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Movie lists, Movie Reviews

Top 10 films on PureFlix right now

Pureflix is a per-month subscription streaming service that provides Christian content on both sides of the US/Canadian border. While much of its content is mediocre, there are gems to be found. What follows is a Top 10 list of movies for mom and dad, some of which could be watched with the older kids too.

And as a bonus, right afterward, is a Top 10 for shows that the kids might like.

In many cases you can click on the movie title to find a longer review, and some of those longer reviews even include links to where you can watch them for free, though often in lower resolution.

To watch these on Pureflix.com, Canadians and Americans can sign up for a free trial here.

Movies for mom and dad

1. I Can Only Imagine

This is the life story of MercyMe singer Bart Millard, or, more specifically, it’s the story of what drove him to write what might be the most popular Christian song of the modern era, "I Can Only Imagine." The focus isn’t as much on Bart’s transformation from troubled kid to successful singer, as it is about God transforming his abusive father. Cautions here that make this unsuitable for family viewing is that Millard’s father is indeed abusive, both physically, which we mostly don’t see, and verbally, which we do. However, for adults, this will be a remarkable film and a good part of it is J. Michael Finley, a good actor, and an absolutely fantastic singer.

2. The Most Reluctant Convert: The untold story of C.S. Lewis

This is the story of Lewis’s conversion from ardent atheist to “the most reluctant convert,” bowing his knee to God not because he wanted to, but because he couldn’t do otherwise. It’s also a story superbly told. If you already know Lewis you’re going to love this film; if you don’t, this film will soon have you loving Lewis for the way he could put into words the wonder God worked in his and our own hearts.

3. The Long Goodbye: The Kara Tippetts Story

The remarkable documentary is a tearjerker about a mom facing terminal cancer, who offers us encouragement in her confidence that God has both her and her family.

4. Tortured for Christ

Tortured for Christ is a must-see film about Richard Wurmbrand’s courageous and faithful stand against the Soviets when they took over Romania.

5. Sabina

This is a sequel/prequel to Tortured for Christ, about how Pastor Wurmbrand's Jewish wife Sabina was willing to help even Nazi soldiers, because of her love for God.

6. Beyond the Mask

When a young 18th-century assassin wants to leave his dark life behind his employer tries to have this loose end tied up, with a bomb. The assassin survives thanks to the warning of a passing vicar who ends up paying for his kindness by getting blown up himself. In search of a new life and a new identity, Reynolds adopts the vicar's identity, and meets Charlotte, a young woman who knows a lot more about God than this "vicar" does. Romance, intrigue, daring-do and plenty of explosions follow. A concern would be the violence, which, while never gory, is frequent – lots of fisticuffs going on here. That said, this is one of the better-produced, better-acted, better-written, Christian films.

7. Time Changer

In the year 1890, seminary professor Russell Carlisle proposes teaching morality to the masses without making mention of God, reasoning that even if people don’t become Christians, it would be a good thing if they were at least taught that stealing was wrong. But after a colleague uses a time machine to send the professor more than a hundred years into the future, to present-day USA, Carlisle realizes that morals founded on anything but God have no foundation at all, and are just dismissed as opinion. This is a good-looking science fiction movie with an important and powerfully presented Christian message.

8. The Ultimate Gift

Jason, a spoilt rich kid, is given an inheritance by his billionaire grandfather, but it comes with conditions. To get the money Jason has to complete 12 separate tasks, all of which are intended to humble and shape him. It’s a fun film, with a grandfather handing out tough love from beyond the grave in the hopes he can still teach and help his aimless grandson. Emily, a child with a terminal condition, also teaches Jason some important lessons, but her eventual death makes this one kids won't like. A sequel, The Ultimate Life, is only middling.

9. Extraordinary

Extraordinary is based on the real-life story of Liberty University professor and ultra-marathon runner David Horton, who runs races not just hours long, but weeks long. That’s meant he’s left the homefront to be managed by his wife on her own. And she might have had enough. Overall, Extraordinary is a lightweight comedic drama about a doofus husband who takes a while to get his priorities right but who figures it out in time for a happy ending for all. That’s all it is, and on some evenings that’s really all we’re looking for.

10. The Amazing Adventure

In this black and white calico, Ernest Bliss (Cary Grant) is a young man who has inherited a lot of money from his father. Yet he’s nervous, can’t eat, and can’t sleep. When he goes to the specialist and the doctor diagnoses him with “self-indulgence” Bliss is both offended and intrigued. What’s the prescription then? The doctor tells Bliss to earn his own living for a year and dismisses him with a wave, knowing that this pampered socialite will never follow this advice. But Bliss ends up making him a bet: if Bliss does do it, then one year from now he’ll expect a handshake and an apology from the doctor, and if Bliss loses, then he’ll give £50,000 for the doctor’s downtown charity clinic. That’s the setup, and the general plotline is as you might expect. Bliss learns some lessons about just how it can be for a regular Joe, and it isn’t too long before he’s secretly using his connections and money to help the struggling people who have befriended him.

If you don't mind black and white, and its slower pacing, a couple of other classics worth checking out are Meet John Doe and The Jackie Robinson Story.

Bonus: Top 10 shows for the kids

There's a lot of fun and goofy content on Pureflix, but some of it is goofy in a theological sense too, so parents do need to exercise discernment on behalf of their little ones. Even the recommendations below include a caution or two.

1. Life at the Pond

A Christian series aimed at the preschool set that, like VeggieTales, pairs simple animation with somewhat sophisticated humor – there’s yuks here for mom and dad to enjoy too. The four stars are aquatic:

  • Bill the Duck is a regular joe; we are Bill the Duck
  • Tony the Frog fills the role of wisecracking comic relief
  • Floyd the Turtle is the most child-like, and often the straight man setting up Tony’s zingers
  • Methuselah the Alligator is older, and a voice of biblical wisdom

The first two episodes, There’s Something Funny in the Water and The Little Things, are calm enough for even the youngest, while The Alligator Hunter, Big Mouth Bass, and The Rise and Fall of Tony the Frog, have some tension, and even some frantic action, so might be best for 5 and up.

2. Buddy Davis' Amazing Adventures (and The Creation Adventure Team)

Buddy Davis is a musician, dinosaur sculptor, and children’s entertainer. In his Amazing Adventures series, he’s teamed up with the folks at Answers in Genesis to share a half dozen expeditions – underground, to Alaska, Africa, the swamps, and more – that kids will really enjoy. In The Creation Adventure Team he pairs up with a robot dinosaur sidekick to investigate when the dinosaurs died, how they lived, and whether there were any on the Ark. These two videos feature pretty frenetic action, some decent special effects, and a number of clever spoofs.

3. Defense of New Haven

Defense of New Haven is a wonderfully bizarre adventure: a steampunk Christian allegoric comedy adventure, with every character played by a child actor, even though the characters are adults. Our hero, Alec, is a one-armed man who gets recruited by a fully-bearded six-year-old to carry a secret message to the city’s miniature-steamboat-driving defensive forces so that they’ll be able to stop gas-mask-wearing raiders. That is a sentence I never imagined writing, but this is a movie I would have never imagined seeing. And it is both cheesy and fantastic. If you enjoy this, you’ll also like the producer’s earlier all-children film, The Runner from Ravenshead, which is also available.

4. The Legend of 5 Mile Cave

The Legend of 5 Mile Cave begins with a bang, a fleeing cowboy being shot right off his horse by an eagle-eyed sheriff. And it begins with misdirection too: the sheriff looks kind of scary, his posse pretty mean, so are they the heroes? Or should we be rooting for the guy lying at their feet? It doesn’t get any clearer when we cut forward 20 years and see an escaping prisoner evade pursuing guards and their bloodhounds. Again, it seems like we’re supposed to be siding with the bad guy. What’s going on? Don't worry, things will eventually be set aright but it is quite the ride until then.

5. A Show about Anthem Lights

A real-life Christian cover band, Anthem Lights, has turned itself into a cartoon. This reminded me of Duck Dynasty, with band members playing dumber, funnier versions of themselves.

While other animated material on the site wasn't all that impressive, they do seem to have all or at least most of the VeggieTales. but only some are recommended. Click on the link to see which ones.

6. Storm: Luther's forbidden letter

Storm Voeten is the 12-year-old son of a printer living in 1500s Antwerp. Martin Luther has written his 95 Theses and his ideas are a source of debate and division across Europe. That’s also true in the Voeten household, where Storm’s mother, a staunch Catholic, doesn’t even want to hear Luther’s name. But his father is interested in learning more…and he’s even willing to print Luther’s ideas. This is a pain-free way for kids to learn this important history.

7. Back of the Net

A science geek girl, looking to spend a semester on the seas studying sea creatures, accidentally ends up at a soccer academy. Hijinks ensue, and while there is just a bit of boy/girl oohing and aaahing, that silliness is kept to a minimum, making this a fun one for the fam.

8. F.R.E.D.I

A friendly football-sized and shaped robot is stolen from bad guys and ends up in the hands of a couple of teen guys. This struck me as almost the kid version of a Hallmark movie (the good kind) that is pretty light, fairly predictable, but just a pleasant 90 minutes spent. Just watched this one with my kids, and our 10 year-old daughter gave it a 9.9. I think I'd give it a solid 8 as a kids' flick.

9. Patterns of Evidence: Young Explorers

This 5-episode series is based on filmmaker Timothy Mahoney’s documentary Patterns of Evidence about his search for evidence of Israel’s captivity in Egypt. The original was part mystery, part biblical history and this sequel covers the same territory, but this time with a group of kids along for the ride. This is now not simply a documentary, but a docudrama, with fact and fiction, education and entertainment, all mixed together. There is humor on two levels here, with pratfalls for the kids, and dry humor for the adults – there are some snort-worthy moments! The five episodes in order cover:

  1. The adventure begins when the kids hear about Timothy Mahoney’s work and are eager to help
  2. They learn that we may know where Joseph lived in Egypt
  3. The team searches for signs of captive Israel’s population explosion
  4. The Young Explorers go search for signs of the 10 plagues
  5.  The search continues on into Israel, where the team now investigates the fall of the walls of Jericho

For another fascinating documentary series, check out Creation Proclaims – it's a nature series for kids, that takes a close look at all sorts of animals, and narrated by a former atheist whose university students won him over when they challenged him to look at just how amazing God's creation is. Episodes average around 10 minutes each, focussing on one animal, and there are 24 episodes in all. Mom and dad will find this pretty cool too!

10. Jack and the Beanstalk

While this Abbott and Costello classic puts too much of the slap into slapstick, it's otherwise a pretty fun flick.

