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Correspondence with Mr. Rod Taylor (CHP Leadership Race)

Mr. Rod Taylor, BC Vice-President
Mr. Rod Taylor, BC Vice-President
(Source)

Table of contents

1) R. Taylor (2008-August-09)
2) S. Jetchick (2008-August-18)
3) R. Taylor (2008-September-09)
4) S. Jetchick (2008-October-23)

1) R. Taylor (2008-August-09)

From: Rod Taylor
Sent: 10 août 2008 19:44
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: CHP Leadership Campaign Announcement

August 9, 2008
Dear Friends and Fellow-Labourers in the CHP:

After months of deliberation and prayer I am offering my name for
consideration in the CHP leadership race. I thank our retiring leader,
Ron Gray, for the sacrifices he has made for the CHP over the past 13
years and the precision and skill with which he has articulated the
principles of the CHP. He has truly raised the standard for all of us
in the way we present biblical truth as the framework for Canadian
public policy. I also have great respect for Jim Hnatiuk and Harold
Ludwig, the two other declared candidates at this writing. I have
appreciated their efforts in the past and consider it a great
privilege to work together with them and with all of you to impact our
culture and to restore righteousness to our land.

I have just opened a leadership campaign blog for leadership-focused
posts rodtaylorchpleadership.blogspot.com and, as time
permits, I will transfer some of my writings to it. In the meantime,
I invite every one of you to visit the CHP Skeena-Bulkley Valley
website chp.skeenabulkley.ca and my personal blog
mightyhost.blogspot.com to read some of my thoughts about
various issues. Feel free to contact me by phone (250) 847-3990 or
email rodtaylor (add at sign here) skeenabulkley.ca

With all of you, I look forward to the Leadership Convention in
November and offer a hearty "Thank you" to all of those who are
working so hard to prepare for a good convention. To any of you in
Ontario or nearby, I recommend that you attend The CRY
www.thecry.ca on Parliament Hill on August 23rd. Faytene
Kryskow, author of "Stand on Guard" and her group, 4MYC (4 My Canada)
will be joining with a great multitude of like-minded, God-fearing
Canadians, crying out to God for our nation. I can't attend because
we'll be at the Bulkley Valley Fall Fair CHP booth but we will tune
in for the live streaming version if we can get wireless reception.
4MYC has been doing an outstanding job of educating the public about
prolife and family issues and have made substantial inroads in the
way in which MPs view Christian social values. They also have
connected the dots for many young people who have become
sacrificially involved in transforming the culture.

We live in exciting times. Let's press in and see what God has in
store for us and for our nation.

Rod Taylor,
Smithers, BC

2) S. Jetchick (2008-August-18)

-----Original Message-----
From: Stefan Jetchick
Sent: 18 août 2008 17:35
To: Rod Taylor
Subject: RE: CHP Leadership Campaign Announcement

Good day Mr. Rod Taylor,

>> After months of deliberation and prayer I am offering my name for
>> consideration in the CHP leadership race.

Congratulations! I wish you the best!


>> I thank our retiring leader,
>> Ron Gray, for the sacrifices he has made for the CHP over the past 13
>> years and the precision and skill with which he has articulated the
>> principles of the CHP.

Amen!


Now, in order to help all members of the CHP (and myself) better
decide who to vote for, I ask the same question to all candidates.
I've already asked Mr. Jim Hnatiuk, and I will ask the same
question to Mr. Harold Ludwig, as soon as I find his e-mail.

The question is located here:

	Correspondance with Mr. Hnatiuk, (2008-Feb-07)


>> With all of you, I look forward to the Leadership Convention in
>> November and offer a hearty "Thank you" to all of those who are
>> working so hard to prepare for a good convention.

Same here!

And of course, I look forward to reading your answer to the question!
Don't rush your answer, it will be posted here forever (and the
question is very important, it touches the very roots of
Christian Politics).

In Christ,

Stefan Jetchick

P.S. Of course you can read all answers given to this question by
other CHP members if you think it might help you.

3) R. Taylor (2008-September-09)

-----Original Message-----
From: Rod Taylor
Sent: 9 septembre 2008 13:21
To: Stefan Jetchick
Cc: Ron Gray; Leslie Bartley; Vicki Gunn
Subject: Re: CHP Leadership Campaign Announcement

Hello Stefan and fellow-members of the CHP, brothers and sisters from
theCHP EDA Louis-Hébert (Quebec City):

It has taken me a very long time to get down to answering your
questions. I have followed, meanwhile, the correspondence surrounding
your resolution to the convention and I honour you for the time and
effort you have put into this project.

I love the verse with which you introduce your proposal: "The invisible
things of Him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made" Romans, 1:20

Short version of the Question: "Do you believe Faith is the foundation
of reason?"

One of the things He made is our mind---our ability to reason. All who
are made in His image have the ability to reason but not all exercise
faith. Like all our gifts, reason can be used or abused. The honest
reasoning of a rational mind invites faith to answer questions about
the mysteries of life. In order to deny faith or to deny the existence
of God, reason must be thwarted or distorted. The natural law, written
on the hearts of men and women, reflects God's order and is in harmony
with creation as well as His written word.

Longer version of the Question: "Would you vote in favor of adding a
sixth clause to the CHP Pledge, as worded in Section 7 of Does The CHP
Want To Establish A Theocracy?"

