September 30th is Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. People in the workforce or in school are encouraged to wear orange shirts to honor survivors of residential schools, the children who never returned home, and their families and communities. How should Christians regard this day?
The Virtue of Truth and Reconciliation
Both truth and reconciliation are major themes in Scripture, and Christians certainly desire and advocate for both, but what is meant by truth and reconciliation? For Christians, truth is that which comports with reality. The church is called to be the pillar and buttress of the truth (1 Tim 3:15). All Christians are to be truthful because we serve a God of truth who never lies (Titus 1:2). And this truth, is the true truth that begins with the reality of God’s existence, his creation of all things, our place as image bearers of God, and the person and work of Christ who is the truth (Prov 1:7; Gen 1:1, 27; John 14:6).
Likewise, reconciliation speaks of a relationship of real peace and harmony. First and foremost, it speaks of the peace we have with God through the self-sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ which removed the hostility of sin between man and God and united us to God himself (1 Peter 3:18; Romans 5:1; 2 Corinthians 5:17–21). This reconciliation between God and man is the basis upon which man is called to be reconciled with his fellow man. We have fellowship with one another because God has done a work of reconciliation (1 John 1:3–4).
Therefore, Christians are certainly for truth and most definitely for reconciliation. These are valued virtues that ought to be embraced by everyone who professes to know and love the God of truth and reconciliation.
The Battle for the Dictionary
However, we must remember that we live in a day where there is a battle for the dictionary. Words like marriage, man, woman, love, diversity, and tolerance have all been redefined away from a historic, Christian understanding to align with a secular humanistic worldview. The truths I mentioned above are truths that most people celebrating Truth and Reconciliation Day would reject—even calling them harmful. I’m convinced that what is being promoted today as Truth and Reconciliation contains lies and promotes division. As it says in Romans 1, those who reject God suppress the truth in unrighteousness, believe the lie, do not give thanks to God or honor him as God, and worship the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:18–32).
The Truth?
In 2015 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released a report with a call to action to establish a statutory holiday. The TRC report called for the public to acknowledge the abuse, cultural destruction, high death rates, and the entire residential school system as a form of cultural genocide (the TRC’s term, not mine).
Their entire report is selective. A complete historical picture (i.e., the truth) reveals experiences differed widely. Many report obtaining literacy, practical skills, friendships, regular meals, and relative safety compared to conditions on the reserve. While the Indian Act sought to force enrollment, some parents and chiefs sought this education for their children voluntarily, not under coercion. Tragically, deaths did occur, yet these were from diseases common at the time. While all death is terrible, especially among children, evidence is lacking for any deliberate or mass killing of children.
An example of promoting an exaggerated or false narrative occurred in 2021. In May 2021, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that ground-penetrating radar had detected about 215 soil anomalies which were declared to be the unmarked, mass graves of children from the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Similar radar announcements followed at other former school sites. Churches across the country were burned down in response and media reports continue to speak about mass graves, murdered and missing children, and cultural genocide.
While the narrative points to these mass graves as evidence of the cultural genocide in Canada’s past, no human remains have been excavated or confirmed from the site. Evidence to the contrary, suggesting that the anomalies are an old septic system, is ignored. Only digging can confirm but that hasn’t happened since the site is now considered sacred. It should be noted that other “anomalies” were excavated at other locations (e.g., Pine Creek, Manitoba) with no evidence of human remains found. In fact, there is zero evidence for any mass graves yet the “truth” of “Truth and Reconciliation Day” is that this genocide did happen.
For more information on the facts, I would encourage you to watch the documentary called “Making a Killing” available on YouTube.
Informed by truth and facts, there still remain real issues that should be addressed. Let me encourage you in the following:
1. Show Sympathy. Find Comfort in Christ.
I know some may believe that asking for facts or evidence is coldhearted to the real suffering that took place in the past. Let me be clear, we ought to have sympathy for those who suffer or have suffered. We live in a sin-cursed world of suffering, harm, hurt, and wrongs. As Christians, we grieve over suffering and point ourselves and others to Christ who came to reverse the curse and bring an end to all sin, death, and suffering. Christ must be the answer to any suffering.
