{"id":18399,"date":"2025-08-02T09:05:47","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T15:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/trumps-religious-rhetoric-clashes-with-canadas-secular-politics\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:39:12","slug":"trumps-religious-rhetoric-clashes-with-canadas-secular-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/trumps-religious-rhetoric-clashes-with-canadas-secular-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s religious rhetoric clashes with Canada\u2019s secular politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Religious
Religious leaders pray with President Donald Trump Sept. 1, 2017, after he signed a proclamation for a national day of prayer to occur on Sept. 3, 2017, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (The Associated Press)<\/span>Evan Vucci<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

MONTREAL \u2013 Throughout his new term, starting with his inaugural address, President Donald Trump has said he was \u201csaved by God\u201d to make America great again. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney rarely evokes religion in public; his victory speech in April never used the word God. \u201cCanada forever. Vive le Canada,\u201d he ended.<\/p>\n

As Canada and the U.S. now skirmish over Trump\u2019s tariff threats, the leaders\u2019 rhetoric reflects a striking difference between their nations. Religion plays a far more subdued role in the public sphere in Canada than in its southern neighbor.<\/p>\n

Trump posed in front of a vandalized Episcopal parish house gripping a Bible. He invites pastors to the Oval Office to pray with him. His ally, House Speaker Mike Johnson, says the best way to understand his own world view is to read the Bible.<\/p>\n

Such high-level religion-themed displays would be unlikely and almost certainly unpopular in Canada, where Carney \u2013 like his recent predecessors \u2013 generally avoids public discussion of his faith. (He is a Catholic who supports abortion rights.)<\/p>\n

There are broader differences as well. The rate of regular church attendance in Canada is far lower than in the U.S. Evangelical Christians have nowhere near the political clout in Canada that they have south of the border. There is no major campaign in Canada to post the Ten Commandments in public schools or to enact sweeping abortion bans.<\/p>\n

Kevin Kee, a professor and former dean at the University of Ottawa, has written about the contrasting religious landscapes of the U.S. and Canada, exploring the rise of American evangelist Billy Graham to become a confidant of numerous U.S. presidents.<\/p>\n

Christianity, Kee said, has not permeated modern Canadian politics to that extent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a political leadership that keeps its religion quiet,\u201d Kee said. \u201cTo make that kind of declaration in Canada is to create an us\/them situation. There\u2019s no easy way to keep everybody happy, so people keep it quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n

A dramatic loss of Catholic power in Quebec<\/div>\n

The mostly French-speaking province of Quebec provides a distinctive example of Canada\u2019s tilt toward secularism. The Catholic Church was Quebec\u2019s dominant force through most of its history, with sweeping influence over schools, health care and politics.<\/p>\n

That changed dramatically in the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when the provincial government took control of education and health care as part of a broader campaign to reduce the church\u2019s power. The rate of regular church attendance among Quebec\u2019s Catholics plummeted from one of the highest in Canada to the one of the lowest.<\/p>\n

Among religiously devout Canadians, in Quebec and other provinces, some are candid about feeling marginalized in a largely secular country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel isolated because our traditional Christian views are seen as old-fashioned or not moving with the times,\u201d said M\u00e9gane Ar\u00e8s-Dub\u00e9, 22, after she and her husband attended a service at a conservative Reformed Baptist church in Saint Jerome, about 30 miles (nearly 50 kilometers) north of Montreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cContrary to the U.S., where Christians are more represented in elected officials, Christians are really not represented in Canada,\u201d she added. \u201cI pray that Canada wakes up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The church\u2019s senior pastor, Pascal Denault, has mixed feelings about the Quiet Revolution\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many aspects of it, that was good,\u201d he said. \u201cBefore that, it was mainly the Catholic clergy that controlled many things in the province, so we didn\u2019t have religious freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Denault wishes for a more positive public view of religion in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, secularism becomes a religion in itself, and it wants to shut up any religious speech in the public sphere,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we hope for is that the government will recognize that religion is not an enemy to fight, but it\u2019s more a positive force to encourage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denault recently hosted a podcast episode focusing on Trump; he later shared some thoughts about the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tend to think that Trump is more using Christianity as a tool for his influence, rather than being a genuine Christian,\u201d he said. \u201cBut Christians are, I think, appreciative of some of his stances on different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s religion-related tactics \u2013 such as posing with the Bible in his hands \u2013 wouldn\u2019t go over well with Canadians, Denault said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d see that as something wrongful. The public servant should not identify with a specific religion,\u201d Denault said. \u201cI don\u2019t think most Canadians would vote for that type of politician.\u201d<\/p>\n

History offers an explanation<\/div>\n

Why are Canada and the U.S., two neighbors which share so many cultural traditions and priorities, so different regarding religion\u2019s role in public life?<\/p>\n

According to academics who have pondered that question, their history provides some answers. The United States, at independence from Britain, chose not to have a dominant, federally established church.<\/p>\n

In Canada, meanwhile, the Catholic Church was dominant in Quebec, and the Church of England \u2013 eventually named the Anglican Church of Canada \u2013 was powerful elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Professor Darren Dochuk, a Canadian who teaches history at University of Notre Dame in Indiana, says the \u201cdisestablishment\u201d of religion in the U.S. \u201cmade religious life all the more dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a country in which free faith communities have been allowed to compete in the marketplace for their share,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 20th century, you had a plethora of religious groups across the spectrum who all competed voraciously for access to power,\u201d he said. \u201cMore recently, the evangelicals are really dominating that. \u2026 Religious conservatives are imposing their will on Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been no equivalent faith-based surge in Canada, said Dochuk, suggesting that Canada\u2019s secularization produced \u201cprecipitous decline in the power of religion as a major operator in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carmen Celestini, professor of religious studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said that Trump\u2019s talk about Canada becoming the 51st state fueled a greater sense of national unity among most Canadians, and undermined the relatively small portion of them who identify as Christian nationalists, Celestini said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada came together more as a nation, not sort of seeing differences with each other, but seeing each other as Canadians and being proud of our sovereignty and who we are as a nation,\u201d she said. \u201cThe concern that Canadians have, when we look at what\u2019s happening in America, is that we don\u2019t want that to happen here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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