In the development of the CHP as a party and with a view to extending
our ability to impact society, I believe it is important to make our
positions as clear and simple as possible. Although we believe we can
represent all Canadians well, especially those (Christian and non-
Christian) who share our love of family, freedom and justice and who
desire an ordered society protective of innocent human life at all
stages, we do have membership requirements designed to preserve the
core values to which we are dedicating our efforts. Those requirements
do impose some hurdles for citizens who have not yet exercised faith to
declare publicly the existence of God. While I fully support every
effort to explain the value of our positions in secular terms I do not
feel the party would be well served by adding the sixth clause to the
pledge. Not every person considering membership is prepared to engage
in the depths of philosophy which the proposed clause would require. At
this point in time, I could not vote in favour of this proposal as I
feel it would make the pledge somewhat more cumbersome and difficult to
understand.

I appreciate the efforts of the Louis-Hebert EDA to improve the CHP and
feel this important philosophical point could be better addressed in a
position paper rather than in the membership pledge. Thank you for
allowing me to participate in this discussion.

Rod Taylor
CHP Candidate Skeena-Bulkley Valley
and CHP Leadership Candidate

4) S. Jetchick (2008-October-23)

Hello Mr. Rod Taylor,

Well, well, guess what, I'm finally going to answer your e-mail!
Sorry about the terribly long delay. I can partially excuse myself
because of the recent Federal election (I'm starting to catch
up on my todo list), but only partially.


>> Hello Stefan and fellow-members of the CHP, brothers and sisters from
>> the CHP EDA Louis-Hébert (Quebec City):

By the way, you scored many points over Mr. Hnatiuk just by being
courteous, and many points over Mr. Ludwig just by answering!

:-)


>> One of the things He made is our mind --- our ability to reason. All who
>> are made in His image have the ability to reason but not all exercise
>> faith.

Concedo.


>> Like all our gifts, reason can be used or abused.

Concedo.


>> The honest
>> reasoning of a rational mind invites faith to answer questions about
>> the mysteries of life. In order to deny faith or to deny the existence
>> of God, reason must be thwarted or distorted. The natural law, written
>> on the hearts of men and women, reflects God's order and is in harmony
>> with creation as well as His written word.

Concedo.


>> I believe it is important to make our
>> positions as clear and simple as possible.

Concedo.

But as Einstein reportedly said: "Everything should be made as simple
as possible, but no simpler."


>> we do have membership requirements designed to preserve the
>> core values to which we are dedicating our efforts.

Distinguo. If by "values" you mean "truths", Concedo. Except that
is not the meaning of the word "value", for the vast majority of Canadians.
This is why I claim the Christian Heritage Party doesn't have
any values, because good Christians don't have values. I've written
about this to Pastor Eric Pennings, and he seems to be starting to
realize this "value" word might need to be re-examined. See also:

	Good Scouts Don't Have Values


>> I fully support every
>> effort to explain the value of our positions in secular terms

Great! (By the way, in this sentence, you are using the word "value"
in a different meaning, a meaning which this time is perfectly OK.)


>> I do not
>> feel the party would be well served by adding the sixth clause to the
>> pledge.

OK, so here you register your disagreement.

Next, you need to give good arguments to back up your disagreement.
Let's see...


>> Not every person considering membership is prepared to engage
>> in the depths of philosophy which the proposed clause would require.

Concedo.

Which is precisely why the Sixth Clause is worded the way it is:

	"... but some of us know (and can prove
	using reason alone)..."
	[Proposed Sixth Clause]


If the Sixth Clause said:

	"In order to become a member of the CHP, everybody must be able to
	demonstrate, using reason alone, that ... etc., etc."

Then that clause would force any prospective member to "engage
in the depths of philosophy", as you say. Except that is precisely
not the case.


>> I feel it would make the pledge somewhat more cumbersome and
>> difficult to understand.

"Somewhat more cumbersome"? Well, yes, it would add a clause!

"Difficult to understand"? Well, if a prospective member cannot
tie his own shoes, maybe we shouldn't give him a membership card.
You do need a minimum of "mental horsepower" to participate
usefully in politics!

Is the simple Sixth clause that difficult to understand? No.
Anybody can roughly understand the difference between believing
and demonstrating. We all see that a small schoolboy
can believe his favorite teacher when she says that:

	"The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal
	to the sum of the squares on the other two sides."

And we all see that, when this small schoolboy later on takes
a Geometry class, and demonstrates the Pythagorean theorem,
then that small schoolboy will cease to believe, and just know.


>> I [...] feel this important philosophical point

Why is it important?

We claim it is important, because if somebody disagrees with that
Sixth Clause, it means the CHP is trying to establish a
theocracy. As clearly explained in the aforementioned article:

	"Citizens who would not have Faith would need to be excluded,
	since they couldn't know the fundamental principles of good
	government. We could tolerate them (while waiting for them
	to accept Jesus as their personal saviour), but not let them
	participate in the government of the land."
	[Does The CHP Want To Establish A Theocracy? Section 7]

This is not a policy detail. It's not like the CHP's position on
Autism, or the CHP's position on government grants given to
farmers who decide to switch to ethanol crops, or the CHP's
position on how much (if any) money we should give every year
to the United Nations, etc.


>> [this point] could be better addressed in a
>> position paper rather than in the membership pledge.

OK, let's take your word for it. Assuming, for the sake of the
argument, that all this is just a policy detail, will you address
this "policy detail" should you be elected National Leader?

Can you promise in writing, now, that you will make the CHP
adopt the Sixth Clause as a policy?

In Christ,

Stefan Jetchick

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