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News

Saturday Selections – Aug. 23, 2025

Distinguishing between Soft and Hard Christian Nationalism

Because certain Reformed folk support a form of Christian Nationalism, others will be strongly against it... but what exactly is the it they are against? After all, as John Stonestreet notes in the video below, the term has a broad variety of definitions.

If we were to let the Left define the term, you might hear them equate any Christian political involvement as being an attempt to bring in a theocracy that would require everyone to make the choice to either go to church or go to jail. Thinks that's an oversimplification? Just remember the women who came out to protest Canadian Reformed politician Sam Oosterhoff while wearing the red outfits from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. That book and TV series is based on a future "Christian" dystopian theocracy that perpetuates ritual rape. And what did Sam Oosterhoff do to deserve such a malicious, ridiculous protest? He's a professing Christian, and he's in politics. That's just like Atwood's dystopia, so they say.

So, before you say you aren't a Christian Nationalist, you'll want to ask what definition is being used. If all that's meant is Christians acknowledging God is sovereign over the political realm too, do you want to side against that?

(John Stonestreet also moderated a 90-minute debate on Christian Nationalism here.)

Economic nationalism is a dead end

Some Christians who reject any sort of "Christian nationalism" will rally around the notion of a Canada-first "economic nationalism." But why would nationalism be good so long as it is economically, and not religiously, motivated? I don't know the answer to that question.

The linked article isn't Christian, but highlights how any sort of economic nationalism – Liberal- or Conservative-run – presupposes that whoever the Prime Minister will be, he will know better than you as a consumer what products you should buy, for what prices, and from whom. That's what tariffs, supply management, and business subsidies are about. Any sort of economic nationalism also presumes that whoever our PM will be, he will know better than you as a producer whether your business should be taxed, or whether you can be one of the lucky companies to be gifted taxpayer dollars. But history shows that top-down management of a country's economy doesn't work because no one is smart enough to know best for everyone else what they want and need.

History has shown it, so this columnist didn't have to make an explicitly Christian argument to counter economic nationalism. But we didn't have to wait for the Soviet Union to fall, and for China to struggle, or for Canada to go through its own socialist doldrums to know better already. Any sort of biblical understanding of Man's fallen nature, our susceptibility to temptation, and our fallibility would have made the point already, long before we would have had to endure the painful consequences that always come with economic arrogance. That, then, is a reason not simply to reject economic nationalism, but to stop being shy about sharing God's truth. We can save our neighbors pain, both eternally and here in this life as well by sharing the truth about Man and his limitations. We do need a supreme intellect to lead us, but that will only be found in our God, not our government.

Why it’s important to read bad books about bad ideas

"A meme on social media quotes my colleague Glenn Sunshine as saying, 'If I had a gun with two bullets, and I was in a room with Hitler, bin Laden, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, I’d shoot Rousseau twice!' Glenn insists he never said that, but then quietly admits he wishes he had."

Killing for organs - who could possibly object?

When murder becomes medicine – when euthanasia is legal – then it's inevitable that the line is going to be pushed on when someone is "dead enough" for organ donation. When doctors don't think life is sacred, then what worry is there, really, if someone in a bad state has their life ended a little prematurely? The slippery slope is no fallacy when the world can't find any brakes to stop the slide. The only answer is a complete return to understanding that our lives are gifts from God, and thus not ours to dispose of as we might wish.

Why Christians shouldn't use IVF

"...IVF kills twice as many babies as abortion. there are a million babies aborted every year, but IVF kills almost 2 million babies a year."

Jimmy Clifton's "Proof of God"

An intriguing anti-evolution, pro-life song...

