With the likely passage of MP Mauril Bélanger’s Bill C-210 to change one phrase of Canada’s national anthem—supposedly to make it more “gender-inclusive”—new calls are already coming to make an even more profound change to the anthem. Voices are calling for the elimination from the anthem any reference to God and His sovereignty. This pressure, no doubt, emanates from a desire to be free from every aspect of biblical morality. If God can be made to disappear, than we can do what we want, right?

Not so fast. The image comes to mind of an ostrich, hiding its head in the sand to avoid seeing the obvious. That doesn’t make the obvious disappear. God is not going away. Opinion columnists can pontificate ad nauseum about how Canada has changed since the anthem was written and describe how our new demographic realities no longer support a Christian worldview. While the demographic changes are real and the wilful abandonment of Christian values by many in our country cannot be denied, the Creator Himself, Almighty God, Maker of heaven and earth—the One who formed the planet and made humankind to inhabit it—has not ceased to exist nor has He ceased to care about how we Canadians live our lives.

When one encounters a conflict or a contradiction between our own behaviour and the law, we have two choices: we can change our behaviour or we can try to change the law. In Canada today, and in the USA and in much of the Western world, a misguided and rebellious people are trying to change laws. The first attempt is to change the laws of the land, those written by men and women. When legislation fails, the second attempt is to override the laws of the land using the courts.

Ultimately, after a period of denial, confusion and contradiction, it becomes clear that the moral foundation of the law cannot be eliminated without getting rid of the Lawgiver. Thus, the efforts to rewrite the anthem and to remove from public life any reference to Almighty God—the God called upon in our national anthem to “keep our land”—the God referenced in the Preamble to Canada’s Charter.

The first building block of our Constitution, the foundational statement found in the Preamble says: “Canada is founded on principles which recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law…”

Supremacy means above all else. Supremacy means the final authority. Above Parliament, above the Supreme Court, above public opinion, above changing public morality.

That is the purpose of anthems and prayers and constitutions and holy books and man-made laws. These public confessions of belief and shared values are to remind us of things that matter. They are to remind us that we have standards which don’t change. They remind us that we ought to respect our neighbour’s rights to freedom and possession of property. When the human will is weak, the shared confession of higher spiritual values—such as in the collective singing of the national anthem—will point us back to the reliable foundational truths upon which all our man-made laws are based.

Man-made laws only have enduring value when they reflect the God-given laws written in the heart of every man, woman and child.

God is not a helpless victim when men seek to remove His Name from public life. God is not insecure. The Psalmist records that “He who sits in the heavens laughs” at man’s futile efforts to dethrone Him. God is not in danger but Canada is very much in danger if we continue to reject His sovereign dominion over our nation.

MP Mauril Bélanger’s bill to change “all thy sons” to “all of us” seems like an innocuous rewording to accommodate current Canadian values of equality. Really, it is accommodating Canada’s growing illiteracy, because so many today do not understand the profound and poetic context of earlier writing styles. Of course, “all thy sons” already included generically “all thy daughters”; but today’s citizens need that spelled out so we end up with the poetically weak “all of us”.

The emotional vote for the word change and the drama of bringing the Hon. Mr. Bélanger into the House for the vote indicated that, once again, decisions being made by many citizens—and the politicians who represent them—are more about feel-good imagery than about the deeper meanings and implications of our heritage.

However, those who want God out of public life will no doubt be emboldened by this cosmetic change and will once again attempt to oust God from His central place in our public life.

The now-disgraced Svend Robinson once tried to remove God from the Preamble, and those who share his values will try again. May our elected and appointed legislators find the courage to defend Canada’s Christian heritage, the basis of all that is good in this nation.

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