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Posts from the ‘Current Events’ Category

Oct 29

17 Comments

The Strange Math of the Cross

During my time in the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, one of the issues that generated a fair amount of interest and controversy was that of the nature of the atonement. I have devoted a number of posts to this topic over the last few years (see the”Atonement” category at the bottom of this page), and have found the atonement debates simultaneously stimulating (it’s just a flat-out interesting theological issue) and frustrating (we have not always been able to talk about this matter as civilly as we ought to). It is an issue that continues to generate considerable conversation, whether within Mennonite circles or in the larger church body. Read more

Oct 6

17 Comments

Death is Calling (But What is it Saying?)

Like most people, I was saddened to hear of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ passing yesterday. I am certainly no technophile (although I do love my MacBook) and my knowledge of the world in which Mr. Jobs was so influential is minimal, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, based on the little I do know, I marvel at the impact this man and the company he founded have had upon how we live in the modern world. It seemed like Jobs was not only a visionary leader but a genuinely decent human being.  Not a bad combination. Read more

Oct 4

11 Comments

Guilt and Gratitude (Gil Dueck)

On the drive in to work today, the radio airwaves were abuzz with conversation about “Occupy Wall Street”—a series of demonstrations in New York City against the economic inequities created/sustained by the global financial system.  Too many resources in the hands of too few, too much greed and corruption, too much abuse of power, etc, etc.  The voices on the radio were full of passion, moral outrage, and conviction that this movement was the beginning of “something big.” Read more

Sep 11

6 Comments

Our Greatest Christological Defeat

There have been many words flying around this week leading up to today’s tenth anniversary of the World Trade Center attack, and there will undoubtedly be many more throughout the day today. I have not read many better than these, by Bishop William Willimon, from an article in Christianity Today about how evangelical leaders have changed since 9/11: Read more

Aug 30

2 Comments

Harvest Day

For the past five years, a number of people in our community have participated in a Canadian Foodgrains Bank growing project.  The way it works is a quarter section of land (160 acres) is set aside, seed, fertilizer, labour, machinery, and irrigation costs, etc are donated by a variety of people and organizations, and all of the proceeds from the harvest are given to the Foodgrains Bank for international relief (I’ve written a bit more about the good work that this organization does before here and here).  With the 4:1 matching grant from the Canadian government, this one project has been able to raise nearly $2 million over the last four years!

Well, yesterday was harvest day for the Coaldale-Lethbridge Growing Project, so I headed out to the field to join the festivities and snap some photos. Read more

Aug 26

19 Comments

Something Has Happened… Now Listen to Me!!

Here in Canada, the news of the week has been dominated by the tragic death of NDP leader Jack Layton.  It’s been remarkable to see the outpouring of grief, the pages of commentary, the rapturous eulogizing, and, regrettably, the vicious politicizing that has come in the wake of Mr. Layton’s passing.  National Post columnist Christie Blatchford’s ill-timed and rather insensitive article in Monday’s issue, and the stream of vitriolic commets that followed it, stand as a rather embarrassing indictment of our inability to behave and converse civilly and sensitively online, even in the face of death.  Read more

Jun 17

46 Comments

Real ____ Would Never Do That!

I just returned from a glorious five days spent motorcycling through Washington and Oregon. We crossed the border into the United States last Sunday and then headed over the Cascade Mountains, wound our way down to northern Oregon, then meandered through the central part of the state, before heading back north up the Oregon Coast, and catching a ferry back to Vancouver Island from Port Angeles, WA last night. All in all, a fantastic trip. Read more

Jun 2

13 Comments

The Brains of Religion (My Hippocampus is Bigger Than Yours!)

Well this story is bound to induce a combination of chuckles and mild derision towards “born again” Christians and Roman Catholics. Apparently, Duke researchers have discovered that Protestants who claimed not to have had a “born again” experience had larger hippocampuses than Protestants who had. Roman Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated were also discovered to fall into the “smaller” category. Read more

Apr 6

43 Comments

On Justice

Every Wednesday in my neck of the woods, a handful of guys get together to talk and pray about God, life, work, marriage, and whatever else happens to come up before breakfast. One member of our group is a lawyer, and today we got on to the topic of justice and the irregular and inconsistent nature of its application in the Canadian system. To cite just one example (among a handful we talked about), there were back to back court cases where hunting an animal out of season resulted in a (much) more severe punishment than a clear cut case of spousal abuse. Amazing. Read more

Mar 11

22 Comments

Thinking and Praying

A post from 2009 called “Our Thoughts Are With You” has been getting an unusual amount of traffic today due, I can only assume, to people’s wrestling with how to think and respond to the unfolding tragedy in Japan. I have received a few emails today loosely related to the question of how (if at all) we are to talk about suffering, whether from the perspective of belief in a providential God or not. Do we attempt to “explain” or are all such attempts offensive by definition? Do we say we are praying? Thinking? Do our hearts go out to those affected? Our minds? Our hands and feet? Our wallets? We see images and hear stories like the ones coming out of Japan, and feel we must have something to say. So… what?