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News

Saturday Selections – Aug. 2, 2025

Josiah Queen's Dusty Bibles As a tribute to everyone who participated in RP's just-complete screen-fast challenge, Josiah Queen's newest. Lunar tales: what's going on here? Even kids are confronted with conflict between what the world says about our origins and what God says. "What’s going on here?" That was the question a perplexed fifth grader asked me during a recent church service. She’d been learning about the Moon in her public school science class — and was confused. What she heard in class didn’t align with what I had recently presented to the church...." WiFi companies can track movements in your house In George Orwell's 1984, citizens are monitored in their own homes via a "telescreen" that brings new into the house – the government-approved news – but more importantly, allows them to look through it at you. Today, we're not far off of this same 24/7 oversight. We live in a world where our online presence is being monitored by tech companies, and even the US government's NSA (as whistleblower Edward Snowden disclosed back in 2013). And, now it turns out, you can be monitored when you are offline, in your own house... as a security feature. As one person tweeted: "it blows my mind how many conspiracy theories turn out to be true." We are all late bloomers It can be downright depressing to think of all we could have done and accomplished for the glory of our Lord, if only we hadn't been so slow to respond, or so quick to turn to sin. It's depressing because there is no denying the truth of it. But God forgives. And He most certainly can be glorified too, by us late bloomers. How Jacob Arminius effectively said no one would be saved If you sinned right before you died, you would then be dying unrepentant of that sin. So... would your unrepentant sin send you to hell? Is God's grace dependent on you repenting of every sin? Christless conservatism saves no one Matt Walsh, Donald Trump, and to a more limited extent, Pierre Poilievre have made the case that guys in dresses aren't girls. But... so what? Tearing down one lie without pointing people to the Truth they can actually stand on only leaves them falling for the next lie. The world needs God, which means the world needs God's people to speak as God's people. ...

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News

Supreme Court of Canada upholds prostitution law

In an important decision that didn’t get covered by the mainstream media this July, Canada’s highest court made a unanimous decision to uphold key parts of the country’s prostitution laws. The law, passed in 2014, went after the Johns rather than the prostitutes, making it illegal to purchase sex, but not penalizing the selling of it. Why? The goal was to reduce the demand for prostitution while making it possible for those trapped in prostitution to leave without prosecution. Mikhail Kloubakov and Hicham Moustaine worked as drivers for a sex-trafficking business and were charged under sections of the prostitution law relating to procuring people for prostitution and benefitting from the prostitution of others. They appealed this all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, and also asking the court to declare the entire law to be unconstitutional, which could have left Canada with no restrictions on prostitution. ARPA Canada teamed up with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) in a joint intervention before the court, arguing that the law be maintained to uphold human dignity and equality, and to expose the harm that results from commodifying sexual intimacy. Lia Milousis, a lawyer who worked on behalf of the EFC and alongside ARPA’s lawyer John Sikkema, expressed gratitude for the decision. As she noted in The Acacia Arc newsletter, “The Court notes that Parliament views profiting from the commodification of another human being’s sexual activity as inherently involving exploitation…. It deferred to Parliament, which I would say and the EFC and ARPA argued, is the correct approach.” The law is also being challenged separately in an Ontario case, which ARPA is also intervening in....

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News

Saturday Selections – July 19, 2025

One man band This is an amazing performance – one guy sounding like a whole band – on quite the machine! "Scottie Scheffler's take on success in golf: 'What's the point?'" ESPN covers sports, not philosophy, so their article on how the best player in golf doesn't find fulfillment in winning stuck out from their usual fare. But as a secular media organization, they didn't dare ask the question the article raised: if winning golf isn't your reasons for getting up in the morning, what is? I don't know golf, and hadn't heard of Scottie Scheffler before, but I do know how to read between the lines. Scheffler was speaking to how what he spends most of his effort on didn't bringing him but the briefest moments of joy, and that's the sort of thing a depressed guy sitting at a bar might confess to you, or what someone who has found joy elsewhere is happy to admit. Scheffler didn't look like a sad barfly, so I did a bit of digging and discovered he is a professing Christian, and though ESPN's article doesn't share anything about Scheffler's true source of joy, he has been happy to share. They've found a mass dinosaur grave in Alberta... ... and it is seeming very Flood-related. Chip and Joanna feature gay couple on their show After Not the Bee reported on Chip and Joanna Gaines (of Fixer Upper fame) featuring a gay couple on one of their shows, Chip doubled and tripled down on social media, pulling out the most popular verse in the Bible "Do not judge" while ignoring all the rest of what the Bible has to say, including about same-sex relations. Chip called the questions coming his way "hate or vitriol" but as Franklin Graham noted, Chip wasn't acting loving himself. "While we are to love people, we should love them enough to tell them the truth of God’s Word.... His Word is absolute truth. God loves us, and His design for marriage is between one man and one woman. Promoting something that God defines as sin is in itself sin." Whatever happened to villains? With Disney recasting its biggest baddies as simply misunderstood, it's following a trend where there is no real wrong or bad. It's another sort of relativism, it'd seem. Do we want to force our religion on others? When you get hit with an accusation, a knee-jerk temptation can be to deny it. But when it comes to the charge of Christians wanting to force our religion on others, we need to plead guilty.... in part. God has no interest in hypocritical worship, so we should never want to force people to go to Church (see Amos 5:21-24, Is. 1:11–15, etc.). But stopping the murder of unborn babies and the infirm elderly is both biblical, and it is a restriction that should be universally applied. So yes, we do want to "force our religion" on others in the laws we want to make. However, while the you-just-want-to-force-your-religion accusation sticks, it actually applies much more so in the opposite direction, and the secular world has little reason not to violate consciences. That's why they'll try to destroy a Christian baker for not wanting to bake a cake to celebrate a same-sex commitment ceremony or gender "transitions." It doesn't matter if there is another bakery in town that could fill the order, this Christian must be punished. Or maybe you know euthanasia is murder, and want no part of it as a doctor or other health professional. You better refer them to another contract killer who will do the hit, or you could face reprisals. The secular ethos must be imposed. The fact is tolerance – within limits – is only a Christian virtue. The Western world has only the remnants of their Christian heritage to restrain them from "or else" demands and as those remnants fade, their religious demands will increase. ...

