God Himself spoke to us, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.” So, let’s ask ourselves, can Christians advance as rulers candidates for office who have proudly announced their intention to terrorize good conduct and reward bad? The power to tax is the power to destroy, and it’s made all the more perverse if those taxes accomplish evil instead of good. But let’s get into some background.

On December 16, 2024, while Canadians were preparing for Christmas and political headlines dominated the news, a quiet but significant threat to the Christian witness in Canada emerged. Hidden deep within the Federal Finance Committee’s 462 recommendations for Budget 2025 were two proposals that should deeply concern every believer:

• Recommendation 429: No longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations.
  
• Recommendation 430: Amend the Income Tax Act to remove the privileged status of “advancement of religion” as a charitable purpose.
  

Though easy to overlook—buried in the tail-end of a lengthy list and overshadowed by political drama surrounding Prime Minister Trudeau's resignation—these recommendations strike at the very heart of Christian faithfulness and public witness in Canada.

Let’s be clear: these are not just administrative changes. These are ideologically driven attempts to redefine charity using evil and anti-Christian standards, effectively sidelining Christian voices and values. And this should alarm us. For if our government no longer recognizes the advancement of religion or the aid to pregnant mothers motivated by pro-life conviction as charitable, how much state-approved public engagement is even left for Biblical Christians?

Abortion, as a moral and theological issue, is pre-political in its offense to the Christian conscience. Scripture teaches us that each human life, including in the womb, is fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps 139:13-16), and formed by God Himself (Jer 1:5; Isa 44:24). John the Baptist leapt in the womb at the presence of the unborn Christ (Luke 1:41, cf. 1:5)—a human child responding to a human child. To remove charitable status from organizations that seek to protect unborn lives, while continuing to fund those that assist in ending them, is neither neutrality nor protecting choice. Rather, it is the ultimate fulfillment of Proverbs 8:36, where God’s wisdom says, “Those who hate me, love death.”

This is not the first time the Liberals have tried to defund their political opponents by wielding “anti-abortion” as though it’s a label their enemies should be ashamed of. Previously (beginning in 2018), the Liberals' offensive was characterized by withholding funding from pro-life groups seeking to access the Canada Summer Job program. Back then, even pro-abortion Conservative politicians rallied to prevent those changes.  But now, silence has reigned thus far on this current attack on pro-life advocacy.

Fortunately, that silence is broken on the recommendation to remove “advancement of religion” from the definition of a charitable purpose. Rightfully so, since it undermines not only the ability of churches to issue tax receipts but also burdens with taxation the broader role the church plays in society. Religious charities account for roughly 40% of all Canadian charities. The work of these organizations—feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, counselling the broken, and offering eternal hope in Christ—goes far beyond Sunday worship. A study by Cardus, a Christian think tank, shows that religious congregations generate $16.5 billion in social and economic benefits annually—over ten times the value of the tax benefits they receive.¹

Remove charitable status, and even a 10% drop in effectiveness (a near certainty) would mean a substantial loss for Canadian society, especially its most vulnerable. A loss in religious charitable activity would particularly hurt the poor and taunt their maker (Prov 14:31). This is all true even for those who foolishly discount the inestimable worth of worshipping the Lord of Glory (Matt 26:11) and seeing the spiritually dead raised to a living hope (1 Pe 1:3). The clear folly of the Finance Committee recommendation is likely why the advancement of religion as a tax-exempt charitable purpose dates back at least to the 1891 Pemsel case, and has not been seriously questioned since. Canadian society once again provides evidence for the Proverb, “The righteous care even for their animals, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.”

While the Liberal-led Finance Committee recommendation to tax their (good) political enemies, such as pro-life and religious organizations, has not been denounced by Mark Carney or any prominent Liberals, they at least are not openly running on it. That’s understandable, since no party could win without church-attending Christian votes. They are not so circumspect, however, with their promise to funnel that tax money to their (evil) political allies. They are running on it.

On the last page of a platform that has mainly drawn headlines over the deficits it promises (and after promising “Investing in women’s sexual and reproductive health care,” a euphemism for spending tax dollars on abortion), they proudly proclaim two commitments:

• “Making funding permanent for the 2SLGBTQI+ Community Capacity Fund.
• Enabling Canadians to take more action to affirm their rights by expanding the Court Challenges Program.”

The first is a commitment to make permanent a supposedly temporary program funding initiatives to educate children about sexual orientation and gender identity without their parents’ knowledge. The second is a commitment to expand a program under which federally-funded organizations like Egale Canada (and other favoured parties) can, for instance, sue the Alberta government for respecting parental rights in education—leaving you, as a taxpayer, funding both sides of this lawsuit. The Carney government, in its primary document of election promises, looks determined to praise evil with your tax dollars more than the Trudeau government ever dreamed.

Elections are not, in themselves, defiling, as many Christians seem to think. But they can reveal defilement—like taxing charity to fund evil. In this case, had there not been an election, many Canadians and Christians would not have known of this attempt to throw off the supposed shackles of heaven (Ps 2:1-6). Without the salt and light of Christians, how can we avoid both Psalm 2 and Psalm 12, in which “the wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honoured among men”?

1 - Mike Wood Daly, “Why Religious Tax Exemptions Benefit All Canadians,” Cardus, November 12, 2024, https://www.cardus.ca/research/spirited-citizenship/reports/why-religious-tax-exemptions-benefit-all-canadians/