Let Us Now Praise Martin Luther King Junior by Dave Jaffe.
Come. Let us now praise Martin Luther King Junior a very exceptional American.. So many people in the United States have done so. This short dark skinned minister shook America to its foundations between 1955 and 1968. His struggle for justice for African Americans and later for others ended when he was shot dead while still only in his late 30's.
In fact whatever your politics are you can praise King. Hard core conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other right wingers have done so. So do American liberals. Yet there's a crucial difference that looms between the two political camps in America. The left wingers and liberals point out that their county is still a very unequal place and that white racism still thrives.
Limbaugh, Beck and others say no. America, they argue is a post racial country which people like Martin Luther King helped create.
Yet why do right wing pundits and politicians praise King? For the reverend King in the closing years of his very life leveled many tough words at the U.S. of A. In a famous speech at a New York church in 1967 he denounced America's war in Vietnam. He even went further than this. My country, he told the congregation, "is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world."
The year before in 1966 he led an unsuccessful campaign to desegregate the northern city of Chicago. "Chicago," he said in effect at the time," has few lessons to learn about racism from Mississippi." The state he was talking about was back then the most racist region of America. Yet in Chicago King faced bitter and sometimes violent resistance from white people.
And when he was shot dead in March 1968 in Memphis Tennessee he was in the middle of supporting a civic workers' strike of mostly black people. This supportive role was part and parcel of his anti-poverty campaign to wipe out poverty in America. In fact, Martin Luther King in 1968 was planning to lead a poor people's march on Washington, D.C. King vowed that his non-violent army of the poor would not end their sit in until poverty was abolished in America.
So how could such a left leaning courageous man be praised by white conservatives? It's quite simple. This great man is dead and his earlier deeds are praised. The later King's actions are forgotten or smoothed over. Then after he was killed, his birthday was made into a national holiday.
Let's just recap some of King's great deeds. His great campaign in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 and the March on Washington in the same year, led directly to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act abolished parts of the terrible white segregation regime in the southern United States. Then this father of four led a march through Selma and the state of Alabama in 1965 that gave the U.S. the Voting Rights Act. This act finally allowed many black people and other people of colour the right to vote. Today many black people and others sit in the halls of power which they were kept out of for many years. These were two awesome changes in the United States.
In the middle of his campaign in Alabama King won the Nobel Peace Prize and his face and his struggle achieved world wide coverage. As people might have said back then, if the internet had been around "King and his struggle for racial justice went viral."
Saturday, 17 August 2019
Wednesday, 7 August 2019
Andy Warhol Kept Me Drawing: Part Three by Dave Jaffe.
Andy Warhol Kept Me Drawing: Part Three.
The more I read about Andy Warhol in his biography by Victor Bockris the less I liked him. And even when he passed away in 1987 I was sorry but hardly overwhelmed by grief..
Yet a few weeks ago I was on the point of giving up all drawing and painting. Then I came across
a book on Warhol by Trewin Copplestsone and I was impressed. I have now taken up some of Warhol's art style and I realize how important he was.
His style is easy to copy. I simply find a photo, change the photo a bit and then draw the changed photo on paper three times or more. Then I lightly draw an abstract painting over the photos. As Andy Warhol might say about my finished work, "Wow" or "It's great." Or more likely he might exclaim, "I can do a lot better than that."
For Warhol was a brilliant artist. I have only a tiny fraction of his talent. My art work is competent but no more than that. Even so, his work has inspired me and kept me drawing. So I'm grateful to Andy Warhol no matter what he was like as a person.
The more I read about Andy Warhol in his biography by Victor Bockris the less I liked him. And even when he passed away in 1987 I was sorry but hardly overwhelmed by grief..
Yet a few weeks ago I was on the point of giving up all drawing and painting. Then I came across
a book on Warhol by Trewin Copplestsone and I was impressed. I have now taken up some of Warhol's art style and I realize how important he was.
His style is easy to copy. I simply find a photo, change the photo a bit and then draw the changed photo on paper three times or more. Then I lightly draw an abstract painting over the photos. As Andy Warhol might say about my finished work, "Wow" or "It's great." Or more likely he might exclaim, "I can do a lot better than that."