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News

Saturday Selections – July 12, 2025

Josiah Queen's "A Garden in Manhattan" On the crowded streets, all the people that I see Want them to know the Jesus that I know If I'm the closest thing to a Bible that they read Let the words they read be what You wrote Father, help me to go I'll be a garden in Manhattan, be a river where it's dry When my friends can't find the road, I'll be a roadside welcome sign Sunshine in Seattle, be a cool breeze in July Light in the darkness I'll be a garden, a garden in Manhattan Florida after dark, I know it ain't quite Central Park There's souls in my hometown You wanna reach Oh, God, use me where You have me... Climate hypocrisy tells us what the elites really believe When global warming proponents like Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos all jet off to an exotic locale to celebrate a wedding, you can know they aren't really worried about CO2 hurting the planet... or they wouldn't fly a hundred jets to a party. And as this article explains, EV cars are another hypocrisy gauge. They might make sense in some instances, but if they are being pushed whether they help lower CO2 emissions or not, then you know this is about show, not substance. As Bjorn Lomborg writes: "In some parts of the world, like India, so much of the power comes from coal that electric cars end up emitting more CO₂ than gasoline cars...." Now, to be fair, Lomborg himself is worried about global warming. But, as he highlights, the actions most governments take are not what would be needed to solve the issue if it did exist. Parks Canada staff privately doubted Kamloops "graves" claim “$12M spent by @GcIndigenous to find purported 215 children's graves at Indian Residential School was instead spent on publicists & consultants with no graves found to date...” The legacy media is betraying Canada (10 min. read) Soviet Union President Nikita Khrushchev is credited with saying, "The press is our chief ideological weapon." In contrast, US President George H.W. Bush is said to have said, "We need an independent media to hold people like me to account.” The dictator wanted to own the press so the government could use it to direct public opinion, while the US president touted the need for a press independent of government so it could hold those in power to account. Our Canadian government spends massive amounts of money funding the country's largest media outlets, and these outlets not only don't denounce the proposition, but take the money. That tells you a lot about which direction our media is heading. While readers likely won't mind this article's anti-Liberal Party bias, some might be put off by just how loud it is. But read it anyways for the money trail. The Scopes Monkey Trial is 100 years old! In 1925, a Dayton, Tennessee high school teacher named John Scopes was put on trial for violating a state law that forbade teaching evolution. The case made big news then – across both the US and into Canada – and made big news again in 1960 when a movie version called Inherit the Wind was made, which portrayed the town of Dayton as a bunch of creationist hicks who wanted to storm the jail to get Scopes. That film was then shown in classrooms across the US for generations, convincing many students that only idiots like those onscreen could ever believe Genesis is literal. But the truth is, the whole town was in on it – they challenged the law to get some attention for their hometown, and recruited Scopes, who agreed to be charged, and in an ironic twist, he probably never even taught evolution in his classroom. In another ironic twist, as this article lays out, much of the scientific evidence marshaled for evolution during the trial has been overturned since (ex. vestigial organs, similar embryonic development). So, even if it had been a bunch of dumb hicks, dumb hicks siding with God are a lot smarter than a gaggle of reporters and scientists siding against Him. Is Trump doing good or is he doing bad? Yes. Jeffrey Epstein was a sex trafficker with ties to many of the most powerful people in the world. This, then, was a man who could name names, and topple empires... and then he died mysteriously in his jail cell – a purported suicide but one that happened when his cell's video cameras were broken. The country's reaction was telling. No one was buying the coincidence. This past week, Epstein's client list was supposed to be released and the news now is that there was no client list. As the video below details, this has a lot of conservatives, Christians among them, feeling crushed. They don't believe it, and want to know where the justice is. Part of the disappointment comes from the tendency we have of making politicians our dividing lines. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were monsters... so we should love Trump? That doesn't follow. Canadian prime ministers Trudeau and Carney have a litany of sins, most recently trying to push murder as a treatment for mental illness. But does that mean we have to look past the shortcomings of Pierre Poilievre? Christians don't have to. Our dividing line is not a Trudeau or Trump, because our unswerving loyalty lies only with God (Josh. 5:13-14). So, yes, Trump continues to stand strong against gender nonsense, but the missing Epstein list has people wondering if the swamp can ever be drained, and as Mindy Belz (sister-in-law of WORLD magazine founder Joel Belz) highlights, his results-now approach has undercut processes that protect everyone from government overreach. ...

