The Brussels Post, 1978-07-12, Page 2Evelyn .Kennedy - Editor
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $9.00 a Year.
Others $17,00 a Year, Single Copies 20 cents each.
eNA
Window shapes
.4,1.
Jim Wexler had open heart surgery 9 years ago.
Today he swims, takes long walks and enjoys life BEcAusE pEopLE
GAVE BLOOD.
friends for life
The Canadian Red Cross Society
• • • J.,•
Brussels Post
WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 1970
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community..
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels. Ontario
by McLean Bros..Fublishers Limited,
Good news time
onussELS
ONTARIO
Something seems to be happening to North
American society that may be far more significant
than past revolutions such as the "greening" of
America, or the hippies, or the protest marches.
For the first time in many years, we're in a mood
for good news again.
Star Wars becomes the biggest money making
movie of all time. Surprise!--the good guys win. And
they do it, not by some clever trick that catches their
opponents off guard, but by trusting something
bigger than themselves, by something that used to
be called faith.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind presents alien
creatures, not as a malevolent enemy be beaten off,
but as a sign of hope. •
Almost all the big national magazktes in. Canada
have now carried' feature articles on marriages that
last, instead of just those that break up. And on the
Mery Griffin Show, Ross Hunter, the .director of
Airport, says that people are getting tired of sex,
violence, and pornography. According to Hunter,
they're ready for love stories again.
Faith...hope...and love...Maybe it's true, as
newscaster Lloyd Robertson writes in the
Presbyterian Record, quoting a U.S. university
president, that "the Christian experience has
become acceptable again."
If our obsession with bad news is indeed waning,
that in itself is good news.
(Unchurched editorials)
[by Keith Roulston]
For several years now Canada has been
suffering from an increase in selfishness.
Now it appears we're also battling a new
outbreak of intolerance.
The two, of course are connected.
Intolerance conies from the same concen-
tration on "self", the same inability to see
what one's activities are doing to others.
Both are based on egoism.
There are many instances of intolerance
these days. The recent marches of Nazi
sympathizers in the U.S. are the most
visible, bringing back horrid memories of
the atrocities of the Second World War
when Nazis were so intolerant of others, so
sure they were God's chosen people that
they put millions of Jews and gypsies to
death and lead to the deaths of many of
many of their own Aryans and the soldiers
of many other countries as well in bloody
battles.
But those marches in the U.S. have been
by only a handful of people and massed
against them have been thousands of
anti-Nazis shouting slogans like "Death to
the Nazis." This intolerance is perhaps
more understandable, but it also contains
the seeds of danger,
We see intolerance too in the growing
racial frictions in our own country,
particularly in our large cities where new
immigrant populations are highest. but
occasionally evident right in our own back
yard. And of course the two extremes in
both English and French Canada are so full
of intolerance for each other that we may
end up losing our country.
We've seen a good deal of intolerance in
our own area in the last while over the
whole books in the school issue. The
argument has been joined between two
sides, each equally sure that it is right an
the other is wrong. No one on either side
ever seems to have any doubts.
Most of my own friends, of course, are
on the side against banning of books from
reading courses. They are so sure they are
right in their stand that they can easily
dismiss any arguments against their side.
They have the whole liberal and artistic
tradition behind them to tell them they are)
right. They bring out the old argumentS
about the danger of curtailing freedont of
speech and recall the horrid days of 1;ook
burnings in Nazi Gerniany and see no
difference between what is going on in
Huron and those horrible examples in.
history.
Yet, while they are stainteh defenders of
freedorri of expression here, .they'll admit
grudgingly that there is a need for
censorship in some cases such as When
children are exploited for pornography.
They fail to De able to see that once you
decide the line has to be drawn some-
where, it's only a matter of personal
preference where the line should be drawn.
There is no longer any right or wrong, but
only personal preference.
But the intolerance on the other side of
the question is even more frightening.
Some of the proponents of the move to
throw out these "dirty" books from the
county high schools' senior reading
courses have more \than a tradition of
liberalism to back them up. They have a
fierce knowledgethat they are on the side of God.
Now there is nothing wrong with feeling
one is on the side of God. The trouble
conies when people are so sure they are on
the side of God that they can justify any
kind of action because they are just doing
God's will. Idi Amin gets "messages"
from God and proceeds to kill thousands of
people in Uganda. Christians here will say
that Idi is just some kind of nut who's not
really getting messages but they're quite
willing to take some pretty strong action
here, say some pretty cruel things because
they have the "real truth".
Christianity can be the greatest, most
compassionate religion of all. The
teachings of Christ were of understanding,
of warnings against the Pharisee, of
turning the other cheek. Yet his
overzealous followers have started wars in
his name, killing millions because they were
sure what was right. They have practiced
genocide and torture and all kinds of
similar atrocities over the years. Their God
is the God of peace but there has often
been little peace. Their God was the God of
love, but many have exhibited more hate
than love.
Christians who become too sure they
have the "Message" that they are the only
possessors of the "truth" and must save the
world single handedly are treading on
dangerous ground. The more fundamen-
talist religions that often lead such
crusades today also believe in the devil, yet
somehow are always sure that it is
messages front God they are getting, not
messages from the devil who may be
leading them astray.
Frankly, I don't know whose side God
would be on in the current book dispute in
Huron County, I do believe however that
he wouldn't be very proud of either side for
the way it's been behaving. If he is a God
of love and understanding as we have been
taught, then he must be shuddering at he
lack of love arid titiderstanding Iii Huron
County these days.
Behind the scenes
With God on our side