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In a Nutshell

Tidbits – November 2023

Practice makes better I had a friend who makes it a point of pride not to open doors for women because. “Women are just as capable of opening doors as men.” True, but he's missed the point of this little politeness. Gifted with greater strength, men could use their power (and some brutes do) to dominate women. Proper Christian chaps in times past took a stand against this misuse and instead put their strength at women’s disposal, doing so in many different ways: helping with chairs, giving up their seat on the bus, carrying packages, holding the song book at church and, yes, opening doors for the fairer sex. It wasn’t that women were incapable – men were just practicing using their strength to help. They were engraining a habit, and modeling it to others, showing how gentle men behave. And since brutes continue to abound it’s clear that many men still need to practice and model this gentlemanly behavior. Pop Quiz Put your biblical knowledge to the test. Order the following events as they occur in the Bible beginning with “1” for the earliest and “10” for the last. Answers are at the bottom of this page. Daniel in the lions’ den Noah’s ark The giving of the Ten Commandments Elijah and the prophets of Baal Solomon building the Temple Samson and Delilah Jesus feeding the 5,000 Saul’s vision on the Damascus road Joseph and his coat of many colors The martyring of Stephen Nellie: a life worth living (27 min) “I’ll play football in heaven,” says John “Nellie” Nelson (1965-2009) who was born with arthrogryposis and couldn’t move any of his joints from his neck down. He was, nevertheless, an assistant football coach for one of the best football programs in the country. What he did with the little he was given showed these young men what living to God’s glory really meant. I first saw this at a film festival a decade back, and was delighted to discover it is now available for free on YouTube. Marital advice from the unmarried I got married later in life, and in my single days I wrote down some advice for the married me that I hoped would be. It was a few things that I, and some other singles, noticed about the very happiest of our married friends. They make it a priority to hug or kiss their spouses hello and goodbye. That mushy stuff may make the kids groan but it sure seems to keep mom and dad happy. While Dutch folk do have a tendency to tease the ones we love, happy couples are also quick to compliment their spouses (men, see Prov. 31:10-31 for a little inspiration). "Dating” is common – they find ways to regularly spend time alone together. While tonight it may have been your wife’s job to make supper, that’s no reason not to thank her for the wonderful meal! The happiest couples regularly thank each other, even for the ordinary routine work they do for one another every day. And the happiest couples grow spiritually together, not just reading the Bible together, but really studying it and praying together. A punny pastor Pastor John Barach posted this bit to his blog some years back, on pulpit exchanges: TERRY: "So when you have a pulpit exchange, you come here and our pastor goes to another church and that pastor goes to another church... It's kind of a domino effect!" ME: "No, Terry. It's the dominee effect." Fly the silly skies WestJet is a Canadian airline known for its humorous flight attendants. The following are some quips attributed to these flying funsters: "Welcome aboard West Jet Flight 245 to Calgary. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised." "In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite." "Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. After a very hard landing in Edmonton, the flight attendant came on the intercom: "That was quite a bump, and I know what y'all are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault… it was the asphalt." Quote of the month “People should know what they believe and why they believe it, and they should know what they don’t believe and why they don’t believe it.” – Dr. Glen Martin A stolen gift In June street evangelist Ray Comfort's new bicycle was stolen, so he ended up going back to the same bike store to buy the very same bike again. He has already spoken with the store owner about God the last visit, so this time he asked the man about his family, and discovered that while he had two children, and had been with their mom for 15 years, they were not married. And this is what Ray then told him: "I told him that if he loved his girlfriend he would marry her. I talked about her eternal salvation and that he was making her a fornicator. I also told him that the Bible begins with a naked couple being commanded by God to have sex, that sex is a gift from God to humanity.... Then I told him a story of a little boy whose dad had a brand new $100 bill in his wallet that he was going to give him as a gift. Not knowing that, the son snuck into his dad’s room, opened the wallet and stole the money. The $100 was going to be his anyway, but he stole it and made something bad out of something that was going to be good. I said, 'That’s what you’ve done with God’s gift of sex.'" SOURCE: Ray Comfort's Facebook post of June 10, 2014 Anagram arrangements Sometimes the exact same letters can be used to say the same thing in another way, as happens in the anagrams below. Astronomer: Moon starer The eyes: They see The Morse Code: Here come dots Slot Machines: Cash lost in me Snooze Alarms: Alas! No more Z's A decimal point: I'm a dot in place The earthquakes: That queer shake Eleven plus two: Twelve plus one Butterfly: Flutter-by Vacation Times: I'm Not as Active Source: the world wide web Dad joke of the month Two atoms are walking down a road when one says, “Oh no, I’ve lost my electron!” “Are you sure?” asks the second. “Yes,” says the first, “I’m positive!” Source: 3-2-1 Penguins – The Cheating Scales of BullaManka Unromantic… or just thrifty? Rene Gutteridge’s romance novel My Life as a Doormat has a rather creative introduction on being a romantic on the cheap: "I’m practical. Practical people can be romantics. I don’t think the two contradict each other. Sure, I cringe when an insane amount of money is spent on a dozen roses, and as I watch them die their slow deaths despite the Evian and the aspirin tablet, I can’t help but wonder what better use there was for forty dollars. Can the feeling of holding roses really match saving the starving children of the world? I simply pose the question. "I’m getting sidetracked. The fact of the matter is that I just see romance differently. I see it in defined spaces, with reason and structure attached. Romance doesn’t necessarily need spontaneity either. Scheduled romance is certainly a viable option for busy people. There’s no reason why a bottle of wine can’t be sought out days ahead of time, why a horse-drawn carriage can’t be ridden in the off-season to save ten dollars. Practicality is a simple frame of mind that in all honesty offers more perks and functionality than such frivolousness." Bringing the Greek fire! “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” – attributed to Plato Answers for "Pop Quiz" The correct order of events is 2, 9, 3, 6, 5, 4, 1, 7, 10, 8 or Noah’s ark Joseph and his coat of many colors The giving of the Ten Commandments Samson and Delilah Solomon building the Temple Elijah and the prophets of Baal Daniel in the lions’ den Jesus feeding the 5,000 The martyring of Stephen Saul’s vision on the Damascus road ...

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Gender roles

Different is good! God created male and female

God created males and females to be very different from each other. That’s obvious to us as Christians and to most other clear-thinking people. But to leftwing ideologues who see any recognition of difference as “inequality,” accepting such difference is a form of heresy. For example, many feminists consider any difference between males and females to be the result of “social conditioning” – the two genders are only different, they say, because our “patriarchal” society imposes differing expectations on boys and girls. And once the government and its education system have properly imposed “equality” on society, then the differences between men and women will disappear. Leonard Sax In recent years, that ideological perspective has been thoroughly refuted by scientific studies of the human body. Many of these studies and their implications are summarized by psychologist and medical doctor Leonard Sax in the book Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences. Sax is not coming to this issue from any sort of Christian or social conservative perspective. He is not opposed to homosexual behavior, and as a medical doctor he prescribes birth control to sixteen-year-old girls without their parents’ knowledge. In other words, he is not a believer, or a conservative as such. He is simply frustrated by the harmful effects of leftwing ideology on children. When Sax was trained at university, most professors accepted the ideological view that male and female differences are socially conditioned rather than being natural and intrinsic. He refers to this view as "the dogma of 'social constructionism,' the belief that differences between girls and boys derive exclusively from social expectations with no input from biology." Attention Deficit Disorder? After practicing medicine for a few years, he suddenly saw a huge increase in the number of grade 2 and 3 boys being sent to him with notes from their teachers saying they have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and needed medication. This glut of supposedly ADD boys alerted Sax to the fact that something was wrong. As it turns out, it wasn’t that the boys were ill or needed medication. It turned out that boys have a different sort of learning style than girls, and that the current method of teaching in many schools favors the female learning style. When boys have a hard time paying attention in class they are diagnosed as having ADD and given drugs to cope with that “problem.” But in most cases these boys don’t actually have a problem. They’re just not being taught the way boys need to be taught. As Sax summarizes the situation, “The failure to recognize and respect sex differences in child development has done substantial harm over the past thirty years.” The brains of male and female humans have significant differences, especially during infancy and childhood. These differences affect the way children learn and thus are relevant when considering how they should be educated. Girls draw nouns, boys draw verbs Take the eye, for example. Baby girls are naturally interested in looking at faces while baby boys are more interested in looking at moving objects. According to Sax, “The reason for that difference has to do with sex differences in the anatomy of the eye.” The anatomy of the eye is different for males and females. It is impossible for the differences to be the result of social conditioning. And these differences are significant. Sax says that, "We’re not talking about small differences between the sexes, with lots of overlap. We’re talking about large differences between the sexes, with no overlap at all." Such biological differences between boys and girls are reflected in a number of ways. For example, when boys and girls are given paper and crayons to draw with, the difference reflects itself in the kinds of pictures that result. Boys tend to portray movement and action more than girls. “Psychologist Donna Tuman summarizes the difference this way: girls draw nouns, boys draw verbs.” Toys In feminist ideology, boys and girls play with different kinds of toys because their parents give them the kinds of toys they are expected to play with. Boys get “boy toys” like balls, trains, and cars, while girls get “girl toys” like dolls, and baby carriages. The feminists argue that if the boys were given girl toys, and the girls given boy toys, the children would turn out differently – the boys would express more femininity in their play and the girls would express more masculinity in their play. But the actual research done on children as young as nine-months-old demonstrates that boys naturally gravitate to boy toys and girls to girl toys. Their respective interest in those kinds of toys is natural, not the result of social conditioning. The feminists are wrong again. This is how Sax summarizes the overall situation: "Girls and boys play differently. They learn differently. They fight differently. They see the world differently. They hear differently. When I started graduate school in 1980, most psychologists were insisting that those differences came about because parents raised girls and boys in different ways. Today we know that the truth is the other way around: parents raise girls and boys differently because girls and boys are so different from birth. Girls and boys behave differently because their brains are wired differently." This is a point that bears repeating: “The bottom line is that the brain is just organized differently in females and males.” And the organization of the brain is not something that can be conditioned by a “patriarchal” society. Danger and violence Sax discusses a number of other ways that boys and girls differ. One of the most interesting is their reaction to danger. Generally speaking, when a girl is confronted by danger she feels fearful. But in many cases a boy confronted with the same danger will experience a thrill. Boys often seek out dangerous activities for fun. This is less common in girls. Sax notes that, “Studies in the United States and around the world universally find that boys are more likely to engage in physically risky activities.” Boys often get enjoyment from activities that most girls want to avoid. Boys are also less adverse to violence than girls. Much like the situation with danger, “many young boys get a thrill from violent or quasi-violent confrontation. Most young girls don’t.” This fact has educational implications because it affects the kind of literature that will interest most boys: "Boys as young as two years of age, given a choice between violent fairy tales and warm and fuzzy fairy tales, usually choose the violent stories. Girls as young as two years of age consistently choose the warm and fuzzy stories." Discipline and spanking Sax has a long discussion on how girls and boys need different kinds of discipline. In his view, boys tend to need strict authoritarian discipline, which includes spanking. However, he does not believe girls respond positively to spanking and advises parents not to spank girls. This differs from the Christian view since girls are not exempt from spanking in the Bible. However, because he does recommend spanking for boys, he spends some time defending spanking as a legitimate form of discipline. He refutes the argument that spanking leads to child abuse saying, "Parents who love their young son and spank him only occasionally when he does something really outrageous are at no more risk of becoming child abusers than are parents who never spank." He also points out that some countries have outlawed spanking and doing so has not decreased child abuse at all. "Sweden, for example, passed a law in 1979 making it illegal for parents to spank their children. But a Swedish government study conducted in 1995 showed a fourfold increase in child abuse in the years following passage of the law. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the law somehow caused an increase in child abuse. But it certainly provides no support for the theory that outlawing spanking will decrease child abuse." Sax makes another very valuable point. Children have not changed in the last few decades. They still misbehave. How is that misbehavior dealt with? In the “olden days” children were spanked. Now, rather than receiving a spanking, “these kids are instead being put on calming behavior-modifying drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, and Metadate.” Sax points out the hypocrisy of this current state of affairs: “In a bizarre turn of events, it’s become politically incorrect to spank your child, but it’s okay to drug him.” This situation is tied to a larger philosophical change. As Sax describes it, "Fifty years ago, bad behavior was considered a disciplinary problem. If you misbehaved, you needed to be punished. Today bad behavior is more often considered a psychiatric problem. Kids who misbehave are referred to a specialist for a diagnosis – and for treatment, often with medication." Spanking and human nature There is an important aspect to the debate over spanking that Sax understands much better than most people. At the root of this dispute is a difference over human nature. Are humans naturally sinful or naturally good? If children are born sinful, then it stands to reason that force will be needed to direct them into positive behavior patterns. But if children are naturally good rather than sinful, then corporal punishment is never necessary. Other forms of correction are assumed to be superior and preferable. If children are born good, as the currently dominant worldview believes, then bad behavior must be the result of bad parenting, poor nutrition, ADD, violent entertainment, or something like that. Spanking can’t solve any of those problems because they’re not the children’s fault. Instead, the children need some sort of medical treatment to deal with their misbehavior. But as Christians we know that children are born with sinful natures. They are not born good. Thus spanking will always be needed as a form of discipline for children. The current effort to criminalize spanking is a direct attack on the Christian doctrine of original sin. The opponents of spanking do not believe in original sin and therefore reject its implications for child discipline. Instead, they want to impose their preferred methods of child-raising (based on the assumed natural goodness of children) through government coercion. Conclusion Sax summarizes his message this way: "Human nature is gendered to the core. Work with your child’s nature, work with your child’s innate gender-based propensities, rather than trying to reshape them according to the dictates of late-twentieth-century political correctness." Recognizing these gender differences and taking them into account in child-raising and education is best for everyone involved, especially the children themselves. The idea that gender differences are instilled by a patriarchal society, and can be eliminated by imposing an egalitarian society, is simply a feminist ideological fantasy. It has no basis in reality. And the efforts that are taken to enforce this fantasy are harmful to the children who become its victims. God deliberately made males and females to be very different from each other. As the French say, vive la difference! This was first published in the September 2015 issue under the title "Different is good! God created males and females to be very different"....

