Alberta separatism: is it wrong to go?
I have deep roots in Alberta, having lived there for the first 30+ years of my life. I was also heavily involved in politics through a half dozen different campaigns, and during those years I thought long and hard about what a better Alberta might look like.
I have since been separated from my home province by mileage and decades. While I am still a very interested observer, the distance allows me to act as more of an impartial observer than I would have been able to be two decades ago. I’m going to try here, to make a limited point – that it would be okay for Alberta to go. Not that it should go, but just that going is an option on the table that Christians can consider.
Even as I think the referendum is well worth talking about, I don’t think it has any chance of success. A June 5 Ipsos poll had only 19% of Albertans interested in starting the process, and only 18% who actually wanted to go. Angus Reid had support as high as 35% for starting the process, but that was back in May, and their guesstimate was the highest of all the pollsters.
So, I’m not writing to sway voters one way or the other. The reason I wanted to write is because some of the issues brought up are universal – they apply not just for Albertans trying to figure out how to vote, but whenever Christians are making any decision. Kevin DeYoung tackled decision-making in his excellent book Just Do Something, so, inspired by him, here are a handful of questions to help shape a Christian’s decision-making process.
Q.1 HAS GOD LEFT THE DECISION UP TO ME?
Another way to phrase this question would be, is this a wrong/right matter? If it is, then we know what to do – we need to do whatever it is that God commands. Screwing up the courage to do so might be hard, but if we know it is a moral matter then we already know what we should do. God’s will be done.
However, as Kevin DeYoung notes in Just Do Something, a lot of our decisions aren’t so simple, precisely because they aren’t about wrong or right. God leaves some pretty big decisions up to us: what kind of job we’ll pursue, where we’ll live, who we will marry, whether we should partner up to start a company. Big stuff. Huge stuff!
We can and should look to God for guidance, and talk to our parents and the other wise people He’s gifted us. We can come to Him in prayer and ask Him to make our motivations pure. We can look to His word for wisdom. But then it is up to us; He gives us a decision to make.
Take marriage as an example. You can look over every page of the Bible, and you just aren’t going to find the name of the person God has in mind for you. He’s left it to you, to figure out who you have in mind for you. Now, you can’t marry an unbeliever because He’s said we should not be unequally yoked (2 Cor. 6:14). He also offers guidance on the kind of man or woman you should be impressed by. But, if a young man, Timmy, has a couple of those kind of ladies sitting in the pews nearby him each Sunday, then it will be up to him to make a choice. And up to whoever Timmy asks to make her own.
Now let’s direct the question above to the separation referendum: is this a matter of wrong and right? The possible answers to the question can go a few different ways:
1. Yes it is, which is why we have to vote against
2. Yes it is, so we have to vote for separation
3. No it is not, so God has left the decision up to us.
So which is it?
Before trying to answer that, let’s clear away one distraction. That something can be done for the wrong reasons is not proof that it is wrong. Mankind has the sad ability to make just about anything immoral if we try.
So, as noted, Timmy could have a couple of wonderful godly young women to consider – either could be a good God-honoring choice. But if he asks out Helen only because she has a cool car he’d like to drive, his selfishness and disregard for her heart would turn a legitimate action into a sinful one. That doesn’t change the fact that Helen is a great girl. So, for our purposes, that people could have bad motivations for voting for (or against) separation is not what we’re trying to figure out. It is no surprise that it could be done sinfully because anything can be done sinfully. But what we’re trying to figure out is whether seeking to leave Canada is sinful all by itself, or whether it’s something God leaves for us to decide.
To that end let’s ask a couple of clarifying questions.
A) Is there something about leaving that is wrong?
Some Christians have invoked Romans 13 to argue that because God calls us to be in submission to our authorities it would be wrong for Alberta to remove itself from being under the authority of the federal government.
It’s a good idea to go to Scripture, but let’s dig a little deeper and consider what sort of submission God speaks of here. Under a dictatorship, as Paul and most of the world lived under when this was written, they had no means of changing their leaders. But in a democracy, we do. So, while we know God has placed the Liberals in charge of Canada, we don’t think it would be wrong for us to try, via democratic means, to remove ourselves from being under their authority the next time an election is called. We’d likely thank God for such a result.
So, how then, is it so very different for Alberta, via democratic means, to seek to replace this authority over them? Can we characterize such a vote as rebellion against, or disrespect for God’s appointed authorities? No, because, after all, this is simply following the process via the means those authorities laid out.
This is an important point – what submission involves – that often gets confused, such that some Christians will characterize taking the government to court as disrespectful, because, again, didn’t God put them in authority over us? But Paul used the courts (Acts 25), and could do so while writing Romans 13, because those courts and that process were a part of the very authority he was in submission to. And what we have in the separation referendum is another government-given process that we can access in submission.
B) Would it be wrong not to go?
Or in other words, should Christians feel obligated to vote for the referendum?
