Christians have duty to support Christian party, new leader says

The new leader of the Christian Heritage Party of B.C. is calling on Christians of all denominations to have the courage of their convictions in supporting her party in the Oct. 24 provincial election.

“I feel it is the duty of every single Canadian to vote for their principles and stop compromising,” said CHP-BC leader Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson, a 55-year-old broadcaster from New Westminster who was acclaimed leader at the party’s annual general meeting in Abbotsford earlier this month.

An Evangelical Christian, Tyler Thompson reasons that “if all faith-believing people, those who name the name of Jesus, would vote according to their principles, we would be able to elect the kind of government that will support and continue our values.”

Otherwise, she said, “I think our cowardice is costing us our nation.”

Tyler Thompson will run in the riding of Abbotsford South, held by Darryl Plecas, who sits as an independent after being kicked out of the B.C. Liberal Party for accepting the role of Speaker of the legislature in 2017. Bruce Banman will represent the riding for the Liberals in the election.

In an interview with The B.C. Catholic, Tyler Thompson said abortion, euthanasia, and B.C.’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) curriculum are just three of many issues that should galvanize Christians into action. They’re also issues on which the mainstream political parties refuse to allow opposition.

“It has become very clear that the left and the right are basically non-Christian in their values and principles,” said Tyler Thompson, a former co-host of The 700 Club Canada television show. She has sought office unsuccessfully three times in the past three years, twice federally as a candidate for People’s Party of Canada and once for the Burnaby School Board.

She hopes her more-recent political activism “against the onslaught of humanism, socialism, communism, and Marxism” will help people to pay more attention to the party.

The B.C. wing of Canada’s Christian Heritage Party fielded only five candidates in the 2017 general election and received a total of just 3,398 votes – 0.17 percent of ballots cast. Tyler Thompson hopes to double the number of candidates running in the current provincial election.

“Time and chance have brought us to a place where we either begin making the shift to stand boldly for what we believe in, or our future generations will suffer from our cowardice,” she said. “We will look back and see all the wasted votes on parties who didn’t give one hoot [about] what we actually believed in.”

Born in Uganda to missionary parents, she called on Christians to recognize that aspects of the Book of Revelation are unfolding in modern times. Referencing “the mark of the beast” and pointing to a move toward one-world government and a cashless society, she believes billionaire philanthropist George Soros is funding this global movement. “I believe that we have entered a season and a time when we are seeing how that will be implemented. It is from the United Nations, and it is being spread down.”

But some Catholics, including Canada’s bishops and a prominent Catholic political leader in B.C., suggest a more-expansive view on how Christians should put their religious convictions into political action.

While Tyler Thompson says Christians have a duty to support her party, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops encourages voters to make “informed and discerning judgments about the options available.”

On life issues, for example, the CCCB’s 2019 federal “Voting as Catholics” guide advises, “The principles of respect for life from conception to natural death and the dignity of the human person should influence how Christians assess a party’s position on key moral issues.” That said, these need not be the exclusive life issues Catholics reference when determining how to cast their ballots.

“Choosing life also means being always concerned for the weakest among us – physically, economically, and socially,” the document said. “It likewise implies the protection of the most fundamental human rights, including the right to religious freedom and freedom of conscience.” 

The CCCB’s view is similar to that of MLA Rich Coleman, a parishioner at St. Nicholas in Langley who served almost 25 years in the B.C. legislature and held several senior cabinet portfolios with B.C. Liberal governments. He has decided not to seek re-election.

Coleman is concerned that Tyler Thompson is “tilting at windmills, and looking for shadows behind things isn’t going to improve the outcomes for those that are hungry, starving, or not clothed …”

Noting Jesus’ call to love God and neighbour, he said, “Our job is to be there for our fellow man, and quit attacking each other just because we think our piece of the faith is better than somebody else’s piece of the faith.”

Coleman said the Christian Heritage Party “doesn’t understand that there are people of Christian values in political parties existing in British Columbia, and [CHP members] tend to try and label the other parties as being amoral – without people with Christian values.”

He pointed out he has participated several times in the annual March for Life in Victoria and worked diligently to improve the lot of the impoverished and under-privileged.

“I can tell you, within my party, there are Christians, and people of Catholic faith,” he says. “They are people of high moral standards who actually, every day, do their jobs, still keep their faith, and pray and look for the right direction.”