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News

Saturday Selections – Nov. 11, 2023

How to help your kids establish Bible reading habits Dr. David Murray with help for parents in setting their family priorities... Your job is not your family "Calling a business, civic organization, or even school a 'family' may be well-intended but comes with unintended consequences that do an injustice to the necessary commitments that should be made to our actual families." Angels from on high – a Remembrance Day story In this WWII true story, the late W.H. Bredenhof recounts how God used some unusual angels to save him and his companion. Thinking smartly about global warming (15-min read) Bjorn Lomborg is willing "to concede that global warming is real, to some large extent manmade, and a serious problem" (a point I would not so readily concede) but still thinks our current attempts at climate management are more hysteria than help. Lomborg is not Christian, but where his worldview aligns with God's is in how he views human worth: if a proposal might supposedly help the planet in the future, but hurts people now, then he knows better than to tread on the poor. On John McCrae, the author of "In Flanders Fields" A look at the man behind the most famous Remembrance Day poem. The case against micromanagement God gave us government because people aren't saints. But governments are made up of people, so we shouldn't expect them to be saints either. And as this video shows, even when the folks in charge do act with the "best of intentions," that still doesn't guarantee the results. ...

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News

Saturday Selections - Nov. 4, 2023

Click on the titles below for the linked articles... One reason rent is high Rent control involves the government deciding for apartment building owners the maximum they are allowed to charge. While God does call on us to have compassion for the poor (Prov. 19:17), it'd be to miss the point if we were to understand this as a basis for government rather than individual action. An appeal could be made to the 8th Commandment to argue against rent control, as the more the government decides for you what you can and can't do with your property, the more there is a real sense in which they are taking over ownership from you. The 10th Commandment is also relevant here – such laws wouldn't be passed if we hadn't previously been looking over our back fence at how much our neighbor had. Another reason to believe such programs aren't biblical? No matter how well-intentioned, they don't achieve those intentions. We were designed for music Human beings are able to appreciate music, compose it, and perform it with instruments we've designed or with our own onboard equipment (our vocal cords). But evolution can't really account for these abilities, as they aren't necessary for our survival. Music, then, is one more way in which God is making Himself evident, this time by equipping us to be worshippers. The Christian poetry of John McRae As Remembrance Day approaches, Jonathon Van Maren shares how the author of In Flander's Fields wrote more memorable lines. Hamas attacks deliver clarity on Darwin, atheism, and determinism Michael Egnor notes that Hamas' attacks expose the insufficiency of the scientific dogmas of the 21st century: Darwinism, atheism, and determinism. If atheism is true, there is no Moral Lawgiver, and thus, no good or evil with which we can condemn the killing of innocents. If determinism is true, then we have no free will, and, likewise, can't condemn others' moral choices because they weren't choices. And if Darwinism is true, then the strong killing the weak is simply the natural state of things, and railing against it is as silly as complaining about gravity or the speed of light. But we all know that it was evil, and the terrorists made wicked choices, and that while evil is all too common, it isn't how it should be. So in condemning the Hamas attacks, the world has exposed the insufficiency of its worldviews. 8 steps along the path to wisdom "Really wise people have put a lifetime of effort into gaining wisdom. How do they do it? Here are eight steps." Famous climate predictions that never happened For the last 50 years and more, we've been told that a coming climatic cataclysm is nigh. And if not just around the next corner, then the very next one. Okay, maybe not that one either. This video is from three years back, but just as illuminating today. And as Dr. John Robson says, these false climate predictions would be amusing if it weren't for the poor millions who have to pay more for housing, food, and medicine because of the war on cheap fossil fuel energy. ...

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Parenting

Preparing to inherit the earth

Does slow and steady growth have Christianity primed to take over the West? **** First published in the November 2013 issue. Current events make it appear that Christianity is on a downward slide in North America, as well as all the other Western countries. But are appearances deceiving? This is the surprising conclusion of a book by University of London politics professor Eric Kaufmann in his book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? His answer to that question is “yes.” He's come to this conclusion despite being a liberal who doesn't like what he sees. Kaufmann has carefully studied demographic trends and thinks the coming increase in the influence of Christianity in North America (and other religions in different regions) basically amounts to a return to the Dark Ages. He wrote this book to warn fellow liberals that the sky is falling. Despite the dramatic gains for secularization over the last four or five decades, those gains are about to be lost. Kaufmann summarizes his thesis thusly: “this book argues that religious fundamentalists are on course to take over the world through demography.” Demographic direction What’s going on here? Well, to make a long story short, secular people don’t like having large families. Many don’t have any children at all. As a result, for many years, most Western countries have had below-replacement birth rates. That is, the average number of children born to each child-bearing-age woman is below 2.1, the number necessary to keep the population stable. This is the result of what demographers are calling the “second demographic transition” (SDT). (The first demographic transition occurred decades earlier when urbanization and the improvement in medical care decreased infant mortality and led to a decline in the fertility rate.) The SDT is a result of the 1960s sexual revolution and the rise of feminism, when the values of many people in the Western countries changed. Individualism became much more important and the ideal of getting married and raising children was severely diminished. As a result, the desire for many people to have a traditional family has declined dramatically. There are fewer marriages, more divorces; fewer children, more abortions – you get the picture. The bottom line is that most women are having fewer (if any) children. Relatively robust This trend is affecting conservative Christian families to a certain degree as well. The average Christian family is having fewer children than in previous generations. However – and this is a big “however” – the fertility rate of secularist women fell much further than the fertility rate of conservative Christian women. Christian women still have a relatively robust fertility rate. For example, one 2002 study placed the fertility rate of evangelical Protestant women at 2.5 compared to 1.5 for women without religion. Thus the proportion of conservative Christians in the United States relative to the secularists is growing through the natural increase of child-bearing. There is no reason to believe that this trend will stop, and the long-term consequences are enormous. According to Kaufmann, the influence of conservative Christians will increase: "After 2020, their demographic weight will begin to tip the balance in the culture wars towards the conservative side, ramping up pressure on hot-button issues such as abortion." Kaufmann refers to the population growth of conservative religious people as “demographically turbo-charged piety.” Demographic change, then and now Interestingly, there’s a precursor in history to a rise in Christian influence through demographic growth. Some scholars believe that the success of Christianity during its first two to three hundred years was partially the result of demographic factors. Christianity had a more family-centered ethos than paganism and therefore attracted a disproportionate number of female converts. Thus the Christians likely had a higher fertility rate than the pagans. Christians also cared for their sick during plagues, so they had a lower morality rate. "Higher fertility, lower mortality and a female skew in the childbearing age ranges endowed Christians with a significant demographic advantage over pagans." In addition to evangelism, this contributed to the rapid growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire before Emperor Constantine became a Christian himself. Demographic change takes time, so the results don’t become evident immediately. Nevertheless, it will ultimately have a large impact. For example, the so-called “mainline” Protestant churches which abandoned the Bible decades ago are part of the secularist trend. This contrasts sharply with the conservative Protestants who still uphold the Bible as the Word of God. Kaufmann notes the effect on demography: "Between 1960 and 2000, liberal Protestant denominations saw their share of the American religious market cut in half from 16 to 8 per cent, while conservative Protestants doubled in size from 7 to 16 per cent." Although not as pronounced as in North America, the higher fertility of conservative Protestants in two European countries is notable. According to Kaufmann, "In Europe, the roughly 100,000 Conservative Laestadian Lutherans of Finland and more than 1 million Dutch Orthodox Calvinists have both bucked secularizing trends. These high fertility endogenous growth sects are starting to make an impact: there are now more Orthodox Calvinist church attenders than those of its liberal parent, the Dutch Reformed Church, whose parishioners once outnumbered them six to one." In various regions of the world conservative religious believers have a higher fertility rate than secular-minded people. Thus Kaufmann discusses the high fertility rates of Muslims in the Arab world and parts of Europe, as well as the high fertility rate of Orthodox Jews in Israel. So the complete picture offered in his book is not all good news for Christianity. But for North America, certain regions of Europe (and hopefully places like Australia and New Zealand), conservative Christianity has the upper hand demographically. Ideas have consequences In obedience to God, Biblical Christianity strengthens the family, encourages married couples to have children, forbids abortion and frowns on divorce. This leads to high fertility and the growth of the church over time. In contrast, the modern secularist mindset emphasizes individualism: focus on yourself, not others. Having children will tie you down, especially if you are a woman, and prevent you from reaching your potential. You could be the president of a corporation or a high-flying lawyer – but only if you don’t have children. People who believe this way will not leave many descendants – they and their ideology have a barren future. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that the proportion of conservative Christians in North America will grow relative to secularists. Ideas have consequences, and since the secularists (generally speaking) emphasize their own personal and individual ease and happiness, having children won’t be an important part of their lives. Thus they are beginning to lose the demographic race with conservative Christianity. Because of these demographic trends Kaufmann laments, “In effect, secularism must run to stand still and sprint in order to succeed. In America, as in the world, it looks destined to fail in the long term." Even more to the point, due to its emphasis on individualism at the expense of having children, “Secular liberalism lies hoist on its own petard.” Conclusion The pervasiveness of pornography, the legalization of abortion, the invention of no-fault divorce and gay marriage, and the spread of euthanasia, are just a few of the events that might make it seem as if Christianity is on the wane in the West. But the day-to-day faithfulness of conservative Christians in their families, bearing and raising children, is the tortoise that will win the race against the child-avoiding secularist hare. There’s a common saying that “demography is destiny.” That might be somewhat overstated, but the basic point is sound: significant change in the size and structure of populations determines the future of nations. With this in mind, current fertility rates give conservative Christians in North America a reason to be optimistic for the long-term future....

