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ARPA condemned in BC legislature

On the very first day of the fall legislative session, British Columbia MLAs debated the “views and policies of Association for Reformed Political Action” for almost an hour. The debate was over a motion tabled by the NDP:

“That this House condemns the intolerant views of the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA), including its harmful discrimination against transgender people, its belief that homosexuality is ‘immoral’ and its explicit policy goal of restricting abortion access in British Columbia.”

The NDP’s motive for the motion seemed to be to condemn the Conservative opposition for attending ARPA’s MLA reception at the BC legislature back in April. However, the debate never talked about the two issues that ARPA specifically raised at that reception: medical gender transitioning for minors, and euthanasia.

By what standard?

Several NDP, Green, and independent MLAs rose to condemn ARPA’s positions on gender identity, sexual orientation, same-sex marriage, conversion therapy, abortion, IVF, and surrogacy. They argued that ARPA’s views violate various rights and freedoms and run counter to principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and tolerance.

Now, it goes without saying that ARPA – and all Christians – are in favor of all of these things when viewed in a proper way. In fact, a recognition of rights and the practice of tolerance only really arose in the Christian West.

What this debate exposed is what happens when these things are unmoored from their Christian anchors and made our ultimate political goals. If the expansion of freedom becomes the most important aim of politics, then medical transitioning for minors makes sense. If diversity is the legislature’s most sacred value, then opposition to gay marriage is indeed out of place.

But orthodox Christians know all of these values – rights and freedoms, equity and tolerance – are not the ultimate basis for morality or justice. Rather, the ultimate basis for just laws is God’s revelation to us in His Word and creation. MLAs spent a whole lot of time talking about rights in this hour of debate. But they spent virtually no time talking about what is right. They refused to acknowledge how removing the breasts of a fourteen-year-old girl in the name of “gender-affirming care” is not in her best interest. They refused to consider whether providing euthanasia to the mentally ill might be a step too far even for them. They refused to contemplate whether pre-born children at 35 weeks of age deserve any protections in law.

Calling good evil (Is. 5:20)

Instead, MLAs voted 48-3 to condemn ARPA’s “intolerant” views. (The text of the motion uses “intolerant,” but the word “hateful” was bandied about the most.) Here’s how the vote broke down:

  • The entire NDP and Green caucuses, along with independent Elenore Sturko, voted to condemn ARPA.
  • The two MLAs from OneBC, and another independent, Jordan Kealy, voted against the motion and spoke up to defend ARPA.
  • None of the Conservative MLAs opted to be present for the vote. The lone Conservative speaker to the motion accused the motion of being a “political trap.”

All of this might remind us of the words of Jesus in John 15:18-21:

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.”

If Reformed Christians were of the world – if we supported medical gender transitioning, same-sex marriage, or abortion on demand, or kept silent about them all – these MLAs would not have condemned ARPA. Reformed Christians strive to stand publicly for what God reveals to be true. God says that He created two sexes? That’s how it is. He designed marriage to be between one man and one woman for life? That’s our definition too. God created human life to begin at conception and commands us not to murder? Then abortion is wrong. Recognizing and honoring these truths is good for everyone.

What true love looks like

Our motivation, then, for raising these issues is one of love. Earlier in John 15, Christ says:

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my Name, He may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.”

And that’s what ARPA and all Reformed Christians should intend to do. We endeavor to love our fellow citizens. This includes not just the fellow brothers and sisters in Christ that Jesus has in mind here, but all people, as Jesus taught in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We call for a law against abortion because we love pre-born children. We love children who are confused about their gender. We love the same-sex couple next door. And yes, we ought to love the MLAs who voted yesterday to condemn ARPA. For, as John wrote later, “we love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

And so, in this condemnation of ARPA in the BC legislature, as Reformed Christians we might feel “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8-9). For we know that “we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37).

