Convivium Magazine

Losing Our Way on the Internet

Peter Menzies

July 11, 2019

Convivium contributor Peter Menzies argues new federal legislation to control political advertising on the Internet is a classic example of good intentions gone horribly wrong.

The Internet was fun when Barack Obama was wowing the world with his social media finesse, Hillary Clinton was launching her campaign online instead of through a traditional news conference and the world was ooh-ing and aah-ing at the telegenetic #SunnyWays of Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trud...

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A Matter of Belonging

Brittany Beacham

July 10, 2019

After having spent some time away from the church of her childhood years, Brittany Beacham tells the tale of coming back to membership among the familiar congregation.

And in His unmerited grace, years later, after change and growth, joy and learning, and a community filled with the best kind of people, God brought me home And so the question may still stand – does membership hold more to it than a piece of paper and a vote? Is there room in the modern church for ...

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Economy of Exchange

Timothy deVries

July 9, 2019

Gifts often come with the expectation of reciprocation, writes Timothy deVries. A true gift is hard to come by in our culture and economy of exchange.

The gift interrupts this economy, not by denying expectations, but by alluding to realm where there are things that we do not and cannot expect – things that are, nevertheless, good and good for us But people who are incapable of giving gifts may simply be unable to accept them without placing them ...

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Godzilla and the Book of Revelation

Erik deLange

July 9, 2019

In this review of Godzilla, Erik deLange explores the movie's Christian themes as it relates to the book of Revelation.

At the end of the film, as Godzilla is swallowing the beast whole and then blasting the final of its heads to bits with his nuclear bomb breath, Dr In this sense, the new Godzilla film is overtly Christian in the worst way: it further propagates the myth that the interests of God and Americans are s...

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Ireland's Accidental History

Peter Stockland

July 8, 2019

In this week's essay from Northern Ireland, Convivium's Peter Stockland encounters a young man whose grandfather was murdered on Bloody Sunday 1972 and waits to hear loyalist-unionist drums beat again in Belfast this Friday, July 12.

Fast forward with a bullet to a bloody Sunday in 1972, and two men named Paddy being shot in the streets of Derry, Northern Ireland, because British soldiers present to ensure peace lost control and opened fire They, in turn, would assassinate our own father of Confederation, Thomas d’Arcy McGee and...

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She's Come From Away

Johanne Brownrigg

July 5, 2019

Last week Dr. Deborah Cook was commended for her research in end-of-life care. The physician is not one well-known to pro-life activist groups, writes Johanne Brownrigg, but her work brings hope to the conversation on dying.

Cook’s research, called the Three Wishes Project, was published in 2015 in the Annals of Internal Medicine Good medicine cares about the person who is the patient We have one more research project that gives healthcare decision makers a blueprint in providing life-affirming death, in an ICU of all p...

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Ottawa’s Chateau Shipping Container

Raymond J. de Souza

July 5, 2019

Convivium Editor-in-Chief Father Raymond de Souza looks at expansion plans for the capital’s grand old Chateau Laurier and apprehends an act of architectural vandalism.

While there is plenty of blame to go around – Parks Canada, National Capital Commission, Ottawa City Council – the primary blame for this assault on the Chateau Laurier belongs with its owner, Larco Larco Investments, which owns the Chateau Laurier, hired the former Ottawa city planner to shepherd i...

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Pomp and Perspective

Johanna Lewis

July 4, 2019

While Johanna Wolfert’s participation in her own graduation ceremony didn’t mark her mind as something extraordinary, placing herself in the shoes of her younger sibling walking across the stage gained her a new perspective on the faithfulness of God.

Flash forward four weeks, and I’m at another graduation, this time for a younger sibling wrapping up four years of high school Watching the freshly minted grads file across the stage to collect their diplomas, I couldn’t help but look back not only four weeks to my university graduation, but also fo...

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Contributing to the Common Good

Daniel Proussalidis

July 3, 2019

While Canada has seen attempts to push faith out of its society in recent years, a new Senate report has preserved the advancement of religion as a purpose for which a charity can exist in Canada.

And it’s not as though the committee didn’t face the question of whether the advancement of religion should continue as a charitable purpose “When a non-religious person receives assistance from a secular charity, they also benefit from the gifts of time and money made by religious people who learne...

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Following The Yellow Arrows

Susan Korah

July 2, 2019

Eighty-year-old Betty Hope Gittens walked the Camino with a God-given strength and the assurance that He would be with her through every step of the way – a journey she compares to walking the way of God’s will for her life.

Rudy Gittens, turned their Ottawa home into a place of loving care for her aging parents and an aunt Her journey is a metaphor for her own life journey, which has always been guided by faith, hope and love Powered by the unshakable faith she acquired growing up in a Christian family, she walked the ...

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Summer Evenings

Rebecca Darwent

July 2, 2019

There is something in the uniqueness and stillness of a sunset that moves my heart.

I capture memories with the warmth of summer air floating around my nose as I gaze at the colours, wanting desperately to snap the image in time. ...

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Hushing the Earth

Anar Rajabali

July 2, 2019

I stand under nature’s arches as the snow lightens and heightens these interlacing branches, intricate and seemingly infinite ...

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Infinite Promises

July 2, 2019

Flipping through the pages of the Word read by so many before me, I am united with those from centuries, ages apart.

...

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50 Years of Missing Stories

Rebecca Darwent with Mike Schouten

June 28, 2019

Convivium’s Rebecca Darwent talks to producer Mike Schouten about The Missing Project documentary, which fills in the blanks on the 50 years since Canada’s abortion law was overturned and then abandoned entirely.

MS: The primary one is that, through this project, Canadians – especially Canadians in the middle, Canadians who are indifferent, maybe haven't given abortion much thought or would likely call themselves pro-choice if someone asked them – to have them see that abortion since 1988, with its lack of s...

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A Beacon of Hope and Warning

Peter Stockland

June 28, 2019

Publisher Peter Stockland has set his sails across the ocean to Belfast and tells of his reason for doing so – to participate in grasping the knowledge of Ireland's history and grappling with our own.

But the Canadian question that overwhelmed me on Moore Street in Dublin that day two years ago led me to enroll in the Irish Studies program at Concordia University in Montreal last fall For a Canadian, the question as to why Irish history has been so violent has to be followed by the question as to...

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