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Pro-life - Abortion, RPTV

RPTV: Katrina Marshall on being a pro-life advocate

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to Reformed Perspective, I'm Alexandra Ellison. Today we bring an inspiring video of a young woman who has been working to make a difference in the pro-life movement. Her journey has taken her to the heart of Canada’s capital, Ottawa, where pivotal decisions about the sanctity of human life are made. Through dedication and passion, she has been working tirelessly to reshape the way people view the value of every human life. Join us to learn more about her challenges and her commitment to a cause that has the power to change lives. Katrina Marshall: "I'm Katrina Marshall. I wanted to be in Ottawa. I was connected with a church here, sort of online during COVID, before I was actually in the city. And it's not too far away from my parents in Kingston." Marshall got involved in the pro-life movement after an internship with the Canadian Center for Bioethical Reform (CCBR), an educational human rights organization dedicated to making abortion unthinkable in Canada. Katrina Marshall: "I actually heard about the CCBR internship from an ARPA Canada newsletter – my brother shared the ad with me and I applied to their four-month internship March of last year, and I could not go back from that experience. So it's been kind of life-changing." As part of the internship Marshall spent the past two summers traveling around western Canada educating people about the truth of abortion. Katrina Marshall: "Basically we spend most of it doing pro-life street outreach and various projects. We do what we call 'Choice Chain' which is basically a public protest. We use abortion victim photography in all our projects, and we do things like door-knocking, and we do flyer delivery known as postcarding. So we are witnessing to a world that is often very pro-choice in our society, and we have conversations with people. Sometimes we'll just display the photos so that everyone knows what abortion actually looks like, and it's incredible. It's very hard work to do it all day, every day, but it's so rewarding. "It's hard to summarize, but you live for those conversations where they do end up changing their mind. They often end up sharing a lot, even a person, male or female, starts out completely supporting abortion, often by the end of the conversation, they will completely reject abortion in all circumstances, including the hard ones. So when that happens, it's almost hard to believe, because it's such a controversial topic. And often we see a lot of people who are really set in their ways, and who don't want to give us an inch. So when someone changes their mind it kind of just makes your day, sometimes even makes your week, depending on how it goes. But it's also definitely something that we get a lot of hate for, as you can probably guess. So we get a lot of verbal abuse, and things like that, but it is really worth it for the positive moments." Marshall spoke about the process of what having on-the-street conversations is like. Katrina Marshall: "Everyone is coming from a different place. So we always just try and ask them what they think about abortion, get their viewpoint. Often they'll bring up a hard circumstance where they think it is justified. Some people support abortion for any reason; some – in fact many, mostly – for limited reasons. So we always want to speak into that, into the specific situations they're discussing, and the issues they're raising. Not only that, but find out where their ideas are coming from, where that opinion was formed, and what's going on in their life, to really have compassion for them, and not just for the babies (as we are often accused of). "So if someone said they supported abortion for most situations, but not for casual encounters which they deem is irresponsible, I would ask them to consider a toddler in that same situation. If someone brought up the case of poverty, I would ask them if they would tell a mother who is in poverty, a mother of a 2-year-old, if she could kill that child to solve that problem. People are often taken aback: 'Of course not; of course we can't do that!' We use this common ground especially to begin. Then we use that analogy with the toddler and question, 'If we can't harm born humans, then why can we ever harm the same humans a few months earlier?'" Changing the general public's mind about abortion can be a path toward succeeding in political legislation. Katrina Marshall: "A lot of people have asked me why I do this specifically, and my answer is that there are so many people, especially pro-lifers, who don't recognize the value of educating the public on the issue of abortion, and how that plays into other arms of the pro-life movement, such as the political arm, or the pastoral crisis arm. If the public doesn't see that abortion is wrong then these other arms will not succeed. I see a large gap in the educational arm of the movement. What better way to save babies than to to talk with people who don't think that abortion is wrong at all, and in fact it's often celebrated." As a Christian, Marshall says that she can educate others about abortion as much as possible but at the end of the day it is Jesus Christ who saves lives. Katrina Marshall: "You can't change everyone's mind. When you realize what abortion is, how children are being starved to death, and ripped apart, and no one loves them, it's hard to recognize that sometimes you're the only one that will stand up for them. You're the only one that will love them, and honor their legacy, and it's hard to recognize that only God can change minds and only He can save lives in this work and you have to surrender that to Him." For Reformed Perspective, I'm Alexandra Ellison in Ottawa....

