Religion

  • Faith Among the Seconds

    Through often painful moments listening to a broken man at an Ottawa drop-in centre, Joyce Deng began to hear God’s voice in the briefest of encounters.

    “When you homeless, you don’t wanna hear much of that, cause it’s like, when you get through talking about Jesus, I gotta go back to living in this empty building, you know?" 

    - Mitch Albom, Have a Little Faith

    Last year, I w...

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  • Faith Among the Seconds

    Through often painful moments listening to a broken man at an Ottawa drop-in centre, Joyce Deng began to hear God’s voice in the briefest of encounters.

    “When you homeless, you don’t wanna hear much of that, cause it’s like, when you get through talking about Jesus, I gotta go back to living in this empty building, you know?" 

    - Mitch Albom, Have a Little Faith

    Last year, I w...

    Read more...

  • No Christians by Proxy

    Kaitlin Packer's faith is more than a check-box or the roof she was raised under. Rather, faith is the reality of the soul. 

    “So, you grew up in a Christian home,” she says, fingering the rim of her Starbucks cup. It feels like an accusation.

    “Sort of,” I say. “My parents became Christians right before I was born.” 

    This is always my response. It’s my way o...

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  • God's in His Heaven and All Right With A Joke

    Now is the ideal time for non-religious Canadians to lighten up around discussions of faith, says Cardus Executive Vice-President Ray Pennings, citing polling data showing religious Canadians are happy to debate their beliefs in good humour.

    Christmas often brings out the best in Canadians. We dig into our pockets for charity a little more. We volunteer more. And we make more time for friends and family than at other times of the year.

    But the holiday sometimes brings out our weirder sid...

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  • Our Country, Our Gospel

    At a prayer breakfast today in Markham, Ontario, Convivium’s Father Raymond de Souza serves a reminder that Canadian Christians should be as proud to share the Christian Gospel as they are to be Canadians. The reason, de Souza says, isn’t triumphalism but the pure joy of speaking God’s Word.

    I am eager to preach the Gospel to you who are in Rome.

    So St. Paul writes to the Romans, and I might suggest that those words are suitable for any preacher at any time, including this preacher this morning in Markham. I thank you for the in...

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  • Building Better Christian Bridges

    In a recent talk for Ottawa’s Theology on Tap speaking series, Cardus program director Andrea Mrozek examined myths and misunderstandings that divide Catholics and Protestants. She reminded her audience of C.S. Lewis’ admonition that we are faithfully waiting, not sullenly camping, until unity is restored.

    Picture a little girl in a pink dress and black patent shoes. She’s almost five years old. Something of significance has happened, though she isn’t really sure what. It’s the day of her baptism. Someone would have told her what baptism is. But she doesn’t f...

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  • Hunger and the Bounty of Grace

    On a trip to Ukraine with his betrothed, Daniel Bezalel Richardsen’s eye catches small glimpses of fidelity that enlighten his understanding of the infinite abundance of faith.

    A Wendell Berry poem has helped gather the motes of memory from my recent inaugural trip to Ukraine. The verses in the collection, A Timbered Choir, are:

    Enclosing the field within bounds Sets it apart ...

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  • An Attack On All

    The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn itself and rule against Trinity Western University was more than just a defeat for the Evangelical Christian school. It attacked the very idea of community, writes Convivium contributor Ryan Topping.

    Over the coming months, in churches, in coffee shops, in classrooms, and around kitchen tables, there will be much about which to lament. 

    There is the Canadian Supreme Court’s brazen disregard for precedent. Fewer than 20 years ago the same body arg...

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  • Saving the Idea of Faith

    At a yearly gathering of big-thinking Canadians, Cardus’ Ray Pennings challenges attendees to examine their own ideas about the critical place of religious faith in our common life.

    Cardus Executive Vice-President Ray Pennings warned the annual Ideacity conference today that Canada risks abandoning its history of tolerance if current anti-...

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  • Judicial Idiosyncrasy

    Lawyer Barry Bussey, who argued as an intervenor in the Trinity Western University hearings last winter, says Canadians must demand their legislatures protect religious freedom from a Supreme Court that seems to have lost its way.

    Last Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decisions on Trinity Western University call for freedom-loving Canadians to courageously stand up and demand change to legislation governing the law societies in this country.  

    We need our legislatures to...

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  • A Wall Between Church and Court

    Convivium contributor Janet Epp Buckingham explains this week’s unusual Wall case in which the Supreme Court said judges have no business telling churches how to decide who belongs. It’s a positive outcome for religious freedom, she says, though less far-reaching than other anticipated rulings will be.

    It’s one of those strange legal cases that should never have gone this far. But on Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada brought an end to the strange saga of Randy Wall and his fight with the Highwood Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

    In essence...

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  • Religion, Freedom, Citizenship

    In early May, Cardus hosted launch events in Ottawa for its Religious Freedom Institute. Father Deacon Andrew Bennett, CRFI’s director, spoke with Convivium's Peter Stockland about the kickoff and what’s to come for the new institute.

    Peter Stockland: The Cardus Religious Freedom Institute was launched last week with some impressive crowds in the Ottawa office. What was your take-away from those hectic events?