For Warhol was a brilliant artist. I have only a tiny fraction of his talent. My art work is competent but no more than that. Even so, his work has inspired me and kept me drawing. So I'm grateful to Andy Warhol no matter what he was like as a person.
Tuesday, 6 August 2019
Andy warhol Kept Me Drawing: Part Two by Dave Jaffe
Andy Warhol Kept Me Drawing: Part Two
Andy Warhol told people in effect in the mid-1960's, "I'm retiring from painting." In fact Warhol never did stop painting. Yet soon he was making films that often bored people. Then he sponsored a rock band called 'The Velvet Underground' and started to write books. He set up a work space in New York City called 'The Factory' where he painted, wrote and filmed movies. The Factory was soon overrun with disturbed speed freaks and heroin addicts. Even so, Warhol had by now become one of the most famous visual artists in the United States.
Warhol showed himself indifferent to the deaths and/or suicides of some of the unhinged people around him. Then in 1968 Warhol himself nearly died. On June 3,1968, a disturbed feminist named Valerie Solanas shot Warhol twice in the stomach as well as one other man in The Factory. "He had too much control over my life," Solanas said after surrendering to police.
Warhol survived but he went around in great pain for the rest of his life. Warhol then went on to discard most of the disturbed people that had cluttered up his life. In the 1970's, he moved into the circle of celebrities. As a child Warhol had adored the film stars of Hollywood like Judy Garland and used to send them fan letters. Now in the 1970's, he hung out with celebrities like Judy Garland's daughter Liza Minelli, Elizabeth Taylor, Bianca Jagger, the wife of rock star Mick Jagger and Lee Radziwill. He danced at Studio 54, an exclusive dance hall where only celebrities were allowed in.
"It's hard to get in to Studio 54," Warhol wrote. "But once you're in you could end up dancing with Liza Minelli. At 54 the stars are nobody because everybody is a star."
Warhol also befriended families of loathsome dictators like the Shah of Iran and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. He got to know the Shah's sister and also Imelda Marcos, the wife of Ferdinand Marcos. Imelda Marcos, the wife of Ferdinand later became infamous because of her massive shoe collection. While tens of millions of Filipinos eked out a bare existence the Marcos family lived high off the hog. Later the Shah and Marcos were overthrown by revolutions.
Warhol also painted many portraits of Mao Tse Tung, another brutal dictator who ruled China with an iron fist from 1949 to 1976. Warhol never met Mao. He just used an official photo as a guide to his portraits. By now, Warhol was raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by doing portraits of the rich and famous.
In 1981, Warhol attended the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president. He also taped an interview with First Lady Nancy Reagan for his now flourishing magazine quite rightly called 'Interview'. Left wing critics like Alexander Cockburn raked Warhol over the coals for breathlessly listening to Nancy Reagan and never once criticizing her or her husband for the uncaring lives they were living. As U.S. president Ronald Reagan cut social programs to the bone making millions of poor Americans even poorer. Meanwhile his government shoveled out huge tax cuts to the rich.
The 'Time' magazine art critic Robert Hughes had never liked Warhol's art. Now he went after Warhol again. Warhol, he said, " was the shallow painter whose entire sense of reality was shaped like Reagan's sense of power, by the television tube." All of this was true. Warhol by the way was gay and had many close male friends. Whether he made love to any of them remains an unanswered question.
Andy Warhol told people in effect in the mid-1960's, "I'm retiring from painting." In fact Warhol never did stop painting. Yet soon he was making films that often bored people. Then he sponsored a rock band called 'The Velvet Underground' and started to write books. He set up a work space in New York City called 'The Factory' where he painted, wrote and filmed movies. The Factory was soon overrun with disturbed speed freaks and heroin addicts. Even so, Warhol had by now become one of the most famous visual artists in the United States.
Warhol showed himself indifferent to the deaths and/or suicides of some of the unhinged people around him. Then in 1968 Warhol himself nearly died. On June 3,1968, a disturbed feminist named Valerie Solanas shot Warhol twice in the stomach as well as one other man in The Factory. "He had too much control over my life," Solanas said after surrendering to police.
