Questioning the Outrage-Apology Cycle

Peter Stockland

November 29, 2019

The routine offense-apology-criticism as a response to issues of political correctness does not answer the deeper problems that could be addressed simply by slowing down and asking key questions, Peter Stockland writes.

Anyone in the university administration had actually grown up or lived in a paper mill town and so was able to reasonably adjudicate from lived experience whether the words were a fair and current representation? Those words were: “The only way out of a paper mill town is through a university door ...

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A Tolerant Canada

Ray Pennings

November 28, 2019

Ray Pennings examines the findings of a recent Angus Reid Institute study, which cites both hopeful and worrisome numbers in its summary of Canadians' opinions towards religious freedom. 

It’s a hopeful sign that 62 per cent of Canadians agree that religious freedom makes Canada a better country Regardless of where we fall among the spectrum of opinions on abortion, is it not concerning to see some Canadians willing to reject candidates simply based on one of their personal beliefs a...

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Bill 207 is Dead. Now What?

Ryan Topping

November 27, 2019

The main reason for Bill 207's defeat is because we trust our institutions will stand even when we ignore their foundations, writes Ryan Topping.

Newman defended the rights of conscience at a moment when an aggressive secularism was rising in England For Newman, conscience has rights because it has duties As Newman argued elsewhere, as aggressive forms of secularism advance, genuine freedoms, including the freedom of conscience, are bound to ...

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An Advent(ure) of the Heart

Rebecca Darwent

November 26, 2019

Why rush ahead to Christmas, Convivium’s Rebecca Darwent asks, when this very moment of the Advent season – right now! – affords yet another glorious step on the journey toward Christ?

I walk through bustling grocery stores and see Christmas treats and hear the blaring Christmas carols a month before Christmas even begins, and I can’t help but feel an acute awareness for the quiet, simple ways I’m certain Madonna House is currently preparing for the Advent season Advent is a time ...

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The Killing of Conscience

Jason West

November 25, 2019

Defeat of legislation protecting the conscience rights of doctors has Albertans expecting the unexpected from Premier Jason Kenney’s normally conscientious United Conservatives, Jason West contends.

The more significant argument made against Bill 207 was that requiring a physician who morally disagrees with a procedure to refer a patient to another doctor willing to perform it is not a violation of the physician’s conscience rights The argument of many commentators that mandating effective refe...

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All Are Welcome

Tyler Brooks

November 22, 2019

Christian YouTuber Brian Holdsworth has helped university student Tyler Brooks find ways to have respectful conversations on sensitive issues of differences in ways to worship.

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A Clue From Settlers of Catan

Anna-Liza Kozma

November 22, 2019

In their new book, Your Move: What Board Games Teach Us About Life, Joan Moriarity and Jonathan Kay challenge the monopoly video games have on our attention spans. Reviewer Anna-Liza Kozma scrabbles to pass go in the new golden era of tabletop risk-taking.

"Games, at their best, have the power to create a special space, a world within a world," argues Moriarity, who writes with the real life cred of teaching the rules of dozens of games to customers in Toronto's "Snakes and Lattes", which bills itself as North America's first board game cafe Kay, who ...

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The Aftermath of Falling Walls

Raymond J. de Souza

November 21, 2019

Father Raymond de Souza reminds us that bloodshed rarely ends the instant freedom rings out. When the Berlin Wall fell, tyrants still murdered the innocent.

Yet the impact of the Cold War was felt the world over, including in San Salvador that bloody night, seven days after the Wall was no more. Michael Czerny arrived in San Salvador and took over the UCA human rights office, previously headed by one of the Jesuits who had been killed ...

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Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

Rebecca Darwent

November 20, 2019

Matthew Kaemingk, recently named Hamilton-based Redeemer University College’s 2019 Emerging Intellectual, challenges Christians to defend the religious freedom of all faiths as they do their own. 

His book, Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear, was released in 2018 after extensive research into the question: What obligation do Christian citizens have to defend the religious freedom of others?  Bringing hospitality onto the Christian scene and bridging gaps between tw...

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Winning Gold From the Golden Arches

Peter Stockland

November 19, 2019

Usain Bolt reportedly ate chicken nuggets before breaking Olympic world records. Peter Stockland commends Good to Go, Christie Aschwanden’s book, which encourages healthy scepticism in face of health science, expressing that the whole of a person merits one’s full focus – not just data, protein powders or pre-run Mickey D's.

While there is obviously a great deal of laudable work done in correlating food intake with good health, Aschwanden traces brilliantly how it has become a nexus where “science” is turned into just another helpmate for marketing “I discovered that it’s not enough to ask, ‘Does this thing work?’ First...

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No Sense Gambling With Bill Gates

Matthew Lau

November 18, 2019

Contributor Matthew Lau argues leaving the Microsoft mega billionaire’s wealth in his own hands contributes trillions more to the common good than taxing away his entire fortune.

Upon seeing Bernie Sanders recently musing about taxing Bill Gates $100 billion to “end homelessness and provide safe drinking water to everyone in this country,” economist Russ Roberts quite rightly pointed out that $100 billion is a mere two per cent of the federal budget Even supposing Bernie San...

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A Journey to the Bleeding Heartland

Susan Korah

November 15, 2019

In a monumental trip through the Middle East, Susan Korah finds resolve to continue advocating for an end to persecution of Christians. 

The nearly 2000-year old Syriac Orthodox Church of India, in which I was raised, is an integral part of the ancient Syriac Christian denomination despite the geographic distance from its centres in the Middle East to Kerala, a province on the southwestern coast of India Wearing the distinctive black...

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Bringing It All Back Home

Stephen Lazarus

November 15, 2019

Reading Faith For Exiles: Five Ways for a New Generation To Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon, Stephen Lazarus discovers crucial findings about keeping Christian children homeward bound toward Christ.

These strong social ties help young people take their faith to the next level, going beyond processing information about God to the transformation of character and the development of an identity with Jesus at the centre and not at the periphery What are the marks of those who develop a faith that la...

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We're All Canadians, Mr. Cherry

Peter Stockland

November 14, 2019

The “you people” phrase Cherry used links to a myriad of sordid dimensions in Canadian history and memory, writes Peter Stockland, bringing us back to numerous occasions of discrimination.

The test? Who among settled Canadians would, while of sound mind, spit the phrase “you people” directly in the faces of any group of newly arrived Canadians? Indeed, who even witnessing such an unacceptable insult being delivered, would not wish consequence for the person responsible, perhaps even o...

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Cherry Sincerity and Insincerity

Raymond J. de Souza

November 13, 2019

Father Raymond de Souza says to count him out of those piling on Don Cherry for being fired from Coach’s Corner.

By the way, how do people know to complain to the CBSC? I mean, do ordinary folk watch Coach’s Corner, get aggravated by Grapes and know to fire off a missive to the CBSC? It seems a bit, as Cherry might put it, whiny, no?  Third, the CBC, where Grapes worked for the first 33 of his 39 years in TV C...

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