While I think there are reasons that could be offered for leaving, that’s not the same thing as saying Christians must choose to go. To go back to Timmy and his marriage prospects, that there are reasons for him to ask out Susan doesn’t mean he has to. There are, after all, other possibilities to consider, including Helen.
So would it actually be wrong to stay?
I think that would be a very tough case to make but let’s for the sake of argument, make a hypothetical case where it wouldn’t be so tough. Let’s imagine that the federal government was evil – it was murdering a quarter of its citizens before they were even born, and was now going after the elderly and disabled too. We won’t find that hard to imagine, because that is what’s happening right now. Now let’s imagine Alberta was ruled by wise godly Christians who sought to honor God, and were desperately trying to stop the federal government from pushing abortion and euthanasia in their province but they just couldn’t so long as the province was still under the federal thumb. In those circumstances would it be wrong to stay?
Under those circumstances, I think we might well conclude it would be wrong, based on just how many unborn and elderly and disabled lives could be saved if Alberta left.
But those aren’t the circumstances we have, are they?
Even Alberta at its best is far from godly. Danielle Smith has no qualms about abortion, and euthanasia is paid for by provincial coffers with no protest. Even where the province is out of step with the rest of our Liberal country, it is only a half-step, with the premier’s stance against transgenderism a good example. Yes, she defended kids from this mutilation, but at the very same time she was recruiting doctors from Quebec to better enable confused Albertan adults to mutilate themselves.
So this is not some black and white choice between an evil and a godly government. And as such, I don’t think there is a clear case to be made that Alberta must go either.
Which would mean God is leaving the decision to us.
Q.2 HOW IMPORTANT IS THIS?
We make a million decisions every day, and not all of them deserve the same amount of attention. So we need to treat things proportionately.
If you are going to buy a new car, that deserves more of your time and maybe prayerful consideration than if you’re buying a coffee. Though if you’re buying a coffee every day, that could warrant some consideration too, because that’s now become a bigger budgetary matter. But not everything is big. If you’re trying to decide between toast and cereal this morning, it’s not worth much brain space. Don’t take forever deciding – that’d be wasting the time that God has entrusted to your care.
So, we do need to treat big things as big, but also treat small things as small. And I’d make the case that for the vast majority of us, the separation referendum shouldn’t be a big thing.
Why? First, there’s every reason to think the separation vote is going to lose in a landslide. So, give it enough time to go cast your vote, but there are a lot of matters likely to actually happen that are, therefore, more deserving of your attention.
Second, even if separation were to happen, would it solve any of our most pressing political problems? No. If it were only the Alberta government in power, God’s people would still need to be just as busy standing up for the unborn, the elderly, and the disabled.
So, this isn’t nothing; but it isn’t the big way forward that will save Alberta either. We can give it more brain space and passion than our toast vs. cereal dilemma, but for both practical and prioritization reasons, should it get all that much more?
Q.3 ARE MY MOTIVATIONS PURE?
As noted, we can do the right thing for the wrong reasons. That’s why Kevin DeYoung suggests (again, in his excellent book Just Do Something) that when we’re making the very decisions that God has left up to us – what job we’ll take, whether we’re going to move, whether we should buy that gaming system – a good prayer we can bring to Him is to ask that He make our motivations pure.
So, it’s important that Christians don’t vote for separation with a middle finger in the air aimed at Ottawa. But in our call to love our neighbors as ourselves, someone might vote for separation thinking of what a helpful example a free Alberta could be to the rest of Canada, showing what could be done with a different approach.
One Albertan might vote for separation thinking that if only we stop those equalization payments, Albertans, and more specifically him, will now be able to live a life of leisure, rolling in all those extra billions. But another voter might well want separation to end those equalization payments so that the federal government will stop incentivizing people to live where jobs are hard to come by. They could vote out of concern for their neighboring Canadians who are getting harmed by this government program.
So, the same act – the same decision – could be done in submission or defiance of God, based on our own motivations. Let’s pray, then, that God be honored in all that we do.
Q.4 IN MY ESTIMATION, IS IT WISE?
So where do we land when a matter isn’t wrong or right, when we have given it its due consideration, and after we’ve questioned our own motivations? Then we arrive at the point where we have to decide for ourselves whether it is the wise thing to do.
Wisdom can be sought in consultation. Ask your parents. Read relevant articles. Debate things with your friends. But it’ll be up to you.
CONCLUSION
I’m not going to make a case for separation or against, but I hope I’ve made a good case for Christian liberty. And in doing so, I hope I’ve also made the case for charity towards your brothers and sisters who are voting the opposite way you are. We do need to vote to God’s glory. But what I’m arguing here is that in this referendum, that will be done more through the motivation and manner in which we vote, than in what direction we cast our ballot.
Honoring God is more than submitting to His will, but certainly not less. When He has expressed His will, then we need to submit no matter what it might cost to follow Him. But we can be bold too, when He leaves the decision-making up to us, knowing that our Heavenly Father will be pleased with whatever we might decide, just so long as we are trying to please Him....
