Parenting

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  From the Personal to the Public to the Political

  Richelle Wiseman

  March 19, 2012

  I attended his lecture at the University of Calgary. He was in the city to collect this year's Calgary Peace Prize, awarded by the university's Consortium for Peace Studies. His name is Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, though he is more commonly known now as "the Gaza doctor", whose life was shattered when the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) shelled his home during Operation Cast Lead in 2009, killing four family members.

  For me, there was one bright light in last week's dismal omnipresent verbal trench warfare in the political sphere.

  I attended his lecture at the University of Calgary. He was in the city to collect this year's Calgary Peace Prize, awarded by the uni...

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  Contesting the Defence of Liberal Hegemony

  Brian Dijkema

  March 1, 2012

  Here's a snippet of the Supreme Court's ruling on parental requests to remove their children from state-mandated religious education, which prompted the discussion: Stackhouse criticizes the EFC and Cardus for "arguing quite wrongly" about the case. Putting aside the fact that Cardus has, to date, not published anything official on this case, I want to query John on two matters in his argument which I think will help the discussion along.

  Dr. John Stackhouse thinks Catholics and Protestants are overreacting in their response to the Supreme Cou...

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  Common Life: Even Disney's cheese feeds our spiritual hunger

  Chris Cuthill

  March 1, 2012

  As March Break looms and Canadian families by the thousands prepare for the pilgrimage to "America's Sistine Chapel," aka Disney World, I advise looking beyond the idealized vision of American capitalism to experience the basic human need to be enchanted.

  Last summer, I visited Walt Disney World in Florida. Like millions of others from every tongue and tribe, I participated in what has become a central ritual of North American life. Disney World is one of the most visited places on the planet after Mecca and...

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  A Kid-Friendly Kingdom

  Kyle David Bennett

  January 30, 2012

  One of Wolterstorff's exhortations in this "word" for seminary graduates is that they work with and care for children. Offering Isaiah 11:6-9 as a text for consideration, he argues that this passage should be a "formative image" for their ministry. A little child shall lie down with and lead wolves, lions, leopards, and play around vipers. "It is your calling to do what you can to be a voice for these voiceless ones. It is your calling to struggle to make the world a place in which their innocent, vulnerable playfulness is appropriate." As I read these words, a resounding "amen" slipped from my lips . . .

  Skimming the table of contents of Nick Wolterstoff's recently published collection of essays entitled Hearing the Call, I found two articles leaping off the page at me: "Letter to a ...

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  Children and tears

  Peter Menzies

  January 4, 2012

  Canada is not, of course, suddenly going to be lacking in training and expertise in hockey. What is and will be lacking, however, are children . . . which in turn means there will be a smaller pool of potential hockey stars to choose from. Add to that the fact that in the past generation the participation rate of children in sports has declined from 57% to 51% and, well, the prospects don't get any brighter, do they? Oh, and the majority of those kids is not playing hockey—soccer is the preferred activity now.

  If you are currently attired in torn sack cloth and covered in ashes as a result of Canada's recent denouement on the ice of the World Junior Hockey Championships, it may be best to get used to it.

  ...

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  In Favour of Marriage or Afraid of Divorce?

  Ray Pennings

  November 30, 2011

  Kim Kardashian filing for divorce 72 days after her wedding was the hook for a substantial article on marriage in Macleans magazine last week. The three-pager, entitled "Young, divorced and stigmatized," suggested that society was heading in a "more marriage-minded direction," citing as evidence declining divorce rates and a more cautious approach to marriage.

  (M)any still place a high value in the traditional definition of marriage—even if it's the highly publicized marriage of a self-interested reality TV star.

   

  Kim Kardashian filing for divorce 72 days after her wedding was the...

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  Educating Without Families

  Ray Pennings

  November 23, 2011

  The Star report claims Ontario is embracing "the overwhelming social, economic, and scientific evidence favouring investments in early-childhood education." Says the report,

  A report released yesterday celebrated the fact that more than half of Canadian preschoolers are in regulated child care centers or pre-school programs. Federal and prov...

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  What it means to remember

  Peter Stockland

  November 22, 2011

  Yet its very treatment spoke volumes about the robotic mindlessness of modern media bigotry toward Christian faith and Holy Scripture. The winner, a nine-year-old from Salem, Oregon, took home $100,000 in prize money. It was the second year in a row that Olivia Davis has won the competition. According to her mother, quoted in the story, the youngster spends four hours a day in the summer on Scriptural memory work.

  It was handled as an oddball newspaper wire story to be played as filler back behind the truss ads, as we used to say.

  Yet its very treatment spoke volumes about the robotic mindlessness of modern media bigotry toward Christian faith and Holy Scriptu...

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  I'll Take the Candy—Hold the Confusion

  Brian Dijkema

  October 27, 2011

  Kids who would otherwise be brushing their teeth and preparing for bed will instead be released to ask complete strangers to give them confections. Bad for the teeth, good for those with shares in Cadbury, right? It might even be good for the community. Instead of packs of youth breaking windows and looting stores, there are peaceful packs of kids and parents meeting neighbours who, for most of the year, go about their lives with a minimum amount of neighbourly interaction. I have a hunch that for most of us, Hallowe'en is benign at worst and a fun community-building exercise at best. The Globe and Mail reports that a number of Christians have taken to handing out Bibles (well, half-Bibles, actually) on Hallowe'en. The Jesusween movement was begun because "the world and its system have a day set aside (October 31st) to celebrate ungodly images and evil characters while Christians all over the world participate, hide or just stay quiet on Halloween day." The Globe and Mail suggests that "proselytizing is becoming a greater priority for many Christians for another reason: Their numbers are steadily declining on both sides of the border."

  In four days streets across the continent will be covered with little people, running around in the great communal and sugar-fuelled pantomime that we call Hallowe'en.

  Kids who would otherwise be brushing their teeth and preparing for bed will instea...

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