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Christian education

Educating Royalty

 We must teach our children to be Kingdom heirs—not just laborers in the marketplace

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“Who are you?” a university student once asked me.

Odd question, I thought. I’d handled countless student questions, but this one caught me unprepared.

“Uh . . . I’m a professor,” I answered weakly.

“No!” he shot back. “I don’t mean what do you do, but who are you?”

His question unsettled me. Like most North Americans, I’d been carefully, though not intentionally, catechized since a lad at my parents’ side that the first and most important question we ask adults at first meeting (after getting their name) is, “What do you do?”

I’d learned that catechism lesson well, repeating it literally hundreds of times in all kinds of social settings over the years. But that catechism had left me quite unprepared to answer this more fundamental question about my personal identity separate from my place in the market.

That grieved me because, as a Christian, I had been better versed in the catechism of secular pragmatism than in Lord’s Days 12 and 13 or the Scriptures. And I knew I wasn’t the only one.

The answer that changes everything

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.... – Romans 8:16-17a

As I have reflected on that encounter over the years, I’ve realized that the biblical and covenantal answer to the question, “Who are you?” is a glorious one that stands in stark contrast to the secular myth that our employment or “career” defines us. Of course, our work and callings as Christians in the marketplace are important. Providing for our families is a great privilege and responsibility. But the priority of work in both our lives and the education of our children is almost certainly misplaced and overemphasized today in Reformed circles.

Our Calvinistic work ethic and sense of vocation – serving the Lord in all things – are a glorious heritage, but in our 21st century context, they have become largely indistinguishable from the middle class idolatry common among our unbelieving neighbors (i.e., having “another object in which men place their trust” ).

In fact, over 30+ years of university teaching, evenly divided between secular universities and Christian colleges, I can testify that the one question all parents – Christian and non-Christian alike – ask about higher education is, “What kind of job can my kid get when he/she graduates?”

Intended or not, that question reveals deep worldview priorities. And such a question is certainly not the fruit of careful, prayerful parental reflection on what it means to educate covenant children as heirs of Christ who will seek first the kingdom.

By contrast, the Scriptures never identify God’s covenant children as people with jobs who happen to hold to a particular religious tradition. Instead, the Bible repeatedly calls us heirs of a kingdom, the adopted sons and daughters of the King of the universe. We are not just Christians who happen to have various jobs or work to do. We are royalty (Rom. 8:14-17, Eph. 1:3-6, I Pet. 2:9).

We will reign over all creatures with Christ eternally (Heid. Cat., Q. 32). We are the adopted children of God and fellow heirs with Jesus, with all the privileges of the sons of God (Luke 2:11, Acts 10:36, I Tim. 6:15, Rev. 19:16; Heid. Cat., Q. 34). We are princes and princesses of the King of kings!  We are royal heirs! 

And that answer to the question, “Who are you?” changes everything!

Like young Prince George, the baby heir to the throne of England and the United Kingdom, a day mustn’t pass that we wonder who we are, why we are being educated, and what we are being prepared to be and to do. We are heirs to a throne and a Kingdom far greater and more glorious than the one in England. The House of Windsor pales in comparison to Jesus’s realm and our divine inheritance! How much more, then, should we, who are heirs of the King of kings and Lord of lords, prepare ourselves and our children to be thoroughly and faithfully educated in everything it means to be a son and daughter of the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord of the Universe. Thoroughly and faithfully educated in everything it means to be royalty.

What does that look like?

If we understand we are educating royalty, how should that impact how we teach, and what we expect?

Then we will understand there is no time for the wicked nonsense about “sowing wild oats” or setting a low bar of expectations for our children. That is the rebellious spirit of prodigals who forget who they (and their children) really are. Those who are in line to take their places in Christ’s kingdom as princes and princesses must expect more of themselves and of their children. “To whom much is given, much is required” (Luke 12:48).  Because we are royalty in Christ, God has king-sized expectations and blessings in store for us and our children – if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The entire book of Proverbs is Solomon’s instruction to his royal heirs to

know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth – let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles (Prov. 1:2-6).

