LETTER

Religion and faith still have a major role 

 

In response to your occasional editorial comment dismissing religion and its effects on society, there would have been no labour movement without a social gospel underpinning it.  In the US, there would have been no abolition movement without William Lloyd Garrison and other people of deep faith. Without strong voices from the social gospel movement, there may have never been a New Deal. There would have been no Civil Rights Movement without the moral framework underneath the Movement. Martin Luther King was a minister. In Canada, the CCF and NDP were formed by religious people as much as unionists. There would not have been a critique of poverty and unchecked capitalism, labour rights, healthcare, criminal justice reform, climate change, and raising the minimum wage, without a moral premise underneath it. Moral framing allows us to change the language, and through that we gain a better understanding and a willingness to change social practices.  

Your occasional diatribe misses the complexity of modern politics.

John Audette
Aylmer