Warhol survived but he went around in great pain for the rest of his life. Warhol then went on to discard most of the disturbed people that had cluttered up his life. In the 1970's, he moved into the circle of celebrities. As a child Warhol had adored the film stars of Hollywood like Judy Garland and used to send them fan letters. Now in the 1970's, he hung out with celebrities like Judy Garland's daughter Liza Minelli, Elizabeth Taylor, Bianca Jagger, the wife of rock star Mick Jagger and Lee Radziwill. He danced at Studio 54, an exclusive dance hall where only celebrities were allowed in.
"It's hard to get in to Studio 54," Warhol wrote. "But once you're in you could end up dancing with Liza Minelli. At 54 the stars are nobody because everybody is a star."
Warhol also befriended families of loathsome dictators like the Shah of Iran and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. He got to know the Shah's sister and also Imelda Marcos, the wife of Ferdinand Marcos. Imelda Marcos, the wife of Ferdinand later became infamous because of her massive shoe collection. While tens of millions of Filipinos eked out a bare existence the Marcos family lived high off the hog. Later the Shah and Marcos were overthrown by revolutions.
Warhol also painted many portraits of Mao Tse Tung, another brutal dictator who ruled China with an iron fist from 1949 to 1976. Warhol never met Mao. He just used an official photo as a guide to his portraits. By now, Warhol was raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by doing portraits of the rich and famous.
In 1981, Warhol attended the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president. He also taped an interview with First Lady Nancy Reagan for his now flourishing magazine quite rightly called 'Interview'. Left wing critics like Alexander Cockburn raked Warhol over the coals for breathlessly listening to Nancy Reagan and never once criticizing her or her husband for the uncaring lives they were living. As U.S. president Ronald Reagan cut social programs to the bone making millions of poor Americans even poorer. Meanwhile his government shoveled out huge tax cuts to the rich.
The 'Time' magazine art critic Robert Hughes had never liked Warhol's art. Now he went after Warhol again. Warhol, he said, " was the shallow painter whose entire sense of reality was shaped like Reagan's sense of power, by the television tube." All of this was true. Warhol by the way was gay and had many close male friends. Whether he made love to any of them remains an unanswered question.
Thursday, 1 August 2019
Andy Warhol Kept Me Drawing by Dave Jaffe: Part One.
Andy Warhol Kept Me Drawing: Part One
It's possible to like an artist's work but dislike his or her character. Andy Warhol's an example of this.
A few weeks ago I was going to stop painting and drawing, which I've done as a hobby for decades. Yet then I came across a small book on Andy Warhol, written by the British artist and writer, Trewin Copplestone.
After thumbing through Copplestsone's book called 'The Life and Works of Andy Warhol' I decided to copy Warhol's painting style and go back to drawing. Warhol's art inspired me. Warhol's life was a classic American rags to riches story, that also interested me.
He was born Andrew Warhola to a poor immigrant family from Slovakia in 1928. The next year the Great Depression started and wrecked the world economy. Warhol's family was hit hard by this terrible economic collapse.
So Warhol grew up in a poor blue collar family in Pittsburgh, a tough provincial city of steel mills in the American heartland. Yet Warhol's family in the end struggled out of poverty. His father, who passed away when Andrew was quite young, left a sizeable sum of money behind to help his son. For there were some fine educational places and schools in Pittsburgh. Warhol ended up going to the Cranegie Institute of Technology. Here he got a good education in the visual arts.
"If anyone had asked me at the time who was the least likely to succeed," said one of his teachers at the institute named Robert Lipper, "I would have said Andrew Warhola."
Warhola, as his last name was then, was shy and had problems doing academic work. He had, he later claimed, three nervous breakdowns before the age of ten. His skin often erupted into some form of acne. And his hair fell out at a very young age. People, including his older brothers, taunted and bullied him.
Yet Warhol had a great drawing ability and some self-confidence. After graduating from the Carnegie Institute in the late 1940's, he went along with another soon-to-be-famous visual artist called Philip Pearlstein to New York City. He came there with only $200 in his pocket, which is about $2,000 to-day.Yet by 1956, he'd become one of the most successful commercial artists in the United States. By now he'd dropped the 'a' at the end of his name and was simply known now as 'Andy Warhol'. Also his mother had moved to New York City and stayed with her youngest son for the rest of her life.
Though now rich and successful Warhol still wanted more. "I want to be Matisse," he told his friend Charles Lisanby when they took a tour around part of the world in 1956. Lisanby thought Warhol was really saying, "I want to be as famous as Henri Matisse." Back in 1956 Matisse and Pablo Picasso were seen as the greatest artists of the day.
