Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Ethics’ Category

Jul 17

5 Comments

Wednesday Miscellany

A few reflections on unrelated themes for a Wednesday morning…

——

I was having a conversation with a person this morning who has been navigating the murky waters of trying to discern the best treatment options for a health concern. One doctor recommends this, one recommends that, one tries to push pills, one recommends “natural” treatments, one article says this, another article says that. Often, the opinions are wildly contradictory.  How do you make a good decision in the face of such divergent viewpoints—especially when the purveyors of this or that position almost invariably stand to profit, directly or indirectly, from your agreeing with them?

Who do you trust when everyone has a vested interest in convincing you that they are right? Read more

Jul 2

18 Comments

“We’re Gonna Be Surrounded by Angels”

As far as Canada Day holidays go, it was a bit of a strange one yesterday. I got a message that there was someone who needed to speak with me. Let’s call him Darren. He had shown up at a local L’Arche residence because it was a former nunnery that had still had a cross prominently displayed out front and he thought it was a church. He was looking for help. A place to stay, mainly. They gave him some sandwiches, some conversation, and a ride to the park but weren’t exactly sure where to go after that. Read more

Jun 26

4 Comments

On Heretics and “Heroic Feats of Cognitive Dissonance”

I’ve been spending some time in the first two chapters of Genesis over the last few weeks as we make our way into a summer worship series on creation. And one cannot read very far in the literature about the first two chapters of the bible without at some point encountering the predictable, tendentious battles between evolutionary naturalism and creation, science and religion, etc. It seems to me that those who get the most excited about these issues often quite badly misunderstand either the nature of science or the nature of religion. Or both. And this tends to lead to a considerable amount of heat and not a great deal of light being generated in public discourse on this issue.  Read more

Jun 17

Blank Screen

As I was driving back from a guest-speaking trip to Edmonton yesterday afternoon, I observed myself doing a funny thing. Every few minutes, I would restlessly pick up my phone and look at it. For no reason at all. It didn’t ring or ping or otherwise summon me to attend to its latest deliverance. It just sat there, silently. But I was quite sure that somewhere in Internet-land there was something going on that I needed to be aware of. Someone was writing something or responding to something I had written or posting something that I probably ought to be aware of. All of these hypotheticals can (and did) get pretty exhausting. Read more

Jun 11

3 Comments

Value Added

This morning was an errand-running, back-and-forthing, radio-in-the-car-listening kind of morning. Part of the time was spent listening to an interview with the “The Minimalists.”Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Milburn are currently on a mini-tour through Alberta to promote their book called Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life. It’s a familiar enough riches to rags kind of story. A couple of young, single, fabulously wealthy young men gradually discover that money and stuff can’t buy fulfillment and happiness and they decide to downsize. They flee the trappings of corporate America for the mountains of Montana where they live simply, write books, start a website and a small indie publishing house, and do all kinds of other things to spread the gospel of simple and intentional living. Wonderful stuff.

Today, however, was not the morning for me to hear the clarion call to simplicity and minimal living. Today is a day when I am feeling less than enthusiastic about the merits of smaller and less.  Read more

May 30

8 Comments

Be Kind to Each Other

I listened to the story of a gay man yesterday. It was a story both tragic and tragically typical. It was a story of knowing he was “different” from his very earliest memories, of being mocked and ridiculed throughout his school years, a story of confusion, anger, and pain, a story of desperately trying to come to terms with an identity that just didn’t fit, a story of a string of unsatisfying relationships, a story of isolation and deep loneliness that persists to the present day.

It was also, of course, a story in which the church played a role. I wish I could say that it was a positive role—that the community that bears the name of the Friend of Sinners had provided a place of refuge and peace for this person… I wish I could say that. But I can’t. We all know that this isn’t how the story usually goes. We know that “rejection” and “guilt” and “judgment” and “fear” and “misunderstanding” are among the words that appear at this point in the story. Read more

May 24

4 Comments

Friday Miscellany

It’s Friday, and I’m not preaching this Sunday. What this means, of course, is that there are a number of unrelated and not necessarily coherent ideas rattling around my skull that I need to dump somewhere. I’m (mostly) kidding. I think much more highly of preaching than that. Although I have found it quite remarkable how frequently the events and ideas and reading of a given week will find their way into a Sunday sermon. At any rate, a few miscellaneous thoughts on a grey, rainy Friday morning… Read more

May 22

8 Comments

Maintenance Check

When I was in my twenties, I swore I would never drive a van. Vans were spectacularly uncool, boring, gasoline-sucking behemoths that middle-aged people who had given up on life and ideals drove. Vans were for tourists. Or people who went to Disneyland with whiny kids who were never satisfied. Never! Not for me. I would drive a trendy Euro-wagon or something. I would get a roof rack for extra storage. I would drive just about anything but a van!

I am now in my thirties. I drive a van.

[Sigh] Read more

May 14

13 Comments

What Must I Do to Inherit Eternal Life?

That may be true for you, but how can you say that it is true for everyone else when there are so many different understandings of truth out there 

This is, of course, among the most common questions out there in postmodern-dom and, more specifically, in the context of the religious/ethnic/cultural diversity that is becoming the new normal in Canada and the West in general. Christians are becoming increasingly aware that there is much that is good and true and beautiful in a wide variety of worldviews and practices. We are also alert to the painful reality that the Christian worldview has all too frequently been aligned with the interests of colonialism and other less overt modes of cultural imperialism. It can be a tricky thing, this business of expressing one’s convictions about the particularity of truth amidst all of diversity and historical error and the baggage that comes along with it. Read more

May 8

2 Comments

“You’re Gonna Pray for Leroy, Right?”