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In a Nutshell

Tidbits - October 2023

Halloween in a small American town I live in a delightful and occasionally comical small town where the church-attending Christians make up a solid majority of the population. This is such a Christian town that when Halloween comes around, one of the local churches will set up a hot chocolate stand for our area, and you'll see a dad or two dressed up as a monkish Martin Luther, tonsure and all. When I first moved here Halloween fell on a Sunday, and I was impressed to see most of the kids did their trick-or-treating on Saturday instead. Then I was quite surprised when one of the trick-or-treaters at my door – a little princess – told me "my brother is the devil." Sure enough, there he came toddling up the path, a two-year-old dressed in a bright red satin, forked tail wagging behind. Lynden: it's a town where trick or treating on Sunday is verboten, but dressing up as Satan ain't no big thing. “The free market is a bathroom scale” “The free market is simply a measurement. The free market tells us what people are willing to pay for a given thing at a given moment. That’s all the free market does. The free market is a bathroom scale. We may not like what we see when we step on the bathroom scale, but we can’t pass a law making ourselves weigh 165. Liberals and leftists think we can.” – P.J O’Rourke Are you wearing anything ten years or older? About ten years back, Christian Courier's editor Angela Bick shared that her friends were surprised to learn that they weren’t wearing anything as much as ten years old. The surprise was probably prompted by the realization that 40 years ago the situation would have been quite different. Kids’ clothing in particular was treated differently then, with patches (and patches upon patches) being far more common. Darning socks was more common, and the resoling of shoes too. Whenever one generation decides to do something differently than the previous, it is worth a moment’s reflection - if you aren’t wearing anything from a decade ago, why might that be? Is it a result of shoddy manufacturing and living in a throw-away culture? Are clothes simply not made to last like they once were? Are we financially blessed, to the point that we don’t need to wear worn out clothes? Are we financially irresponsible, spending money on clothes when that money could be put to better use? Is it a matter of clothes being less expensive to replace than they once were? Might it mean we are overly concerned with keeping up with the latest fashions? The way it was… and could be? In the 1940s, in the Netherlands, most men worked six days a week at physically-taxing jobs. So, come Sunday it could be quite a struggle for these men to stay attentive through the church service, especially when it came time to pray and eyes were shut and heads were bowed. And to make it harder still, the prayers were quite often fifteen minutes long. In his wartime biography The Way It Was, author Sid Baron notes that to help these men stay awake it was the practice then to allow the option of standing during prayer. So throughout the church, as most bowed their head to pray, many farmers and laborers would rise. This practice is no longer common anywhere in Reformed churches, most likely because ministers no longer tax their congregation’s attention with fifteen-minute prayers, and because far fewer members do heavy physical labor. Still, it might be a practice worth reviving for some particularly sleep-deprived folk: the mothers and fathers of newborns! Brother, can you spare a dime? by Gregory Koukl You can't help having mixed feelings when people beg for food on the street. Your heart goes out to them, but you have reservations too. Is there a real need here, or is this just laziness disguised? Here's a simple solution. Give food to the poor by helping fill the cupboards of your local church feeding program. If your church doesn't have one, find a Christian facility that does. They make sure food goes to people with a genuine need, and the Gospel goes out along with it. Another alternative is to make up a couple of bags of food and keep them in your trunk. Include the kinds of things that can be opened without tools and eaten without cooking. Include plastic silverware that's sealed together with a napkin that you get from take-out food places. Then give it in Jesus' name. Welfare is not God's answer to the needs of the poor. Instead, He asks for charitable, responsible, obedient giving. Don't give money to someone begging in the street. Instead, send your money to a reputable Christian agency in your area, or give food in prepackaged parcels. You'll have the peaceful confidence you've really done something for the poor and homeless. SOURCE: Reprinted with permission from www.str.org Biblical, musical ABCs Jamie Soles is well known among conservative Reformed churches in Canada, but for those that don’t know of him, below are the lyrics of a song from one of his children’s albums “The Way My Story Goes” which is available (along with more info) on the artist’s website SolMusic.ca. “These Are They” Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures For in these, you say, your life will never end, Don’t be misled; the life you’re looking for Is found in Me, for I am found in them. And… "These are they, these are they, These are they which speak of Me.” Adam, Abel, Abraham, Aaron, Ammon, Amnon, Andrew, Abishai, Abishag, Abigail, Ahab, tell the world of Me. Ahaziah, Amaziah, Ahimaaz, Ahasuerus, Ahithophel, Abiathar, Ahitub, too, Asahel and Absalom, Abner and Abednego, Asa and Amasa, just to name a few. Now… These are they.... Boaz, Balaam, Barzillai, Balak, Barak, Baal, Babel, Baasha, Baruch, Benjamin, all tell the world of Me. Barnabas and Bethel, Bezalel and Bilhah, Benaiah, Belial, and Bashan, too, Bethlehem and Ben-Hadad, Beelzebub and Babylon, The Bible bubbles over with Me; how ‘bout you? Now… These are they.... Caesar, Caleb, Caiaphas, Canaan, Cain, and Chedorlaomer, Cushi, Chloe, Claudius, all tell the world of Me. Corinthians, Cyrenians, Cyrus and the Cretans, Cornelius, Capernaum, and Chimham, see? These are only part of it This is but the start of it Stories are your biblical ABCs! Now… All these stories, they show My glories These are they which speak of Me. Top 10 verses: important omission BibleGateway.com is a website that includes dozens of different translations of the Bible. It gets more than 8 million visitors each month, and back in 2011. when they listed their site’s most-searched for verses of the Bible, Collin Hansen at TheGospelCoalition.org noticed a startling omission among them. While the top ten includes verses that are often emblazoned on shirts, or are held up on signs at sports events (John 3:16 was the #1 verse) none of the top ten most-searched-for-verses talked about sin! It isn’t until verse #19 that sin is mentioned: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” It’s not surprising that talking about sin is unpopular. But the Good News of the Gospel only makes sense after we understand our own sinfulness, and God’s hatred of sin. Then it is good news indeed that God has sent us a Savior and Mediator! So it isn’t a surprising omission, but it is a glaring one. It should be polite to ask a woman’s age Our culture worships youth, so it’s no wonder they think it’s rude to make mention of someone’s age. But why do we think it’s rude? After all, the Bible speaks quite highly of the elderly, as it is with age that wisdom can come (at least among the righteous). That’s why Proverbs 20:29 notes that “gray hair is the splendor of the old” and Prov. 16:31 tells us: “the silver-haired head is a crown of glory.” Among Christians old should be excellent! 30% of Gen Z Americans would welcome gov’t monitoring inside their homes Nearly a third of Americans under 30 would welcome a government surveillance device in their homes, in the name of reducing spousal and child abuse. Clearly they haven’t been taught about the surveillance states of the past, like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. And they must not know about China’s current “social credit system,” where citizens are constantly monitored and granted freedoms based on how obliging they’ve been to their government’s every requirement. And they haven’t read 1984 or any other dystopian fiction. That a third of American young people trust the government to watch their every move isn’t an endorsement of our political leadership’s trustworthiness, but is instead an indicator of how badly they are educating our youth in their public schools. Now Christians might think that if we aren’t doing anything wrong what does it matter if we are being watched? But do you spank your children? Might some government official somewhere want to recast as abuse what you know to be appropriate and measured? Do you teach your children that God made us male and female? Do you insist that marriage is between one man and one woman? What might the government think about that? To be constantly monitored is to be constantly assessed. And knowing, as we do, that our governments don’t measure right and wrong by God’s standards, we should fear the prospect....

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News

Saturday Selections – Oct. 14, 2023

Click on the article titles below to go to the linked articles... Evidence for design: the push-pull principle Evolution is supposed to happen in small, random steps. What it can't account for is the push-pull principle, when two independent systems are needed to start and stop a body function. This would require that these two systems evolved not in small random steps but in a tight simultaneous choreography. On Hamas: so this is what they mean by decolonization RP contributor Jonathon Van Maren encourages us to listen to what they are telling us. John Stonestreet and Timothy Padgett also weigh in, on the reality of evil: "Hamas didn’t simply attack Israeli military units or take out strategic targets. They mutilated the bodies of Jewish soldiers, killed entire families, kidnapped children and the elderly, and sexually assaulted women and girls before either killing them or carting them back to Gaza as trophies. One of the kidnapped is a survivor of the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews." The crisis of trust in science In recent years "Science" has been celebrated as our only reliable guide, and not really to be questioned. But how is this God-substitute doing? Well, in 2016, Nature reported that more than 70% of researchers had "tried but failed to reproduce another scientist's experiment, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments." Homosexuality is getting pushed in evangelical churches under the guise of neutrality We've seen it happening in the CRC, and now mega-church pastor Andy Stanley is leading the way for sexual compromise in his influential mega-church. As Stand to Reason's Alan Shlemon notes: "Andy Stanley is either naïve or crafty. Either way, he’s dangerous. He’s naïve if he thinks he can host the Unconditional Conference and it will not corrupt the church’s teaching on sexual ethics. Or he’s crafty and is using this conference to change the theology of his church and possibly other churches. Either way, he’s dangerous." Why Johnny can't read.... but can spell G-A-Y God gave us His Word, and thus, Christians love and promote literacy. While the Enemy can misdirect literacy, he can also use ignorance, which might be the best explanation for why many of his schools aren't that interested in the ABCs. This article is a shocker. "With large majorities of their students incompetent in English and math, Los Angeles schools are ramping up efforts—for more gay pride and gender indoctrination." When artificial intelligence makes art, what becomes of the artist? A machine can make a picture, but can it discover meaning? Stop the slinging in politics (2 min) Potty humor aside, this makes an important point – insults don't advance an argument and don't win hearts or minds.  ...

