Amid 'hostile' rhetoric, a merry Christmas comes to city hall
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A week later, the Christians are coming back to city hall’s council chambers.
The organizers of the Christian Heritage Month initiative are hosting a sold-out Christmas event on Thursday evening — and by coincidence, the carols will ring out at the same place where tears were shed last week as councillors debated honouring Christianity in December.
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Christians “have 2,000 years of history of doing so much good,” Molly Banerjei, the woman behind the Christian Heritage Month initiative, told the Sun, adding that she’s “very, very happy and excited about” celebrating Christmas early at city hall.
Banerjei hopes the event can be the beginning of a new relationship between city officials and Toronto’s Christian community. She said city bureaucrats have been difficult when she tries to organize events at city venues, and are sometimes even rude, suggesting to her that offensive remarks might be made when Christians get together.
“Over the years, we have seen how the rhetoric against Christians has become so negative. It began as negative, and now it has come to a place where it is absolutely hostile,” she said. “There are people who are allergic to the word Christian.”
She sees a double standard. While council heard some sharp words about Christianity last week, she said many people at city hall, including Mayor Olivia Chow, regularly urge Toronto’s Christians to continue their outreach to the needy, volunteering at soup kitchens and opening up churches to house the city’s homeless. (Chow did vote in favour of the Christian Heritage Month motion, which passed 11-4.)
Banerjei emphasized that her group is “completely non-political.” The phrase “Christian heritage,” while also the name of a political party, was chosen to make it “consistent” with other such months of recognition, she said, to indicate that Christians see themselves as being neither more nor less than anyone else.
She also took issue with the idea that Christianity is inherently divisive, or that Christians are an ethnic monolith. An immigrant herself, she boasted that one of the choirs that will perform at this week’s Christmas celebration is made up of singers with Ukrainian or Russian backgrounds.
“Jesus can bring people together,” she said, adding: “It looks like the City of Toronto is trying to kick Jesus out. That’s not going to help!”
She has invited the councillors who voted in favour of Christian Heritage Month to the Christmas event. She said she also extended a special invitation to councillor Gord Perks, hoping to reconcile after the representative for Parkdale-High Park made remarks she found hurtful.
Perks, who paced the floor during last week’s council meeting amid interruptions by fellow councillor Anthony Perruzza, urged councillors to vote against declaring December as Christian Heritage Month, saying: “Canada as an entity is soaked and steeped in the Christian church.” (A representative told the Sun Perks was “unavailable” to comment.)
Banerjei said her group had never been denied by city hall’s protocol officials, as Perks said during the council meeting. (Asked if Christian-themed events are subject to specific rules, city officials told the Sun in an emailed statement that the guidelines are public and “all event request applications for the use of Nathan Phillips Square are evaluated equally.” A question on the accuracy of Perks’ statement about the protocol unit was ignored.)
Banerjei also told the Sun she was touched by the speech given by councillor Lily Cheng, who wept after Perks’ comments and told council what Christianity has meant in her life.
That show of emotion, Banerjei said, displayed “a strength, not a weakness.”
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