Inside the fundamentalist Christian movement that wants to remake Canadian politics
CBC
Warning: This story contains anti-trans comments and deals with suicide.
On a recent Sunday morning in Waterloo, Ont., pastor Jacob Reaume gripped a lectern and issued a warning to his congregation.
"A Christless existence leads to the dark, hopeless abyss of death," he told around 200 people at Trinity Bible Chapel, an evangelical church on the outskirts of the city.
Much of the sermon, delivered last December, was devoted to a trans student at a Christian university in nearby Hamilton who had died by suicide a few weeks earlier.
"If you're going to live a lie to the point where you're willing to mutilate your own body, it's going to send you into dark despair," Reaume said.
He then used a slur to refer to trans people.
Trinity Bible is one of the most prominent churches in a fundamentalist Christian movement that has gained momentum in Canada, initially by challenging pandemic public health restrictions.
This movement is now increasingly involved in electoral politics, advocating for conservative social and political policies based on literal interpretations of the Bible.
Liberty Coalition Canada, a conservative Christian advocacy group, is trying to raise $1.3 million to recruit hundreds of Christian politicians and campaign staff to run at all levels of government.
In a document marked "please keep classified" that was obtained by CBC News, the group says its ultimate goal is "the most powerful political disruption in Canadian history."
Working alongside Liberty Coalition Canada are dozens of churches across the country, a number of small media outlets and at least one well-funded think-tank.
While theological and political differences exist among them, many supporters of this movement share a vocal opposition to LGBTQ rights and other social justice causes.
Several Canadian pastors in the movement also have ties to a controversial branch of evangelical Christianity in the U.S. known as reconstructionism.
Scholars say reconstructionist ideals — often linked to Christian nationalism, the idea that the United States is a Christian country — are influencing how some Canadian evangelicals are responding to issues like legalized abortion, same-sex marriage and added protections for gender minorities.