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Indigenous peoples

A call to action: loving our Indigenous neighbors

Chief Dan George, author and actor, pictured on the set of "Kung-Fu" in 1973. Many Canadians, Christians included, are unfamiliar with the painful history of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Chief Dan George, born in North Vancouver and former leader of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, provides a summary of this history and its impact on Indigenous peoples, and he suggests a path to healing: "My culture is like a wounded stag that has crawled away into the forest to bleed and die alone. The only thing that can truly help us is genuine love. You must truly love us, be patient with us and share with us. And we must love you with a genuine love that forgives and forgets ... a love that forgives the terrible sufferings your culture brought ours when it swept over us like a wave crashing along a beach … with a love that forgets and lifts up its head and sees in your eyes an answering look of trust and understanding."1 Chief Dan George’s words, written 50 years ago, remain relevant today and it is especially important that we, as followers of Jesus Christ, consider the extent to which we know the history he references and the extent to which we are demonstrating understanding, genuine love, and compassion to our Indigenous neighbors, as fellow image bearers of our God. Pursuing the Truth God calls us to pursue knowledge, truth, and understanding. The emphasis on knowing rightly in Scripture means pursuing biblical truth, and truth about the reality of the world as God created it, but it also includes pursuing historical truth. So, what is the truth of the Indigenous experience in Canada? What are the sufferings that Chief Dan George references? A quick survey of Canadian history will suffice to provide some of the broad strokes. Shortly after Confederation, the Canadian government looked to realize the potential of the West and to fully realize a country from “sea to sea.” One of the challenges was Indigenous land title. Government officials entered into treaties with Indigenous peoples beginning in the 1870s when they realized that they could not afford to engage in “Indian wars” as were happening in the United States. At the time, the United States was spending $20 million on its Indian Wars and Canada’s entire budget was $20 million.2 A simple economic calculation swayed the government toward pursuing treaties rather than fighting. Interestingly, Indigenous peoples recognized that education was necessary to help their communities adjust to changing economic and social circumstances. As a result, they insisted that schools, teachers, and teachers’ salaries be included in the treaties negotiated in the 1870s. The early treaties called for on-reserve schools, and from Treaty Seven (1877) onward, the treaties committed the government to pay for teachers.3 There was no mention of residential schools when these treaties were signed – rather the focus was on the establishment of schools, on the reserves, for the instruction of Indigenous children. A misguided approach The Davin Report signaled the beginning of residential schools. Nicholas Floyd Davin was appointed by the federal government to investigate the boarding school system in the United States. In 1879, he submitted his report. He concluded that Indigenous peoples should not have a voice regarding the character and management of their schools. Rather, he recommended that Indigenous children be removed from their families and communities and that the federal government partner with Canadian churches to provide Indigenous children an education off-reserve.4 Christian churches – forgetting that God gives children to parents, and not to the State or Church5 – agreed to this arrangement and supported the removal of children from their families and communities to eradicate their culture, language, and beliefs. When these schools were established, their goal of dismantling Indigenous culture, language, spiritual beliefs, and practices quickly became evident. Residential schools were seen as preferable to on-reserve day schools because they separated children from their parents, who were certain to oppose such intentions. Residential schools were, therefore, not established to meet the government’s treaty obligations to provide schools (which were supposed to be on reserves), but to further its long-term aim of ending the country’s treaty obligations by assimilating its Indigenous population. The prejudice and racism that formed the foundation of the residential school system can be seen clearly through the words of those responsible for putting this system in place. Nicholas Floyd Davin stated: "… As far as the Indian is concerned, ittle can be done with him. He can be taught to do a little farming, and stock-raising, and to dress in a more civilized manner, but that is all … Indian culture is a contradiction in terms. They are uncivilized. The aim of education is to destroy the Indian." John A. Macdonald, Prime Minister during this chapter of Canadian history, similarly commented: "When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who has learned to read and write." Additionally, he said: "It has been strongly impressed upon myself … that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men." Duncan Campbell Scott, former Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, revealed similar views when he opined: "Indian children in the residential schools die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards a final solution to our Indian problem." Throughout their history, residential schools were chronically underfunded, and the quality of education provided was exceedingly low (designed to ensure that it would only prepare students for menial work). The quality of the education provided has been described as: “inappropriate education, often only up to lower grades, that focused mainly on prayer and manual labour in agriculture, light industry such as woodworking, and domestic work such as laundry work and sewing.”6 Early calls for the schools’ end Already early in the 1900s, voices were calling for an end to the schools over death rates and poor health conditions. In 1908, federal Indian Affairs minister Frank Oliver concluded that the “attempt to elevate the Indian by separating the child from his parents and educating him as a white man has turned out to be a deplorable failure.”7 Similarly, Dr. Peter Bryce, Medical Inspector to the Department of the Interior and Indian Affairs (and, incidentally, also a Presbyterian elder) was vocal about the serious failings of these schools after extensively touring them. Known as the “whistleblower of residential schools,” Bryce wrote numerous reports and newspaper articles about the exceedingly high rates of disease and death found in these schools. Duncan Campbell Scott acknowledged these grim realities – in a review of the Department of Indian Affairs’ first forty-five years he wrote that “fifty percent of the children who passed through these schools did not live to benefit from the education they had received therein”8 – but he did nothing to change course. Instead, he forced Bryce out of office, and eliminated the position of medical inspector.9 In 1925, after being forced out of office, and after being ignored by government officials at all levels for nearly two decades, Bryce published The Story of a National Crime: An appeal to justice to the Indians of Canada. However, all his protestations, over several decades, fell on deaf ears because of a government, and a Canadian public, rife with prejudice. During the 100 year history… The number of residential schools rose and fell during its 100+ year history, but the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement formally recognized the existence of 139 such schools spread across Canada. The Roman Catholic Church operated most of the schools, up to 60 percent at any one time. The Anglican Church operated 25 percent of them, the United Church operated about 15 percent, and the Presbyterian Church ran 2 or 3 percent. Over 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families by the RCMP between the establishment of these schools in the 1870s and the closure of the last school in the mid-1990s. While in the schools, students frequently encountered emotional, physical, sexual (schools knowingly hired convicted “child molesters”), and spiritual abuse as well as barbaric punishments (duly recorded by federal bureaucrats and officials with the churches that ran the schools) such as being shackled to one another, placed in handcuffs and leg irons, beaten with sticks and chains, and sent to solitary confinement cells for days on end.10 The Missing Children Project (formed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate student deaths at residential schools) recorded more than 4100 deaths, including more than 500 unidentified children (although the actual number is believed to be much higher). In some residential schools, 20 to 75 percent of students died. Pneumonia, influenza, beatings, injuries from being thrown, accidents, fire, drowning, infection, freezing deaths, a fall downstairs, lack of professional medical treatment, and poor overall health were among the many ways that students died.11 Students in front of the Metlakatla Indian Residential School, B.C., date unknown. (Picture credit: William James Topley. Library and Archives Canada, C-015037 / Flickr.com under a CC BY 2.0 license.) That is the truth of the Indigenous experience in Canada. Waves of suffering have swept over their communities – sadly, often at the hands of those who professed to follow Jesus Christ. The removal, by force, of Indigenous children from their homes to impose the Christian faith and eradicate their culture, language, and spiritual beliefs was a grievous evil masquerading as righteousness. The effects are still being felt today due to the resulting disintegration of families and communities. Successive generations of Indigenous children passed through these schools such that: "The impacts began to cascade through generations, as former students – damaged by emotional neglect and often by abuse in the schools – themselves became parents. Family and individual dysfunction grew, until eventually, the legacy of the schools became joblessness, poverty, family violence, drug and alcohol abuse, family breakdown, sexual abuse, prostitution, homelessness, high rates of imprisonment, and early death."12 As Jonathan Van Maren notes, one can only imagine how Dutch-Canadian communities, for example, would react to the same intrusion on parental and religious rights.  He comments, " children were forcibly removed by the state from their families for the express purpose of destroying their family bonds and eradicating their language and culture. I hail from the Dutch diaspora in Canada, and like many immigrant groups in our multicultural patchwork, our communities have remained largely culturally homogenous. Imagine if the Canadian government had decided, at some point, that Dutch-Canadian (or Sikh or Ukrainian or Jewish) culture needed to be destroyed for the good of the children in those communities, who needed to be better assimilated. Then, imagine if the government forcibly removed children as young as three years old from the parental home – state-sanctioned kidnapping. At school, they were deprived of their grandparents, parents, siblings, language, and culture – and told that their homes were bad for them. At the end of the experience, if the child survived disease, abuse, bullying, and loneliness, he or she would have been remade in the image of the state—and community bonds would have been severed and many relationships irrevocably destroyed. The children who died of disease were often buried on school grounds. That means many children were taken by the government – and their families simply never saw them again. Imagine, for just a moment, if that was your family. If you were removed from your family. If your children were removed from you. How might you feel about Canada if her government had, for generations, attempted to destroy everything precious to you? It is a question worth reflecting on."13 It is indeed worth reflecting on. And it is also worth reflecting on how you would feel about Christian churches if you’d known that they were an integral part of the establishment, and operation, of these schools. Additionally, it’s worth reflecting on whether religious and parental rights exist for everyone. If we, as Christians, insist on our religious and parental rights should we not protect those same rights for others? While some Indigenous people reported having positive experiences in these schools, the premise of these schools was seriously misguided and the evidence of the damaging effects of these schools is overwhelming. And it is important to note that this history is recent with many survivors of these schools still alive today. Functioning as ambassadors of Jesus Christ This begs the question: How should we respond as followers of Jesus Christ to these historical events and to the effects they have had on Indigenous people to the present day? As mentioned earlier, we first need to be knowledgeable about the history of Indigenous people in Canada. As followers of Jesus Christ, we cannot be content with holding opinions based on a lack of awareness. One of the ways we can pursue the truth is by educating ourselves and by listening, with humility and compassion, to the stories and experiences of Indigenous people. We should invite them into our homes, our schools, and our churches. We should build bridges of knowledge, understanding, and love with our Indigenous neighbors. In addition, we need to consider how we should function as ambassadors of Jesus Christ to a people who have experienced much injustice, prejudice, and racism. Augustine once commented that a Christian is a mind through which Christ thinks, a heart through which Christ loves, a voice through which Christ speaks, and a hand through which Christ helps. We do well to consider how we are exhibiting the mind, voice, heart, and hands of Jesus Christ to our Indigenous neighbors. Do they find us to be compassionate, full of grace, lovers of truth and justice or do they find in us a prideful and judgmental attitude and a lack of desire for justice and truth? As we read in Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” God is clear about the premium He places on the dignity and worth of every human being (whom He made in His Image) and the priority He places on justice and compassion. Finally, this chapter of history provides an opportunity to reflect on how the gospel message should be spread. In the case of residential schools, the gospel was spread through force, by contravening parental and religious rights, and was imposed upon Indigenous people. But we must remember that God’s Word should never be imposed; rather, it should be proposed. As Chuck Colson once stated, " seen as wanting to impose our views on people. Don’t let them tell you that. We don’t impose anything; we propose. We propose an invitation to the wedding feast, to come to a better way of living. A better way of life. It’s a great proposal."14 Ambassadors of Jesus Christ need to ensure that their witness draws others in to know more about Him who loves truth, justice, mercy, gentleness, compassion, and kindness. Much brokenness remains in Indigenous communities and Christians need to be part of the healing by truly exemplifying the love of Jesus Christ. This is one of several articles we’ve published about Canada’s history with its Indigenous peoples, with the sum of the whole being even greater than the parts. That's why we'd encourage you to read the rest, available together in the March/April 2003 issue. Dr. Mark W. Slomp is a Fellow with the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He is a Registered Psychologist and holds a senior leadership role in a Canadian post-secondary university. He is also the founder of “XP Counselling, Speaking & Writing” focused on the promotion of the flourishing life in Jesus Christ. He can be reached at [email protected] for inquiries about speaking, counseling (career and personal), and writing. Endnotes 1) North Shore News. (2019). “From the archives: Chief Dan George teaches understanding.” Retrieved from https://www.nsnews.com/nsn-50th/from-the-archives-chief-dan-george-teaches-understanding-3105824 2) The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2012). “They came for the children,” Winnipeg, Manitoba: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, p.7. 3) Ibid, p.9. 4) Ibid, p.10. 5) Plantinga, Cornelius. (2010). “Sin: Not the way it should be.” Retrieved from https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Cornelius-Plantinga_Sin.pdf 6) Hanson, E., Gamez, D., & Manuel, A. (2020). “The residential school system,” Indigenous Foundations. Retrieved from https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_residential_school_system/ 7) The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, p.17. 8) Scott, D. C. (1913). ”Indian affairs 1867-1912. In Canada and its Provinces” Vol.7, edited by A. Shortt and A. Doughty. Toronto: University of Edinburgh Press, p.615. 9) Titley, E. Brian. (1986). “A narrow vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the administration of Indian Affairs in Canada,” Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, p.87. 10) Glavin, Terry. (2021). “Canadians have known about unmarked residential school graves for years. They just kept forgetting”. Retrieved from https://nationalpost.com/opinion/terry-glavin-canadians-have-known-about-unmarked-residential-school-graves-for-years-they-just-kept-forgetting 11) Loyie, L. (2014). “Residential schools with the words and images of survivors,” Indigenous Education Press, p.60. 12) Dion Stout & Kipling. (2003). “Aboriginal people, resilience, and the residential school legacy,” Ottawa: The Aboriginal Healing Foundation, p. i. 13) Van Maren, Jonathan. 2021. “Residential schools and the devastation of state-perpetrated family breakup”. Retrieved from ReformedPerspective.ca/residential-schools-and-the-devastation-of-state-perpetrated-family-breakup/ 14) Colson, Charles. (2015). “My final word: Holding tight to the issues that matter most,” Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, p.233....

