Can Evangelicals unite for a hurting Canada?
Canadians have long taken pride in our social safety net. It’s far from perfect, but most agree everyone should have access to basic food, health, education, employment and housing support.
Yet that net is badly torn in every Canadian province today. Tent encampments expose a crisis in housing and income inequality. Overcrowded emergency rooms and doctor shortages stretch our health systems almost to the breaking point. Thousands lack timely mental health care, addiction recovery programs or even basic food security.
And there are still over 35 long-term boil water advisories on Canadian Indigenous reserves.
How did we get here?
Our current social safety net goes back partly to a 1943 federal report by Dr. L. C. Marsh, Social Security for Canada, which recommended a guaranteed "social minimum" including unemployment benefits, disability support, retirement pensions, health insurance, family allowances and a federally funded public works program to ensure full employment.
A vision for universal medicare, launched by Saskatchewan Baptist preacher and premier Tommy Douglas, began to take shape by 1947.
Canadian churches gradually handed off social responsibility to government, shifting to a prophetic role of criticizing government programs that fell short.
Now in the 2000s government and NGOs seem unable to fill many basic services. Even where churches admirably step in with practical programs, demands continue to grow as faith communities shrink.
How will Evangelicals pool resources to create unified housing ministries, care networks or emergency relief centres?
Many people facing poverty, isolation, housing insecurity or chronic pain are seeking state-sanctioned death (medical assistance in dying, or MAiD) simply because they can’t access the supports needed to live well. When death substitutes for care, it’s a sign the social safety net is nearing collapse.
For the church community this is not merely an issue of government budget priorities, but a theological crisis. How should the gospel address it?
The Good News is that God in Jesus Christ has taken on flesh and human vulnerability to heal, restore and reconcile a broken world to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:18–19). As ambassadors of the gospel (5:20), we should not think that caring for those suffering or living with vulnerabilities is an afterthought to mission. Such care is the natural outworking of the gospel. Now is "the year of the Lord’s favour," as Jesus proclaimed (Luke 4:16–19).
Dear evangelical Christians, without denying we disagree on many things, what would happen if we resolved to step into the gaps of a torn social safety net to catch those falling through?
Could we, for the sake of God’s Kingdom and our fellow image bearers, exercise spiritually empowered imagination about what we could do together for the glory of God in Canada?
If so, how might we go about it?
First, let’s pray with corporate repentance and vision, remembering prayer is not a preamble to action but the essential work of aligning ourselves with God’s heart (1 Timothy 2:1–2). Can we confess our self-sufficiency, occasional superiority complex and failure to acknowledge one God, one Lord Jesus Christ, one Holy Spirit and one Body?
Then can we ask God to give us the Samaritan’s compassion (Luke 10:25–37) for the blind, beaten and dying among us?
Second, let’s strategize together with the congregation down the street, the ministerial in our region, other denominations, businesses, organizations, think tanks and schools seeking creative ways to address these social woes.
The scale of Canada’s social crises exceeds what any single church can address, so how will Evangelicals pool resources to create unified housing ministries, care networks, mental health support or emergency relief centres?
Third, let’s agree on the need for a unified voice of advocacy – even alongside those with whom we have theological disputes. We must learn not only to build relationships with those on the margins, but to speak with a clear, united, prophetic voice to government.
We need to advocate for the freedom of faith communities to protect the vulnerable, support affordable housing, expand palliative care and strengthen mental health infrastructure without burdensome public restrictions.
Our advocacy must show that Christians care deeply for human life from conception to natural death.
The torn social safety net in Canada presents the evangelical Church with a defining moment. Will we continue in isolated corners, lamenting cultural decline? Or will we step courageously together into the gaps, visibly united in common gospel witness?