Still by 1966, or ten years later, Warhol was even more famous than Matisse. He painted than silkscreened pictures of Campbell soup cans, the U.S. dollar bill, the by now dead Marilyn Monroe, the soon to be dead Elvis Presley, and car crashes, race riots and electric chairs. Warhol was now acclaimed - or detested- as one of the founders of the art movement now called "Pop Art".
It's possible to like an artist's work but dislike his or her character. Andy Warhol's an example of this.
A few weeks ago I was going to stop painting and drawing, which I've done as a hobby for decades. Yet then I came across a small book on Andy Warhol, written by the British artist and writer, Trewin Copplestone.
After thumbing through Copplestsone's book called 'The Life and Works of Andy Warhol' I decided to copy Warhol's painting style and go back to drawing. Warhol's art inspired me. Warhol's life was a classic American rags to riches story, that also interested me.
He was born Andrew Warhola to a poor immigrant family from Slovakia in 1928. The next year the Great Depression started and wrecked the world economy. Warhol's family was hit hard by this terrible economic collapse.
So Warhol grew up in a poor blue collar family in Pittsburgh, a tough provincial city of steel mills in the American heartland. Yet Warhol's family in the end struggled out of poverty. His father, who passed away when Andrew was quite young, left a sizeable sum of money behind to help his son. For there were some fine educational places and schools in Pittsburgh. Warhol ended up going to the Cranegie Institute of Technology. Here he got a good education in the visual arts.
"If anyone had asked me at the time who was the least likely to succeed," said one of his teachers at the institute named Robert Lipper, "I would have said Andrew Warhola."
Warhola, as his last name was then, was shy and had problems doing academic work. He had, he later claimed, three nervous breakdowns before the age of ten. His skin often erupted into some form of acne. And his hair fell out at a very young age. People, including his older brothers, taunted and bullied him.
Yet Warhol had a great drawing ability and some self-confidence. After graduating from the Carnegie Institute in the late 1940's, he went along with another soon-to-be-famous visual artist called Philip Pearlstein to New York City. He came there with only $200 in his pocket, which is about $2,000 to-day.Yet by 1956, he'd become one of the most successful commercial artists in the United States. By now he'd dropped the 'a' at the end of his name and was simply known now as 'Andy Warhol'. Also his mother had moved to New York City and stayed with her youngest son for the rest of her life.
Though now rich and successful Warhol still wanted more. "I want to be Matisse," he told his friend Charles Lisanby when they took a tour around part of the world in 1956. Lisanby thought Warhol was really saying, "I want to be as famous as Henri Matisse." Back in 1956 Matisse and Pablo Picasso were seen as the greatest artists of the day.
Still by 1966, or ten years later, Warhol was even more famous than Matisse. He painted than silkscreened pictures of Campbell soup cans, the U.S. dollar bill, the by now dead Marilyn Monroe, the soon to be dead Elvis Presley, and car crashes, race riots and electric chairs. Warhol was now acclaimed - or detested- as one of the founders of the art movement now called "Pop Art".
Monday, 22 July 2019
A Tale of Two Churches: Part Three by Dave Jaffe.
A Tale of Two Churches: Part Three.
If you're like me you may attend the Canadian Memorial United Church or the Society of Friends, more commonly known as the Quakers. Then you might tell yourself, "Canadian churches are very liberal." Many of the people who go to the churches I've just mentioned usually support a women's right to abortion. They worship a compassionate caring God - that is if they believe in the divine. They have no problems now with same sex marriage. Many of the people in these churches believe in helping the poor and welcoming refugees to Canada.
Yet not all Canadian or North American churches cling to this type of religion. Nor did all ever do so. Lucien Pope, an American sociologist found out over 80 years ago that many groups favour a much harsher religion. The U.S. sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset came to the same conclusion a few years later. "The poorer working classes," Lipset wrote in the 1950's, "want ministers who preach hellfire and damnation."
This is still true today. In her recent book, 'Strangers In Their Own Land' Arlie Russell Hoschchild found the same thing. In Louisiana, Hoschchild studied, mingled with and befriended supporters of U.S president Donald Trump. She found that these mostly white working class Americans believe in 'the rapture' or time when the Book of Revelations says, "The earth will burn with fervent heat." Until that time though, the devil is on the rampage.
