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Posts from the ‘Current Events’ Category

Jul 8

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Wednesday Miscellany (World Cup Edition)

So, the World Cup is steadily moving toward its conclusion. Forty-eight teams (sixteen too many!) have been whittled down to eight. The three host teams are out (in my unbiased opinion, Canada and Mexico both went out with more of a fight than the USA). Donald Trump and FIFA® president Gianni Infantino have tripped over themselves in a clumsy and pathetic attempt to give the USA a boost (it didn’t work). And the games have been mostly great with plenty of memorable moments. In eleven days, a winner will be crowned and we’ll all move on with summer. Read more

Jun 22

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Tremendous!

So, we’re what, a third of the way through the 2026 FIFA World Cup? There are a thousand things to hate about FIFA (greed and corruption, mainly, not to mention the expansion from 32 to 48 teams), about all the Americanized changes that have been implemented this time around (forced advertising “hydration” breaks), about some of the more frustrating aspects of football (diving), but I must also say, it’s been a mostly great watch so far. It helps that Canada is co-hosting (Canada and Mexico are very much junior partners to the American show) and that Canada actually has a good team for the first time in my lifetime. We have a decent chance of making it to the round of 16, which would be quite an achievement for Canada.  Read more

Jun 5

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Joy on the Line

AI seems to be on everyone’s mind these days. How could it not be? The Pope released his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, which has generated a bit of buzz not least because AI factors prominently in his reflections (spoiler alert: Leo’s not a fan). But even before the pontiff weighed in on the matter, it seems like every second headline I’ve come across for a while now to be either singing AI’s praises or bemoaning the many and varied ways it is hastening the end of all things. It affects so many things, from our kids’ job prospects to how we work to pretty much all the media we consume. AI has created and is daily creating a word where we increasingly do not and cannot know what is real. A world where trust (in what we read, see, hear) is being rapidly obliterated. This concerns me. To put it mildly. Read more

Apr 29

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Can We Still Love Each Other?

Lately, I’ve been noticing and delighting in instances when couples are kind to each other in public spaces. One reaches for the other’s hand. A bit of playful banter. An arm on the shoulder. An affirming word or expression of fondness. A smile in the other’s direction when they don’t imagine anyone is looking. A head on a shoulder. Little tokens of warmth and affection that probably wouldn’t even have registered with an earlier version of me, but which now seem to be extraordinary. Read more

Apr 23

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Desecrations

A few days ago, a story and photos surfaced about a few members of the Israeli Defense Force who took a sledgehammer to a statue of Jesus somewhere in southern Lebanon. The incident drew immediate and widespread condemnation from a wide range of ecclesial and political figures around the world. Read more

Apr 7

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Sectored to Grace

On Saturday night, I attended The Great Vigil of Easter at an Anglican church in our city. It was a beautiful liturgy, leading worshipers through the broad sweep of Scripture, from creation to new creation. There were candles and holy water, Dante and Herbert, a baptism and the renewal of baptismal vows, the gradual physical transformation of the sanctuary from the bleak deathly tones of Good Friday to the light and the life of resurrection. And there was the celebration of the Eucharist, of course. We remembered Christ’s death, proclaimed his resurrection, and strengthened our resolve to await his coming in glory. Read more

Mar 26

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Can a Bot Long for its Maker?

It seems that scarcely a day goes by without encountering some troubling headline about the encroachment of AI into every corner of our lives. Today’s entry was an article by a novelist named Andrea Bartz in The New York Times called “The ‘Shy Girl’ Fiasco Shows Why Trust in Writers Is Plummeting.” I knew nothing about Shy Girl, and what little I learned from the article made me long to return to my state of unknowing. Apparently, it is a horror novel that readers and journalists flagged as “having prose that sounded like AI slop.” What doesn’t, these days? At any rate, what piqued my curiosity was the bit about the plummeting of trust in writers. As one who writes for a living (essays, sermons, blog posts) I obviously have a skin in the game. Read more

Feb 4

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“Don’t Put Words in My Mouth!”

Anyone who is involved in giving leadership to corporate worship regularly finds themselves in the position of putting words in people’s mouths. Asking people to read Scripture, inviting people to participate in responsive liturgies or corporate prayers of confession, selecting songs to be sung by the gathered community—each of these elements of worship (and others) involve, on some level, some people telling other people what they should say or pray or sing out loud. Read more

Oct 30

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Take a Swing for Jesus (Straining a Metaphor)

Most Canadians are laser-focused on the Toronto Blue Jays these days. And understandably so. They Jays are on quite a run, and they are an easy team to like. I’ve never been a huge baseball fan, but even I am enjoying watching them give the gazillionaire Dodgers all they can handle. When the Jays aren’t on, though, I’ve been keeping an eye on the Rolex Paris Masters, the world’s biggest indoor tennis tournament (here, too, a Canadian is doing well—Felix Auger-Aliassime is into the quarterfinals). Tennis is a sport that I’ve come to really enjoy in the last five years or so, both the viewing and the playing. And it’s given me a new window into some aspects of the Christian life. Read more