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Saturday Selections – July 5, 2025

On boys, and not failing to launch As singer Brian Sauvé wrote of his song Old Neptune, He's Roaring, "I wrote this... for my boys: Ari, Ira, Cyril, and Alfred. It's a call to go and run the race to win the prize, to do what Paul urged in Romans 2, to live for glory and immortality through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's for your sons, too." N.T. Wright gets it wrong on abortion and the unborn A recent public gaffe by this famous Christian intellectual highlights how few seem to understand the basic argument for the unborn's worth. Even the linked article, by two great Christian thinkers, John Stonestreet and Shane Morris, only gets it right in part. Yes, it is wrong to kill any innocent human being, but why? What makes a tiny human being of the same value as a big one? From where do we get our worth, and from where do we get this notion of equality? The secular world has no answer. But Christians know that there is one thing we all share, and in equal measure. What sets us apart from the animals, but not the unborn, is that we are all made in the very Image of God (Gen. 9:6). It's this foundational truth that N.T. Wright forgot, and that many other pro-lifers neglect as well. But it is this distinctly Christian point that is the only foundation for equality, and in raising it we highlight the antithesis – God's truth vs. the world's emptiness – to the glory of God. So ridiculous, it has to be God A husband whose wife has had to endure 98 surgeries shares how, in the midst of the craziness, they've been reassured that, "God is good. "Christ is near. "Grace is sufficient. "Even when nothing else makes sense. "Maybe especially then." An amazing, encouraging story... God's guidelines for sex aren't arbitrary This is a longer read, but it might shake how you think not only about sex, but how you think about politics, and conversations over the office cooler. Trevin Wax talks of sin as "our hearts bending inward, turning away from God." "The Latin phrase is incurvatus in se – a curving in on ourselves, where we grasp for God’s blessings but push away God himself." Does that not strike you as the popular Christian, Jordan Peterson-esque approach to public debate? We try to teach our world about how they can get some of the blessings of God by following His laws – turning away from pornography, envy, and adultery are all good for us and for our society – even as we pitch it to them completely separate of God Himself. It's what we do because we think our world isn't interested to hear what God has to say. But Trevin Wax seems to call this sin! The massive lies ChatGPT might be telling you A longer read, but this real conversation with ChatGPT takes increasingly bizarre turns. Even if you've already been regularly catching ChatGPT lying to you, this'll be the eye-opener! Would you rather be colonized by Aztecs or Christians? "The right of conquest" is the centuries-old (and longer than even that) notion that if a country conquers and manages to hold an area of land for a length of time it should then be understood as theirs. But many are rightly suspicious of this tradition, and Christians should be in particular, because this tradition runs right up against the 8th Commandment. Or, it would require the commandment be modified such that it says "Do not steal... unless you are bigger and stronger and can hold onto what you've stolen for at least so long." But if we don't like that kind of modification, we should also object to another alteration that's been proposed, though never explicitly: "Thou shall not steal what I stole." As Michael Knowles highlights in this video, we're all immigrants and "colonizers," even including the tribes that were supplanted. As Nathaniel T. Jeanson also highlights in his They Had Names: Tracing the History of North American Indigenous People, tribes fought against tribes, and one supplanted the next. In a very real sense, there are no original owners to give the land back to. Does that mean that it's okay then, to have taken land from the tribes that were here before? No. But it does recast them as, not simply victims, but also victimizers – what was done to them, their ancestors did to others to gain this same land. Let's get that into the land acknowledgements we hear so often: "Before we begin, I'd just like to acknowledge we are on the traditional hunting grounds of the --- tribe, who took these grounds from the ---- tribe, who in turn took them from other tribes, and so on, down through time immemorial...." Where does that leave us with treaty negotiations? I don't know, but I do know more honesty is better than less. If it is wrong for the Western world to have taken what they would by force of arms, then it is no less wrong when it was done by the tribes who were here before us. ...