But in light of the fact that few MLAs stood up to defend ARPA – much less defend the bodily integrity of gender dysphoric children or the lives of those threatened by euthanasia or abortion – our provincial representatives need to hear from us. Encourage them not to be afraid to discuss the issues that desperately need our government’s attention, but to boldly hold the government to account.

A version of this article was first posted to ARPACanada.ca

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Saturday Selections – Sept 20, 2025

Charlie Kirk one week later The link above heads to Tim Challies' collection of the week's best articles on Charlie Kirk. My favorite was by Barry York on how we should deal with the inevitable clips that will and have surfaced, where Charlie Kirk evidences less patience or less grace than was his norm. I've my own thoughts. I've got liberal social media friends who are happy to cancel Kirk for a stray word... but is it really the stray words they are bothered by? In one of their posts a reference was made to how Charlie Kirk supported the stoning of homosexuals (which Stephen King also claimed and got in trouble for). The Christian response has mostly been to protest how anyone could ever possibly think that. But the better response is, I will suggest, to double down with the Gospel truth that it isn't just homosexuals who stand condemned, but every single one of us – before our just Judge we would all be found guilty of actions that warrant not simply stoning but the lake of fire (Matthew 5:21-22). I think what actually made Kirk offensive to many is how he shared that we are sinners in desperate need of a Savior. That's offensive indeed, both to the world and to the liberal church. It is also a very needed preamble to the good news of the Gospel. Bach's music as the fingerprints of God Defending the Christian faith can sometimes be awfully simple. So here's one simple defense of the faith that amounts to an "argument from beauty." There is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Therefore there must be a God. As philosopher Peter Kreeft notes, you either get this one or you don't. But that doesn't make it any less true. IVF may have killed more than 250 million since 1978 "In vitro fertilization is destroying hundreds of millions of human embryonic children, according to a new estimate. This further shows why pro-lifers must be as opposed to IVF as they are to abortion." To put that in some kind of context, the Encyclopædia Britannica estimates the total number of people killed in World War II, including the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, the soldiers on both sides, and the civilians too, as being between 35 million and 60 million. In other words, the IVF deaths you aren't hearing about anywhere may amount to four times the number of those killed in the biggest war ever waged. If books are too indecent to show in the paper or read out loud at meetings, what are they doing in Alberta public schools? Alberta opposition leader Naheed Nenshi has been challenged to read out loud the horrific graphic novels he is defending. Guns and statistics Statistics are said to be one of the three big classes of lies, so it should come as no surprise that government statistics often align quite closely with whatever narrative it is that they are trying to push. The FBI has reported that armed civilians stopped active shooters in just 3.7% of the time over the last 10 years. But a watchdog group says that this low number has a lot to do with how the FBI chose to tabulate the data. They counted things up quite differently, and, if you excluded shootings taking place in "gun-free zones" (where no one other than the shooter was going to have a gun), then 52.5% of these events were stopped by a civilian with a gun. That number has its own spin, but this is an important article to read to really understand the need for taking a Prov. 18:17 approach to statistics. Chris Gordon: a word to young people over the death of Charlie Kirk Too many of us actually saw Charlie Kirk die – the videos of his death, videos of people celebrating his death, videos of nihilists preaching chaos, were streamed all over the Internet. Pastor Chris Gordon begs young people to look away. We are not meant to dwell on this brutality and darkness. Look to Christ instead! Charlie Kirk picture is adapted from one by Gage Skidmore and is used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license....

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A renewed hunger for the Bible

Data from the Association of American Publishers reveals that the biggest sales increase among all categories of books being published last year in the United States was religious books – up 18.5 percent from the previous year. This comes on the heels of similar growth the previous year. Publishers Weekly asked these publishers what was driving the increase and the answer was Bibles, Bible study materials, commentaries, and devotionals. “Christianity and Scripture and the people who write from these perspectives hit people where they live” explained Shane White, divisional VP for sales at InterVarsity Press. “That's why we see the sales we see." "Whatever denomination you're in, whatever your religious background, you're engaging the Bible more now than you did 10 years ago," noted Bob Gaudet, the executive VP of marketing and publicity for Baker Publishing Group. Although there isn’t data of Bible sales in Canada, the Canadian Bible Society distributed 631,298 Bibles and pieces of Scripture in 2024, a 20.1 percent increase from the previous year, which was already 22.5 percent more than the previous year. In Isaiah 55:10-11, God reminds us that just as the rain comes down from heaven to water the earth and make it sprout, giving us both seed for sowing and bread for eating, the same is true of His Word. “It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.” Praise be to God for giving more people an appetite for the Bread of Life (John 6:35)....

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Saturday Selections – Sept 13, 2025

On the death of Charlie Kirk American Christian and conservative leader Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on Wednesday. Kirk (1993-2025) wasn't as remarkable for what he said (though he did get things mostly right) as he was for how he spoke up (boldly, as a grateful child of God) and for where he was willing to go. Kirk made dozens and dozens, and maybe hundreds, of appearances – captured as YouTube clips – on campuses across the United States. He'd set up a booth and take on any and all questions from liberal students who, it so often seemed, had never even heard an intelligent conservative Christian speak before. It was at one of these events that he was murdered. The link above goes to a collection of articles, assembled by Tim Challies, reflecting on Kirk's assassination. The video below is of Kirk stepping up for the unborn. May Kirk's courage inspire many more Christian young men to be just as strong and courageous (Joshua 1). Tim Challies, on how to write a great book review... ...which is a great primer for writing a book review for Reformed Perspective too. If you've got a great book you'd like to review, let us know. Organ transplant investigations expose grisly stories of patient abuse This is an American story, but one that should concern Canadians because in our murder-as-medicine MAiD-approving country, wouldn't it be all the more likely that a dying patient might be euthanized for their organs? Taming technology (10 min. read) Some real help on offer here for families who want to rethink how technology is taking over their home. How to face apparent contradictions in the Bible Michael Kruger has three tips to deal with passages in the Bible that seem contradictory: 1) don't be scared of them 2) don't apply today's conventions to yesterday's writers 3) be humble and patient: that we don't have an explanation now doesn't mean there isn't one, or that it won't show up later My Soul Among Lions, Psalm 2 I remain fascinated at the many very different, great treatments that can be given to the Psalms..... ...

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The assassination of Charlie Kirk

A new era has been marked; Christians must tell the truth. Unsurprisingly, on September 11, 2001, I wept. I also wept, unexpectedly, on September 11, 2011. Perhaps it was delayed grief, but mostly, it was a delayed realization. Sitting that Sunday morning with my young daughters, only 6, 4, and 2 at the time, it struck me how different their world was from the one I wanted for them. The same sense struck this week, on September 10. The assassination of Charlie Kirk seems to mark a new era, a world no one wants but may very well be here. Calling the murder a “tragedy for all of us,” U.K. comedian and commentator Konstantin Kisin wrote: "I hope I’m wrong. But tonight feels like some sort of invisible line has been crossed that we didn’t even know was there. … o murder a young father simply for doing debates and mobilising young people to vote for a party that represents half of America? This is something else. "Charlie’s death is a tragedy for his wife, his children and his family. I don’t pray often. I am praying for them tonight. But I fear his murder will be a tragedy for all of us in ways we will only understand as time unfolds. "I hope I’m wrong. I fear I’m not." Kisin is not wrong about lines being crossed, though the Christian must not fear. We must, however, squarely face the sober realities of this moment. Kirk’s murder followed another this week, in Charlotte, of a young woman from Ukraine riding a public train. Iryna Zarutska was stabbed by a man who should have been in prison or at least institutionalized, and she was then left to die by people too engrossed in their screens to notice or too jaded to care. Together, these atrocities reveal realities about our culture and how it has shaped those within it that many will find unthinkable. But we had better think about it anyway. Zarutska’s killer is a terrible example of the mental and social brokenness that permeates modern life. The bystanders who did not come to her defense or to her aid are, like the social media commenters and media personalities who callously commented on Kirk’s assassination, examples of the rabid and pervasive dehumanization that infects the Western world. In a recent Breakpoint commentary, released prior to the atrocities of this week, Abdu Murray argued that this “post-truth world that elevates feelings and preferences above facts and truth has collapsed the distinction between a person’s ideas and their identity. And so, the social erasure of cancel culture has calcified into something darker.” That something darker, he argued, is “assassination culture.” He continued, “Unmoored from that objective standard for human value, we have made gods of ourselves and therefore justify eradicating any who dare to have other gods before us.” This is precisely what Os Guinness warned of in the new film Truth Rising, that the West is squandering a unique heritage. A civilization built upon the ideal of human dignity, with a mixed and troubled history of working out that ideal, has now replaced it with something else. But racialized, sexualized, and politicized conceptions of human dignity only produce victims. George Orwell is often credited as saying, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Charlie Kirk was a committed truth teller, with a remarkable gift for exposing and answering deceit. And yet, as he did this, he treated the deceived with the dignity they had as image bearers of their Creator, recognizing that they too were victims of their own bad ideas. There is a cost to telling the truth. Our Lord has told us to count this cost. If Kisin is indeed correct, that cost is higher than we have imagined. This is indeed a civilizational moment. It is to this moment that we have been called as His people. As His people, we know that this moment is not some fatalistic inevitability, nor does it determine or define the Story of which we are part. In a video circulating on social media, Charlie is asked why he went on campuses to talk with and try to persuade those who disagree with him. Charlie responded, “Because when people stop talking, that’s when violence happens.” It was a prophetic moment, but Kirk also demonstrated that we need not accept that. He showed that the conversation can be had; that it must be had. He showed that the truth still wins hearts and minds, and that lies can be opposed. And that it can all be done with a big smile. It takes courage to tell the truth and to, as Paul wrote, “regard no one from a worldly point of view.” As Murray wrote, only the “ancient biblical truth about what it means to be human can heal our contemporary malady.” It can be healed. This is not wishful thinking. This is the hope Christ secured for us all. As the banner on the Turning Point USA website proclaims, Charlie Kirk has been “received into the merciful arms of our loving Savior, who suffered and died for Charlie.” For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to Breakpoint.org. This is reprinted with permission from the Colson Center. Picture by Gage Skidmore and used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license....

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Why join an ARPA Club?

One mom shares how signing up has helped her high schoolers stand up for others High school is busy. Course work, extracurriculars, sports, catechism classes, homework, part-time jobs, and decisions about the future make for a full schedule. Amid all this busyness and these big decisions, it would be easy enough for a student to spend too much time looking in at themselves, and not enough time looking out at those around them. But, as we know, God calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves and be a light in this dark world. So, are we encouraging high schoolers to set aside time for something that isn’t about them – their job, their sports team, their education, their future – and instead engage in something that is about others? Engaging in the political sphere to defend the lives, health and wellbeing of others is a great way high schoolers can look outside of themselves and instead love others and be a light to those around them. That’s where ARPA clubs come in. ARPA clubs are groups of students dedicated to engaging with political issues from a Christian perspective and bringing a Biblical witness to their leaders and communities around them. They do activities as a club and try to get their entire school community more politically engaged. Students in an ARPA club are encouraged to sign up for ARPA Leaderboards, an online platform where they can post photos of their political action, and gain points in a friendly competition against other clubs across the country. Here’s what one parent – Meagan Vandermaarel – had to say about her experience as a parent of children in an ARPA club. Naomi: How has being part of an ARPA club benefited your children? Meagan: “In so many ways. This past year three of my children joined the TEACH Home Educators of Brant ARPA school club. “Attending the ARPA Youth Conference is a non-negotiable part of my children’s education plan and provides some great, hands-on civics education. My children come back inspired to make a difference in the community around them, more informed about what is going on locally, as well as form new friendships which continue to grow year by year. “The ARPA Leaderboards competition has provided a great platform for my children to stay informed about what bills and petitions are current, to get in touch with their local MPs in an easy-to-navigate format and stay motivated through friendly rivalry both individually and through their school groups with the weekly Leaderboards rankings.” Sign up for this year’s ARPA Youth Conference at ARPACanada.ca/event/Youth25. LORD willing, these conferences will be held in Hamilton ON, Winnipeg MB, Coaldale AB and Smithers BC this October. Naomi: Why join an ARPA club? Meagan: “It is so important for our youth to not only be aware of what is going on in the world around them, but to be given the tools and information needed so that they in turn can make a difference, even if it’s just in a small way. “Not part of a school club? Not a problem. Just get together with your homeschool group or some friends and form a new club! You just need one parent or teacher volunteer and a few motivated teens to send out emails and plan events. Some of the action items are things like: crochet a baby hat, write a postcard to an MP, host a flag display, write a letter to the editor, visit an old age home, host an ARPA merch day, send an EasyMail letter to your local representative, and lots more!” Naomi: What are the benefits? Meagan: “You will quickly find that your teenagers become well informed and politically minded about current issues. They will not only know the name of their MP but become known to their MP sometimes on a first name basis! They become motivated to make a difference and have others join them in doing so. Some may frown, but the friendly rivalry both individually and between school groups in the ARPA Leaderboards competition can foster some great motivation to get involved and make a difference. School club winners receive a trophy, t-shirts and a pizza party and individual winners are given Amazon gift cards. “Being part of an ARPA club is a great way also to instill a love for one’s country and it gives the students an opportunity in the stage that they are in right now, to not only serve their immediate community but also to make a difference in the nation at large.” Naomi: Any encouraging stories to share? Meagan: “For sure. Two of our children had the privilege of having their ‘Letter to the Editor’ published this past year in newspapers across Canada, raising awareness on elder care and MAiD for the mentally ill. “The Burlington Flag Display was a day to remember as well – heading out before the sun came up to cover the grass with 10,000 pink flags to raise awareness about female selective abortion. “Monday singsongs at the local nursing home were another great memory. The smiles on the elderly residents' faces and the joy a friendly smile and song brought to them was worth every minute. “There were also some encouraging face-to-face conversations while delivering flyers. For my daughter Mia, getting to sit in an MP’s chair at Parliament and attending the God and Government Conference in Ottawa was an experience she will never forget. Winning first place on the ARPA Leaderboards was a definite highlight to end the year off with; I mean who wouldn’t want a pizza party with Ryan and Naomi?” **** Other parents also shared their thoughts with me, saying that their children in an ARPA club: “…had their eyes opened to ways that they could have an impact or a say in how things progress here in Canada. Although it may seem like we are not making any change by putting up lawn signs, delivering flyers, donating to the local pregnancy care center, or visiting seniors in old age homes we are making others more aware of the issues (gender reassignment, euthanasia, abortion), and giving them information that they may never have thought about which in turn may make them discuss the issues with others and have a ripple effect; it was also an avenue by which we could show that we care about our neighbors and love them. Even though it was intimidating at first to meet with our MLA and MP, the students were also encouraged to know that they could share their thoughts with the actual people that are involved in lawmaking and that the MLA/MP was interested in what they had to say.” Another parent shared: “From our perspective, it makes the students more comfortable with not being ashamed to speak out on areas of concern. It also grows their leadership skills in the community and makes them feel that they are active citizens and shining the light of Christ in this dark world.” Whether it's holding a sign, handing out flyers, or speaking to a politician – it all matters. So, to all parents, consider encouraging your high schooler(s) to use their time in school well – not just for their own benefit, but rather to love others well and engage as a Christian light in the political realm. ARPA clubs across Canada kick start action on September 2, 2025. Contact [email protected] if you would like to join or start an ARPA club near you and visit Profiles.ARPACanada.ca/login to join the ARPA Leaderboards competition. Meagan Vandermaarel is the parent volunteer for the TEACH Home Educators of Brant ARPA School Club. She lives in Brantford, Ontario and is married to Brad Vandermaarel. They currently homeschool their five children, three of which are current ARPA club members. Naomi Meerstra is the Grassroots Coordinator for Ontario and Eastern Canada with ARPA Canada....

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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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Saturday Selections – Aug. 16, 2025

Life's building blocks: everything, everywhere, all at once (1 minute) You can build some of the basic elements of a cell in a lab. But there's no process that can build them all together, which is what you need for life. In other words, even with a blueprint at the ready – scientists have cells they can observe – and refined materials and supercomputers and skilled geniuses, they not only can't make life in a lab, they demonstrate how it could never happen by accident out in the wild. The amazing ways fathers matter "Involved fathers made an especially big difference for girls’ mental health, with 10 times the number of female students being diagnosed with depression and risk of self-harm when they had disengaged or absent fathers." 6 ways that Christianity answers the "problem of pain" ... and also worth noting, the world doesn't have much of any answer at all. Should we ban smartphones from our schools?  Jonathan Haidt thinks so. Here are five key quotes from his book, The Anxious Generation... On "replacement theology" Rev. Witteveen on God's plan for Israel today... What's wrong with censorship Prov. 18:17 is known by some as the journalist's proverb, but its value extends to far beyond just reporters. It says: "The first to present his case seems right, until a second comes and questions him." This, in a nutshell, is the Christian case against censorship. What we know of fallen human nature means that we don't trust any one person or institution to have the necessary brilliance or character to always be right. The Christian case for free speech is also, essentially, the freedom to pursue God, and His Truth. All sorts of questions and skeptical arguments could be allowed in this pursuit.... though blasphemy need not be. We have good reason to be for free speech... but not without restriction. After all, God is our god, not free speech. ...

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Saturday Selections – Aug. 9, 2025

Four guys, one piano, doing a One Direction cover The Piano Guys, getting clever... Anything can be an idol "I have worshiped an hour of uninterrupted sleep. I have worshiped a number on the scale. I have worshiped a number in my bank account. I have worshiped a pregnancy test, a tidy to-do list, a stocked pantry, a nicer vehicle, a certain number of social media followers, my reputation, positive book reviews, the way I look or didn’t look, perfect obedience from my kids, a certain home aesthetic. And on and on the list goes. I have a heart that loves to produce idols, and unfortunately, so do you..." Keep our kids from the public school Kool-Aid "The world wants our children to buy into poisonous ways of thinking. These ways of thinking are destructive and dangerous. They’re Satanic." How voting with your feet helps "You vote every day when you go to the grocery store or the gas station, pay your rent, purchase a washing machine or buy a latte. You are voting with your feet and sending important messages about your preferences and desires to the folks who are trying to give you what you want... The private voting we do through economic exchange is possibly the most important voting that we can do: It brings about change, it helps us express our values and it serves the public good in awe-inspiring ways." AI and the threat of Mutually Assured Boredom "The great danger is that we increasingly find real, flesh-and-blood people boring. It’s already the case that many ordinary human interactions, filled with quirks, annoyances, and complexities, struggle to compete with nonstop entertainment from our devices. AI promises to exponentially expand our options for distraction, drawing us even further from genuine relationships, but this time by successfully imitating human conversation." Union leaders oppose family and life values Reformed church leaders have, over the years, had several different reasons to oppose union membership, including the Marxian ideology that underlies adversarial negotiations, and the claims that are made on employment that amount to theft – i.e., when strikers prevent others from doing the work they've abandoned, they are acting as if they (and not their employer) own the job. Then, as the article above highlights, in Canada, compulsory union dues have been used to promote "abortion, euthanasia, special rights for LGBTQ, same-sex marriage and transgenderism." Fortunately, in some jurisdictions in Canada, there is an option – on the basis of religious conscientious objection – to have your union dues redirected to an agreed-upon charity. What about the higher wages that are supposed to come with unionization? That happens. But as the video below highlights, that often comes with a cost, too. ...

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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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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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Canada’s population almost shrinking

The latest population estimation from Statistics Canada is revealing a startling change: Ontario, Quebec, and BC all saw population declines in the first quarter of 2025. The country as a whole grew by only 20,107 people, which, as a percentage, amounted to a 0.0% increase, the second-slowest growth rate in Canada since records began in 1946. The record prior was the third quarter of 2020, when border restrictions from the Covid-19 pandemic prevented immigration. The decrease has been attributed to announcements by the federal government in 2024 to decrease temporary and permanent immigration levels, with targets of 436,000 for this year, which is still well above the 250,000 level prior to the Liberal government taking office in 2015. So, in the first quarter of 2025 we lost 17,410 people via emigration to other countries, and there was also a drop of 61,111 in non-permanent residents – people on temporary work or student visas, along with their families. The data also shows that there were 5,628 more deaths than births in the first quarter, largely due to Canada’s quickly declining fertility rate. That’s a collective loss of population of 84,140 people. Then, going in the other direction, we had 104,256 people immigrate to Canada, for that small net increase of 20,107. While it is a blessing that people from other countries are still willing and able to move to Canada, it is sobering to note that two-thirds of the world’s populations are now below replacement rate and the world’s population is projected to start declining later this century. God’s first command to humanity was to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). Imagine what the world could look like in a few generations if Christians fulfilled this cultural mandate with enthusiasm while the rest of the world continued on its course....

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You now live on šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm Street

“911, I need an ambulance at 232 šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm Street, and quickly please!” “Sorry, I didn’t get that. Can you repeat the address?” “The first letter is an s with a hat on it, followed by an x with a w above and to the side of it… BUT CAN YOU PLEASE COME? WE NEED HELP NOW!” This exchange may sound like something from a bad dream, but it is a new reality for about 100 residents who live on what was once called Trutch Street in Vancouver. Vancouver’s city council made a unanimous decision in June to change the name to this indigenous word, which means “Musqueamview,” even though it recognizes that there are no fluent speakers of the language remaining in the world today. Trutch Street was named after Joseph Trutch, BC’s first Lieutenant Governor. Trutch is now seen by many as a colonialist oppressor, particularly because he didn’t recognize aboriginal land title. Those who work for emergency services shared their concerns that the new name will make it difficult for people to get help when they need it, but the city decided that it is sufficient to add “unofficial” signs that read “Musqueamview St.” When the English version is used in writing, city staff clarify that it should include a footnote that says “Musqueamview St is a translated name available for use while colonial systems work to accept multilingual characters.” The city also provided a QR code in a letter, which residents can scan to hear the proper pronunciation. The decision also means that those who live on the street will need to update their licences, insurance, registrations, land titles, credit cards, and more. The city of Vancouver is planning “education opportunities” and invited residents to a “community celebration” to commemorate their decision. Yes, this is another example of woke activism and critical theory at work: stepping on those whom we deem to have been oppressors while justifying today’s oppression as deserved. But it is more than that. It serves as a very clear example of how a secular system, divorced from God, is so enthusiastic about its own religion that it is willing to descend into absurdity. It isn’t enough to remove a name they don’t like, nor to replace it with a name that is politically correct today. It has to go one step further by adopting a language that we aren’t actually capable of speaking or understanding, and then asking the public to celebrate this. Like changing the pronouns “him” or “her” to “them,” the secular worldview is demanding that we ignore logic, truth, and reality, and simply conform to whatever we are told is justice today, even if that changes next year. If others don’t like this, the strong-arm of the state is used to coerce and fine transgressors and celebrate those who conform. What a contrast this is to God’s unchanging will for our lives – it is based on the truth, and our lives are blessed when we live accordingly!...

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