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Saturday Selections – Nov 2, 2024

The robot repairman inside you (12 min)

In the latest must-see episode of Dr. Michael Behe's "Secrets of the Cell" series, we look at some of the amazing repair mechanisms inside the cell. That our cells have so many different ways of breaking down, and need so much upkeep, creates another “chicken and egg” problem for evolutionists. As Dr. Behe explains:

“You can’t have one without the other. The first life necessarily had a complete maintenance system. And just like so much else we’ve seen about the cell, its remarkable repair machines, which sustain you every moment of your life, are products of forethought and purposeful planning. That is, they are products of intelligent design.”

Behe's "Secrets of the Cell" series should be required viewing in our Christian schools. For more, check out Season 1 and Season 2.

YOLO and FOMO forget you don't only live once (5-min read)

This is a bit of a philosophical read, but one worth considering for our own sake, and to help out our kids. When they are battling FOMO because they have to choose to do one thing or the other, or we're contemplating that we not likely to ever go on an African Safari, it's worth remembering that this life is not all we have – God has given us eternity!

Euthanasia for homelessness?

When you can call murder "medicine" what reason could you give not to extend the metaphor and see it as a medicine for other societal "ills" like homelessness or loneliness? And as this AP News report details, it is happening in Canada. What they don't offer is the only firm line that can be drawn to prevent such abuses - the biblical understanding that life is a gift from God, and therefore not ours to dispose of as we will.

"The committee noted that legally mandated safeguards likely were not met in nearly 2% of cases. Despite that, experts say, no doctors or nurses have ever been prosecuted."

The state of Christian persecution

God has no interest in hypocrisy (Isa. 29:13, Amos 5:21-27), which is one of the Christian basis's for religious freedom – God doesn't want us forcing anyone to go to church, or compeling them to say what they do not believe because He isn't interested in fakery.

That's not true of many other religions, including our culture's secular religion, which demands we use "preferred pronouns" no matter that we all know better. Just do it anyway!

That's why, then "...over 365 million Christians, or about one in seven globally, face high levels of persecution today, including one in five Christians in Africa and two in five in Asia. And it’s getting worse. In 2023, 4,998 Christians were martyred, an average of over 13 per day."

The pot experiment has been a disaster

"Legalizing pot correlates with a rise in auto crashes, as well as property and violent crimes. Also, despite the fact that this is now a multibillion-dollar industry, legalizing pot has grown rather than reduced the black market. Promises of health benefits have also proven to be more smoke than substance. Pot’s most devastating impact has been in the arena of mental health, which has declined to epidemic levels in the U.S. This is largely due to the increased potency of pot that is sold today..."

Fade to black

One that'll grow on you.

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John Rustad, latest conservative leader to promote IVF

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Saturday Selections – Oct. 26, 2024

The key to happiness Jewish commentator Dennis Prager makes the case that gratitude is the key to happiness. He makes a good case, but as Christians,...

Indigenous peoples, News

112 Canadian churches vandalized and burned

Since the allegations of “mass graves” on Canadian residential school grounds began in 2021, more than a hundred of the country’s churches have ...

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This time the liberals are leaving – congregations depart CRC over orthodox turn

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Saturday Selection – Oct 19, 2024