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News, Pro-life - Euthanasia

MP says: No MAiD for the mentally ill

BILL C-218 PROPOSES TO SCRAP EXPANSION OF EUTHANASIA FOR MENTAL ILLNESS ***** MP Tamara Jansen has introduced a new bill that would repeal the expansion of euthanasia to those with mental illness. Four years into the conversation about euthanasia for mental illness, we can be incredibly happy that there is another proposal to eliminate one of the most egregious parts of Canada’s euthanasia regime. History of the planned expansion of euthanasia for those with a mental illness Euthanasia for those with a mental illness was first raised in Bill C-7 in 2021, which originally set a date of March 17, 2023 when euthanasia for those with mental illness would be legalized. After a report by a committee of the Quebec legislature recommended against euthanasia for mental illness and an expert panel report on euthanasia for mental illness noted significant risks, the government passed Bill C-39, which delayed the expansion of euthanasia for mental illness until 2024. As that date approached, former Member of Parliament Ed Fast introduced Bill C-314, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying). If passed, that bill would have repealed the expansion of euthanasia to those with mental illness as the only condition causing their request. Although that bill received unanimous support from the Conservative, NDP, and Green Party, along with 8 Liberals, it failed to pass by a vote of 150-167. As ARPA noted at the time, such a close vote, especially on a social issue dealing with a matter of life and death for those with mental illness, sends a message that Canadians have serious reservations about expanding MAiD further. If only nine more MPs had voted in favour instead of against, the bill would have passed 2nd reading and advanced to committee for further study. In response to the close defeat of the bill and in light of concerns raised by nearly every provincial government that they weren’t prepared, the government decided shortly after to delay the expansion of euthanasia for mental illness for a second time, this time until 2027. In the wake of the vote, the Conservatives – who had unanimously voted in favor of entirely repealing the expansion – were riding high in the polls, were expected to form government, and promised to repeal the expansion of MAiD to those with a mental illness. But Trudeau’s resignation and Carney’s ascension led to a different outcome in the recent election. With no Conservative government in charge of things and no commitment from the Liberals to revisit the issue, MP Tamara Jansen used her opportunity to introduce a private member’s bill on the issue. Her Bill C-218 is identical to the previous one introduced by MP Ed Fast and intends to permanently eliminate – rather than just delay – the expansion of euthanasia for the mentally ill. The tragedy of euthanasia for mental illness Every case of euthanasia is a murder. And every case of euthanasia in our health care system is fundamentally at odds with the central premise of health care of doing no harm. But extending MAiD to those with a mental illness is particularly tragic. Simple logic dictates that MAiD isn’t appropriate for people with mental illness. People who have a mental illness are not able to give fully informed consent to MAiD. By definition, their reasoning isn’t entirely sound, and so they should not be put in a position where they could choose to end their life. We should be providing suicide prevention – not assisted suicide – for those who are suicidal because of a mental illness. As a nation, we have poured resources into suicide prevention across the country, particularly for people with mental illness. Canada has a suicide crisis hotline to help people escape suicidal ideation. We should continue support suicide prevention rather than encouraging suicide assistance through MAiD. Indeed, offering suicide assistance undermines suicide prevention efforts. As a country, we raise awareness around mental illness and encourage people to seek help or treatment. For example, Bell Let’s Talk Day is all about reducing the stigma around mental illness and getting people the mental health care that they need. MAiD for mental illness entirely