Today is Canada Day. I observe it because I am a Canadian citizen.

My wife and I and our two kids became Canadian citizens on 2 January 1991. Two weeks later we moved back to the States. We crossed the border just as the US was invading Kuwait, and we said to each other, “Oh no, what are we doing!”

Four years earlier we had immigrated to Canada when I took a call to a Reformed Church in America congregation in Ontario. We had immigrated instead of getting the easier R-1 visa because we expected to stay.

I can read and speak Dutch, so I assumed I’d be a good fit in that immigrant church. It turned out otherwise. Already in the first month it was, “Dominee, ve didn’t come to Canada to sing Psalmen en Gezangen!” By the fourth year it was, “Dominee, ve are praying dat you leaf our tjurtj.”

I had to choose between staying in Canada or staying in the RCA. We were already becoming Canadians, so it was with regret, and with my tail between my legs, that I accepted a call to Hoboken, New Jersey. But we did not cancel our application for citizenship.

At the hearing in Hamilton we were examined by the judge. She approved us, and we took the oath. We were in! But we had guilty feelings, and because the judge was so friendly we confessed to her that we would be moving back to the States. She surprised us when she commended us for getting our citizenship when we did, so that we could continue to be Canadians while living in the States. She had erased our guilt, and we have rested in her affirmation ever since. She also was an example of how Canada is more humane than the States in many ways.

We value our Canadian citizenship enormously, and for two or three months a year, when we’re at our cottage in Ontario, we are truly Canadian. This coming Sunday, God willing, I will be leading worship at our Anglican church, and I will pray for “Charles our King.”

Of course we are thought of as Americans. My accent (“cawfee”) betrays me. But Canadians deserve their reputation for being tolerant and polite. They outdo Americans in welcoming immigrants, and they understand living on both sides of the border.

Hold it! In that last sentence I should have written “we” instead of “they.”

When St. Paul told the Philippians that their citizenship was in heaven, he did not mean that they would have to live in heaven. To be a Roman citizen did not mean having to live in Rome, but rather to have the power and authority of Rome on your side wherever you lived. The benefit of our citizenship in heaven is for how we live on earth right now, until Our Lord comes again.

So you can understand why my daughter Anneke, who lives near us in New York, just renewed her Canadian passport. The USA is getting ever more violent and irrational, and she has two children and a husband to think of. Her passport is her insurance, that God forbid she’d have to use.

I last blogged here about Canada six months ago, and like everyone else I failed to see the future. Mark Carney became the new Prime Minister and what a difference he has made. Maybe he does not walk on water, but it’s fun to watch him in his skillful encounters with President Trump. He’s been called the “Trump-whisperer.” His recent leadership on the world stage at both G7 in Alberta and NATO in The Hague makes me proud to be Canadian.

Canada is the North American democracy that still honours the rule of law. It understands public goods and shared wealth (“common-wealth”). It holds to human rights and to the protection of minorities and social institutions. Of course it has the problems of inequity, injustice, exploitation, unaffordable housing, and environmental degradation that come with neoliberal capitalism. But it is so less violent, and its government is not cruel.

During my Calvin College days I wanted to move to Canada to be part of the Kuyperian project. The dream was to recreate in Canada the Reformed Christian culture that was dissolving in The Netherlands, including a political party and a labour union. That was then. Now I just like to be in Canada for what Canada already is.

I love the Northern landscape. I like the general lack of aggression. I am not impressed by the beer. But most of all, I am grateful that Canada, unlike the United States, does not ask me to “believe” in itself. I prefer to confine my belief to the Apostles and Nicene Creeds.