Such an education must provide much more than an awareness of fragmented facts or specialized work skills for a place in the job market. Again, that’s not to say that facts and skills are not important. Nor is it to say that we should suddenly trade pragmatic, nose-to-the-grindstone sweat of our brows for pious sounding spiritual platitudes.

The issues are

  1. where does the education of Christ’s royal heirs fit in our list of priorities and
  2. what should that education look like.

Priorities: We are royalty. So start acting like it. 

Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? "My son, do not regard lightly the instruction of the Lord, nor be weary when corrected by him. For the Lord instructs the one he loves, and corrects every son whom he receives." It is for instruction that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. – Hebrews 12:5-7

Those who are fellow heirs in Christ know that His regal ways are not the power-grabbing, lording-it-over-others, self-seeking ways of the ungodly. Far from it. Christ ascended to His Father’s throne only after sacrificing everything for His people and His creation. He gave himself away. His royal way is the way of selfless love and sacrifice. He died that we might die to sin and death. He lives that we might live in glory forever. Sacrificial service for the sake of the kingdom is the mark of true kingship, true royalty. It characterizes our Lord Christ. And it must characterize our Lord’s true heirs in their lives and in their education.

As Christ’s royal heirs, we dare not be content to prepare ourselves or our children merely to be cogs in the economic machinery of our secular consumer culture. Even the ancients understood that slaves are only trained to perform tasks. They have no rights of inheritance, no deeper identity. A slave’s identity is his work.

But free citizens and royalty, who will dedicate themselves to the advance of the kingdom, must be educated deeply for the day when their royal leadership and service is expected. Similarly, we are called to a higher purpose and bear greater responsibility for how we live and prepare our children for their royal callings.

Unfortunately, we have, as the author of Hebrews suggests, forgotten the divine exhortation to educate our children in the nurture and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4, Heb. 12:5ff). We have forgotten in part because we have forgotten who we are.

A Royal education: Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning

This memory lapse is most evident in how we educate our children today. Education, even that which purports to be Christian, is now often devoted primarily to the goal of producing good little workers for the secular labor force, efficient widgets for our economy’s production line, and little more.

That falls far short of the biblical expectation that Christian children be saturated in the instruction of the Lord and grow up knowing what it means to be royal heirs of Christ the King. An education bearing the name of the King ought, at the least, to offer His royal heirs...

1. A comprehensive and integrative understanding of God’s world and of how all things cohere in the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:4-11). 

Such an education will give children the “big picture” of how all things, all spheres of creation, are interrelated in the glory of their Creator.

The university itself was a Christian invention in the Middle Ages (the earliest established between A.D. 1100 and 1200), designed to give students an integrated Christian vision and foundation for all future learning. That was the original purpose of the classical liberal arts (meaning, the arts of a free citizen). For almost a millennium, Christian universities taught the classical liberal arts or the so-called Trivium and Quadrivium:

  • The Trivium, or the Three Ways, stressed the good structure of language (Grammar), the way to discern truth (Logic), and how to express truth beautifully (Rhetoric)—all to encourage a student’s life-long love of goodness, truth, and beauty in words and language, as typified by the Word Himself in John 1:1-14.
  • The Quadrivium, or the Four Ways, encouraged a life-long love of goodness, truth, and beauty in the use of numbers (Arithmetic), numbers in space (Geometry), numbers in time (Music or Harmony), and numbers in space and time (Astronomy), revealing the unity and diversity of creation and of our Triune Creator Himself (Deut. 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one,” and Matt. 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”).
  • Together, the Trivium and Quadrivium, the original seven liberal arts, offered students essential insights into the harmony and wholeness of God’s diverse world and into the interrelated truth, goodness and beauty of its Triune Creator. They didn’t give students just the facts or skills for a job, but the tools of lifelong learning from a Christian perspective.