undercuts these efforts. Rather than encouraging people to access mental health care, legalizing MAiD for mental illness encourages people to end their lives instead. To really drive home the tragedy of euthanasia for mental illness, consider this story that we shared with young people at ARPA Canada’s “God & Government” conference a few months ago: It’s February, and as you’ve experienced it is cold, and snowy. Just behind Parliament Hill the wind howls across the Alexandra Bridge. It’s just after dinner time, and a man originally on his way home from the corner store is now standing on one of the struts that hold the bridge in place. Emergency vehicles have begun swarming around, the bridge has been cordoned off, and traffic is being redirected to the Portage Bridge further up river. A camera crew from Ottawa CTV station, craving a good story, hover just off the bridge, attempting to see what the commotion is all about. Paramedics prepare warming blankets and pull out supplies. Police officers and other personnel chat to each other through earpieces. They’re waiting for someone. A moment later, an officer jumps out of a police car that pulls up just a few feet away from where the man clings to the buttress of the bridge. “What’s your name, son?” the officer hollers over the whistle of the wind. “Can we talk about this right now?” “I just don’t think I can do it anymore,” the man shouts back. “I’m done with everything. My depression is simply too much to bear. I don’t have any desire to live anymore.” “I see,” the officer shouts back. “Well, if that’s the case…” The officer jogs up to the side of the bridge, snow crunching under his heavy boots until he stands near the railing where the man is just within reach. He hoists himself up onto the railing, reaches over and stretches until he has a hold of the bottom of the man’s heel. With a sudden jerk, he wrenches the man’s right leg high into the air. The man disappears into the darkness below. “We’re good,” the cop chirps into his radio, “it’s what he wanted.” The following morning’s headline in the Ottawa Citizen reads, “Heroic police officer supports a young man’s right to Die with Dignity, in the face of overwhelming and debilitating depression.” Virtually no Canadian wants to live in such a country. And yet, legalizing euthanasia in any form but especially euthanasia for mental illness, functionally puts our health care system in the exact same position. The road before us Bill C-218 again offers Canada the opportunity to step back from the euthanasia ledge and onto firmer ground that respects the value and dignity of very human life. We are grateful that another MP has taken up this issue and is pushing the government to repeal further expansion of euthanasia. The new Parliament after the spring election has a fairly similar makeup in government as when Bill C-314 – the previous proposal to scrap the planned expansion of euthanasia for mental illness – was voted on. Prime Minister Carney has not expressed where he stands on the issue of MAiD. Perhaps he will whip his caucus to defend the previous government’s law, but perhaps he will allow a free vote among his MPs on the issue. The fact that this is still a live issue and that now four separate pieces of legislation have arisen on this topic in just four years is a testament to your continual advocacy! ARPA groups across the country have worked hard to email and meet with your MPs, talk with your neighbors, and deliver nearly 250,000 flyers to spread the message of caring, not killing. This has contributed to the ongoing conversation, but with another bill on the table, we need to get back at it. Take a few minutes to email your own Member of Parliament expressing your support of Bill C-218 and ask them to support it as well. Copy Prime Minister Mark Carney, Minister of Justice Sean Fraser, and Health Minister Marjorie Michel on that email, encouraging the government to support the legislation as well. As Christians, we can continue to advocate for caring, not killing, in all circumstances. And we can continue to put pressure on our elected officials to do the same. Levi Minderhoud is a policy analyst for ARPA Canada (ARPACanada.ca) where this post first appeared. It is reprinted with permission. Picture credit: office of MP Tamara Jansen....

