Evangelicals transform Christian unity in Canada

Toronto
The increasing political influence of evangelical Christians in Canada is changing the face of Christian unity here. More than half the members of the Canadian legislature belonging to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party are evangelical Christians, according to an article published in Walrus magazine, a Toronto-based magazine.  

“They are becoming the mainline and we are becoming the sideline,” says Lois Wilson, former president of the World Council of Churches, now serving as the ecumenist-in-residence at the Toronto School of Theology.  

Still, Bruce Clemenger, the president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, says the two groupings have co-operated on poverty reduction campaigns and have made a joint intervention on bio-ethics to Canada’s Supreme Court. Such collaboration, he says, is due to “a focus on what Christians share in common,” rather than to changes in church demographics.