“God etc.”

In that two-word nutshell, the current federal government has expressed the fullness of its utter contempt for religious faith and religious believers. 

Such scorn permeates a document released Monday by the Department of National Defence mandating that “spiritual reflections in military settings” will henceforth replace historic religious invocations and, by extension, mandatorily exclude any reference to God.

Advertisement

Actually, not even by extension. Explicitly.

“Spiritual reflections do not use religious specific language, including references to God etc.,” the document says in its definitions section.

The directive is aimed primarily at military chaplains and those who oversee them in their work with members of the Canadian Armed Forces. It also extends, however, to “volunteers, students, casual workers and contractors” involved with DND. 

It will apply but “is not limited to” all events, military parades, graduation parties, change of command ceremonies, ship commissioning, ribbon cuttings and dedications, honours and awards, “festive/seasonal or mess dinners,” and military institutional commemorations such as Remembrance Day, the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic etc. etc. etc.

God the Etc., present for the thousands of warriors who have fought since Confederation for Canada in His name, has now been dishonourably discharged by federal bureaucrats. Indeed, current Minister of National Defence David McGuinty has signed off on the edict despite a similar assault on religious life in the DND being beaten back in 2023.

In the Deity’s place will be “reflections” that are, in the awful cliché, spiritual but not religious and will usher in a new age of “inclusive public addresses…that nurture resilience by fostering meaning, purpose and spiritual well-being, especially within a culture of care and service.”

Advertisement

Fostering what specific meaning, and to what specific purpose, is left a mystery. The multitude of faiths instilled in humanity for millennia must simply give way to the contemporary therapy-speak of amorphous “well-being” that rises to the frothy surface of caring-sharing culture. 

The change, the document insists, will “encourage or accommodate participation from all sections of society without excluding any person on the grounds of race, gender, religion, age, disability....” The incoherent inclusion of such phrasing is boots on the ground proof that the directive emerged from the inevitable muddle-headedness of a committee and was refined by the mangling process of passage through an army of bureaucrats.

Did it never occur to those involved in the drafting, after all, that the forced public suppression of God’s name from the lips of military chaplains (!) might just, in fact, discourage the participation of, be contrary to accommodation of, and actively exclude, say, armed forces members who, well, happen to strongly believe in God? 

A worse alternative is that it did occur to them…and they just didn’t care. Either way, the whole pretext for the document collapses like a chicken coop hit by an artillery shell. 

Taken in the context of the current government’s pre-summer removal of Criminal Code protections for religious speech, this week’s DND prohibition of God from active public service must not be discounted as merely a one-off skirmish. It must be seen as part of a strategic plan. Even with a devout Catholic such as Prime Minister Carney at its head, this is a government intent on remorselessly pushing religious belief and expression of faith into an ever more constricted private sphere. 

Among its chief weapons in that drive is ubiquitous use of scorn that reduces God to an etc. or, in the case of removing legal protections for Scriptural language, constantly equates religious faith with the fomenting of hatred.

One of the all-too familiar exemptions in that regard, of course, is for Indigenous spirituality. Given the competing good of achieving truth and reconciliation, Indigenous religiosity has received carte blanche protection for extended appeals to the Creator even in public venues where Catholic priests or Protestant parsons would be hissed off the podium. Yet that, too, appears to be up for grabs if this week’s DND document is at all prophetic.

“The inclusion of Indigenous practices must remain consistent with the duty to maintain religious neutrality and the principles set out (in the document),” it says.

Advertisement

And just how, someone might have asked, is the great god of “religious neutrality” going to have teeth in the face of “practices” exclusive to Indigenous believers, including the majority who are also baptized Catholics? Will the Great White Father/Mother/Non-Binary/LGBT omnipotent government in Ottawa decide?

Now, that would be an “etcetera” that could bring God back with a vengeance.