Along with this harsh theology, these white citizens had no time or sympathy for black Americans, feminists, gays or environmentalists. God, says Derwin Arenos, a young white worker, will fix the polluted bayous of Louisiana. "And that will happen shortly," he says. "So it doesn't matter how much man destroys now."
A woman I'll call Clara may share the same viewpoint. She lives in Vancouver in a one bedroom basement suite, alongside three other neighbours who also live in one bedroom places. Clara is bipolar and survives on a small handicapped allowance. She doesn't have much money and sometimes asks people to buy her a cup of coffee. When Donald Trump was elected U>S. president Clara was overjoyed. "He''ll fix the elites," she said. "They're too powerful."
Clara goes to an east end church that preaches that the world may be doomed and damnation awaits all sinners. In Metro Vancouver there are quite a few churches preaching this sort of message. One many I met was a strong supporter of the Anglican Church he went to. "We don't believe in abortion here," he says. "And we have no time for same sex marriage." Another man I know is a churchgoer who totally is against any new social programs.
One Sunday morning I slipped into the pews of a Baptist church and heard a strong message. A big powerfully built preacher took an American senator to task for saying that he enjoyed going to church on Sunday. "You don't go to church to enjoy it," he thundered. "You go to church to feel God's presence. Your enjoyment is not important."
At the service's end, one church usher asked me if I'd come back. "not me," I replied. "the sermon was powerful but it's not my trip. I'm a bleeding heart liberal." Even so I put a few dollars in the dish that was passed around. For I don't go to churches without leaving some money behind.
If you're like me you may attend the Canadian Memorial United Church or the Society of Friends, more commonly known as the Quakers. Then you might tell yourself, "Canadian churches are very liberal." Many of the people who go to the churches I've just mentioned usually support a women's right to abortion. They worship a compassionate caring God - that is if they believe in the divine. They have no problems now with same sex marriage. Many of the people in these churches believe in helping the poor and welcoming refugees to Canada.
Yet not all Canadian or North American churches cling to this type of religion. Nor did all ever do so. Lucien Pope, an American sociologist found out over 80 years ago that many groups favour a much harsher religion. The U.S. sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset came to the same conclusion a few years later. "The poorer working classes," Lipset wrote in the 1950's, "want ministers who preach hellfire and damnation."
This is still true today. In her recent book, 'Strangers In Their Own Land' Arlie Russell Hoschchild found the same thing. In Louisiana, Hoschchild studied, mingled with and befriended supporters of U.S president Donald Trump. She found that these mostly white working class Americans believe in 'the rapture' or time when the Book of Revelations says, "The earth will burn with fervent heat." Until that time though, the devil is on the rampage.
Along with this harsh theology, these white citizens had no time or sympathy for black Americans, feminists, gays or environmentalists. God, says Derwin Arenos, a young white worker, will fix the polluted bayous of Louisiana. "And that will happen shortly," he says. "So it doesn't matter how much man destroys now."
A woman I'll call Clara may share the same viewpoint. She lives in Vancouver in a one bedroom basement suite, alongside three other neighbours who also live in one bedroom places. Clara is bipolar and survives on a small handicapped allowance. She doesn't have much money and sometimes asks people to buy her a cup of coffee. When Donald Trump was elected U>S. president Clara was overjoyed. "He''ll fix the elites," she said. "They're too powerful."
Clara goes to an east end church that preaches that the world may be doomed and damnation awaits all sinners. In Metro Vancouver there are quite a few churches preaching this sort of message. One many I met was a strong supporter of the Anglican Church he went to. "We don't believe in abortion here," he says. "And we have no time for same sex marriage." Another man I know is a churchgoer who totally is against any new social programs.
One Sunday morning I slipped into the pews of a Baptist church and heard a strong message. A big powerfully built preacher took an American senator to task for saying that he enjoyed going to church on Sunday. "You don't go to church to enjoy it," he thundered. "You go to church to feel God's presence. Your enjoyment is not important."
At the service's end, one church usher asked me if I'd come back. "not me," I replied. "the sermon was powerful but it's not my trip. I'm a bleeding heart liberal." Even so I put a few dollars in the dish that was passed around. For I don't go to churches without leaving some money behind.