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Internet, Pornography

…the Internet can pervert anything  

Parents need to know that, whether it's biblical fiction or a favorite boy band, innocent interests are being used to draw good kids into evil, dangerous corners of the Web **** Warning: the following addresses pornography and sexual content Born in 1998, I grew up in the generation when the iPod Touch and cellphones were starting to become more accessible to teens. This had a massive effect on my journey through puberty, my struggle to view sexuality in a healthy, biblical manner, my exposure to non-biblical perspectives and content, and my relationships with peers. This technology was new to parents as well, and many were none the wiser to what information and entertainment their children were suddenly able to access. Today, we no longer have that excuse; private, personal access to the Internet is here, and it is riddled with temptations and depraved content. Parents need to keep informed. No real limits, no oversight At age 13, I was surrounded by classmates using the iPod Touch, which had all the features of an iPhone except the option to place calls or texts without Wifi. Any app could be downloaded, any website accessed, and any game played. I bought a second-hand iPod off of a classmate for $20, and a whole new world opened up to me; I could message my friends from home rather than having to call them on the landline! We could talk privately without being overheard, something that was of paramount value to awkward youths who had reached the age when nothing is more embarrassing than your parents overhearing you discuss crushes and the like. Just girls reading Old Testament fiction… Several apps began trending amongst my peers, one of which was an app and website anyone could use to write a book, and anyone else could use to read those books; all you needed to do was create an account. This was very popular amongst girls my age. A particular fictional favorite series in my class was set in Old Testament times; it was from a young woman’s point of view, and contained a fairly innocent love triangle. There was little harm in the series itself. But the app contained scores of books, accessible to whoever desired to read them, and as we all began exploring the app, we discovered something else entirely: erotica. I cannot count the number of poorly written stories I devoured. My parents had told me about the basics of sex, and about God’s design for it, but this new narrative was something completely different. It didn’t matter that I had been taught a biblical view of sex; I now had access to a different definition of it. Curiosity can fester into a full-fledged addiction. We see this with drugs, alcohol, money – all of which are things that children raised in a God-fearing home do not have unhindered access to, things that parents can monitor with relative ease. And it used to be simple to monitor your child’s access to pornography; it took bold action to get ahold of dirty magazines purchased at a corner store, and those magazines had to be hidden under a bed. Even when looking back on your lifetime to your own childhood, most if not all of parents would agree that children and teenagers did not have the same ready access to pornography then. Today is not the same. If your child has a device, they have the possibility to discover virtually thousands of corner store magazine racks. And all of this in the palm of their hand. Whether in the past or the present, children are not equipped with the discretion to navigate most conversations about sex, let alone sexual content and entertainment. By the age of 15, I had read hundreds of gratuitously graphic pieces of literary pornography; I was addicted. The majority of these consisted of “fanfiction.” … to erotic fan fiction Fanfiction is defined by Google as “fiction written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, movie, etc.” To give some further context, the popular and sexually charged book-turned-film franchise Fifty Shades of Grey started out as a fanfiction of the popular young adult vampire series Twilight. There are different genres in fanfiction, one of which includes the “y/n” character, meaning “your name”; these stories are written as though from the reader’s point of view, and fuel fantasies in which the reader is inserted into romantic and sexual relationships with the characters from whatever story the fanfiction is inspired by. Young preteens can explore written fantasies in which they are the love interest of one or more of their favorite characters, fueling incredibly unrealistic ideals and twisted notions of healthy sexuality. Another genre of fanfiction that is hugely popular is where two characters who do not have a romantic/sexual relationship in the original canonical story are given a new storyline. The vast majority of these “ships” (the slang term for relationships) are not heterosexual. Preteens and teens are lured in by extra content about their favorite characters, while gradually being desensitized to sexually graphic content. They can take their pick from hundreds of smutty stories about Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, Captain America’s Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, Harry Potter’s Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, Merlin and Arthur, etc. Even more alarming are the number of stories in which real people, generally celebrities, are “shipped” together. Does your child have a favorite secular music artist? Chances are, there are fanfictions out there about them. Most common among these are fanfictions about members of boy bands. There are stories in which two band members have a secret relationship behind the scenes, and fans don’t know; there are stories in which two band members – who live in an alternate universe and happen to be vampires, or rich CEOs of companies, or strippers, or baristas – meet and start dating. There are stories in which five plus members of a boy band are all members of a werewolf pack, and engage in polygamous sexual activities together. As PluggedIn’s article on fanfiction puts it, “a major draw for fanfiction writers and readers is usually the exploration of forbidden romance.” Maybe you have parental controls installed on your phone, and you think, “My child has no access to these sorts of things.” But fanfiction is literary, and it isn’t screened in the same way that visual pornography is. Children can access these stories by merely clicking “I accept” after reading a warning of graphic content. Boys and their cartoons… While I and many of my female peers were exploring these things, the boys were doing something similar. Many boys were watching “anime” on their iPods and iPhones. Anime is defined by Google as “a style of Japanese film and television animation, typically aimed at adults as well as children.” Just as with the content on my writing/reading app, some of these anime shows were harmless, and even contained messages of loyalty, friendship, and other important themes. If you’ve ever noticed your child watching an anime series, you may have thought it was merely an innocent cartoon, and not paid any further attention to it. But many anime series have overtly sexualized female character designs, with unnatural body proportions, and severely immodest clothing. Worse than that, many anime series contain graphic sexual scenes; there is even a category of anime geared specifically towards pornographic content. Male peers admitted to me in later conversation that it was through anime that they discovered pornographic websites. As young teens, they had no credit cards to pay for authentic, licensed anime streaming sites, and so they accessed their anime shows through illegal websites, many of which had flashing advertisements on every page. Nearly every boy in my class and wider peer group was watching pornography on a regular basis by the age of sixteen; some of us girls were curious enough to check it out, too. The pull parents didn’t understand Our parents tried to keep an eye on what we were up to. But it was easy enough to convince them that we were simply reading a harmless book or watching a harmless cartoon. For some of us, our parents set a boundary of not having our electronic devices in our rooms when we went to bed, but we still had access to these things in the bathroom, on the school bus, even in the foyer at school. If you passed by your child in the living room and saw them reading a paragraph or watching an animated show on their phone, how often would you sit next to them and see what they’re reading? Or, perhaps the more relevant question: what is the likelihood they would hide their screen immediately? Many parents today fall into one of two categories: they don’t want to invade the privacy of their teens, and thus leave them to their devices or they constantly demand to know what their children are up to, leading their kids to become more aloof and secretive. I remember being a young teen, and how I chafed against my mother’s occasional questions about what I was reading on my phone. I’d even blatantly lie about it for fear of the truth being discovered. I cannot imagine how much more I would have pulled away from her if she had badgered me about these things. Leaving our kids defenseless In Reformed circles, it is not uncommon for parents to refrain from teaching their children about sex before adulthood. In some cases, parents are so uncomfortable with this that they do not tell their children until they are preparing for marriage, or they do not tell them at all. Some parents, in contrast, give their children too many details at too young an age. I have peers who fall into all of these categories. Finding the balance in this seems very difficult. The biggest issue here is that, due to the prevalence of graphic sexual content available to today’s youth, many are learning about sex through erotic literature or visual pornography. Pornography is typically filmed by men, for men; erotica is typically written by women, for women. Men are creating a fantasy of what to expect from women in a sexual relationship, and women are creating a fantasy of what to expect from men in a sexual relationship. The result is an incredibly narcissistic view of sexuality, stemming from a focus on the reader or viewer’s satisfaction, with no consideration for the other party and no understanding of God’s design for sex and the expression of love it is meant to be. When a boy or young man watches porn, he is buying into a fantasy where he has ultimate power, and the woman’s presence is meant for his pleasure alone. When a girl or young woman reads erotica, she is buying into a fantasy where a man is so utterly consumed by his need for her that he will do absolutely anything for her, as he cannot resist her near-goddess status. (Most females depicted in these books do not believe themselves to be attractive, feeding everyday women the narrative that the most attractive men out there will be attracted to them, and they should not “settle for less.”) This sort of content creates a fantasy of self-worship. It teaches boys and girls to view sex through a greedy, twisted lens. And it’s not slowing down. Common Sense Media’s research report “Teens and Pornography” surveyed a demographically representative set of teens in the United States, and the collected data revealed that 72% of the teens surveyed they had seen pornography; of those, 54% saw it by age 13, including the 15% who saw it by age 11. I am a Gen Z’er. The Oxford Dictionary defines Generation Z as “the group of people who were born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, who are regarded as being very familiar with the Internet.” I would like to suggest a new definition: “The group of people born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s who have been, en masse, bombarded with pervasive, self-indulgent content – deemed acceptable under the label of expression – to the point that they have been convinced to take up the mantle of blurring the line between advancement and destruction.” Better to pluck out your eyes Roughly two years ago, I made the decision to leave social media. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, I deleted my accounts for all three. Very quickly I noticed an improvement in my moods, thought processes, and overall mental health. But today’s modern message of the importance of identity and sexual expression is everywhere. It’s on Pinterest, in the form of an advertisement under the search bar titled, “Beyond blue and pink - Breaking down the binary.” It’s on YouTube, in the form of reaction videos in which you, the viewer, watch someone else react to a video, typically of a third “someone else.” There is no end to technology’s primary narrative: “It’s all about you.” Youth today are growing up surrounded by a message that is directly contradictory to God’s Word. That’s just as true for the youth of the Church. Don’t be fooled into thinking your children are the exception; my parents did their best with what knowledge they had, but without directly monitoring my every move online, they had no way they could know the full extent of what I was accessing. As someone who grew up in the Church and in a Bible-teaching home, I could still write multiple articles on how today’s social environment and media made me question my sexuality, struggle with extremely low self-esteem, and buy into the notion that a message that contradicts Scripture is maybe not so harmful after all. By the grace of God, the worst of those seasons are behind me, but there are still after-effects that have repercussions on my day-to-day life. Many peers I’ve spoken to about this express the same sentiment. Not all e-books are harmful. Not all animation is harmful. In both categories, there are stories to be found with great messages. But they are the rare diamonds in a pile of coal, and parents must be made aware of the danger present in these forms of entertainment. On a broader scale, parents ought to know how many seemingly “harmless” things their children have access to, and the way it is affecting the development, lifestyles, and perspectives of youth across Western civilization as a whole. If you do not want your child exposed to the Internet or social media, but are looking for a smartphone alternative that offers calling and texting in case of emergencies, you can search for "dumb phone" offerings online (though you'll need to do your research as even some "dumb phones" still do have access to the Internet). Americans have a couple of options: the Light Phone (www.thelightphone.com) and the Gabb Phone (https://gabb.com)....

