Canada Chooses Chaos

Is the world ceasing to make sense? For many Canadians, the answer is yes. Take, for example, the subject of an article in The Western Standard (“50-year-old biological male competes against 13-year-old girls in Markham swim meet,” WesternStandard.news, October 25, 2023). The article reports that at a regional swim meet in Markham, Ontario, records show that a 50-year-old man who claims to be a “trans woman” was allowed to swim against young girls aged 13 to 14 years old. Apparently, the mainstream news media considered this “normal” enough to be unnewsworthy. It appears that many parents were outraged—yet, even after the article was published, no action was taken to prevent such misconduct from being repeated.

Everyone reading this article knows that, only a short time ago, such a thing would not have been allowed—and, if it had occurred, the consequences would have been very serious. What has happened to society’s values when what was once considered reprehensible is now deemed normal? Our predecessor in this Work, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, liked to point out that there is a cause for every effect. What, then, is the cause for the effect we’ve just described?

War Against the Bible

Perhaps another recent event in Canada can shed some light on this question. Last October, the National Post reported that Canadian military chaplains had received a chilling directive.

New directives for military chaplains that tell them to be “respectful of … spiritual diversity” during public addresses, to employ “Gender Based Analysis” and [to] replace religious symbols like crosses and stars of David with a generic chaplain’s crest could spell the death of the role in Canada’s Armed Forces, says one long-serving veteran of the chaplaincy. “It’s a further trek down the road of trying to eliminate religion altogether in the military,” said Father Timothy Nelligan (“Directives to military chaplains urge expunging God, religion from Remembrance Day, public ceremonies,” NationalPost.com, October 27, 2023).

The directive went on to relate that any religious language or mention of God should be left out of public ceremonies at national Remembrance Day events, held annually on November 11 to commemorate Canada’s war dead and those of all the forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth. The chaplains are to be “sensitive and inclusive,” fundamentally meaning that a Roman Catholic chaplain could not give an exclusively Catholic prayer, nor could a Protestant chaplain give a Protestant one, nor a rabbi give a Jewish one. In other words, clergy serving the military must expunge religious beliefs and language at any public event.

In fact, a supporting report from the defence minister’s paper on racism and discrimination “recommended Canada cease hiring chaplains from faiths with more traditional beliefs.” The National Post reporter even noted the following: “Religion, the report states, should be considered a ‘source of suffering and generational trauma’ for some Canadians…. Many Canadian military chaplains, the report states, ‘represent or are affiliated with organized religions whose beliefs are not synonymous with those of a diverse and inclusive workplace.’”

In other words, while not banned from prayer, the chaplains must use wording with which all can agree, regardless of their choice of lifestyle or even their rejection of the concept of God. It seems government administration has determined that the content of “religion” will be some kind of generic spirituality, and not the beliefs and doctrines of a given faith, especially not a faith derived from the Christian Bible.

In an article in the British publication The Conservative Woman, a retired Presbyterian minister describes the disturbing and willful assault being waged against biblical values in Canada:

Authoritarian states and organisations have always seen Christianity as an obstacle to their aims of a society.... Thus totalitarian states have sought to reduce the influence of Christianity on society, or even stamp it out altogether. In this respect the West’s woke and progressive movements of today follow other revolutionary movements of both Left and Right which, since the French Revolution, have attempted to destroy Christianity as they tried to remake the world (“Canada’s War on Christian Rights,” May 24, 2022).

Specifically referring to the present Canadian government’s actions, the author writes that human rights have been gradually diminishing, and that this correlates with the passing of laws that reject biblical beliefs about the nature of humanity and the structure of our society. He cites several examples demonstrating the degree of hostility to biblical values on the part of administration officials and a judiciary that leans to a “progressive” position in opposition to the body of ethics that the Bible has inspired for millennia. In 2017, a couple who were Presbyterian faced legal challenges in their quest to become foster parents for two girls. Their application was initially rejected because they admitted to the social worker that they wouldn’t tell the children that the Easter Bunny actually existed.

In another instance in 2018, Trinity Western, an evangelical university in British Columbia, was unsuccessful in its legal battle at the Supreme Court of Canada. The university’s intention to start a law school was met with resistance as three bar associations in Canada declined to recognize its graduates. This was due to the university’s policy, which required students to adhere to a “Community Covenant” that upholds the Christian scriptural understanding of human sexuality. Although the Supreme Court recognized that this decision infringed on religious freedoms, it claimed that the ruling was a balanced and reasonable approach to ensure that LGBTQ students, who might be reluctant to agree to the covenant, could access the university’s programs.

Perhaps one of the most telling comments was made by Federal Minister of Justice David Lametti, discussing legislation that would criminalize counselling individuals wishing to reject an LGBT lifestyle. Advocating the prohibition of conversion therapy, Lametti stated, “Conversion therapy is premised on a lie, that being homosexual, lesbian, bisexual or trans is wrong and in need of fixing. Not only is that false, it sends a demeaning and a degrading message that undermines the dignity of individuals.” According to Lametti’s stance, everything that the Bible reveals about the purpose of gender and the healthy expression of sexuality is to be rejected as an offensive falsehood.

Drifting Toward Destruction

What, then, is the cause for society to seemingly believe that it is normal for a 50-year-old man to be treated as a 13-year-old girl at a swim meet?

The Bible gives a detailed account of what happens to a society when its absolutes are rejected. The book of Judges describes the nation of Israel living in a chaotic, impoverished, and oppressed condition. The reason is clear: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25).

Such is the case in Canada today, where authorities increasingly abhor and reject God-given absolutes that define right and wrong. Hence, the nation is drifting aimlessly into an amorality that is leading to chaos, lawlessness, impoverishment, and eventual destruction.

The prophet Isaiah proclaimed, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). Tomorrow’s World will continue to proclaim God’s word even as Western society embraces illogic as logic and foolishness as wisdom.