Unfortunately, today’s arbitrarily selected smorgasbord of academic subjects and randomly structured university curricula, following the modern analytic, scientific tradition, tend to do the opposite: they offer fragmented bits of information with no principle of coherence or relationship. But in God’s economy, the whole is always more than the sum of its parts. An education that does not teach us how to see the wholeness of God’s creation, and to equip us to understand how all things cohere in Christ, inevitably misses the big picture about creation and creation’s God. It is a partial, incomplete, distorted education.

Curiously, specialization at the undergraduate level was virtually unknown in North America prior to the late 19th century. University students did not “major” in a narrow academic disciplines or vocational specializations prior to 1879. They couldn’t. “Majors” simply didn’t exist before then. Instead, all undergraduates received a classical, integrated liberal arts foundation. The universities gave them essential tools for learning that applied to all their various callings as sons and daughters, spouses, parents, neighbors, citizens, providers, voters, buyers and sellers in the marketplace, and parishioners. Their work skills and the job training needed to provide for their families were developed outside the classroom in on-site training or apprenticeships done in the context where the work was actually being done. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Kuyper, C.S. Lewis – all the greatest leaders in our Christian tradition – were so classically educated in the traditional, integrative liberal arts of the Trivium and Quadrivium and practically trained.

But pragmatists of the late 19th and early 20th century sold their Christian academic birthright for a mess of modernist career pottage. They turned schools into egalitarian job training camps for the workers of the world and abandoned the Christian pursuit of wisdom and knowledge in the Lord. The schools dumbed down and the church has grown steadily weaker ever since.

Reversing that trend will require that the King’s royal heirs expect...

2. Truly godly and wise teacher-mentors (Luke 6:40). 

According to Jesus, the teacher – not the curriculum, not the lesson plan, not the technology, not the facilities, not the accreditation, not the tuition rate – is the single most important factor in a child’s education. “A student, when mature, will be like his teacher,” Jesus said. All the other bells and whistles may be nice (though they can often be more of a distraction than a help), but the teacher is key.

Yet, in my experience, Christian parents often know more about a school’s university admission rates, or a college’s career placement rates, or tuition rates, or financial aid plans, or sports programs than they do about the character and spiritual health of the men and women who will actually be shaping the minds and lives of their children in and out of the classroom. Sadly, many Christian school administrators and boards aren’t much better, giving higher priority to paper credentials and standardized test scores and bricks and mortar than to the character and spiritual integrity of their teachers. Of course, academic expertise and standardized testing have their place. But parents, administrators and school promotional literature often stress most what actually counts least from a Kingdom perspective. And such misguided emphases have the potential to catechize generations of parents and children in what is least in the Kingdom.

The teacher is so crucial, as Jesus says, because all education is fundamentally personal. That’s because truth itself is personal. Truth is a person. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Truth is not some collection of brute facts or scientifically verifiable propositions. It is a living person. Teachers either faithfully represent or embody that Truth before their students or they don’t. Parents or educators who misunderstand this crucial biblical principle put their children and students at grave risk of misunderstanding the Truth and being catechized in lies and ungodliness. No matter how much parents think their child can be a “good witness” in a secular education environment, that child is not the teacher, but the one being taught. And no matter how mature we imagine our children to be (often overestimating), their “cement is still wet.” They are still students seeking to be taught and led into maturity, readily influenced by others older and more experienced. The question is, who will teach them and lead them into what kind of maturity?

Moreover, those who think that new distance learning technologies will provide a quality education without putting their children at risk under ungodly teachers make a similar mistake. Learning godly knowledge and wisdom is not a data download. A student will be shaped by his or her teacher, no matter who that teacher is, no matter how the instruction is delivered.

Finally, the education of the King’s royal heirs ought also to include...

