Convivium contributor Lloyd Mackey was at the release of Cardus data on West Coast educational innovation this week as program director Beth Green explained what the numbers reveal. The news is good. The challenges are real, Green says.

Convivium contributor Lloyd Mackey talks to Cardus’ Beth Green about “exciting” educational data she’ll release Wednesday at Surrey B.C.’s Pacific Academy.

Lloyd Mackey explores the rich role of churches and other faith-based ministries in the social, economic, governance and health of Surrey and White Rock, British Columbia.

Veteran Canadian journalist Lloyd Mackey, a senior editorial advisor to Faith in Canada 150’s Thread of 1000  Stories, recounts meeting Billy Graham while still a school boy  in 1951, an encounter that helped shape Mackey’s life and faith.

Convivium reviewer Lloyd Mackey finds David Kitz brings a dramatist’s gifts to his novel which re-tells the Passion story in The Soldier Who Killed a King. 

Katharine Hayhoe, one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2014, appreciates both science and faith. Hayhoe states: "I don’t accept global warming on faith: I crunch the data, I analyze the models, I help engineers and city managers and ecologists quantify the impacts."

Robert Norman Thompson was part of a cross-partisan group of Canadian leaders that made a 1960s era “House of minorities” almost accidentally effective in its pursuit of far-reaching social and economic legislation. Indeed, many people, around the time of Canada’s 1967 Centennial referred to Thompson as “Mr. Canada”.

In the last half of the 20th century, the son of a Canadian prairie Pentecostal pastor emerged as a leader within what was then a burgeoning evangelical Christian movement, bringing to it a constructive influence in the national corridors of governance, academe and activism.

In a lecture at the University of British Columbia this week, Canada’s eminent pollster, Angus Reid, dug deep into the intriguing data from recent polling commissioned by the think tank Cardus. 

Preston Manning came by his interest naturally, in what he calls “navigating the faith-political interface.” His father, Ernest C. Manning was premier of Alberta for over two decades in the mid-twentieth century. During that time, he was the voice of Canada’s National Bible Hour (CNBH) – which attracted 600,000 listeners weekly, nationwide.

During Edwin Phillips' formative years, he was increasingly attracted to the business world – and a life of faith. And his location within the Hollywood orb led to crowd bit parts – with payment in free popcorn – in such biblical epic films as King of Kings and Ben Hur.

Bernice Gerard was a pastor, university chaplain, social activist, politician, media host … and feminist. Dr. Linda Ambrose points out that influential Vancouver pastor and politician Bernice Gerard was a convinced feminist.

Charles Ellington is a “product” the Protestant Orphanage in Victoria. Ellington later played a pivotal role in the transitioning of the traditional and now-outmoded orphanage to a multi-faceted government-assisted cluster of family services and facilities.

Through Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and Pioneer Camps, Cathie Nicholl played a major role in faith formation and leadership development for many Canadian high school and university students.

David See-Chai Lam, a Hong Kong-born businessman/philanthropist, served several years as British Columbia’s lieutenant-governor. A strong evangelical Baptist by faith, he also brought Confucian concepts of “harmony” into play in creative encouraging conflict resolution and management in business, public and religious life.

Ernest Manning is best remembered as Alberta’s premier from 1943 to 1968 – the longest-serving premier in the Commonwealth. Manning’s understanding of the Scriptures gave him an appreciation of human need as enunciated by proponents of the social gospel.