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VIEWPOINT
The endangered vanguard

Éric Wingender

The following article was published, in a somewhat longer form, in the November 1999 issue of Le Lien, the French-language periodical produced by the Canadian MB Conference largely for Mennonite Brethren in Quebec. We publish this article here for the light it sheds on Quebec society, and elsewhere.

When an army is executing manoeuvres on a battlefield, more than one soldier has resisted being assigned to the vanguard – because that corps is more directly exposed to enemy fire, greatly increasing the probability of receiving a medal . . . posthumously.

Yet, without being aware of it, that is the choice that our society made when it turned its back on our traditional values and rushed headlong into postmodernism. In a continent already thought to represent the future, we in Quebec have become a reckless cohort which charges ahead and tries to live what others only imagine. Responding quickly to the trumpet call of pleasure-seeking and postmodern relativism, we have galloped toward change with a fervour that qualifies us to be the vanguard – a vanguard in peril. We have already begun to pay a heavy price for our eagerness to reinvent ourselves. This price, among other things, includes an increasing inability to preserve our culture. We are producing too few children and, as a French minority in a sea of English, are endangering our collective existence.

As believers, what should we make of this demographic anorexia? Does our plunging birth rate have aspects which our contemporaries refuse to consider and which it falls to us to introduce into public discussion? Is it time to speak a prophetic word denouncing the evil inherent in certain aspects of our culture?

Before answering these questions, let us examine the issue itself. Declining birth rates are a reality throughout the Western world, and in some European countries the rate is even lower than here. Globally, our declining birth rate is positive, to the extent that it is a healthy and desirable response to the situation created by an even more rapidly declining death rate. It would be unthinkable to maintain the same birth rate as our ancestors now that we can be almost certain of our children living into adulthood.

However, even taking these things into consideration, it is impossible not to perceive a pathological dimension to our declining birth rate. The level the rate has now reached reveals the dangerous character of some of the values that our culture invites us to accept. These values, when applied in daily life, are clearly not “sustainable” – they cannot contribute to the flourishing of a healthy and stable human community in the long run.

What are these values which are poisoning our society? They are the “10 commandments of postmodernism”:

Your life has no meaning other than that which you yourself give to it. Make your personal happiness your number one goal. Be accountable to nobody. Sacrifice everything on the altar of your own independence. Suffering should not be tolerated under any circumstances. Despise the past; worship the future. Do not impose your values on anyone. Remain committed to your spouse and your family, if you want to. Be on your guard against giving yourself and denying yourself anything. Make ingratitude one of the chief virtues.

Practising it more fervently than others, we Québécois form the vanguard in North America for this religion without roots or memory, this religion consisting of moments of happiness in a spiritual void.

Éric Wingender is president of École de Théologie Évangélique de Montréal (formerly IBL). This article was translated by Jim Coggins and is reprinted with permission of Le Lien.

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Last modified May 4, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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