I recently received an email update from the BC Humanist Association and was gob-smacked by their reference to a Michael Coren article (The alternative to assisted dying is not living) in the Toronto Star which takes to task the (thankfully soon to be former) Harper government’s theocratic collusion with the Christian right on the core issues of abortion, gay rights and euthanasia.
“How can this be ?” I thought. Is the multi-verse theory of cosmology correct and have I been transported to some alternate reality ?
My last encounter with Michael Coren was years ago when I stumbled upon “The Michael Coren Show” on CTS (Crossroads TV, an odious Burlington based evangelical TV station that allows religious hucksters to fleece the poor and desperate via the medium of TV and an 800 number) on which he explored social issues through the dark and distorted lens of religion, the only reason I stayed tuned was that the show featured a token atheist, Justin Trottier, who held up admirably well under the combined assault of Michael Coren and his religious lackeys, and who made me aware of CFI Canada. For that my most sincere thanks to Mr. Coren.
So a bit of googling revealed Michael Coren’s history since that time, from Catholicism to evangelical Christianity, back to Catholicism and now he basks in the tepid waters of the Anglican church which seems to have leached out the worst of the homophobia, misogyny and anti-human ideology he absorbed from the Catholic church.
I found his article in the Toronto Star to be well written and personally moving, especially his reference to not being able to accede to the last wishes of his dying father.
One would hope that his newly found position is based on a rational re-evaluation of the evidence but given his checkered history and chameleon like ability to adopt new world views at the drop of a hat, we shall just have to wait and see.
Coren went through his “conversion” some two years ago when his daughter came out as gay. It has hard to believe that this staunch and bellicose Christian has softened to a more a humanist stance but he has consistently put forward a rational, humanist position for some time now. This includes telling Christians on the CBC show, The Current, not to vote for Harper as the stance of the CPC was decidedly “unchristian”. His indepth analysis of why and in what ways the CPC betrayed a humanistic version of Christianity for an unforgiving and nasty one was surprising, enlightened and wholly unexpected. While he remains a Christian, his views are so far removed from his original ones that we need to understand him better and how we might use his example to “encourage” other zealous religoids to a more moderate and enlightened stance.
Coren says in http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/05/16/how-a-change-of-heart-led-to-a-backlash-from-the-church-of-nasty.html that:
“Actually, my daughter lives with her long-term boyfriend in Paris, not that her sexuality matters to me and shouldn’t to anyone else.”
The gay daughter story is apparently part of the xtian backlash in response to his new position and has no basis in reality.
What is with window shopping for a religion? Are the all the religions the true religion and you can pick anyone? Seems silly to me, I thought the other guys religion was always wrong. Coren was x they y then z, if you believe in a god how could you keep doing this?