In the opening sentence of a biography on the life of the late evangelist Dwight L. Moody, the writer Gamaliel Bradford, wrote:
“Surely we may end as we began, with the insistence that God is the one supreme universal need of all humanity, and that need was never more pronounced than in America today.” Would we agree with that analysis of Canada’s need as well today? That’s the question I want us to ask ourselves as we celebrate her 148th birthday this year.
Why does Canada need God? I submit for the following three reasons:
Canada needs God because of its unparalleled prosperity.
We could speak of Canada’s abounding natural resources, its increased foreign trade, its expanding bank balances (debts?), its Gibraltar-like position in the markets of the world.
We could say that there has never been a nation that has had enormous wealth that rides securely upon the top of the world. A Canadian passport opens doors to many more countries than even an American one.
And yet, we should be aware that ease, luxury and wealth have never assured national continuity. History has only one story to tell, and that is about the enervating effect of such comfortable and luxurious prosperity.
The great animals — the dinosaurs, the megalosaurs, and the huge carnivorous lizards whose skeletons we look at in wonder and amazement — were immune from harm and dangers.
They lived safely and luxuriously. Their lives were protected from injury by an impenetrable armor.
But today, they are all extinct. Luxury and an easy life destroyed them, whereas the animals that were alert to dangers are still with us.
What is true of individuals is true of nations. Life expectancy in Canada has gone up dramatically for both men and women. But trying to serve both mammon and God is sending dangerous signals to Canadians.
Canada needs God as never before because life is becoming mechanized.
The physical needs of Canadians have developed more quickly than his spiritual appetite is able to absorb.
Machines and technology have expanded, but the man who drives them is still the same as he was before the technological age came in upon us.
Instead of being the master of the machine, he is a slave of his inventions.
Of course, he is able to do more than his father did. The automobile has lengthened his legs. The airplane has lengthened his arms. Satellite television and cell phones have extended his voice.
He is able to do more, travel faster, reach out farther than his ancestors did. The modern man belongs to a technological age where technology is in high gear and in many cases it is out of control.
Who is going to control these released physical forces? Have we the character to use them?
Science has endowed man with the power of a superman, but his mind remains human.
He is like a pauper come into a fortune, a labourer who has been put into the position of the boss, a sergeant promoted to command the regiment, a slave made the master of slaves.
Man has had no training for such responsibilities as have now been thrust upon him. This new command of time and space, this mastery of unknown forces, this apparition of new perils, this entrance into untried territories is too much for man today.
For these reasons we need to have our moral and mental sanity restored. We need a new moral adjustment to our enlarged physical environment.
We need a new spiritual endowment. We need God.
Canada needs God because of its present unlimited influence in the world.
We are no longer a self-contained and self-sufficient people. We have far-reaching entangling alliances with nations of the world
Our prosperity and happiness are bound up with peoples of other lands.
In a very real sense, the world of tomorrow will be what Canada chooses to make it.
We can make it an arena of military competition. We can make it the scene of racial hatred and malice.
On the other hand, we can make this world a palace of peace. We can make it a family of friendly nations.
We do not know why nations rise and fall. But they do.
Historians tell us that nations rise and fall in regular rhythmic intervals. Arnold Toynbee, a prominent historian, is stated to have said there is only one chance for civilization to endure.
Nations have fallen because of inward decay, by committing moral suicide.
To live, Canada must lay hold on the living God. How do we do so?
Let men and women who seek positions of power publicly acknowledge God. Let them make some avowal of God’s place in the life of our nation.
Let us give our support to every institution that helps the nation to remember its dependence upon God.
Let us refuse to have anything to do with any movement that seeks to crowd God out of our life and of our institutions.
Let us practice the presence of God in business, homes and schools.
Let each of us say to his own soul: “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him” (Psalm 62:5).
Narayan Mitra is the pastor at Merritt Baptist Church.