4 minutes of penguins being brave and cool In this clip, penguin chicks jump off a 50-foot cliff for their very first swimming experience. And while, admittedly, some are only doing so because of those jerks in the back pushing, most are up for taking that very brave first step. One of the most remarkable features of early Christian manuscripts The earliest documents show Christian scribes were already showing reverence, in their copying, to the name of Jesus Christ. Is in vitro fertilization (IVF) pro-life? Do you really believe that what you believe is really real? Say that out loud and it is quite the mouthful to consider, but it is an important question for Christians to ask when it comes to the unborn. And that's especially true now, in light of the recent political popularity of IVF, with both Donald Trump, and BC Conservative Party leader John Rustad pledging to make it affordable. The Christian pro-life position is that the unborn's worth – and everyone else's worth too – comes from being made in God's Image (Gen. 1:26-27). This isn't something we grow into, or increase in, but is simply an attribute given by God. That we are all made in God's Image is why the just-conceived embryo is as valuable as the fetus, newborn, toddler, teen, and adult. It is also the only basis for equality. This Christian pro-life position stands in sharp contrast to the world's evaluation of human worth, which bases it on what we can do. They might differ on what exactly we need to be able to do to be worthy of life – some insisting it is consciousness, others saying it is viability, brainwaves, a heartbeat, or being able to feel pain – but in some form or fashion the world says human worth is based on being able to do something and if you can't do it, then you aren't deemed fully human yet. The linked article is an op-ed from a conservative but not Christian publication. What's worth noting is how this "pro-life" piece leaves it as an open question of if we believe that an embryo is a person. I'm not trying to throw this writer under the bus – they are raising an issue that few are willing to even discuss – but read through this asking yourself if, at the end of it, you are left thinking the "discarding" of 1.7 million embryos from 1991-2012 is anywhere near as horrible as the murder of 1.7 million newborn, or elementary-aged, children would be. If you don't – and I'll admit to that feeling too – it is only because you and I don't really believe that what we say we believe about the unborn's worth is really real. But it is real. So we need to stop being doubleminded (1 Kings 18:21, James 4:7-9). There is a pressing need for the Church to speak with clarity against the horrors caused by IVF – especially because conservative leaders might actually listen to us – but God's people will only be able to do so if we're willing to submit our own feelings and thinking to the Lordship of Christ. How the Internet made vibes more important than arguments (10-min read) For Christians, truth must matter. But in our culture, it's all about impressions now: "The vibe world is Memes over messages. Aesthetics over arguments. Relatability over rightness. Feelings over facts. Mood over meaning...If I care about issue X and can find evidence a certain candidate somewhere, at some point, said he shared my view on issue X, I can permit myself to support that candidate (even if elsewhere he said he doesn’t support issue X, or said he supports issue Y that contradicts issue X). Incoherence is an electoral asset in the internet age. What matters more than coherent views is a compelling vibe. Politicians know this...." The seat of scoffers There is a lot of scoffing online because it is easier to tear down than it is to build up. So in your intake of social media, what is your diet of scoffing compared to wisdom? Your sense of hearing is a masterpiece of engineering (6 min) There's nothing to indicate this was made by a Christian, but if evidence alone could change a man's heart, then this video (and the accompanying article – click the title above) most certainly would! This looks at our hearing, and any time we dig down into the workings of our body, God's genius becomes all the more evident the further we explore. Some technical terminology means the video requires a little effort to stick with, but it rewards the investment! ...

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Stats Canada: birth rate now at just 1.26 children per woman

Statistics Canada is reporting that the country’s birth rate has dropped to among the lowest in the world, at just 1.26 children per woman, and British Columbia leads the downward trend with a birth rate of just 1 child per woman. To put these numbers in context, for a country’s population to remain stable – neither growing nor shrinking – each woman needs to have, on average, 2 children – one to replace her, and one to replace her spouse. The real number is even a smidge higher at 2.1, to account for children that don’t make it to adulthood. But outside of Nunavut, at 2.48 children, no province or territory is even at replacement level. Saskatchewan is next best, at 1.63 children. So how might this impact Canada’s population over the coming decades? For simplicity’s sake, we’ll drill into this using a sample population of just 100, with 50 men and 50 women. If each of these women averages 1.26 children, then in one generation we’re down to a population of 63. Let’s round that up to 64, or 32 men and 32 women. If those 32 women then average 1.26 children each, we’re down to a population of just 40. In just two generations we’ve seen the population drop by 60%. Applied to Canada’s current population of 40 million, that would see us drop all the way down to 16 million in two generations. So why is Canada’s population still growing, and growing fast? We’re up by more than a million over just the last few years! This is due to an influx of immigrants – more than a million over the last few years. The growth isn’t coming internally. Massive immigration is one short-term means of forestalling population collapse, but it isn’t a long-term answer, because birth rates are falling all over the world. And if the population decreases everywhere, there won’t be immigrants knocking on our door. What’s the solution? Everyone seems to be looking to the government, but to this point, no program in any country has done much to slow the decline. The case could be made that the government isn’t the answer, but it is part of the problem – every childcare program meant to make having children easier needs to be paid for with higher taxes, and higher taxes make it that much harder to get by for one-income families where a mom wants to stay at home. So what is the answer? Our culture needs to turn to God, not government. Do we sometimes find that a hard message to share? Well, thankfully, God is making it easier for us, by “platforming” us via the size of our families. It used to be you'd need to have 6 children or more to stand out, but now just 4 will give you an opportunity to let your light shine as people ask why so many? We can glorify our God, and help our country, just by speaking to the blessings He has given us in our children. This chart is adapted from Stats Canada’s “Fertility indicators, provinces and territories: Interactive dashboard” posted to StatsCan.gc.ca on Sept. 25, 2024. Used with permission. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product....

