In French-Speaking Canada, the Sacred Is Also Profane

It is sad to see that the repressive nature of the Roman Catholic Church in early Québec history has in effect turned off successive generations from hearing the gospel. They don't want any part of the Gospel. To be able to break down the barriers we have to be able to engage the culture with humility. Humility is not a word typically accustomed to America or her culture.

Quebecers Turn to Church Terms, Rather Than the Sexual or Scatological, to Vent Their Anger

By Doug Struck
Tuesday, December 5, 2006; Page A21
Washington Post Foreign Service

MONTREAL -- "Oh, tabernacle!" The man swore in French as a car splashed through a puddle, sending water onto his pants. He could never be quoted in the papers here. It is too profane.

So are other angry oaths that sound innocuous in English: chalice, host, baptism. In French-speaking Quebec, swearing sounds like an inventory being taken at a church.

English-speaking Canadians use profanities that would be well understood in the United States, many of them scatological or sexual terms. But the Quebecois prefer to turn to religion when they are mad. They adopt commonplace Catholic terms -- and often creative permutations of them -- for swearing.

In doing so, their oaths speak volumes about the history of this French province.

"When you get mad, you look for words that attack what represses you," said Louise Lamarre, a Montreal cinematographer who must tread lightly around the language, depending on whether her films are in French or English. "In America, you are so Puritan that the swearing is mostly about sex. Here, since we were repressed so long by the church, people use religious terms..." (Read more)

A dark Church in Montréal

Living in Montréal this semester has opened my eyes to a much broader view of the world. In Quebec so far, I have been talking to people on the streets who do not believe the same things as me for the first time. I walked down to a church in Downtown Montreal and found a sign translated “Our religious heritage is sacred.” When I went inside it was literally a dark sanctuary that I knew had been very beautiful once on the inside. It reminded me of the constant struggle between religion and relationship. In the US it is easy to sink into a world of complacency because most people that I am surrounded by believed the same things as me. I am discovering a deeper relationship with Christ as I reflect on a spiritually dead culture. It is like the saying that you never know what you had until it is gone. The gospel is gone from the province of Quebec. I have been called to the mission field. I feel that my life is open to where I will be lead. I am responding to that leading now by studying French and theology at a reformed seminary in Montreal. The seminary has many close ties to the PCA, yet even the PCA has neglected for the most part the province of Quebec. So much of missions are focused around the world while America’s backyard has one of the most unreached people groups in the world. Only .5% of Montreal’s 3.5 million people even claim to be Christians. Not 50%, half of one percent! That is only 17,500 people that even claim to be Christians in a city that most resemble the major cities of the world, New York and London. Why is the Church dying in the big cities?

FAREL

Above is a panorama view of where I will be living for the next five months with a couple of other photos as well. I am going to be studying theology at FAREL Faculté de Théologie Réformée.

Faith not sight

In late August I began searching online for places to study abroad in France. As many of you know I have felt called to missions in French Africa so I wanted the opportunity to be immersed in French culture and learn the language by studying abroad. That is the background for the next part in this story, my life.

My church in Chattanooga, TN, Concord Baptist Church, took thirty people to Montreal to minister at Renaissance Church. They spoke one Sunday night about the opportunities they had to share the gospel (in French l'Evangile). They challenged the church to go and let God close the door if it was not his will. (At this point in the story I had not yet begun to think about studying abroad) Immediately after the service I told my pastor, David King, that I was ready to go that night! A few weeks had gone by and I felt a strong desire to look into studying abroad. By this time Montreal was in the back of my mind, but throughout the process I kept coming up with programs in Montreal so shifted my focus to Montreal rather than France. I stumbled upon Farel Reformed Theological Seminary in Montreal, Quebec and contacted their dean. We began exchanging emails and I immediately became very interested at the opportunity to live in a Francophone environment and still go to a reformed school. God truly is in control of everything. He arranges everything according to his will. Who would have thought that a country boy from Alabama would have the opportunity to study at a Reformed Theological Seminary in Canada? I do not know what God has in store for me. But HE has definitely placed the city of Montreal in my direct path. Like my extended family's theme song says "Praise God from whom all blessings flow (AKA The Doxology)."

As of today, September 10th, 2007, I am in the process of applying to Farel RTS and arranging how the credits will transfer back to Covenant. If everything works according to God's plan I will be going to Montreal in January to study for four months and have the opportunity to minister to the people of Montreal. Merci to everyone who has been praying for me. I miss my family and my church family, but I can definitely feel the effects of prayer on my life.

Little did I know during this whole process that my dad was praying that God would show him clearly that my younger brother Thomas should go to Covenant College. Studying abroad in Montreal is going to save my family a significant amount of money so that we should be able to save for next semester when both my brother and I will be, Lord Willing, going to Covenant College. In a broader sense of understanding God's plan, this is the result of prayer that started three years ago when I began looking into going to Covenant. The summer of my senior year we went through the Henry Blackaby class called Experiencing God. One of the main themes that we learned from our study was Blackaby's emphasis on Faith not sight. If I had received a full ride to Covenant College or graciously been given a huge scholarship then we would not be as motivated as humans to praise God for what he had done. But by taking a leap of Faith we are able to see more fully God's hand moving throughout the whole process. Thus, my family encouraged me to go Covenant College and you can see the results of God's work in my life since that investment. Not only have I been constantly reminded how inadequate I am, but I have been encouraged by how God orchestrates all theses according to his will. So much so that knowing that Henry Blackaby was the founder of the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists, which is the same convention that was directly involved in the planting of Renaissance Church in Kirkland, Quebec, which swinging full circle is also the same church that Concord Baptist Church took their mission trip too. Take a breath. See God's hand at work in your life and be encouraged to see an example of God working in mine.

1 Timothée 1:17 Au roi des siècles, immortel, invisible, seul Dieu, soient honneur et gloire, aux siècles des siècles! Amen!
1 Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Deserve Victory Pt. I

First, I want to discuss the url name that I chose and also the title of my blog. I attempted to chose the url "deserve victory" but it had already been taken so I proceeded with the next best option...the same phrase in another language. I chose French because I will be starting to take French in the fall at Covenant College as a part of my major. I feel called into missions and specifically French Africa, but I will talk more about that later. I wanted to briefly summarize what I actually mean by the phrase "Deserve Victory."

I am going to discuss the phrase by using a story from one of my favorite authors Terry Goodkind and his Sword of Truth Novels. My favorite book in this series is "Naked Empire," which is the most captivating story of individual struggle as well as one of his most outspoken books concerning objectivism (See Ayn Rand). One of the main themes in the "Naked Empire" develops from the Bandakar people who "could not see evil"; rather they strongly embraced a Kantian philosophy, which required them to disbelieve reality. They shunned all forms of violence and judgment. They laid their lives down before their enemies without fighting back. So they were banished from the rest of the world, because their ideas threatened the existence of the "Old World" since they would not preserve their own lives. Richard, the main character, manages to convince several of the Bandakar to shed their ideals and embrace the individualist ideas adopted by Richard and his D'Haran Empire. These ideas allow the Bandakar people to take up arms and fight for their own freedom. The phrase that I connected the theme of this novel also comes from Winston Churchill’s quote, "Deserve Victory." Once the people realize that they are valuable, that their lives are worth fighting for they finally learn to “deserve victory.” More about why we should want deserve victory later.