NDP at Prayer?

The news this week of New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton’s death cast a shadow of shock and sadness across the nation.  Alongside formal places of remembrance like Parliament Hill, impromptu memorials have sprung up on the steps of Toronto City Hall and the Vancouver Art Gallery.  Party members I’ve spoken to said that there was a clear sense in this last month that Jack was not going to recover from this new round of cancer treatments.  Like Moses leading his people to the Promised Land only to die before entering, Jack led the NDP to their best federal election result taking the power position of Leader of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition.  Party members now look around for a Joshua-like figure to lead them into the future.  But that is all in the weeks and months to come…for now the country mourns the death of a charismatic and popular politician.

But what about those funeral plans?  For a long time The United Church of Canada has been nicknamed “The NDP at Prayer” suggesting a cozy relationship between the unions, socialists and social justice movements and Canada’s largest Protestant denomination.  And yet, it appears that even that title has shifted when we look at the funeral arrangements for Jack Layton.  As recent as the last federal election campaign Layton identified with The United Church of Canada when asked where he was worshipping on Easter Sunday.  Yet, when he was dying Layton called for Rev. Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto according to today’s Globe and Mail.  Hawkes and the MCC are described in the Globe and Mail as welcoming the LGBT community and were allies with Layton on issues such as gay rights, health and homelessness.

We live in an interesting time when the old assumptions that the silent majority of Canadians would turn to The United Church of Canada as the “national church” are fading.  Even our assumptions of being the liberal, social justice, gay-friendly church that comforted so many of our clergy and members (even to the point of smugness) is over as well.  When MCC is the destination church for liberal minded politicians and evangelical churches are awakened with a passion for social justice (see www.ychange.ca for an example) we are left to ask some key identity questions.  It is interesting to note that Rev. Hawkes said that Layton’s service is intended to be religiously and politically inclusive (another favoured buzzword of ours) and will have readings from Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions.  Funny, I don’t recall Trudeau’s Catholic Funeral Mass steering towards a mix of religious traditions.  I also find it highly unlikely that in the future when a Muslim Prime Minister, sitting Jewish Cabinet minister or Buddhist Governor General dies that they naturally include Christian elements in their service of remembrance.  Is it our “Canadian niceness” that moves liberal Protestants to so quickly mix our own faith traditions in with others?  As we watch the NDP at prayer this Saturday…the questions remain…

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