The Centennial Crisis

Canada’s Centennial is more than a year of celebration; 1967 marks an era of crisis remarkably parallel to that of one hundred years ago. Confederation came in a time of general crisis—political, military, and economic. Were Canada and the Maritimes to walk together or separately? Could the young shoulders of the colonies take over from Britain the burden of defense? Would union with the United States be the only solution to torturing economic pressures?

Now, a century later, Canada faces similar problems. The military situation is fairly stable, but political and economic crises loom before the nation. There is deep and complex tension between French Canadians and those of English descent. Canada faces economic readjustment if Britain joins the Common Market. Will it be forced into economic union with the United States?

The vast social upheavals that have helped to bring about the national crisis have contributed to a moral and personal crisis as well. Canada is no longer a nation of farmers and shopkeepers. Most Canadians now live in big cities and work for large companies. Traditional ethical codes are being challenged. Marijuana and barbiturate addiction is on the increase. The growth of crime is outstripping the growth in population, and alcoholism and suicide are increasing also.

The exploding student generation dramatically reflects personal emptiness. While many idealistic students have joined social-action groups, far too many are aimless and cynical. Radio and TV personality Gordon Sinclair, a self-professed skeptic, has said, “I disagree with Billy Graham on almost everything. But on one thing we agree: The basic trouble with our young people is that they have no sense of purpose.”

Sensitive Canadians are concerned that for one of the world’s most affluent countries, Canada’s record of social justice is inadequate. For example, most Indians in Canada die before they are thirty-five, and only forty-four of every one hundred Indian homes have electricity. Only a tiny percentage (1.05 per cent) of Canada’s total budget this year will go for foreign aid. And while many Canadian students have demonstrated against the racial trouble of the United States, Negro families have been refused apartments in cities from British Columbia to Nova Scotia.

The Canadian religious community is not exempt from crisis. Of 120 Ottawa high school students interviewed not long ago, more than half said that institutional religion held little or no place in their lives. The Premier of Newfoundland, Joseph R. Smallwood, bluntly lays partial blame for his province’s increase in juvenile delinquency at the doors of the churches. “The Church,” he says, “doesn’t seize hold of people anymore—it doesn’t possess their lives.”

Many of these problems Canada shares with other societies struggling in the birth of a new age. But perceptive writers have pointed out the distinctly spiritual dimension of Canada’s crisis. A prominent editor, Robert Fulford, has said, “The plainest fact of our national life is that Canada suffers from a profound sickness of the spirit.” And Peter Newman of the Toronto Star charges, “We act as though we were all aboard a national gravy train that will roll itself into the golden future, but we only occasionally seem to realize that the train needs a track and a driver.”

When the Prophet Amos came to the sanctuary of the northern kingdom at Bethel, Israel was riding on a crest of prosperity and peace not unlike that which superficially is found in Canada. The idea of approaching doom seemed absurd. But Amos had heard the sound of judgment.

To most Israelites, the drought, plagues, and earthquakes that had fallen on their land were natural calamities. To Amos they were the voice of God calling Israel to repentance. Fearlessly he denounced Israel’s sins—the strong for crushing the weak; the wealthy for living in orgies of self-indulgence and ignoring the misery of the slaves; the religious for making their church attendance a cover-up for immorality and a substitute for social justice. He saw visions of devouring locusts, the sweep of consuming fire, and the descent of a bloody sword. Prepare to meet your God, O Israel! This was the burden of Amos’s message and the heart of national crisis. Today he would say, “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Prepare to meet your God, O Canada!”

Historical crisis always provides a dress rehearsal for the final judgment. As Bishop Fulton Sheen has pointed out, “The limit of all experience is to be either for or against God; therefore, in a crisis man will either confront God or he will affront him.” Will Canadians meet the God of Amos in repentance, faith, and obedience, or will we meet him in judgment?

In 1967 the crux of Canada’s crisis is Jesus Christ himself, the greater than Amos who with equal fearlessness denounced the hypocrisy of his day, but who with mercy, love, and suffering also embodied the grace and forgiveness of God.

Will Canada leave Christ as a dull memory of the past century, or make him and his cause the passion of its tomorrow? Think what it would mean if tens of thousands of Canadians in all walks of life would commit themselves for the first time, or in a new, total way, to Jesus Christ this year. In him French and English Canadians could find a common basis to work out their problems, and Canada could become a laboratory of love demonstrating what the family of man can be in Christ. In him families could find new strength. In him national leaders could find the pattern and power for a new leadership of rugged realism and shining integrity. In him our students could find a cure for cynicism and a cause for commitment. In him Canada could find new direction and destiny as a nation, the humility and courage to face the crisis of a new day.

Sir Wilfred Laurier once said, “The twentieth century belongs to Canada.” In terms of trade, political prestige, and military power alone, that is absurd. But in terms of spiritual quality, it could be true. If Canada will belong to Jesus Christ, then the twentieth century could belong to Canada.

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