A friend asked me recently about the differences between the three countries. I’ve obviously spent a lot of time thinking about that, but on this particular day it was religion that occupied my thoughts. There seems to be a particular hue to the practice of religion in the three places.
We’re all reading from the same book: the Bible. But just like Islam and Judaism, the various sects of Christianity all have their own spin on it. The book itself is still the peculiar mixture of Old Testament books taken from the Torah, a collection of letters and anecdotes from Jesus’ time, all tied together with allegory and metaphors written by the members of a then-obscure cult some 400 years after Jesus Christ died.
I think Canada has inherited England’s mainstream sort of laid-back, benevolent and slightly irreverent moral ethos, while the Puritans’ rigid moral backbone still beats at the heart of US religion. You see both sides in England: just like in the States, yet another MP gets caught in some scandal admiring a dark-skinned young woman or having a dalliance with his gay lover. But, more like Canada, people tend to mostly laugh and shrug rather than get their panties all in a twist about it.
Unfortunately, it is the humourless brand of puritanical fervour that mostly obtains in the US. It makes for no fun. No fun is guaranteed to drive people away, even if they carry the guilt and shame with them when they go.
Of course, there are almost as many flavours of Christians as there are people in the U.S. Given the propensity for individuality, everyone wants to start their own religion. And a lot of them are fun, it’s just that the really zealous sorts are the ones that make the best headlines.
I personally really like Mahatma Gandhi’s take on the dominant paradigm of the English-speaking world. He said: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