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Saturday Selection – Oct 12, 2024

Click on the titles for the linked articles... Public school vs. home school The Babylon Bee, helping us tell the difference... Noise cancellation: a remarkable design solution in biology Here are some biological features that require precise design (and which therefore evidence a precise Designer) that you've probably never thought of before: "Snakes should be immune to their own poison. Electric eels should not shock themselves. And protection from self-generated noise requires a preplanned noise cancellation system." Kevin DeYoung on making better arguments The key here is to argue the facts of the matter – the what rather than the why. You might think you know why your opponent is taking their stand, but if they haven't stated it, then don't pretend you are a mind-reader. Address the argument they have made, rather than the secret motivations they may or may not have. The four gifts children need from their fathers It's not complicated. It does take effort. Here's an article every father would benefit from reading. The four gifts are: Presence Other mentors Wisdom Blessing 3 painfully obvious suggestions to reduce your child's screen time "A major concern of paediatricians today is excessive screen time in children. Here are three (painfully obvious) suggestions for avoiding and reducing screen time. Unfortunately, these are increasingly becoming viewed as unnecessary or unreasonable by some parents: Read a lot of books Talk to your kids about normal life every day Don’t use digital devices as the default activity..." Anne Wilson - Sunday Sermons Catchy song, with a curious video about a helpful man who stops to help a stranded woman... but first takes time to teach a kid how to hit a baseball. Guess he knew she wasn't done singing yet. ...

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Saturday Selection – Oct 5, 2024

Click on the titles for the linked articles... Christian filmmakers are getting creative... The knock on Christian films has always been two-fold: poor production values, and a shallow depiction of good and evil with the good guys simply too good and the bad guys utterly soulless. There are some bad folks who are simplistically wicked – I just saw a chilling bit about a euthanasist in Canada who reveled in her death-dealing – but as the Bible shows us with the wise and weak Solomon, the righteous and murderous David, the believing and mistrusting Abraham, God's people sure aren't saved by their own merits! Even the best people are seriously flawed. Now, I've only watched the trailer for Average Joe (see below), so I can't speak to the characterization. But I wanted to share it for the production value side – it shows a level of skilled playfulness that we haven't seen often in Christian films. Coming out later this year, Average Joe is the true story of a public high school football coach who got in trouble for praying publicly after games. Funnest bit of the trailer is when the coach and his wife break the fourth wall, the two of them sharing their different recollections of a kiss. I hope the film is as good! Did God create life on other planets? Otherwise, why is the universe so big? "The Bible’s ‘big picture’ seems to preclude intelligent life elsewhere" but it wouldn't seem to preclude something like bacterial life, or even animals, on other planets. So why haven't we found any? Might it be because, while the Bible would allow for alien life, evolution needs it? Evolutionists argue that life from non-life is plausible, and if it is, and it has happened here in abundance, then of course it must have happened elsewhere amongst the billions of stars and planets. So the lack of alien life is a message from God – another blessing from Him – highlighting just how impossible life from non-life, without an Omnipotent Creator, really is. How was the pronunciation of God's Name lost? Today Christians treat many words as absolutely forbidden - you won't find a Christian novel using the F-word, and Christian movies don't have anyone, even farmers, using the other four-letter word for "poop." But you will regularly find both using God's name in vain. Thousands of years ago, the Israelites had it the other way around, being so careful about God's Name that the pronunciation of it was lost – no one living today knows how to pronounce YHWH. So, "why did the Israelites go from swearing by Yahweh’s name, and using it in prayer, song, and greetings, to forbidding its use altogether?" Tim Challies: Stop swiping, start serving You probably didn't get drunk this past week. But you likely succumbed to other forms of escapism whether it was hours of video games, Netflix binging, or swiping through your phone's feed. 11 reasons two-parents is the ideal Sometimes it isn't possible, but let's not lose sight that it should be the goal. Contra mundum Here's one for Church History teachers when you're tackling Athanasius. And here's one for politicians when the media, or your party leader, directs their attention your way. And here's one for all the rest of us when we are tempted to back down, not because we are wrong, but only because we are standing against the room. ...