    Andrew Bennett: From the first event,...

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  • Marking Time With Meaning

    Against the ephemera of a “trending” time, Father Raymond de Souza contrasts the enduring calendar of holy days.

    Religious believers live according to at least two calendars. There is the civil calendar, which largely governs our common life together in relation to commerce and government. Then there is the religious calendar, with its own cycle of festivals and obser...

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  • Salvation By The Young

    Drawing on Angus Reid polling, Cardus Executive Vice-President Ray Pennings tells Convivium’s Peter Stockland why young Canadians are far more faith driven than the current secular narrative leads us to believe.

    Convivium: In a recent symposium hosted by the Centre for Research on Religion at McGill University in Montreal, you made the argument that Angus Reid polling data shows young people are much more engaged in faith than we think. What does t...

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  • The Law Society of Orwell

    Ottawa lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos is saying “no” to the Law Society of Ontario’s demand for a written statement of principles obliging lawyers in the province to promote equality, diversity and inclusion. Here’s why.

    Every year, lawyers in Ontario are required to fill-out an annual report and submit it to the Law Society of Ontario (LSUC), the legal regulator in Ontario. The report addresses trust accounts, client identification and the scope of one’s practice. ...

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  • Son Set On The Charter?

    With the Canada Summer Jobs controversy as evidence, B.C. lawyer and PhD candidate in law, Brian Bird, sees Justin Trudeau distorting his father’s cherished Charter of Rights to justify State erosion of basic freedoms. After reading this article, check out Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett's take on these issues on CTV News Channel's Power Play with Don Martin.

    Aside from the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, 2017 was also the 35th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter, since arriving in 1982, has brought about fundamental changes to Canadian society.

    There has b...

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  • A Hand Out For God

    Next week, the campus evangelical group Catholic Christian Outreach begins a cross-country veneration of bones from Saint Francis Xavier. Convivium’s Peter Stockland asks CCO co-founder Angèle Regnier why.

    Catholic Christian Outreach anticipates up to 75,000 Canadians will be on hand in the dead of winter to venerate the baptismal arm of St. Francis Xavier starting ...

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  • LGBTQ AT TWU

    As a Trinity Western University grad and member of the LGBTQ community, contributor Matthew Wigmore urges caution about seeing tomorrow Supreme Court hearing strictly as a legal fight over religious freedom. 

    Can religious freedom claims be taken seriously if the claimant is responsible for discrimination? In light of Trinity Western University’s ongoing battle for a law school, the question should effect c...

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  • Remembering To Lead

    Tonight at the Canadian War Museum, Cardus will host John Pellowe re-enacting the role of General Sir Arthur Currie in the 1917 battle of Vimy Ridge, a moment in history that many see as defining Canada’s emergence into independent nationhood. Pellowe, CEO of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities, has been presenting the Leadership Lessons of Vimy Ridge on stages across Canada for almost 20 years.

    Duncan Field: John, you have been presenting on Vimy ridge since 1999. What first drew you to the story of Canada’s involvement in this battle?

    John Pellowe: I stumbled across the Battle of Vimy Ridge while researchi...

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  • Entering In

    To follow in the footsteps of the faithful who have come before shapes our path to glory. 

    The chapel of the Grande Séminaire de Montréal is not a place you walk through. Like faith, you enter into it, drawn inexorably forward by the its unusual shape that has the pews flanking the nave in parallel rows rather than branching off it at horizontall...

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  • Bowed

    Photographer Hayley Lockrem captures men in prayer, a posture common to those across time, space, and tradition. 

    I was honoured to be invited to a large Sikh festival by a dear friend. Besides being unconditionally welcomed and over-fed, I was struck by the physical posture during their prayers and ceremonies. I was amazed to find the scene so familiar to experiences ...

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  • Illumination and Arrival

    Photographer Peter Stockland captures a shaft of light that evokes, for him, a sense of anticipation. 

    Framed so as to position the viewer almost as a member of the Good Friday processional as captured by photographer Peter Stockland. The sense of presence in the photograph is nearly palpable. Notes Stockland, "I was at the front of Montreal's Notre Dame Bas...

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  • Defending a Foundational Freedom

    Andrew Bennett, Canada’s former Ambassador for Religious Freedom and now Cardus Senior Fellow, argues for the need to recognise the foundational nature of freedom of religion and conscience in our society and its link to our common life.  

    If we are to share a common life in Canada, freedom of religion and conscience must be foundational. It is the freedom  that enables us to live fully as we are, and as we are called to be. It bears witness to the truth that  human beings have a metaphysical...

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  • Wonder Woman

    Her 75th anniversary year was something of a breakout for Wonder Woman before she started showing her age. The United Nations had appointed Wonder Woman an honorary ambassador for female empowerment back in October. I don’t profess to any expertise on UN ambassadors, but it seems to be the sort of thing given to entertainers, like a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter) has a star there, so why not a UN ambassadorship?

    A septuagenarian, Wonder Woman is still admirably fit. She fights crime with her lasso for truth-extracting, her bracelets for bullet-repelling and her bustier for, well, attention-gathering. The comic book world dresses women in impractically revealing out...

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