Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Hakani -- Buried Alive: A Survivor's Story

David Cunningham and Kevin Miller have released their documentary about the infanticide of indigenous children  in Brazil and the hope of a girl who overcame it. You can now watch or download the entire film at www.hakani.org. The movie serves to promote initiatives that protect the children but is facing opposition from elements of the Brazilian government who would like to shut it down.

Peter Dale Scott: The meeting of poetry, prose and politics -- by Ron Dart

Peter Dale Scott comes from a worthy Canadian line and lineage.  His grandfather, Frederick Scott, was a contemporary of Stephen Leacock, an important Canadian poet, an Anglican priest and padre to many soldiers and at the forefront of the Winnipeg strike in 1919. Frederick Scott embodied, in thought, word and deed, a vision of responsible citizenship, but he was very English. Peter’s father, Frank Scott, was one of the best known Canadian poets, constitutional lawyers and founder of the League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). The LSR-CCF were the forerunners of the New Democratic Party (NDP). Frank Scott was a student of Stephen Leacock. As the English empire waned and the American empire waxed, Frank opposed the English colonial way of his father, but he tended to genuflect, in a subtle way, to the New Romans to the south.  Peter’s mother, Marian Dale, was an accomplished Canadian painter. The Politics of the Imagination: A Life of F.R. Scott (1987), by Sandra Djwa, recounts, as an authorized biography, the life of Frank and Marian Scott.

A More Perfect Union: Obama's Speech - March 18, 2008

Stephen Leacock and George Grant: Faith and Politics by Ron Dart

Stephen Leacock was perhaps the greatest English Canadian intellectual of his generation.
Damien-Claude Belanger

George Grant was Canada's most significant public philosopher.
Graeme Nicholson

Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) and George Grant (1918-1988) were men of deep religious faith and passionate about politics. Both men were firmly rooted and grounded in the Anglican tradition, were committed to the classical Canadian conservative political vision and were prominent professors at public universities and in public life. These men did not retreat into private institutions to protect a fragile faith that could not stand up to the challenges of serious and substantive intellectual thought.

Phone Call: Burma Worse than Reported

A sister living in Yangon called a few hours ago with breaking news. BBC world reported that 200 monks were arrested. The true picture is far worse!

For instance, the monastery at an obscure neighborhood of Yangon, called Ngwe Kyar Yan (on Wei-za-yan-tar Road, Yangon) was raided early this morning.

A troop of lone-tein (riot police comprised of paid thugs) protected by military trucks, raided the monastery with 200 studying monks. They systematically ordered all the monks to line up, then banged and crushed each one's head against the brick wall of the monastery. One by one, the peaceful, non-resisting monks, fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Then they tore off the red robes and threw them all in the military trucks (like rice bags) and took the bodies away.

Why Columbia U. Got It Wrong by Jim Hall

This past Monday (Sept. 24) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University in New York. I happened to be watching CNN when it was happening live and heard the introduction by the President of Columbia. As the headlines in Tuesday's papers indicated, it was a scathing rebuke, which I found astonishingly blunt. It was simply incredible to watch. The TV news shows have not done justice to the full extent of his remarks, but in characteristic form, have chosen to zoom in on the most pointed quotes.

Charles Taylor and the Hegelian Eden Tree: Canadian Compradorisim by Ron Dart

The fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom. Genesis 3:6 Canada

may produce more original work on Hegel than any other nation.   
David MacGregor, Literary Review of Canada (February 1994)

 

The fact that the well known Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor, won the enviable Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities in 2007 has been noted and noticed by many. There are few that have won this prestigious award, and fewer Canadians have taken the trophy home.Taylor did so, and did so in a way that has made many a Canadian proud of their native born boy. But, philosophy is about asking critical questions, and critical questions keep us from slipping into
hagiography. Why did Taylor win the Templeton Prize, what questions need to be asked of Taylor, what intellectual agenda does he serve and are there other Canadians of equal worth and merit that might have won the Templeton Prize but did not?

Holy Books: Is Religion the Problem? by David Goa

The philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002), in his last essays when he was close to 100 years old, said that what will save us is a conversation between religions and that it will focus on transcendence, on the ineffable. That is the only way of peace. Being part of a tradition we are both circumscribed and open at the same time. Religious tradition brings finitude and the eternal together. Tradition is reiterative. It is not repeated, but the very event again, and again, the inaction again. 

The organizers of “Building World Peace: The Role of Religions and Human Rights” have suggested that the theme “Holy Books: Is Religion the Problem?” “serves to highlight the differences between sacred religious texts and the political practice of their teaching. Since September 11^th, 2001, especially, there has been great debate about the role of religious texts in acts of social and political violence. In order to preserve respect for the diverse religions, cultures, races, and ethnicities throughout the world, we ought to focus on the message of peace shared by a majority of peoples.”

Diefenbaker and Harper by Ron Dart

Diefenbaker and Harper:
Classical Canadian Tory Meets Republican Conservative
 

I would be quite willing, personally, to leave the Hudson Bay Company awilderness for the next half century, but I fear if  the Englishmen do not go there, Yankees will.

Sir John A. Macdonald 1865 

There were two heads of state that President Kennedy had little patience for and often faced off with in nasty sparring sessions: General Sukarno of Indonesia and Prime Minister John Diefenbaker of Canada. Diefenbaker, again and again, refused to give Kennedy his way. The King of Camelot was never pleased with the way he was treated in Canada.

Canadian Republicanism and Christian Zionism by Ron Dart

The National Post (Saturday August 19 2006) carried a full page advertisement, sponsored by Christians United for Israel, calling for a ‘National Day of Prayer for Israel and the Peace of Jerusalem’. A short read of the advertisement makes it quite clear that the political agenda for the day of prayer is support of Zionism. The organization that sponsored the advertisement, Christians United for Israel, is a right of centre activist organization with close ties to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn and John Hagee. It is interesting to note that Benny Hinn was offered some of his earliest vision and assistance by the well known Canadian Christian Zionists, Merv and Merla Watson.  A browse through the Canadian affiliate website tells the tale in startling clarity (www.cufi.ca).