Sep 30

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On Not Being Prematurely Disappointed

On any given Monday out at the jail, anywhere from 25-40 percent of the guys who come out to the chapels are indigenous. Given that they make up around 6-7 percent of the Alberta population, that’s some bad math. Actually, “bad” is not a strong enough word. It’s heartbreaking. And it’s angry making. And it’s frustrating. And it’s demoralizing. And… well, pick your adjective. It’s not good. It is a reality that should not be. Read more

Sep 17

The Shape of Our Hearts

I’ve lost track of the number of articles, podcasts, video clips, etc. I’ve seen over the last few days bearing a headline or title something along the lines of, “Will Charlie Kirk’s death be a turning point for America?” American media, Canadian media, international media (because of course, American culture wars are among their many exports to the rest of the world). I haven’t clicked on many of these links mostly because I think the answer to the question is a rather obvious, “almost certainly not.” Read more

Sep 11

In the Name of Jesus

I had never heard of Charlie Kirk before yesterday. But his assassination is, of course, front page news everywhere today. Another disgusting tragedy, another spasm of violence in culture addicted to violence, another casualty of a toxic political culture and a diseased discursive climate, another outrage to dominate and be weaponized by social media before we collectively yawn and move on to the next outrage. It all feels so utterly wearisome and predictable and inevitable in our fractious, polarized, and distractible times. Read more

Aug 27

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I Guess I Just Have to Try Harder

What do a young man in prison, a senior struggling with cognitive decline, and a global superstar athlete have in common? All three struggle with feeling like they are “enough.” And all three, to varying degrees, feel like the solution to this feeling of “not enoughness” is to work harder, do better, be better. Which is to say that all three—again, to varying degrees—have a hard time with grace. Read more

Aug 7

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We Will Have Our Moral Meaning

A friend recently sent me an article by Amanda Knox in The Atlantic called “What is Evil?” She’s reflecting on Bryan Kohlberger, the man who stabbed four University of Idaho students to death three years ago. This week, Kohlberger was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. He has shown no hint of remorse, hasn’t offered even one clue as to a motive. He seems like a genuine sociopath, a monster simply bent on violence and destruction come hell or high water. If ever the word “evil” seemed appropriate, it would be here. Read more

Jul 14

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Rage Against the Machine

It’s a shame we have to die, my dear. No one’s getting out of here alive.

— Foo Fighters, DOA

I spent part of yesterday watching the “Gentlemen’s Final” at Wimbledon. Like many things about this old tournament, the vocabulary speaks to a bygone age. Who uses words like “gentlemen” anymore? Although this year’s finalists refreshingly seem to actually fit the term. Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz seem to be something of a rarity in professional sports in that they are genuinely decent young men in addition to being spectacular tennis players. It was a good match, and it was nice to see Sinner prevail after a crushing loss to Alcaraz in a five-hour marathon a month or so in the French Open final. Read more

Jul 8

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All Things to All People

I couldn’t help but cringe along this morning as I read an article by Giles Fraser on the search for a replacement for Justin Welby as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the head of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion. The piece is ominously titled “Anglicanism’s Poisoned Chalice.” According to Fraser, it’s a job that nobody with any sense would want.

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Jun 25

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Without Spot or Blemish

Around a month ago, I was in Zürich, Switzerland to participate in events celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement. It’s difficult, of course, to pin a precise date to a movement as amorphous as “Anabaptism” (the word itself was only embraced much later, and with varying degrees of enthusiasm). But something significant began around 1525. For the purposes of this celebration, the beginnings of our movement were tied to the first believers’ baptisms (or “rebaptisms,” according to their opponents) which took place in a little apartment in Zürich. George Blaurock, Felix Manz, and Conrad Grebel had embraced the teachings of reformers like Ulrich Zwingli but increasingly felt they didn’t go far enough, specifically (but not exclusively) when it came to baptism. They found no warrant in Scripture for infant baptism and so in defiance of local regulations, they baptized one another January 17, 1525. Read more

May 9

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Friday Miscellany (On Conscription)

The last thing I did before heading out on sabbatical was spend a few days at a Roman Catholic retreat centre in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I was there for a retreat with a group of pastors from our denomination. The setting was idyllic, the hospitality warm, and the sessions meaningful. We were led by a Catholic spiritual director who invited us to consider our various journey, vocations, and lives through the lens of “pilgrimage.” My ears obviously perked up at that as I will be heading off on a very non-metaphorical pilgrimage in a few days (walking the Camino de Santiago, Portuguese Way). In one of the sessions, she used a phrase that has stuck with me: “Sometimes our pilgrimages are not chosen; sometimes we are conscripted.” Read more

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