We must also remember that suffering is not pointless. God accomplished salvation through the suffering of Christ. The Hebrews were saved through the suffering of Joseph. Paul suffered so that the churches might know Christ. And in suffering we grow in maturity, character, love, and hope. Suffering is redeemed in Christ for God’s glory and our good.
Our world has no answer to suffering. Their game of identity politics, blaming one group while labeling another as victims is unhelpful. There is no real reconciliation. There is no true hope. True reconciliation must include forgiveness, beginning with the forgiveness of our sins before a holy God through Christ. Being forgiven by Christ allows us to forgive others freely who have wronged us and entrust ourselves to God when we suffer unjustly (1 Peter 2:20–23). Rather than constantly remembering past wrongs, forgiveness is the way of Christ, moving forward in hope.
2. Learn from the Past
Knowing the past is necessary to learn from the past. We certainly should learn from our mistakes, but it is even better when we can learn from the mistakes of others and not have to suffer through the school of hard knocks ourselves.
The past is ugly. Sin corrupts, destroys, and wrecks what God made good and beautiful. Residential schools, like other institutions, are places where sin corrupts and harms. When the sins of the past are acknowledged or remembered, it should encourage us to avoid those errors today. We can’t confess or repent from sins we never committed, but we can learn from them.
What errors of the past should we learn from here? The crux of the complaint concerning residential schools is that those schools forced their beliefs on others. Have we learned from the past?
Isn’t the modern public school system doing the same thing today? Most public schools today emphasize LGBTQ+ ideology, climate alarmism, secular humanism, cultural Marxism, and indigenous spirituality. Are these views shared by all families who have children in the school system? No. Then should people—e.g., Christians—who don’t agree with this new woke orthodoxy sound the alarm about cultural genocide as the schools seek to eradicate traditional beliefs and values?
Of course today’s teacher’s unions would argue that they are teaching what is good and what they would want for their own children. Was that not the desire behind residential schools as well? The residential school system sought to teach indigenous children western cultural values, hygiene, work, discipline, literacy, math—the very things taught to their own children. Boarding schools were not abnormal but were common at the time for non-indigenous children as well. Those who ran these schools were well intended, thinking their values were helpful and true, just like today’s leaders in the public education system. Again, have we learned any lessons?
Perhaps we need to learn a lesson that the family, rather than the state, should be entrusted with the education of their children while allowing the free market to provide choice, curriculum, and support for families. The state tends to get out of its lane and muck up that which it intends to fix. Sadly, we haven’t learned this lesson.
3. Seek True Reconciliation
While reconciliation with God is the ultimate priority and need of every generation, reconciliation between people who live in the same place is important. Backgrounds are shaping, including the background that we are all descendants of Adam, created in the image of God. We must remember this common ground to promote reconciliation, peace, and true equality.
In seeking reconciliation, should Canada have an apartheid-like setup where we have a system of institutionalized racial segregation? I would say, no. Therefore, “reconciliation” should seek to end the reserve system and grant all citizens of Canada equality before the law and between one another as citizens.
I’m convinced that our current system that labels an entire ethic group as marginalized victims does not help to see true equality. Under God, we are all made in his image and have inherent dignity, value, and worth. Treating some people differently so that everyone can be equal is a failed argument. We should seek to live in a place where all are equal under God and under the law regardless of skin color, ethnic background, wealth, or position. This would be true reconciliation.
4. Stand for the Truth
Christians are to be people of truth, even if we live in a time when truth is unpopular. The great truths of Scripture are not negotiable and lead to life, happiness, and peace. Truth and reconciliation cannot take place through the promotion of quasi-facts or a revival of indigenous spirituality or Marxists categories of oppressor and oppressed. Truth and reconciliation can only take place through the work of Christ through his word and the Holy Spirit. The church, with its gospel proclamation, is the promoter of truth and reconciliation in a world of suffering and sin.
May we pray for the advance of the gospel, with strength and discernment for the church that she may be a beacon of truth and a rallying cry to be reconciled to God and to each other in Christ.
—Tim Stephens