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Alberta to help pay for independent school construction

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Saturday Selections – Sept 28, 2024

Click on the titles for the linked articles... Glen Campbell: I'm not going to miss you Before his death in 2017, Glen Campbell had become about as ...

News, Politics

Alberta planning to enshrine right to refuse vaccinations

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Saturday Selections – Sept 21, 2024

Actions speak louder than words During the COVID lockdowns political leaders were caught, with some regularity, violating their own rules, so this ju...

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The IVF gendercide

Critics of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) have long warned that the technology could be used to customize children, allowing parents and doctors to effectively play God. According to a recent Slate article, which sounded like a review of the movie Gattaca, those fears were well-founded. According to the article, "You can have a baby when it suits your career, thanks to egg freezing (or at least you can try). You can sequence your embryos’ genomes for $2,500 a pop and attempt to maximize your future child’s health (or intelligence, attractiveness, or height) ... you can even select eye color. There is a vast disparity between who gets to use IVF... and who is using it to create designer families." Another example is sex selection. Numbers vary from clinic to clinic, but one Los Angeles-based IVF clinic estimates that about 85% of its patients engage in sex selection. However, which sex is being selected is surprising. Historically, when parents choose between sons and daughters – think of China under its one-child policy or Romans who practiced infanticide by exposure – boys won out. Today, Americans using IVF are abandoning the sons in favor of daughters. “Abandoning” is the correct term when it comes to IVF. Standard procedure involves the creation of anywhere between five and 10 embryos that are then implanted either one at a time or in multiples. Embryos that are not implanted are frozen, donated to medical research, or worse, destroyed, a tragedy because every embryo is a whole life in its very earliest stage. Today, an estimated 1.5 million embryos are stored in freezers in the U.S. Why are Americans voluntarily abandoning these boys? According to the Slate article, “toxic masculinity” is a main concern for many women (even those who are already boy moms). Boys are, after all, more likely to be mass shooters and less likely to help break glass ceilings. Perhaps some parents think that raising daughters will be easier. While some have rightly noted that sex selection is inescapably sexist, underneath the practice is something far more insidious. Parenthood is widely seen as a consumerist activity. Children are viewed in the same way as pets or plants. They are objects to be acquired rather than persons whose intrinsic dignity must be respected. For many parents, children exist to serve their happiness, whether to be a parent’s “bestie” or to fulfill their parent’s hopes and dreams. It's difficult to imagine that some of the factors behind the dramatic increase of young females experiencing gender dysphoria are not at work here as well. Girls are thought to be more malleable, in terms of personality, appearance, and even identity. It may be consumerist parents prefer girls instead of boys for this reason. Whatever the motives, the practice of IVF is enabling a “gendercide,” a term used by The Economist in 2010 to describe why 100 million girls were missing in China, India, and elsewhere. Despite claims that IVF is all about “fertility” and bringing children into the world, the practice must be evaluated according to how it’s actually practiced – not just by what it promises. Infertility is tragic, but it does not warrant an “anything goes” kind of ethic or policy. It certainly cannot justify a push for designer babies and third-party parenting. Even the wonderful “ends” of a new life cannot justify unethical means. The lack of regulation around IVF is a recipe for disaster, a recipe already serving up more deaths than lives. This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Hayden. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. 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. Photo credit: IStockPhoto.com / Wirestock....

