Stephen Harper and his Faith

Today I went to Blessings in Ottawa, and picked up a copy of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Government.

I hadn't intended to buy any books, but the author, Lloyd Mackey, was sitting there hocking them, and he told me the book contained information about Stephen Harper's religious background. (It's actually a biography and contains a lot of details about him, but his religious views take up quite a lot of space.)

Well, Mr. Mackey didn't disappoint.

The subject of Stephen Harper's faith comes up often enough in discussions about the leader, and my Sitemeter tells me that people are interested in finding out more about it.

People assume that because Stephen Harper attends an Evangelical church (The East Gate Alliance Church) he's some kind of emotionalist "holy roller" along the lines of Benny Hinn.

It wouldn't take much to debunk that. Look at Stephen Harper: does he look like a holy roller to you?

Stephen Harper grew up in suburban Toronto and his family attended a United Church, and later a Presbyterian Church. By his university years, he had developed a sense of religious skepticism.

He came to faith by reading the works of Malcolm Muggeridge (a former atheist) and C.S. Lewis. Harper's journey to faith was very cerebral, like himself. He adopted faith by assenting to a series of arguments. He didn't have a momentous conversion experience like St. Augustine did in his Confessions, or a crisis-driven need for God. He simply reasoned that Christianity made sense.

Contrast this to George W. Bush. Bush may be an intelligent man, but his faith has never struck me as very cerebral. His devotion is from the heart, and very conventional and not theologically deep. He came to the faith because of his struggles with alcoholism, and he needed a higher power to help him out.

Harper was also spiritually mentored by Preston Manning and Diane Ablonczy, both Baptists.

Harper's sense of faith informs his decisions, but he doesn't wear religion on his sleeve, except for perhaps the occasional "God Bless Canada". He's not ashamed of it, but he doesn't show it off.

The East Gate Alliance Church is what you might call a "Fundamentalist" Church, but Harper isn't one to accept religious doctrine based purely on what someone else says. He reasons out his own personal belief system.

I've read halfway through the book, and although I know Harper's approach, I don't know a lot about what he believes, exactly. He seems to keep his doctrines to himself, for the most part.

The book has a lot of juicy gossip of interest to socons, including a bit passage about my friend John Pacheco.

So if you're interested in the inner mind of Stephen Harper, this might be the book for you.