Thursday, 11 July 2019
A Tale of Two Churches by Dave Jaffe. Part Two.
A Tale of Two Churches: Part Two.
Churches have their uses which is something that the new aethiests like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Adams and Richard Dawkins sometimes ignore. To be fair to Hitchens, he did mention the positive role churches played in the U.S. civil rights movement. Yet even the hard core right wing politicians
sometimes realize that churches can help people.
In late 1975, William 'Bill' Bennett became premier of British Columbia ousting Dave Barrett's short-lived New Democratic government from power. The hard-nosed, tough Social Credit premier at once started cutting the social programs the Barrett's government had set up. Eight years later, in 1983 Bennett wiped out the rest of Barrett's reforms.
When confronted by irate demonstrators in the B.C. legislature, Bennett gave no ground.
"What will people do when you get rid of all the social programs?" Joe Arnaud, a demonstrator demanded of Bennett in 1975.
""Why they'll go to the church basements," said Bennett, a very wealthy son of a wealthy former premier, W.A.C. Bennett. "That's what they did when I was young." Maybe we'll need church basements again to feed many more of us as some church basements do now. If so, I recommend Canadian Memorial United Church and the Vancouver Quaker worship house. I like both these places and I've often eaten at both of them.
Yet right now we live in an age when most right wing governments often stay in power for a long time and shred one social safety net after another. Who will protect the poor and the homeless against the Bennetts, the Thatchers, the Trumps and the Doug Fords? Churches can play a small but useful role here. The United Church of Canada was formed after the first World War from three separate churches: the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists and the Methodists.
As a result of this merger, the United Church has often played a progressive role in Canadian history. Before the First World War, Methodist ministers like James Shaver Woodsworth pushed what was called 'The Social Gospel'. This was a religious platform with a progressive bent. Unfortunately after World War One, a right wing wave swept across the world and buried the Social Gospel. Woodsworth left the newly formed United Church and went on to sit in Parliament and then help found the left leaning Co-operative Commonwealth Federation or C.C.F. in the 1930's.
Despite the vanishing of the Social Gospel, United Church ministers have often spoken up for peace and social justice. To-day for instance, the First United Church still does wonderful work in the now slowly disappearing Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. It certainly helped the poor after the right wing Liberal government swept to power in the 2001 B.C. election.
"It was an aberration," one high level N.D.P. organizer said about this event as he saw the Liberal party grab 77 of the 79 seats in the B.C. legislature. The N.D.P. government had run the province for the past ten years. Once in power, the tough, hard-nosed new premier and Liberal leader Gordon Campbell did what former premier Bill Bennett had done nearly 20 years before. He slashed social programs to the bone, fired thousands of government workers, and gave big tax cuts to the rich.
Thousands of welfare recipients had their monthly cheques slashed or reduced to zero The amount of homeless people in the streets soared. Yet many of the homeless huddled in the pews of the First United Church on the corner of Main and Hastings.
"It's really crowded in there," one Downtown Eastside resident said at the time about the First United Church. "Without that place many people would be a goner." At this time in 2002 and at many others times, the United Church has saved many people from starvation and even an early death.
Churches have their uses which is something that the new aethiests like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Adams and Richard Dawkins sometimes ignore. To be fair to Hitchens, he did mention the positive role churches played in the U.S. civil rights movement. Yet even the hard core right wing politicians
sometimes realize that churches can help people.
In late 1975, William 'Bill' Bennett became premier of British Columbia ousting Dave Barrett's short-lived New Democratic government from power. The hard-nosed, tough Social Credit premier at once started cutting the social programs the Barrett's government had set up. Eight years later, in 1983 Bennett wiped out the rest of Barrett's reforms.
When confronted by irate demonstrators in the B.C. legislature, Bennett gave no ground.
"What will people do when you get rid of all the social programs?" Joe Arnaud, a demonstrator demanded of Bennett in 1975.
""Why they'll go to the church basements," said Bennett, a very wealthy son of a wealthy former premier, W.A.C. Bennett. "That's what they did when I was young." Maybe we'll need church basements again to feed many more of us as some church basements do now. If so, I recommend Canadian Memorial United Church and the Vancouver Quaker worship house. I like both these places and I've often eaten at both of them.