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News

Saturday Selections – June 28, 2025

The Franz Family and "Somewhere in glory" If you liked the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, you'll love this but of bluegrass gospel... Tim Challies with 4 good questions to ask your tech Why were you created? What is the problem to which you are the solution, and whose problem is it? What new problem will you bring? What are you doing to my heart? Canada's Tax Freedom Day was June 21 June 21 was, according to the Fraser Institute, the day when – averaged across the country – Canadians stopped working for the government, and the money they earn for the rest of the year is the money they get to keep for their own households. 7 great questions to ask fellow believers Want to get a deeper conversation started? Some of these could be great to pull out when you have a few couples over, or a group of friends. How to get people to be friends with machines in 3 easy steps The author of Digital Liturgies warns how AI "friendships" could be addictive in a way that's even beyond pornography. Government-mandated small business destruction With a stroke of a pen a government can destroy a business that the owner might have spent a lifetime building up. The destructive potential for government interference in the marketplace might have you thinking those in power would tread very lightly, using their fearsome powers only when they had to. But, as this latest incident highlights, that isn't always so. A Quebec language law, if enforced, could cause all sorts of problems for board game stores in that province, since their niche games might not have any French on them at all, or not enough. ...

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Professing God's Name, unashamed, at the Stanley Cup

If you’re a keen hockey fan, you probably watched the last game of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers. And while there are many unchristian parts to the game – unsportsmanlike penalties, cursing, sports betting – if you watched long enough, you would have heard one player praise God after lifting the iconic silver trophy. As each player took his turn hoisting the cup, the various broadcasters were interviewing players on the ice. Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky used his minute and a half on Canadian sports broadcast Sportsnet to say this: “I want to thank God for everything that I have and everything that I don’t have… Over my career, I've had so many ups and downs, you know. And one of the last downs I was probably… not many people believed in me that I can come back, you know. Yeah, and again, that’s why I thank God for this experience. I couldn’t even dream about , but now I’m here winning it twice, you know. And again, I couldn’t be more humbled and appreciative. And again, I am nothing, you know. It’s all God.” On the American broadcaster TNT Sports, the Russian goaltender, who identifies as Russian Orthodox, said: “I want to say glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. You know, I dedicate again… and am humbled and appreciative for everything I went through. And I want to give that glory to God. I want to thank Him for everything I have, for my parents, for my family, my wife Olga, my daughter – my two daughters – for this family . Like this family is amazing. I am blessed with everything, and I want to thank God for that.” Although NHL players tend to be fairly private about their faith, Bobrovsky isn’t the lone Christian in the game. The Staal brothers – Eric, Marc, and Jordan– are well known for their Christian faith. Winnipeg Jets forward Mark Scheifele helps organize chapel services for his teammates. (Former) San Jose Sharks goalie James Reimer and current Philadelphia Flyers defenceman Ivan Provorov have recently refused to participate in their team’s pride celebrations out of their Christian convictions. Each example is a refreshing and encouraging example of Christians trying to live out their faith in all areas of life. We could certainly use more of that....

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News

Saturday Selections – June 7, 2025

Remy on tariffs If Scotland noticed how much more wine they import vs. how much they export, they'd discover they have quite the wine trade deficit with France. And how fair is that? There'd be nothing to do but impose tariffs on those scheming Frenchmen, right? Or we'd realize some countries can produce a good better and/or cheaper than others. And since getting better, cheaper goods is a boon for customers, we'd want our governments to stop using tariffs to protect homegrown uncompetitive producers at the expense of homegrown consumers. Why should the government be picking one over the other? Katy Faust: 4 million US babies victimized by IVF each year This seems like a high-end estimate – no one knows the exact number – but there is every reason to think it is in the millions, considering the more than 400,000 IVF cycles that were performed in 2021. Calling IVF pro-life does not make it so. 5 innovations that changed the world "When I was a child, more than one in four people around the world lived on or less. Today, only about one in twenty live on that little. This is the greatest anti-poverty achievement in world history. "So how did this remarkable transformation come to pass? Was it the fabulous success of the United Nations? The generosity of U.S. foreign aid? The brilliant policies of the International Monetary Fund and The World Bank? Stimulus spending and government redistribution? "No, it was primarily none of those things. Billions of souls have been able to pull themselves out of poverty thanks to five incredible innovations: globalization, free trade, property rights, the rule of law and entrepreneurship." World’s largest and smallest dogs meet – and illustrate biblical truth "Last month, a dog 'playdate' was in the news because the world’s tallest dog and the world’s shortest dog met for the first time." It was quite the contrast, and a good illustration of how all the animal kinds would have fit on the Ark. If a child can have three parents, why not 20? A court has struck down Quebec's two-parent limit, to allow for three. But why just three? If it's simply our desires and wishes that determine what a family is, then why not 5, 10, or 20? By what standard could you deny a "more the merrier" impulse? Only God's Word. Our culture doesn't get that, in large part because the Church doesn't get it either. Christians keep trying to argue for godly ends even as we exclude God from our own public square arguments. What that obscures is the real choice that needs to be made: Christ or chaos. Christian confusion on this point might come from how the chaos has been held at bay for a time even as our culture has long been godless. But even as Canada rejected God, our culture still had a veneer of Christianity – we benefited from the fruit that comes of obeying God in areas like marriage, sexuality, business, and gender. But as that veneer has gotten scrubbed off, the chaos that results from doing it our own way has become easier to see – abortion, men marrying men, children being sterilized with potions that promise impossibilities, and families that are boundless and little more than friend groups now with all the loyalty that entails. It is Christ or chaos. And when the Church starts believing it, we'll start preaching it. Then we can watch and see what the Holy Spirit will do when His Word is being proclaimed! Jimmy Clifton and Haddon – Pinching pennies They might not have many pennies in their future, but these two friends are very happy about their respective brides. A Bobby McFerrin-style joy-filled celebration ...

