter how much more accountability we insert into the structure, we will still get insane rulings because the people sitting on the bench are morally adrift. Evil begets evil. There is an important theological point to consider here. Paul teaches in the first chapter of Romans, that when a society rejects God, it is not simply committing a slight religious indiscretion, it is in fact committing corporate suicide. By rejecting God, it rejects the very ground of social co-existence; it is rejecting the basis of social reasoning, truth and morality. In such a society, law and order degenerate into immorality and chaos. Without the acknowledgement of God as a core social value, the only value that glues society together, the inter-social connectedness breaks down. And thus societies that embrace the falsehoods of human idolatry (i.e. humanistic rights) ultimately are given over to social chaos and the tyranny of the mighty, who for a season dictate what is right and wrong - even though they have abandoned genuine right and wrong. Paul states it like this: And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. (Rom. 1:28-32) The operative phrase is, "[who] not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them." That is the ultimate description of social degradation: a society which rejects God and God's standard of truth and morality ultimately sanctions immorality and promotes vice and protects evil doers. What the Ontario justices have demonstrated is that they are incapable of moral reasoning, and therefore incapable of establishing genuine justice. They are the quintessential example of what Paul means when he says, "they have been given over to a "debased mind" because they reason against God and therefore they will of necessity pervert the law. Which brings us to the salient point: why work for judicial reform if we refuse to make the legal profession and important Christian vocation? If we really want moral people in positions of the judiciary why do we generally leave that work to non-Christians? Wouldn't it be far better to encourage our young people to seek a calling in the legal profession and work their way up so that they can get appointed to the bench? It is simply meaningless to talk about reforming the appointment process if social conservatives don't make it an important part of the overall strategy to pursue a judgeship themselves. Which is why I believe it is not enough for Christians to be seeking political office; we need to be seeking judicial appointments as well, which also means that we also need a plethora of good Christian lawyers. I'm convinced that Canada's survival is predicated on Christian involvement in Canadian culture. If we leave our country to non-believers, if we leave the judiciary to people of a "debased mind," we are simply asking for more of the same - immoral insanity - and no society of merit can survive under such conditions. What Canada needs is judicial reformation.
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