By Lloyd Mackey

THIS WEEK is like the fifth day of Christmas, of 12 days' fame, around The Hill, as five different groups have arranged meetings with clusters of MPs of various persuasions.

The commonality of the five is that they all come at the work they do from a serious and reasonably devout Christian perspective. But it is safe to say that their presentations will be marked as much by their differences as by their similarities.

It is usually not too difficult to learn the names of the Christian groups who are meeting with members of Parliament. Somewhat more complex for a journalist is to gain access to the meetings, as a fly on the wall, so to speak.

Some of the reticence at having a journalist -- even a Christian one -- monitor the conversations, is understandable. From the politicians' viewpoint, their roles are to listen, ponder, all the while asking penetrating questions to help them understand the various agendae. And the spokespersons for the groups would not want the general public to know too much about tactics of moral or political suasion possibly being extended toward the politicians.

I can talk a bit about the five groups and their spokespersons, and make some semi-educated suggestion about what the thrusts of their messages might be.

Let's look at them, in alphabetical order.

ARPA (Association for Reformed Political Action)

This group, as its title denotes, comes out of the Reformed or Calvinistic sector of the Christian community. Its chief presenter will be Cornelis Van Dam, the Old Testament professor at Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary. The ARPA website has a segment announcing the Hill meeting. It reveals that Van Dam will likely be addressing the topic: 'God and Government: a biblical perspective on the role of the state.'

It should be noted that this group represents the more conservative or doctrinaire segment of the Reformed faith community. Its churches usually take such titles as Canadian Reformed, Free Reformed or Reformed Presbyterian.

Cardus

This group, as well, comes from a Reformed or Calvinistic perspective, but likely closer to the centre of the political or faith spectrums than ARPA.

It is most simply defined as a "think tank". It puts a fair number of its resources into research and analysis of various political and theological ideas. Its output becomes the end product of that research. Cardus then finds various ways of releasing to theological, academic, corporate and political bodies which might find them of interest.

Cardus was known, until recently, as Work Research Foundation. It had its origins in the Christian Labour Association of Canada but has since spun off into independently from that group.

The two most likely spokespersons for Cardus are likely to be its president, Michael Van Pelt, and Ray Pennings, who edits many of its publications.

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CFAC (Canada Family Action Coalition)

CFAC and its president, Charles McVety, have become familiar sights around The Hill whenever an issue relating to sexual morals or the sanctity of life are high on the political agenda. His last time of significant media exposure was when he appeared before a Senate committee to argue in favour of restrictions of federal funding to arts groups utilizing seemingly pornographic images or writing in their work.

McVety is also president of Canada Christian College in Toronto, and associated with a number of faith-related causes, including strong support for the State of Israel. In that regard, he draws some of his gravitas from CCC's links with John Hagee, a Texas pastor and televangelist. Hagee has been responsible for raising significant sums of money for assisting Israeli "settlers" in Palestinian held territory.

Brian Rushfeldt, the CFAC executive director, is also likely to be involved in any of the group's meetings with MPs.

LLC (Laurentian Leadership Centre of Trinity Western University)

Janet Epp Buckingham, director of the Laurentian Leadership Centre, is co-ordinating the centre's session with MPs. LLC, as well as its parent university, has gained a strong reputation for developing potential young faith-based leaders for work in the political marketplace, since taking over a stately Metcalfe Street mansion half a decade ago.

The LLC presentation will be led by John Redekop, professor emeritus in political science of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo. Since retiring from WLU, Redekop has been living in his home province of British Columbia and has done a substantial amount of teaching at Trinity Western.

His 2007 book, Politics under God, has garnered significant interest with many scholars and practitioners in the fields of faith and politics.

Redekop's Hill meeting is being piggybacked on public lectures he is giving this week, as well, at the Laurentian. In those lectures, his topic is What does God expect: of governments and of citizens?

PPLC (Parliamentary Pro Life Caucus)

This particular group turns the tables a little. Rather than being approached by faith-based advocacy groups, it takes the initiative of actually forming a multi-partisan caucus.

The PPLC usually meets monthly when Parliament is in session. At any given time, there may be 50 to 75 MPs keeping in touch. It should be noted that not all those receiving PPLC information are necessarily, in themselves, pro-life or opposed to abortion. They may well, believe, quite sincerely, that, no matter their personal viewpoints, as elected officials, they need to be aware of issues that may be of concern to a fair number of their constituents.

The present chair is Rod Bruinooge, the Conservative MP from Winnipeg South. While there is provision for chairs from other parties, there have been none appointed in the present Parliament.

Usually, the PPLC invites such groups as Campaign Life Canada to advise them on current life issues.

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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

March 5/2009