3. The shaping of our desires for the things of the Kingdom 

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  ... For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. – Matthew 6:25, 32-33

Jesus did not say, “Seek first vocational-technical training, and all that kingdom of God and righteousness stuff will be added later.” Yet to hear parents of university-bound students talk today about their educational goals for their children, you’d think he had. The dominant secular vocational paradigm for higher education has influenced us more on these issues than our Christian schools, our catechism classes, and even our churches. For that, we must repent. Our heavenly Father knows everything we need to live and to thrive, and He will provide them for us by His perfect means according to His perfect timing. He tells us explicitly not to stress over the little stuff. Grasping at college majors and career preparation will not add one penny to our bank accounts, put one more meal on the table, or add one more second to our lives that He has not already ordained. So stop majoring in the minors. Instead, major in God’s priorities: Christ’s kingdom and His righteousness.

What our schools and universities must encourage in our covenant children is a deeply held heart-desire for the things of God and of His Kingdom.

Conclusion

As Calvinists who take the sovereignty of God – the crown rights of Christ – seriously, we cannot, must not, train our children merely to be good little widgets in the secular marketplace who also happen to go to church each Lord’s Day. We vowed to raise them for much greater things at their baptisms.

So, “Who are you?”

  • You are the royal heirs of the King of kings; start acting like it.
  • Your children are royalty; start treating them like it.
  • Your children are inheriting a Kingdom; so start educating them for it.

 A Chinese translation of this article can be found here.
The article was first published in 2019.



News

Saturday Selections – Oct. 4, 2025

Bahnsen vs. Hitchens, the Rap Battle

Here's AI put to its weirdest and most wonderful –the late Reformed apologist Greg Bahnsen taking on the late atheist apologist Christopher Hitchens.

Were dragon stories really dinosaur encounters?

Short answer: it sure would seem so!

Where do human rights come from, senator?

A US senator thought that it was akin to being a fundamentalist Muslim to think that human rights come from God. They come from the state, he insisted. But if they come from the state, how could the state ever violate them? How could we ever complain about any state abusing human rights?

Health-care costs for typical Canadian family will reach over $19,000 this year

That we don't pay for healthcare directly doesn't mean we don't pay for healthcare. It means, at the very least, that tax dollars that go for that care aren't used for anything else. And the hidden costs of our socialized healthcare system also mean it is really hard for us to tell if we're getting value for our money.

Canadian government pushing hate speech law again

"Hatred is a real sin. But government and law enforcement cannot discern the degree of hatred in one’s heart, though they can judge and punish the things they do.

"That’s why existing prohibitions in the Criminal Code focus on prohibiting particular actions, not emotions or motivations. While Christians should condemn hateful thoughts, words, and gestures, the government cannot regulate the heart."

The dangerous logic of Moral Subjectivism

"If right and wrong are things outside of ourselves which we can't change, we need to align our behavior with what's right. But if it's the other way around, and morality is just a thing I get to make up, well, I can act however I want."

"Huh... that's basically the same as not having a moral system..."

****

This video is worth watching for what it gets right, like the above. But where it falls short is in what it settles for – that agreeing there is some sort of objective moral standard outside ourselves is all that's really important. The problem is, ideologies and religions can hold to an objective truth that includes the notion that "conversion by the sword" is a legitimate means of persuasion. So, for example, it isn't enough that an ISIS jihadist thinks a moral standard exists outside himself, he isn't about debate and dialogue.

This sort of short-sightedness is what happens when we appeal to the fruits of Christianity without actually holding to the Root of it, Christ Himself. Civil discourse is a fruit of the only real objective standard that exists, God's morality, which teaches us:

  1. God has no interest in merely outward observance (Is. 1:13), discouraging any attempts at compelled belief.
  2. to treat others as we would like to be treated (Matt. 7:12), prompting civil discourse.
  3. to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-4), prompting civil discourse.
  4. it is good to hear both sides (Prov. 18:17), which encourages hearing out things you might disagree with.
  5. we are all made in the Image of God (Gen. 9:6), and that hate is the equivalent of murder (Matt. 5:21-22), which both, again, encourage civil discourse.