Yet right now we live in an age when most right wing governments often stay in power for a long time and shred one social safety net after another. Who will protect the poor and the homeless against the Bennetts, the Thatchers, the Trumps and the Doug Fords? Churches can play a small but useful role here. The United Church of Canada was formed after the first World War from three separate churches: the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists and the Methodists.
As a result of this merger, the United Church has often played a progressive role in Canadian history. Before the First World War, Methodist ministers like James Shaver Woodsworth pushed what was called 'The Social Gospel'. This was a religious platform with a progressive bent. Unfortunately after World War One, a right wing wave swept across the world and buried the Social Gospel. Woodsworth left the newly formed United Church and went on to sit in Parliament and then help found the left leaning Co-operative Commonwealth Federation or C.C.F. in the 1930's.
Despite the vanishing of the Social Gospel, United Church ministers have often spoken up for peace and social justice. To-day for instance, the First United Church still does wonderful work in the now slowly disappearing Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. It certainly helped the poor after the right wing Liberal government swept to power in the 2001 B.C. election.
"It was an aberration," one high level N.D.P. organizer said about this event as he saw the Liberal party grab 77 of the 79 seats in the B.C. legislature. The N.D.P. government had run the province for the past ten years. Once in power, the tough, hard-nosed new premier and Liberal leader Gordon Campbell did what former premier Bill Bennett had done nearly 20 years before. He slashed social programs to the bone, fired thousands of government workers, and gave big tax cuts to the rich.
Thousands of welfare recipients had their monthly cheques slashed or reduced to zero The amount of homeless people in the streets soared. Yet many of the homeless huddled in the pews of the First United Church on the corner of Main and Hastings.
"It's really crowded in there," one Downtown Eastside resident said at the time about the First United Church. "Without that place many people would be a goner." At this time in 2002 and at many others times, the United Church has saved many people from starvation and even an early death.
Tuesday, 9 July 2019
A Tale of Two Churches: Part One by Dave Jaffe
A Tale of Two Churches: Part One..
One church is tiny. One church is reasonably sized. The small church has about 10 to 20 people come to it every Sunday. In the bigger church hundreds flock to its services once a week. The tiny church has a n annual budget of close to $30,000. "Our budget," the forty something head minister of the big church proudly told me, "is close to $850,000 annually."
The big church has lots of stained glass windows, a full throated choir and is staffed by four full time ministers. The tiny church has no minister, no choir and no ordinary service. It's surrounded by evergreen trees that circle the tiny house and protect it from the elements. I go to both these churches from time to time. For both of these churches support a liberal version of Christianity which is now my favourite religion.
The tiny church is a Quaker worship house that sits at the edge of southwest Vancouver. Few people come to this place of worship. When they do, they sit in silence in a circle of comfortable chairs.for about an hour. Once I counted the amount of persons in the room. I don't think the total came to more than 30. Some times there are an even dozen in this house. At times there may be even fewer people in the small upper floor of the house that is the worship space.
"Don't get hung up on numbers," a political organizer told me years ago. And at the Quakers I forget crowds or masses of people. I sit in silence and happiness, often recalling what the Quakers' founder George Fox discovered in 1650's England. The divine light is within everybody Fox said. To worship the divine you don't need big churches, massive choirs or even expensive places of worship. All you need to do is focus on the divine light within you.
I agree with all of this and have spent some lovely hours in the Quaker worship space. Yet sometimes I tell myself, "I need a regular church service." Then I head off to the Canadian Memorial United Church where there is everything that most people think of when they mention the word "church". A wonderful set of stained glass windows with a social theme line three of the church's walls. A big choir belts out hymns in the fall, winter and spring. In the choir three or four wonderful young women singers sometimes come forward from the choir to do solo turns. As one woman once said to the church congregation after the choir stopped singing, "You couldn't get this music anywhere else." She was right.
As for numbers of people who come to this church, the crowd sometimes swell to over 300. people. This is a huge contrast to the Quaker congregations.
The church's regular minister Beth Hayward often gives sermons, explaining parts of the Bible while giving inspirational twists to her comments. Lonnie Delisle, the music director and minister
works long and hard to keep the choir and solo singers on track. And all kinds of groups and people work on program and committees.. There's a healing centre in the church's other building that 's right across the alley from the church. This building is called the Peace Centre for reasons I'll explain below. Some people do meditation before the church service starts. The church serves meals once a week to street people. And the list of church committees goes on and on.
