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ECP Centre Wraps Up Successful Annual Conference
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
BURLINGTON - A Townhall dealing with the question, "Is there a War on Christians in Canada?" set the stage for the ECP Centre's successful 3rd annual Ignite Our Culture conference this past weekend.
Special speakers, Roy Beyer of Foundation for National Policy, Link Byfield of the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy, Ruth Ross of the Christian Legal Fellowship and Joseph Ben-Ami of the Institute for Canadian Values discussed the mounting evidence of the assault against Christians and the public expression of Christianity in Canada.
As a Jew, Joseph Ben-Ami provided an important "outsider" challenge to Canadian Christians to be more assertive in defending our rights and freedoms. He said that Christians are far too apologetic and come across sounding as though they may not really believe what they are saying. "I think Joseph brought a very important perspective to the conference," said ECP Centre President Tristan Emmanuel. "The Bible doesn't tell us only to be gentle as doves. It also calls us to be wise as serpents, and to be bold and assertive."
During the Saturday conference, Roy Beyer discussed the perception that Canada's political and cultural elite have of Christians. This perception includes many ideas that Christians must change if we want to be effective in influencing political change. We need to demonstrate that we can't be taken for granted, he said, and we need to develop a long-term perspective, with the recognition that we aren't going to turn Canada's moral decline overnight.
Ruth Ross delivered a very important summary of the mounting losses Christians are facing before the courts and human rights commissions when our religious liberties are pitted against homosexual activism. She pointed out the crucial aspects of various rulings and how, in some instances, they provided important precedents that Christians should appeal to in future cases, in other instances, they demonstrate the seriousness of the justice system's lack of commitment to protecting religious liberty.
Link Byfield talked about the problems with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He maintained that the Charter is not inherently bad, arguing that Christians should be able to live with it if we could get rid of Section 15, which is contradictory to the rest of the document because it gives the civil government great latitude for intervening in society to enforce equality of outcome, whereas the rest of the Charter limits the scope of the civil government's right to interfere in our lives. Unfortunately, Canada's tyrannical judges, egged on by socialist lobby groups, gravitates to Section15 to rationalise their radical interventionist - and anti-constitutional - ideology.
The Friday Townhall and Saturday panel discussion were engaging with much participation from the audience. "Clearly, the speakers and their topics were very timely and interesting to those who attended the conference. I want to thank all our guests and participants for making this another important Ignite Our Culture conference," said Tristan.
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For more information contact the ECP Centre at:
Email: info@ecpcentre.org
Website: www.ecpcentre.org
Phone: (905) 684-4310
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