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Sports betting explodes across Canada

Since Canada legalized sports betting in 2021, the industry has exploded, and last week the Edmonton Oilers and the Alberta government were just the latest to cash in. On Sept. 9 the Oilers announced that they were getting sponsored by Play Alberta – the government’s own online gambling platform – to put a patch on the team’s home jerseys. Many fans weren’t impressed; an online poll by the Edmonton Journal’s hockey writer David Staples had the majority annoyed with the Oilers for degrading their uniform. But what about a government that promotes a vice that harms their own citizens? Those harms aren’t limited to Alberta. With three years of data on hand, the Christian think tank Cardus has just published an extensive report about the hidden harms of sports betting in Ontario. Their report shared that sports viewers in Ontario now get hit with 2.8 gambling references every minute of a live sports broadcast. The advertising is effective – the number of sports betting accounts is climbing quickly in Ontario, from 492,000 in the first quarter of 2023, to 1.3 million today. The average being lost by each of those 1.3 million gamblers is $283 each month. As is always the case with gambling, the biggest winner is the company, organization, or government behind the scheme. Revenue from betting increased from an already huge $368.1 million to a staggering $588 million just from 2023 to 2024. It isn’t only sports betting that has taken off. Revenue from casino gaming saw an even greater spike, doubling from $854.8 million to $1.78 billion. Gambling is bad stewardship of what God has entrusted to us, because the odds are always stacked in favor of the house. Even if you do win it is only because your neighbor has lost, and lost big. And gambling is also addictive – sadly, those who have the least to steward are often the most likely to be hurt by this addiction, adding the additional yoke of debt to their already-challenging lives....

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Liberal MP reminds journalist who holds the purse strings

Ongoing funding of Canada’s media by the federal Liberal government appears to be emboldening some government officials to demand favorable reporting. On Sept. 7, Liberal MP Taleeb Noormohamed weighed in on a tweet made the previous day by Terry Newman, a senior editor at the National Post. Newman’s tweet on X was critical of immigration minister Marc Miller specifically and the Liberal government overall, and that didn’t sit well with Noormohamed who replied with his own public post: “Your paper wouldn’t be in business were it not for the subsidies that the government that you hate put in place....” Newman was quick on the draw. “Okay. You win. You pay my salary,” she replied. “I’ll stop criticizing your government now. Please don’t fire me.” Mr. Noormohamed is well aware of the National Post’s funding, since he sat on the “National Forum on the Media” parliamentary committee this summer where he argued that since reporters were taking government money and were still remaining critical of the government, clearly such funding wasn’t a problem. However, now, only a couple months later, he is the one making what appears to be an implicit threat to a journalist who dares challenge his government. For years now the Liberal government has been channeling hundreds of millions of dollars to media outlets that meet their criteria. “We’re pretty close, by my estimation, to a 50 percent wage subsidy on journalist salaries up to $85,000 per year,” noted Rudyard Griffiths, executive director of The Hub, a relatively new non-profit media organization that has been very intentional about not taking government funding. A recent poll has found that more Canadians say “a lot of the news is just government propaganda” than “the news is fair and transparent.” And almost twice as many respondents said “I don’t think I get the truth from mainstream news in Canada,” as said “I get the truth from the news.” Media outlets have been struggling financially in recent years as the public is increasingly unwilling to pay for a publication, relying instead on social media and other online content to stay informed. The federal government stepped in to help with direct funding, including a $595 million dollar bailout and a “Special Measures for Journalism” fund that provides tens of millions in cash to numerous publications each year. But one of the inevitable consequences of a government-funded media is that it makes it difficult for the public to trust that such media is independent of the government, and able to report objectively about the government’s decisions....

