Imagine a Canadian Christian flag. Instead of a maple leaf perhaps an igloo with a frosty crucifix over the entrance or a lakeside cross with a beaver gnawing at its base. Well, our southern neighbours can do more than just imagine such an icon of faith and state. A group in Maryland will sell God-fearing Americans a gold-fringed Christian Flag of the United States of America for 50 God-trusting dollars.

The flag features an eagle carrying a blood-stained cross, which represents “the American Christian taking the gospel around the world”; 50 stars around the border, which represent “U.S. Christians banding together to protect [their] right to preach the gospel”; and some apocalyptic: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the worldâe¦.and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). The flag wavers, led by flag designer Marcia Thompson Eldreth, pull up short of declaring Washington the capital of heaven itself but, nonetheless, offer a stiff dose of right wing religiosity.

I asked Eldreth about the manifestly American nature of her rendering of Christianity. She wrote back: “I suppose God called for this flag as He has a grand purpose for our nation in His plan for the nations.” Then, to my bewilderment, she wrote: “If there were an American mission set up in Canada, the flag would depict that mission there…the American Christian at work.”

While most Canadians would balk at such displays of religio-nationalism, the big reverend to the south is at our national back door. A religious right in Canada is a growing possibility. The recent appearance of Rev. Tristan Emmanuel in major Canadian news outlets is one example of religious moralism trying to finagle its way into the House of Commons.

Emmanuel is founder of Equipping Christians for the Public Square Centre. Other groups of some reach include Focus on the Family Canada, Christian Coalition International Canada, a range of “pro-marriage” groups and a troupe of U.S. televangelists who beam the gospel according to Bush into Canadian households.

Ever since Preston Manning, son of a prominent preacher-premier, started riding the undercurrent of religio-politics, a straight-up attempt to invoke God’s endorsement of the Reform/Alliance/Conservative Party has lurked in the shadows. This isn’t quite what Rev. Emmanuel is trying to do but he is taking partisan politics to the pulpit and encouraging good Christians to seek Conservative nominations. Top priority is the war on same-sex marriage. Poverty and environmental issues also receive mention.

This is not a clean case of Canada spawning its own religious right. It’s more like a wannabe U.S. religious right stuck in the God-less north. In 2003, Emmanuel organized a “Canadians for Bush” rally in defense of the Iraq invasion. Major media also reported the flow of money from the U.S. religious right to Canadian anti-gay groups. Canada’s religious social conservatives align more closely with the Republican Party than the Conservative Party.

That brings us back to Eldreth’s telling artifact of religio-America and her notion of an “American mission set up in Canada.” The flag wavers’ site is an ideological cocktail of staunch moralism, U.S. expansionism and neo-colonial pride. Their press release leads with: “On battlefields of old, armies would march into battle with the flag of the nation for which they were fighting. It was carried at the head of the fire line.” As the old church hymn goes, Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war. God as de facto Commander-in-Chief.

Elsewhere on the group’s site is reference to the first permanent settlers on U.S. soil — noble prayer warriors who erected an oak cross and dedicated their new land to “the propagation of the gospel.” The Virginia location of that inaugural settlement is now home to would-have-been president Pat Robertson’s religio-political broadcasting empire, which featured the flag on TV: From settlers to televangelists, an ongoing lineage of manifest destiny.

The U.S. religious right, with its President in tow, is one of the grandest displays of religious aggression in history. Its rallying cry is a simple “God Bless America.” I’m all for divine good vibes toward our southerly neighbours, but as a presidential benediction, those three words have become potent political shorthand for vitriolic good vs. evil policy. As God’s self-appointed ambassadors show up on the international stage in fatigues and unilateralist pinstripes, the notion of “the fear of God” takes on new meaning.

How then do we deal with the super-powered religion on our southern flank? In the U.S., some “progressive” Christians seem determined to out-muscle the fundamentalist political machine and plop God on a Democratic donkey. Jim Wallis, author of the bestselling God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, is an important counter-weight to the religious right.

Though his mantra “God is not a Republican or a Democrat” seems to reject a Democratic God, he used a recent New York Times op-ed to advise the Democrats on how to harness faith. He says American Christians (and God) care not only about the hot button religious issues of abortion and same-sex marriage but also about poverty and matters of social justice. Wallis makes a good point, but his path would still cause the spiritual realm to be increasingly soured with partisanship and the political realm increasingly soured with the “God-is-on-our-side” factor, only played out on both sides instead of one.

Canada can do better than respond to Rev. Emmanuel and company with a savvy, scrappy religious left capable of hoisting a born-again Jack Layton to power. We can insist that God — whether or not you believe in him or her — doesn’t belong in Question Period or speech writers’ conniving or backroom strategy sessions.

Not so much a “separation of Church and State” as a higher calling for organized spirituality. Church and state will never be completely separate as long as both are part of society. But organized spirituality should serve as an antidote to the corrosive power games of politics not as a co-opted player in them.

It should give voice to the voiceless, and nurture groups able to see the common good ahead of their own. It should address Ottawa with a voice distinctly its own (well above partisanship), arising from its experience in the world, not from a desire to get its player to the front of the political queue.

Examples of constructive church involvement in politicized issues include churches offering sanctuary to endangered refugee claimants, public inquiries convened by church bodies when governments refuse public process (as a Manitoba interchurch coalition did in relation to impacts of northern hydroelectric projects) and faith-based research and advocacy groups that span the gap between disadvantaged peoples and decision-makers (such as Citizens for Public Justice or the Kairos coalition).

Judging by the mere eight socially conservative Christians slated to run for the Conservatives in the next election, Rev. Emmanuel is not likely to be backing the U-Haul up to 24 Sussex Drive any time soon. However, given the increasingly volatile mix of religion and politics in the U.S., the expansionist nature of religio-America and Canadian counterparts welcoming them at the border, the possibility of someone planting a Christian flag in Conservative territory remains. The best response may be a rich spiritual commons that is not fixated on the House of Commons — a spiritual commons where power is shared at the bottom not pursued at the top, and where there is no need to stake territory.