So not just any objective moral standard will do. Civil discourse is a fruit of Christianity, and as we are seeing, a nation that turns from Him will slowly but surely start losing the fruit of the Christian faith, including civility.


Today's Devotional

October 5 - Elder essentials (II)

“If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or subordination.” - Titus 1:6

Scripture reading:1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:1-9

We are not naturally bent to submit to authority. We are naturally inclined to be suspicious of authority, to mistrust, to question leadership and authority, and to rebel against >

Today's Manna Podcast

Manna Podcast banner: Manna Daily Scripture Meditations and open Bible with jar logo

I am the Resurrection and the Life

Serving #986 of Manna, prepared by D. VandeBurgt, is called "I am the Resurrection and the Life" and is based on John 11:25.











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News

Saturday Selections - October 23, 2021

"Who's on first?" gets a modern update At the risk of killing the joke, it's worth a moment's reflection on what makes this funny. In Abbott and Costello's original, the confusion was caused by the unlikely names of the players. This time the confusion is caused by people who want to unhinge pronoun usage from the biological reality of sex, and instead tie it to the social construct of gender. And because a social construct is, well, constructed that means it can be reconstructed, right? And not just once either. That's how we get to individualized pronouns, which can change on a whim. The benefit of this approach? What it lacks in clarity, it might make up for in hilarity. Except "they" don't really have a sense of humor. The other alternative? To ignore gender as the ill-defined, meaningless social construct that it is, and use pronouns to refer to an unchanging biological reality instead. As always, it is Christ or chaos. Atheists and agnostics who admire Christianity (10-minute read) Jonathon Van Maren on the notable unbelievers who've come to believe that much of the good in the world springs out of a Christian worldview. Gratitude is good for you But as John Stonestreet notes, secular folk don't know Who to be grateful to. Covid vaccines, fetal cells, and ethical concerns Pro-life advocate Randy Alcorn shares his careful research. On Christians celebrating Halloween "...This obviously can (and should) include kids dressing up and getting boatloads of candy, but I would strongly urge that no one have their kids dress up as members of the other team — witches, ghosts, devils, imps, or congressmen.... So if you take your kid around to grandma’s house dressed up like a red M&M, or like Theodore Beza, don’t have them say trick or treat the same way some ghost or witch would. Of course, repent or perish or sola fide probably wouldn’t work either. Let’s do this differently, and intelligently, and still have fun. So have them say trick or treat the way a cute M&M would." More ground-breaking research evolutionists won't do Were the layers in the Grand Canyon folded soon after they were laid down by the Flood, or did it happen later, as the evolutionary account presumes? This is testable... Should there be racial quotas at university? Ophelie Jacobson asked University of Florida students if they supported "diversity quotas" (a form of affirmative action) where students are identified by their race, and admitted in proportion to the local racial make-up. In other words, if the local population was 35% white, 30% black, 25% Hispanic, and 10% Asian, then that's the percentage of whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians that should be let into university, irrespective of their grades. The students were generally in favor... until Ophelie asked if that would also be a good approach for their beloved football team (and she was asking this on Game Day!). Diversity quotas have meant Asians need to score higher than whites and blacks on admissions tests to get into some universities. Why? Because there are, by diversity quota standards, too many Asians on campus. So some colleges lower their numbers by specifically raising the requirements for Asians. Do two wrongs make a right? If it was wrong to discriminate against blacks in the past (and it was) then how can the fix be to discriminate against Asians now? The Bible condemns discrimination, whichever direction it goes (Ex. 23:2-3, Lev. 19:15). ...