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Indigenous peoples

The Truth matters: analyzing the facts beneath “mass burials” at residential schools

This article was first published in the March/April 2023 issue. ***** "Searches for unmarked graves at the site of a former northern Ontario residential school have uncovered 171 ‘plausible burials’…” That’s what The Globe and Mail reported earlier this year, but it was back in 2021 that the discovery of alleged burial sites next to residential schools first made headlines. Nearly two years ago news agencies, in Canada and around the world, reported that a mass grave of 215 indigenous children had been detected, with the help of ground-penetrating radar, next to a former residential school near Kamloops, BC. Since then, hundreds more “plausible burials” have been alleged at other school sites across the country. But are these plausible burials actual graves? That’s a question worth asking because Truth is critical for pursuing justice and reconciliation. As the Heidelberg Catechism says about the ninth commandment, “I must not give false testimony against anyone…nor condemn or join in condemning anyone rashly and unheard.” Determining the facts about these alleged graves is necessary before making decisions about how to respond, including whether to take part in the resulting initiatives like the “every child matters” t-shirts, flags, and displays. Now that “Truth and Reconciliation Day” is a stat holiday in Canada, and the curriculum in some provincial education systems requires extensive coverage of Indigenous culture and residential schools, Christians can’t stand on the sideline but should be eager to “love the truth, speak and confess it honestly, and do what I can to defend and promote my neighbour’s honour and reputation” (Q&A 112 HC). Fall-out from the discovery In response to the 2021 media reports, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mandated that all flags of federal buildings fly half-mast (it took over five months before many public buildings and schools brought the flags back to the top of the pole, so that they could be lowered for Remembrance Day). Governments also committed $320 million to fund more research, and another $40 billion towards settlements with students of residential schools. The Pope issued a formal apology on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church (which oversaw the majority of residential schools) and followed that up with a visit to Canada in 2022. Another response was far more vindictive. Over 70 churches have been vandalized or burned to the ground in Canada since the “discovery” of these “mass graves.” The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called the situation “a large scale human rights violation” and Amnesty International demanded that those responsible for the “remains” that were “found” be prosecuted. Ironically, even China piled on to the calls for an investigation. Beyond the political response, the public rallied to show their concern with “every child matters” displays, often featuring 215 orange flags to remember the lives lost. The local Roman Catholic school that I walk past regularly has replaced its Canadian flag with an orange “every child matters” flag, and many of the storefronts in my community still featured the “every child matters” message, even over a year after it first became a news story. An "Every Child Matters" rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery on July 1, 2021. (Picture by GoToVan and licensed under a CC BY 2.0 license.) Digging for answers Solomon tells us that “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Prov. 18:17). Unfortunately, the Canadian mainstream media, academia, and politicians, refuse to ask basic questions to confirm the truth of these serious allegations. Why this lack of journalistic inquisitiveness?  It’s because few issues are as politically charged and culturally sensitive in Canada today as Indigenous affairs. When Senator Lynn Beyak attempted to defend some positive things accomplished at residential schools, the attacks were so swift and strong that she chose to retire rather than face imminent ejection from the Senate. But some smaller publications have dared tread where Canada’s mainstream press hasn’t. In an essay in The Dorchester Review titled, “In Kamloops, not one body has been found,” Jacques Rouillard, professor emeritus in the Department of History at the Université de Montréal, asked: “After months of recrimination and denunciation, where are the remains of the children buried at the Kamloops Indian Residential School?” In a detailed article on the topic by the New York Post, the local First Nations band confirmed that indeed, no bodies have yet been exhumed, and there are not plans to start digging or to share the report from the radar. The Post also revealed that these discoveries were made very quickly, and with little accountability. The band hired a young anthropologist named Sarah Beaulieu on May 17, 2021, who scanned the site from May 21-23, and the band announced its findings already on May 27. “Beaulieu said that remote sensors picked up ‘anomalies’ and what are called ‘reflections’ that indicate the remains of children may be buried at the site,” reported the Post. “My findings confirmed what Elders had shared,” Beaulieu said. “It’s an example of science playing an affirming role of what the Knowledge Keepers already recognized.” The “Knowledge Keepers” is a reference to the Indigenous elders, who pass on their history orally. Indeed, science can affirm oral history. Yet for it to be trustworthy, scientific inquiry includes a peer review process and investigations to substantiate a hypothesis. And the investigations made public to date aren’t helping with building trust. An in-depth report called “Graves in the Apple Orchard” has since been published anonymously by someone who knows the site and its history intimately. The report includes detailed maps and drawings of excavation work that was done at the residential school through the last century, and how it correlates with the sites of the “anomalies.” While anonymous sources are understandably suspect, this one cited his sources. The National Post’s Terry Glavin also spoke to the source and confirmed that he had some expertise in this area as “an architectural consultant who specializes in site inspections.” The source wished to remain anonymous because “his company does work with First Nations.” Some of the report’s findings include: “Since the rumours of a graveyard began, more than 30% of the orchard has been excavated. Archaeologists have been active on site since the 1980s, conducting excavations and monitoring construction work. Deep trenches have been cut straight across the orchard and a sewage lagoon was excavated from the entire southwestern quadrant. No graves have ever been discovered…. “In July of 2021, Dr. Beaulieu admitted that 15 ‘probable burials’ were actually ‘archaeological impact assessments, as well as construction.’ Evidently, well documented site work was not accounted for in her initial survey. Several of the remaining 200 ‘probable burials’ overlap with a utilities trench dug in 1998, as can be seen in drone photography captured after the GPR survey. Still other ‘probable burials’ follow the rout of old roads or correlate suggestively with the pattern of previous plantings, furrows and underground sewage disposal beds…. “Given that the apple orchard is deeply textured by centuries of human activity, how can it be said that Dr. Beaulieu’s targets are more ‘probably’ graves than probably other features of human activity? “With more than 30% of the orchard already excavated, is it probable that a staggering 200 burials were missed?” Professor Jacques Rouillard, again, in The Dorchester Review, detailed how quickly the allegations became a new narrative. “From an allegation of ‘cultural genocide’ endorsed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) we have moved to ‘physical genocide,’ a conclusion that the Commission explicitly rejects in its report. And all of this is based only on soil abnormalities that could easily be caused by root movements, as the anthropologist herself cautioned in the July 15 press conference.” At least one Indigenous scholar from BC is asking similar questions. The New York Post also spoke with Eldon Yellowhorn, professor and chair of the Indigenous Studies department at Simon Fraser University. A member of the Blackfoot nation, Yellowhorn grew up on a reserve where many of his family attended residential schools, before becoming an archeologist and anthropologist. He was hired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to search for and identify grave sites at residential schools since 2009. “I can understand why some people are skeptical about the Kamloops case,” Yellowhorn told the Post. “This is all very new. There’s a lot of misinformation floating out there. People are speaking from their emotions.” He added that “The only way to be certain is to peel back the earth and ascertain what lies beneath. We have not gotten to the point where we can do that. It’s a huge job.” Unfortunately, there seems to be little interest in substantiating just how “plausible” these graves are.  Justice and reconciliation require truth Nobody disputes that some children died while attending residential schools, and that these schools bear blame for some of these deaths. The accompanying story from the Lejac residential school in 1937 is an example of this. But that story also shows that when four children tragically died after trying to run away back home in the freezing cold, the matter was investigated swiftly and thoroughly, and the school was appropriately chastised. The story was shared across the country. An effort was made to discover the truth and to enact justice. It is possible that some of the “anomalies” detected by the ground-penetrating radar are indeed burial sites. And it is also possible that some unmarked graves hide injustices that were perpetrated against Indigenous children at these schools. The many proven examples of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic leaders (as well as those from other denominations) have legitimately eroded the trust of the public towards this church’s care for children. The 2007-2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a nine-year effort by the Government of Canada to travel across the country, listen to 6,500 witnesses, and facilitate reconciliation with former students and their communities. It also led to the creation of the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, an archive of the data obtained during the commission. It found 49 children who died between 1915 and 1964 at the Kamloops residential school. Records have been found of 35 of these students, 24 of whom were buried at their homes and four in Kamloops. Although the data is not complete, it is a far cry from allegations of hundreds of missing children. Scripture speaks strongly in defence of the vulnerable, including the widow, orphan, and the immigrant. The young boys and girls at residential schools, separated from their parents, and under intense pressure to abandon their culture, definitely qualify as vulnerable. And Christians of all kinds now publicly recognize that it was wrong, even wicked, for the government to forcibly separate children from their parents. But the fact that evil was committed at these schools does not mean that the only appropriate response to new allegations can ever be an assumption of further guilt and evil at these institutions. In this broken world, it doesn’t take long to find evidence of abuse and other forms of evil in most institutions. It is then reasonable to compare and assess. (For example, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings, the death rate in residential schools between 1921 and 1950 is twice as high as the general population, though between 1950 and 1965 it was comparable to the Canadian average for youth age five to fourteen.) Truth and reconciliation are laudable objectives that align with Scripture. The truth should be welcomed, and the facts acknowledged. When necessary, this should lead to an acknowledgment that claims made were wrong, and efforts made towards restitution and repentance. When truth is verified, trust is built, and a foundation exists for genuine justice and reconciliation. To go deeper: Find an extensive analysis by Terry Glavin in his May 26, 2022 National Post article “The year of the graves: How the world’s media got it wrong on residential school graves.” This is one of several articles we’ve published about Canada’s history with its Indigenous peoples, with the sum of the whole being even greater than the parts. That's why we'd encourage you to read the rest, available together in the March/April 2003 issue....

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Saturday Selections – Sept. 23, 2023

This is why you don't ask children to "choose" their gender Back in 2007, Barbara Walters interviewed a family and their 7-year-old boy about his supposed journey to "becoming" a girl. Walters was uncritical, accepting that a child could change genders, and accepting that a child could understand the implications of all the surgeries, the chemicals, and the sterility, that were going to be inflicted on him. Click on the link above to learn about the tragic journey of "Jazz Jennings" and where he is now. Click on the video below to see a 30-second explanation of how insane Jazz's parents and Barbara Walters were. This is why you don't let children choose their gender pic.twitter.com/wBTlE7hkWq — Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) September 15, 2023 Quick tips on how to read better and faster.... but not necessarily more "I would like to show you how you can read less, more — and twice as fast. It’s based on one simple idea: It’s better to thoroughly read and absorb one or two good books than 'finish' five or ten by reading them cover to cover and then moving on." Long-term thinking: 5 lessons for Christians from the life of Elon Musk "I believe the great weakness of our generation of Christians is our lack of a long-term outlook... "When I look at the inspiring, yet ultimately misguided, aspirations of people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos I can’t help but wonder at the impact believers might have if we rediscovered the long-term mindset that God intended for us." Does "Net Zero" make sense?  "American taxpayers will spend $50 trillion (about $150,000 per person) to avoid 0.009 ℃ of warming. A high school student could tell you that this makes no sense...." In Luke 16:26-33, Jesus talks about the cost that comes with following Him. That's the point of the passage, but He mentions in passing something applicable to climate change too, that counting the cost before you set out on an expensive project is just common sense. Combatting climate change comes with an enormous cost and seemingly insignificant benefits. Consider what other benefits $50 trillion could buy, if it were spent elsewhere. Clean drinking water for millions, just to mention one possibility. Gen Z isn't okay (10-minute read) Dr. Jean Twenge is a psychologist whose 16-year-old daughter does not have social media. Why? Because girls today with social media are lonelier and more depressed than ever. 5 reasons not to follow your heart How's "just follow your heart" working out for us? Maybe we need to start looking for a more awesome, more knowledgeable, more loving guide... ...

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