Abortion, Federal Funding and Religious Freedom

In December of last year the Federal Government announced that it would require all applicants to the Canada Summer Jobs Program to agree to a formal attestation that: Both the job and the organization’s core mandate respect individual human rights in Canada, including the values underlying the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as other …

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“Nobody Was Born Racist” and other Things I Wish Were True

This blog is the continuation of a previous post On Aug 16, 2017, a few days after the alt-right rally in Charlottesville, VA this tweet became the most liked tweet in Twitter’s short history. It’s a quote lifted out of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom that continues, “people must learn to hate, and …

Whataboutism

This blog post is a continuation of a previous post. “What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt-right? ... You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent.” – Donald Trump This was a particularly …

Taking a Stand Against Racism is a Meaningless Gesture

You need to listen to that speech.  Aug 28, 1963.  You’ve heard parts of it. You could likely quote some of it, but you need to hear the whole thing.  Take 17 min, click here tonight and listen to it. It is a homiletical masterpiece, a speech that defined a movement.  It expresses so poetically …

Being Childish

There is a short but familiar story in Luke 18:15-17 where we see Jesus receiving little children. Right before that, Jesus finished his his parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector with the words “those who exalt themselves will be humbled, but whoever humbles themselves will be exalted” (Luke 18:14b) and then almost as …

The Gospel of Stranger Things

I discovered a Netflix show called Stranger Things  earlier this summer.  Everybody else probably watched it when it dropped last fall. Either that, or you have no plans to watch it at all, so I am probably safe talking about it, but if you haven’t caught it and are planning to watch it, here are …

Dealing with Silence

I recently watched "Silence," the latest Martin Scorsese film, based on the novel written by Shusaku Endo. It was a deeply troubling movie. The film portrays the fictional story of a 17th Century Jesuit Missionary from Portugal named Father Sebastian Rodrigues (played by Andrew Garfield) who sets sail for Japan in 1640, determined to help …

(Not So) Merry Christmas From the Pope

Today, Pope Francis addressed the Vatican in his annual Christmas address for the bishops, cardinals and other staffers who live and work in Vatican City.  Rather than offer up a pithy "Merry Christmas" and how-do-you-do, Pope Francis offered up what we in the preaching biz call an "epic verbal smackdown." Not an angry rant or …

X-Men and Eschatology

(By the way, Eschatology is the study of the last days.) Spoiler Alert! Read no further if you were planning to watch Days of Future Past and haven't gotten around to it yet! In the most recent X-men movie, Days of Future Past, things are not going well for our mutant heroes.  The movie begins …

Glory that Fades

One thing that sports helps us see is our inborn hunger for glory. We are constantly trying to lay a hold of something transcendent, even in our hobbies and pastimes. In every sport, nearly every season, something or someone will claim to having achieved something of eternal significance.  This year in baseball, one of the …