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Book Reviews, Graphic novels

Kitten Construction Company: meet the house kittens

by John Patrick Green 70 pages / 2018 The author of Hippopotamister is back with another charming treat for early readers. The story begins with "the city of Mewburg preparing for a big project..." They are building a new mansion for the mayor, and to get it started the city planner has to find the right architect. He has a few candidates to chose from, and the first up has a brilliant design. But there is a problem: the architect is a cute kitten! "Sorry," he tells little Marmalade, "I regret that you are just too adorable to be taken seriously." When Marmalade goes off to drown his sorrows in a saucer of warm milk, he meets another kitten dealing with the very same problem: no one is giving him a chance, because he's just so cute. The two decide that maybe they can team up. When they get hired on to help at a big construction project, they think that maybe their luck has turned. But they soon realize that they aren't being given actual work - just busy-work projects. That's when they decided that if no one else will take them seriously, they'll go out on their own. And that's how the Kitten Construction Company is born! The kittens get to show their talents when the official mayor's mansion falls to pieces, and they can then take the media and their mayor to see their own, gorgeous, and fully upright, version. That's when everyone has to acknowledge that cute isn't the opposite of capable. While most of the book's intended audience won't realize it, the author is kindly and gently poking fun at discrimination. He's making the lesson gentle, by making the source of discrimination "cuteness" rather than skin color or gender but what comes through is that treating people based on how they look rather than what they can do is ridiculous. He's also not hammering kids over the head with the lesson, feeling free to divert from the lesson to bring in some funny cat jokes. The sequel deals with a similar anti-discrimination theme when the kittens get the call to design and build a bridge. As everyone knows, cats don't like water, so they'll need some help with this job. And standing ready are...the Demo Doggos. Dogs? Marmalade isn't sure. Will that be, as the title asks, A Bridge Too Fur? ...





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Politics

Reforming Canada's electoral system?

