Pulpit and Politics: Competing Religious Ideologies in Canadian Public Life

Released by: Kingsley Publishers (October 2011) A provocative expose of the competition between religious progressives and conservatives for power and influence in Canadian politics. Gruending follows this contest between from Parliament Hill to the church basements, synagogues, temples and universities of the nation and abroad. Available from the author: dennis.gruending @sympatico.ca Tel: 613-730-6902 Readers™ Comments:... Continue Reading →

July 15, 2011

Dennis Gruending to publish book on Pulpit and Politics

Those of you who follow my blog will wonder why I have not been posting for the past number of weeks. In fact, several of you have contacted me to ask about it. The truth is that I have been taken up with the final edits of a book that I will publish in October.... Continue Reading →

July 14, 2011

Election 2011, political and religious polarization

By Dennis Gruending Stephen Harper won his long-coveted majority government in the 2011 federal election, receiving just under 40 per cent of the votes cast by the approximately 60 per cent of eligible Canadians who bothered to show up. An exit poll of 36,000 voters conducted by the Ipsos Reid company on May 2 yielded... Continue Reading →

May 31, 2011

Remembering my friend Allan Blakeney

Allan Blakeney, Saskatchewan premier 1971-82 My friend Allan Blakeney, the former premier of Saskatchewan, died in April 2011 at age 85. I describe him as a friend and he was, although I am aware that he had many friends of longer duration and also many admirers. As a CBC Radio host, I interviewed him on... Continue Reading →

May 1, 2011

Canada celebrates Israel: Christian Zionism and the election

By Dennis Gruending On day 12 of the federal election campaign Stephen Harper was in Markham, Ontario wooing immigrant voters. That same evening in Ottawa several hundred people gathered at a church called the Peace Tower on Bronson Avenue not far from Parliament Hill. There they pledged fealty to the state of Israel and praised... Continue Reading →

April 17, 2011

Make climate change an election issue

By Dennis Gruending I was in an Ottawa church basement along with about 80 other people a few days after the election call listening to three church leaders on a panel called Environment & Climate in Peril. The frustration was palpable. "Climate change is the key moral and ethical dilemma of our time and we... Continue Reading →

April 7, 2011

Stephen Harper and the long gun registry, facts and fiction

By Dennis Gruending Stephen Harper announced on April 4 that a re-elected Conservative government would scrap Canada's long gun registry. That hardly comes as a surprise. The Conservatives hate the registry. They tried in the last parliament to do away with it and have all of its records destroyed but they lost the vote narrowly in the House... Continue Reading →

April 4, 2011

Harper’s hypocrisy on coalitions

By Dennis Gruending Stephen Harper used the first days of the 2011 election campaign to demonize the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois as plotting a coalition to replace him following an election in which he might win the most seats but form a minority government. It was both a scare and a smear tactic meant... Continue Reading →

March 28, 2011

Stephen Harper’s hit list, organizations whose funding has been cut or ended

The Conservative government has thrown us into the 2011 election campaign. This is perhaps a good time to take stock of who the Harperites have spent their time attacking in the past several years. (They have also lavished favour on their own, appointing them to be judges, to the Immigration Review Board, the CRTC or... Continue Reading →

March 25, 2011

Father James Gray, Bush Dweller

By Dennis Gruending Note: This writing is drawn from a chapter that I contributed to a recently-published book called Bush Dweller: essays in memory of Father James Gray, OSB. Long after I had finished with my years at university, I made a list of the five teachers and professors who had been my best. Two... Continue Reading →

March 2, 2011

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