The Canadian Memorial United Church on Vancouver's west side was founded by a Canadian veteran who came back from World War One determined to remember those killed in that terrible event. He set up the church as a memorial to those that had passed away. 90 years later the church still has a strong social conscience and a liberal and pacifist outlook that not all United churches share. The church holds many of its political events in the Peace Centre. Many of the stained glass windows in the church refer to wartime events as well as Jesus and the apostles
Churches are still important in Canada, even though less than one in four Canadians go to churches on Sunday. I'm one of those that do and I'm glad that liberal churches are still around. I've not joined either church but I have given money to both. They have enriched my life in many ways.
"This is a magnet church," one of its loyal members Susan tells me. "It draws people from all across Metro Vancouver." Susan herself comes from the outer suburbs. Her loyalty shows that the Canadian Memorial Church has put down deep roots in people's hearts and minds.
One church is tiny. One church is reasonably sized. The small church has about 10 to 20 people come to it every Sunday. In the bigger church hundreds flock to its services once a week. The tiny church has a n annual budget of close to $30,000. "Our budget," the forty something head minister of the big church proudly told me, "is close to $850,000 annually."
The big church has lots of stained glass windows, a full throated choir and is staffed by four full time ministers. The tiny church has no minister, no choir and no ordinary service. It's surrounded by evergreen trees that circle the tiny house and protect it from the elements. I go to both these churches from time to time. For both of these churches support a liberal version of Christianity which is now my favourite religion.
The tiny church is a Quaker worship house that sits at the edge of southwest Vancouver. Few people come to this place of worship. When they do, they sit in silence in a circle of comfortable chairs.for about an hour. Once I counted the amount of persons in the room. I don't think the total came to more than 30. Some times there are an even dozen in this house. At times there may be even fewer people in the small upper floor of the house that is the worship space.
"Don't get hung up on numbers," a political organizer told me years ago. And at the Quakers I forget crowds or masses of people. I sit in silence and happiness, often recalling what the Quakers' founder George Fox discovered in 1650's England. The divine light is within everybody Fox said. To worship the divine you don't need big churches, massive choirs or even expensive places of worship. All you need to do is focus on the divine light within you.
I agree with all of this and have spent some lovely hours in the Quaker worship space. Yet sometimes I tell myself, "I need a regular church service." Then I head off to the Canadian Memorial United Church where there is everything that most people think of when they mention the word "church". A wonderful set of stained glass windows with a social theme line three of the church's walls. A big choir belts out hymns in the fall, winter and spring. In the choir three or four wonderful young women singers sometimes come forward from the choir to do solo turns. As one woman once said to the church congregation after the choir stopped singing, "You couldn't get this music anywhere else." She was right.
As for numbers of people who come to this church, the crowd sometimes swell to over 300. people. This is a huge contrast to the Quaker congregations.
The church's regular minister Beth Hayward often gives sermons, explaining parts of the Bible while giving inspirational twists to her comments. Lonnie Delisle, the music director and minister
works long and hard to keep the choir and solo singers on track. And all kinds of groups and people work on program and committees.. There's a healing centre in the church's other building that 's right across the alley from the church. This building is called the Peace Centre for reasons I'll explain below. Some people do meditation before the church service starts. The church serves meals once a week to street people. And the list of church committees goes on and on.
The Canadian Memorial United Church on Vancouver's west side was founded by a Canadian veteran who came back from World War One determined to remember those killed in that terrible event. He set up the church as a memorial to those that had passed away. 90 years later the church still has a strong social conscience and a liberal and pacifist outlook that not all United churches share. The church holds many of its political events in the Peace Centre. Many of the stained glass windows in the church refer to wartime events as well as Jesus and the apostles
Churches are still important in Canada, even though less than one in four Canadians go to churches on Sunday. I'm one of those that do and I'm glad that liberal churches are still around. I've not joined either church but I have given money to both. They have enriched my life in many ways.
"This is a magnet church," one of its loyal members Susan tells me. "It draws people from all across Metro Vancouver." Susan herself comes from the outer suburbs. Her loyalty shows that the Canadian Memorial Church has put down deep roots in people's hearts and minds.
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