The following comes out of an experience I had yesterday. I try to be very careful in deciding if/how to share about stuff that I encounter in my daily work. There are issues of privacy, of course, in addition to the simple fact that not every experience I find meaningful necessarily needs to be shared—especially in an online/cultural context where over-sharing is reaching almost epidemic proportions.  

Having said that, I think it is important to hear the stories of our world and our communities—perhaps especially the unsettling ones. Stories move and change us. At the very least, it’s important for me to hear/tell them. There are so many things that I cannot do in light of the many problems in our world, but one thing I can do is simply to write, to tell stories like this one. It is especially relevant, I think, in light of my recent posts on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (here, here, and here) and yesterday’s post on “Normal Unhappiness.” All the names below have, of course, been changed. Read more

May 2

13 Comments

Grace, Finally

I arrived at work in a bit of a grouchy mood today. I had spent my twelve-minute commute listening to the first part of a recent podcast from CBC Radio’s Tapestry—a program that explores faith and spirituality in the twenty-first century Canada.  The host was in conversation with “Adam” (a pseudonym)—a pastor at a fundamentalist church in the southern USA who lost his faith a few years ago but has remains in his position despite his unbelief. For the interview, Adam had phoned from an undisclosed payphone in an undisclosed town and his voice was distorted to protect his identity and preserve his job. It all felt very grave and dangerous and important. And annoying. Read more

Apr 28

16 Comments

Overcome Evil with Good

One last post about my experience at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Quebec National Event this past week. As I’ve reflected on the flight home yesterday and throughout today, few questions/topics of a bit more philosophical nature keep recurring. I don’t necessarily claim to have the answers to these questions, but I would welcome dialogue about them here. I think they are important matters to discuss as Canadians of all kinds try to work toward a more just and equitable future. Read more

Apr 26

5 Comments

Symbols

A story from day three of the Québec Truth and Reconciliation Commission…

It was nearing the end of a long day of listening and I was looking for a place near the back of the hall to sit quietly for the last session of the day. Near the back of the room, I was somewhat surprised to see a flip chart stand with a drawing on it sitting in the middle of the aisle. I was even more surprised to see a young aboriginal man wildly gesticulating beside it as he was speaking in a very animated fashion to a young woman with a notepad. I edged closer to get a better look (and maybe a listen). The closer I got, the more obvious it was that this young man was very angry indeed. Read more

Apr 25

7 Comments

“We’re Not Strangers Anymore”

I’ve spent the last two days in Montreal attending the Truth and Reconciliation of Canada’s Québec National Event.  This is one of seven national events held across Canada to provide a space for listening and truth-telling about the history of residential schools in our country.  Events have already been held in Halifax, Winnipeg, Inuvik, and Saskatoon, and there will be future events in Edmonton and Vancouver.  It has been a sobering few days.  So many stories of abuse, neglect, and prejudice.  So many stories of families torn apart, of addiction and violence and dysfunctional relationships.  It was a hard, but  good day of listening. Read more

Apr 9

3 Comments

Blessed are those who Hunger and Thirst After Righteousness…

I am a theological schizophrenic.

Some days, I am an incorrigible rationalist. I like reading philosophy and theology. I like rational arguments and logic and consistency. I like highly charged debate about abstract and arcane concepts. I am drawn toward topics that have very little “practical” value. Thinking rightly about God’s nature and God’s purposes is very important to me. I like to be right. Read more

Apr 1

If Christ Has Not Been Raised — Pity Us All

I spent the morning after the triumph of life over death reading about the triumph of death over life.

Well, that sounds a little more dramatic than it actually was. What I was in fact reading was a fairly ordinary little book by David Webster called Dispirited: How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish and Unhappy. It’s hard to imagine a book with a subtitle that catchy being almost a complete waste of time, but it was. I was really looking forward to reading Dispirited after hearing an interview with Webster on the radio (he made some intriguing comments about contemporary spirituality and how it perpetuates selfishness, individualism, consumerism, etc.), but the book turned out to be a rather poorly written, sloppily edited collection of loosely connected rants against the increasing prominence of the (admittedly irritating) “I’m spiritual but not religious” claim.  Read more

Mar 27

Thy Kingdom Come

Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Mat. 6:10).
   
Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed;  nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21).

 

Some reflections on the Wednesday before the Friday and the Sunday that changed the world… Read more

Mar 19

14 Comments

The Training of Doubt

One hears a lot, these days, about the virtues of doubt. There is much talk about creating space for doubt, encouraging doubt, dignifying doubt, about how doubt is preferable to the illusory certainties of faith, about how doubt can even be an important part of faith. We have doubts about whether or not there is a God, whether freedom is real and meaningful, about the possibility of things like absolute truth and objective value. This is all fine, as far as it goes. It is good to acknowledge that we don’t know as much as we think we know or as much as we would like to know. I think that at its best, a willingness to live with doubt can engender a humility and patience with others that is quite obviously preferable to the wearisome alternatives that we are all too familiar with.

Read more

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »