OTTAWA, ON-Parliamentarians, diplomats and religious leaders gathered for breakfast at the end of March and heard all about Jesus.
Although most of the people who came to the 39th annual National Prayer Breakfast for Our Nation’s Leaders are Christians, representatives from other faiths, including Judaism and Islam, were among those attending the Parliament Hill event on March 25.
During some recent ecumenical events, Christian leaders have tread carefully to avoid offending people with other beliefs. Often they avoid naming Jesus or reciting Scripture verses that refer specifically to Christ. In some more notorious instances, such as the 1998 memorial service for Swiss Air Flight 111, Christian leaders were specifically asked not to mention Jesus.
In 2001, when nearly 100,000 gathered on Parliament Hill to remember the attacks on September 11, then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s government allowed none of the invited religious leaders to pray publicly.
However, Christine Botchway, an Edmonton dentist, author of eight published novels and keynote speaker for the breakfast, wasn’t holding back when she described herself as a follower of Jesus Christ.
Botchway praised Canada as a country that honours and respects a diversity of cultures, races and religions and shared how some of her best friends during her school days were a Muslim and an atheist.
Love, not tolerance
While urging people to tear down walls that divide people, Botchway blasted tolerance as alien to her beliefs. Describing tolerance as reluctant acceptance, Botchway said, "Jesus does not teach tolerance. He preaches sacred love.
"Tolerance is a counterfeit love that the world offers as a whitewash," she said. "Jesus shows us the love that crosses all barriers."
For example, she said, Rwanda was a tolerant country before a genocidal massacre led to the murder of a million people. "Tolerance can come to an end abruptly. Love lasts forever."
Urging Canada to be a beacon of hope to the world, Botchway praised Canadian General Romeo Dallaire for his role in trying to prevent the Rwandan genocide. "If we are light bearers, we ought not to allow another act of genocide," she said. "We have the power to do something."
Botchway ended her speech with a song about Canada as a shining hope in the world and drew a standing ovation. She was born in Toronto but grew up in West Africa, has been singing to raise money to help the 42 million people devastated by AIDS on that continent.
Working together
At the heart of the national prayer breakfast are smaller weekly meetings were "MPs can find ways of being and working together across political, social and religious boundaries," says Liberal MP John MacKay, the former chair of the National Prayer Breakfast.
The off-the-record prayer meetings are meant to support public leaders and help with personal problems, rather than provide a place for lobbying or trying to change points of view. "Our purpose is to call men and women to God and to equip them to serve with God’s grace," says MacKay.
Elsie Wayne, MP for Saint John, New Brunswick, represented the new Conservative Party at the head table. She says this year’s event was her last, as she is retiring, but that the breakfast is "dear to her heart." The weekly prayer meetings helped assuage some the loneliness of her early days on Parliament Hill, she says, when she and Jean Charest made up the entire Progressive Conservative caucus.
During the March 25 event, NDP Leader Jack Layton read from 1 Corinthians 12 about the body of Christ. Cotler, who is Jewish and read from Isaiah, represented the Liberal Party. MP Odina Desrochers, reading from 1 Corinthians 13, represented the Bloc Quebecois.
Neither Prime Minister Paul Martin, nor the new leader of the Conservative Party, Stephen Harper, attended the breakfast.