During the 2015 federal election, the Liberals campaigned on bringing in electoral reform. While they didn't deliver on that promise, they weren't the first to propose fundamentally changing the way Canadians vote, and they likely won't be the last. So what prompted their promise? Why did they think voters wanted a new electoral system? What exactly needs fixing with our current system? And what are the advantages and disadvantages of the alternatives? THE CASE AGAINST FPTP The common complaint with our current First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) system is that it doesn’t seem to reflect voters’ wishes. Under it a candidate doesn’t need a majority of the vote to get elected; he only needs one vote more than the second-place finisher. So, for example, in the 2015 Federal election that meant one candidate – the NDP’s Brigette Sansoucy – was able to win a seat in the House of Commons even though she received only 28.7 percent of the vote. In her riding almost three-quarters of voters picked someone else, and yet she is still their elected representative. In 2015 the FPTP system also allowed the Liberals to win a decided majority of the seats (54.4 percent) even though they had a decided minority of the votes (only 39.5 percent). Situations like this are why our representative democracy can be criticized for not being all that representative. THE RANKED BALLOT: FOR So what sort of electoral reforms have been proposed? The Liberals' plans never got all that specific, but back in 2014, in an appearance at Ontario’s Western University, Justin Trudeau told students, “I like the idea of a ranked ballot.” There’s a clear reason why the Liberals would. Under a ranked ballot (or preferential) system voters would rank the candidates from first to last (see the picture). If no one got 50 per cent of the vote, then the candidate with the least 1st place votes would be dropped off, and his ballots would be redistributed according to who those voters had marked as their second choice. The advantage of this system is that the eventual winner can claim the legitimacy of having more than 50% of voters picking him. He may not have been their first pick, but he was at least someone they voted for. THE RANKED BALLOT: AGAINST The problem with the ranked ballot is that it gives an advantage to whatever parties are present in the "middle" of the political spectrum. Why? Because when voters on the right or left rank their second choices they aren’t going to pick the parties on the other side of the spectrum. Instead they are going to default to the candidate who is the closest to them. In Canada that means an NDP voter will likely rank the Liberals second (or third behind the Greens), and rank the Conservative last. Likewise, a Conservative voter is more likely to rank the Liberals second than he is to pick the NDP or Greens. So Liberals can count on getting far more of the second-pick votes than any of their political rivals. There is a systemic bias in their favor. CBC’s Eric Grenier estimated that under a ranked ballot the Liberals would have picked up an additional 40 seats last election (mostly at the expense of the Conservatives). No wonder then that the Prime Minister prefers ranked ballots. PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION: FOR Another alternative often proposed is proportional representation (PR). While there are many forms of PR, the basic premise is that all involve parties getting seats in proportion to their total vote total. Under this arrangement, if we use the 2015 election as our example again, since the Liberals took 39.5% of the popular vote they would have ended up with just 39.5% of the seats in Parliament. That means that, as Eric Grenier noted, under the most basic form of PR, in the 2015 election the Liberals would have lost 50 seats, while the Conservatives would have gained 10, the Green Party 11, and the NDP 23 more. Interestingly, it is under the PR system that the Christian Heritage Party (CHP) is most likely to prosper. While the CHP’s 15,284 votes in the 2015 election wouldn’t have been enough to garner them an MP, under a PR system, Christians who had previously wanted to vote for them but thought it a wasted ballot could now cast that vote knowing it would help elect at least an MP or two. PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION: AGAINST But PR also opens up possibilities for other smaller parties too. The CHP would finally be in the House of Commons but there would also be a representative or from the Marijuana Party. We’d likely see a Communist too, and maybe even a Rhinoceros Party MP (yes, there really is a federal Rhinoceros Party of Canada). In addition, it would become harder for any one party to win an outright majority. As the Fraser Institute reports in their booklet Electoral Rules and Fiscal Outcomes, from 2000-1015  In countries with PR election systems...83 percent of elections resulted in coalition governments. That might not sound like much of a problem – so what if some parties have to work together? Why wouldn’t that be a good thing? The reason its a problem is because when a coalition government is built, each participant does so on the condition that they get something out of it. And that “something” usually requires the outlay of money. In the same booklet, the Fraser Institute noted that PR governments spend an average of 29% of their country’s GDP, whereas other governments elected via means such as ranked ballots or the FPTP spend only 23% of the GDP. So a downside to any PR type of system is that taxes will likely go up. Coalition governments are costly! Another downside? It increases party leaders' power. Proportional Representation most often involves voting for a party, not a candidate. A party puts out a list of their candidates, in an order of their choosing, and if they get enough votes for, say, three MPs, then the three people at the top of their list will get in. Canadian party leaders already have dictatorial powers over their MPs, and the PR system would only increase that power – refuse to pick up your party leader's drycleaning and he'll bump you down your party's list, or take you off it entirely. The last thing we need is to strengthen party leaders' stranglehold over their party's MPs. CONCLUSION Some countries have adopted a mixture of these different systems, which means there are a limitless number of possibilities. But these three are the core sorts. So what system should we, as Christians, push for? Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and there isn't an electoral system free of flaws. Ranked ballots give the centrist Liberals an advantage over the other parties that they don’t deserve, while proportional representation seems likely to expand the size of government and strengthen party leaders' power. None of these are attractive alternatives. Meanwhile, even as FPTP frequently gives minorities a majority of seats, that bias isn't specific to one particular party. So I will say of our present system what Winston Churchill once said about democracy: First-Past-The-Post is the worst form of electoral system…except for all others. A version of this article first appeared in the September 2016 issue under the title "Canada's electoral reform."...

