Faith Meets Life: Bonus features spark debate

In one of the bonus scenes on the DVD version of Stranger Than Fiction, the interviewee, an author, says she does not believe in God. This sets up a hilarious conclusion to the interview (On that [cheerful] note. . .).

But it also reflects an assumption that people who are going anywhere, such as authors, don't take religion seriously. Many Canadians are of the opinion that if religion is not dead, it should be, and in a few decades, will be. In the meantime, it can provide some personal solace to those who don't yet smell the coffee.

It could be argued, though, that Canadians who hold that assumption are out of touch with reality. The fact is that people in large numbers all over the planet are strongly committed to God and that this profoundly shapes their identity and behaviour. Obviously, this is true for Muslim terrorists. But is it also true for the hundreds of millions of peace-loving Muslims.

And if a recent series of articles in the Ottawa Citizen is any indication, this phenomenon is not diminishing. The articles indicate that religion, particularly Christianity, is growing explosively. The paper writes that in Africa alone the Christian population rose from 10 million to 360 million, or roughly half the population in one short century.

In China, authorities banned Christianity 40 years ago, but today the number of Christians there may be as high as 100 million. Though the percentage of Christians in China is still low, it has the fourth highest number of Christians for any nation.

The Ottawa Citizen says that in 2002, a Chinese scholar told a group of American delegates visiting Beijing that it is Christianity that has prevented the Western world from plunging into decline.

How so? Buddhism and Confucianism assume that history is cyclical. It repeats itself, making decline seemingly inevitable. But Christianity claims that history is linear: it progresses because faith in the Christian god is a catalyst for positive change. This influence of Christianity is apparent in the West. It is also in evidence in South Korea where Christianity has, in the twentieth century, enabled that country to organize itself in a positive direction.

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