To be sure, it is always somewhat perilous to force words into the context of suffering (I think of Job’s “miserable comforters“), but I thought I would re-post an edited version of the original today. Read more

Dec 20

24 Comments

Indifference in Disguise

An interesting article from last week’s National Post… Apparently, youngsters in Quebec daycare centres will henceforth be allowed to see religious imagery and symbols but not to have them explained: Read more

Dec 2

7 Comments

Hallelujah!

A friend sent this to me yesterday and it made me smile. There is probably no shortage of insightful theological/cultural commentary that might be offered on this—something about the irony of the music that once graced the cathedrals of Europe being brought into our modern cathedrals of consumption and hedonism, about the subversiveness of importing the themes of this piece into a secular context, about the potential reorientation of our conceptions of what is important at Christmas etc, etc. Read more

Oct 26

16 Comments

Commending the Faith

This past Saturday, I attended John Stackhouse’s lectures on faith, reason, and the new atheism down at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. Evidently, there is still some interest in this topic as the event sold out—even in hyper-secular Nanaimo! Around twenty people from our church attended which was fantastic to see! I was in and out of the sessions throughout the day due to carting kids to hockey, friends’ houses, etc, but a couple of things struck me about his presentations: Read more

Oct 12

27 Comments

Good For Us

Later this month Prof. John Stackhouse from Regent College will be here in Nanaimo to talk about the New Atheists (can we still call them “new?”) and whether or not it is crazy to be a person of faith.  Those who have been long-time readers of this blog will know that this is an event that has special interest for me because a) I wrote about the New Atheists for my masters thesis a few years back; and b) John Stackhouse was my supervisor for this project.  So I’ll be there with bells on.  And if you are on Vancouver Island on Saturday, October 23, I would encourage you to attend this event (you can register here).  I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say. Read more

Oct 6

8 Comments

The Whole Jesus

Next month, the British Columbia Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches (of which the church I serve at is a part) will be holding another event to further discuss some of our differences (or perceived differences) regarding how we are to understand the cross of Christ. The atonement debate has been simmering in these parts for a while now (I’ve reflected on it here, here, here, and here if you’re interested in any background). Some see a decreasing emphasis in the penal substitution component of what the cross accomplished, and think that this represents a compromise of the gospel. Others see room for locating penal substitution within a broader understanding of what was achieved at Calvary. This event is an attempt to better understand and talk about these differences. Read more

Aug 13

20 Comments

Big Tent Christianity

In just under a month, an interesting “first” will be taking place in Raleigh, NC. Big Tent Christianity: Being and Becoming the Church is a conference/conversation being held to talk about what it is that unites followers of Jesus from a broad range of contexts and perspectives and how we can live and work and talk together in a spirit of cooperation, respect. It is intended to reflect a willingness to learn from rather than shout at/about one another in this crazy thing called the church. It is an attempt to come together under the “big tent” of the body of Christ and to recognize that the big tent is more important than the little tents that we are, perhaps, more familiar and comfortable with. Read more

Jul 18

22 Comments

Family Matters II: Some Reflections on Celebration 2010

So, Celebration 2010 (a recognition of the 150th anniversary of the Mennonite Brethren family held in the Vancouver area this past week) has come and gone and I find myself in reflection mode. One of the topics that generated significant discussion and debate was the nature of our Mennonite Brethren identity. Are we evangelical Anabaptists or Anabaptist Evangelicals? What is it, exactly, that we gather around as people from such diverse contexts? Is it theology? A shared history/common story? Is it relationships that have formed between people and communities over time? All of the above? And what happens if/when these individual commonalities and relationships begin to break down, as some see to be the case in the Canadian MB context? Read more

Jul 15

Family Matters

Well, summer is here and the posting around here continues to be somewhat sparse. This week I am in the Vancouver area attending Celebration 2010, our Mennonite Brethren denomination’s 150th birthday party. I have been spending the week with people from around the world learning more about MB identity and celebrating the ways in which God has worked in our collective story. Read more

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