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Politics

Dethroning the dictator

A simple electoral reform that might actually make our democracy more representative **** Canada’s democratic system has been likened to a four-year “elected dictatorship.” Why? The fault is often lain at the feet of our First-Past-The-Post electoral system which allows a political party with only a minority of the popular vote to form a majority government. We saw that happen again in 2015, when the federal Liberal Party won a majority government – 54% of the seats in Parliament – with only 39.5% of the votes cast. But does this make Canada a dictatorship? No, not this alone. The bigger issue is the control that party leaders have over who gets to run for their party. Anger your party leader, and he won’t sign your nomination papers. Then your only option is to run as an independent. However, independents don’t win; there have only been two elected independents over the last three elections. So if you want a seat in Parliament, you’d best not do anything to annoy your party leader. That means that, while the Liberals control Parliament, Justin Trudeau controls the Liberals. That allows him to sets the agenda for Parliament. He also chooses who will get Cabinet positions, selects individuals to the Senate, and picks Supreme Court Justices. Three hundred and thirty-eight Members of Parliament are elected, but all the power of Parliament is concentrated into the hands of this one man. Canada is an elected dictatorship. This is a problem This would be a problem even with the best and most noble of men leading our country – unfettered power is a potent temptation to anyone. As Lord Acton put it, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Our neighbor to the south recognized this corrupting effect, and it led the American Founding Fathers to design a system of government that split power between three separate branches of government: Congress would vie with the President and with the Supreme Court. The three would compete with and hold the others in check to ensure that power was never concentrated in any one branch. But what holds the prime minister’s power in check? Theoretically, it’s the other Members of Parliament (MPs). The prime minister has only one vote, so if his MPs don’t like what he is doing, they could vote against it and stop him. But that’s not how it works. As party leader he has both carrots ands sticks with which he can control his party. An MP who stays loyal may eventually get rewarded with a Cabinet position. An MP who makes trouble may get demoted or even kicked out of the party. The result? MPs dare not disagree with their leader. More parties in control So what can be done? One frequently mentioned proposal is to replace our First-Past-The-Post electoral system with some form of Proportional Representation (PR). Though there are a number of different versions of PR, under the simplest version parties would receive seats in proportion to their popular vote. So if the Liberals received 39% of the popular vote across Canada they would receive 39% of the seats in Parliament. This would result in many more minority governments, forcing the PM to share his power with the other party leaders. Instead of dictating to them he’d be forced to cooperate with them to get his bills passed. The problem with Proportional Representation is that it most often involves voting for a party, not a candidate. A party puts out some sort of list, often with an order of their choosing. If they get enough votes for, say, three MPs, then the three people at the top of their list will get in. This gives the party leader even more power over his party because anyone who isn't willing to pick up his dry cleaning will get put far down the list, or not make it at all. It's true, PR would move us from a dictatorship, but to an oligarchy; instead of rule by one party leader we would be ruled by a council made up of two or three party leaders. However, those party leaders would have an even firmer grip on their parties. So that’s not much of an improvement. Empowering MPs A better option is to change the way a party leader is chosen. Presently, party leaders are chosen by the party members. This method means that, come the next leadership election, a party will be able to sell a lot of memberships. But this is what’s behind the power imbalance: a party leader still has his carrot and stick, and the MPs have no way to constrain their party leader because he is hired and fired not by them, but by their party’s membership. What if the party leader was chosen by the MPs? That’s how it used to be done in the United Kingdom, up until the early 1980s. Under such a system a party leader would still be able to exert considerable control over his caucus, but he wouldn’t be able to run roughshod over them. If he annoyed too many, then out he’d go. There would be some balance. Individual MPs might then feel free to occasionally vote as they think best, or as their constituents think best, and not simply as their party leader thought best. This is a change that the party membership can bring about, starting at the riding level, and the pushing it on to the annual convention. It would take time to win support – this would be a multi-year process – but it can happen. And if a party's membership demands this change, then we might well end up with a more representative democracy, and without any of the radical electoral reforms that have been proposed. Of course, in a sin-stained world a democracy isn't always ideal either: just consider how giving the people their say won’t put an end to either abortion or euthanasia any time soon. But a democracy is a step up from our dictatorship of one....