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News

Saturday Selections – May 31, 2025

Click on the titles to go to the linked articles... Winnie's song Father Brian Sauvé, sharing some of the prayers he has for his little girl, Winnifred. Doubling Alberta’s natural gas production could slash global CO2 emissions If someone told you they were desperate for work, but refused to apply for any jobs, you'd understand they shouldn't be taken seriously. As Jesus tells us, we can judge a tree by its fruit (Matt. 7:15-20). So, when climate catastrophists steer us away from fossil fuels and nuclear energy too, that's some fruit. Solar and wind might be their ideal, but these are more expensive than fossil fuels, and higher energy costs would hurt billions. Nuclear does have considerable downsides, but it is the only CO2-free energy source that could produce the energy we need at the prices we'd need to fill the gap that banning fossil fuels would create. So, to not have it as an option is to mark these "environmentalists" – their fruit shows them to be either uncaring or naive. Now Alberta is offering the country another option – natural gas. It's still a CO2 emitter but an improvement on coal and other CO2 sources. This option could effectively scrub all of Canada's CO2 emissions. Great news, right? Well, we'll see if the federal government thinks so. Their response will provide us with some more fruit we can assess. Answering kids' hardest questions... "Why can't I have screen time all the time, Mom and Dad?" "Maple-washing" misleads the public Does buying Canadian really have an impact on American producers? Not if those "Canadian goods" are actually American. It seems some stores are mislabeling goods to funnel patriotic outrage towards padding their bottom dollar. Ontario shows why euthanasia "safeguards" can't work "Ontario’s euthanasia regulators have tracked 428 cases of possible criminal violations — and not referred a single case to law enforcement, say leaked documents." Murder is the unlawful and euthanasia the lawful taking of a human life. So what would it be then, if someone committed euthanasia unlawfully? Well, isn't an unlawful taking of a life murder? But how many doctors do you think would be willing to do a procedure that, if they ever didn't do it quite right, would send them to jail for murder? Not many, right? That kind of chill might put an end to euthanasia altogether. And that's what pursuing these 428 cases could do for any doctors considering killing as their living – put a chill on that  So, for euthanasia to be both legal and available, the government is motivated to overlook any irregularities. Jeff Durbin: A bro in a skirt doesn't care about biology (or logic) God's people too often seem intent on logic-ing our culture into the Kingdom. We address sins like abortion and transgenderism with arguments that are common sense but not specifically Christian – we channel Ben Shapiro and Pierre Poilievre but we don't talk about God. And how's that working out? We've misunderstood the fight we're in. This isn't a debate that we'll win on points. What we're contending with is a rebellious world that needs to be called to repentance by the power of the Holy Spirit. We profess that God's Word is "like fire...and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces" (Jer. 23:26), it is "alive and active, sharper than any two-edged sword" (Heb. 4:12), and "it will not return to Me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it" (Is. 55:10-11). What might God work through us, if we were willing to stand with Him instead of just with logic? ...

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