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Saturday Selections – September 14, 2024

Why not raise the minimum wage to $100? Transgender thinking has infected economics too, with politicians applying the same wishes-can-reshape-reality thinking as they hike the minimum wage. They've decided if they say workers are worth $15 a hour, then they will be. But if such wishing really did make it so, why not hike it to $25 an hour? Or $50? Or as this video (from 7 years back) asks, why not $100? It's because in the real world, the minimum wage is actually an employment ban on anyone who can't bring that amount of value to their employer. Inexperienced workers, handicapped workers, or elderly workers who might work at a slower gear could all be barred from employment. And if we made the minimum wage $100 an hour, that would ban a lot of people. But why is it okay when we ban smaller numbers of people at $15 a hour? And how did it become the government's role to decide not simply whether or not people should be allowed to offer their labor at a lower rate, but whether they should be allowed to work at all? Why did God create viruses and bacteria? While we don't understand all that bacteria and viruses might have done before the Fall into sin, some of their current useful functions give us some clues. 4 arguments against doctor-assisted murder These are 4 really good arguments to stack on top of the foundational truth that our lives are given by God, and therefore are not our own to dispose of as we would. As He has said, don't murder. Psychology of marriage There's an old joke about a band of scientists and researchers who set out to scale Mount Intellect, rising up from the valleys of ignorance. They scrape their way slowly up, and as they finally summit the highest peak, they find a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. God made us for marriage, for commitment, and thus that's so much better for us than "shacking up." And now some psychologists have discovered and explained how making the choice to commit is better for us. Welcome to the summit, gentlemen. A Christian’s practical guide to reproductive technology 3 key takeaways: Doctors create an average of 15 embryos in a single round of IVF. Unfortunately, only 3-7% of all created embryos result in the live birth of a child. The outcomes of IVF are not neutral. Children born through IVF have a higher likelihood of cancer, autism, minor cleft pallet, or a congenital heart defect. A diagnosis or season of infertility does not mean that a couple will never have children; only that it may require more work and time than they initially expected. Is Gen Z really the poorest generation? God forbids covetousness in the 10th Commandment, and one powerful way to counter temptation in this direction is to count our blessings. So, yes, many are worse off than they were just 5 years ago. But even the struggling Gen Z is probably doing a lot better than their grandparents were in the 70s. This video is American, but there's a lot of transfer to what's going on north of the border. ...

News

President Trump runs from his pro-life past

Donald Trump once had the distinction of being the most pro-life president in living memory. In his first term in office, he put into place the Suprem...

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Saturday Selections – September 7, 2024

The importance of "social trust" What can we do when people stop trusting? One common approach is to outsource trust to the government. Get the gover...

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Saturday Selections – August 31, 2024

Click on the titles to go to the linked articles... Jordan Peterson pressed on whether he is Christian or not (10 min) Jordan Peterson has seemingly...

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St. Catharines drops censorship bylaw

Just three weeks before having to appear in court to defend their bylaw that censored pictures of pre-born children, the city of St. Catharines blinke...

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The Olympics as Utopian theater

It’s all a show in the city of man. ***** Even after the controversy of a bizarre opening ceremony, the Olympic Games showed why it is unparalleled in the sports world. Just think of the memes generated from this year’s games. In just a few weeks, we got the “super-chill” Turkish marksman, a Clark Kent of American men’s gymnastics, and the Australian break dancer. Far more than the memes, of course, were stunning athletic performances. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone broke her own world records, but never failed to give glory to God. Katie Ledecky became the most decorated U.S. female Olympian. As one writer described the swimmer, “She is beautifully human. Vulnerable. Not a machine, despite the power with which she moves through the water.” Simone Biles completed a personal redemption tour while also leading the women’s gymnastics team to gold. Also returning to gold was the young U.S. women’s soccer team, now in a new season after the retirement of the grandstanding Megan Rapinoe. And, of course, NBA rivals Lebron James and Steph Curry led Team USA in a come-from-behind win over Serbia before defeating France for the gold. Curry hit four straight three pointers in the last two and a half minutes to secure the win and his place as the greatest shooter anyone has ever seen. This year’s debacle notwithstanding, the opening ceremonies are, typically, a highlight. The drama, spectacle, and pageantry are, in a sense, a glimmer of Eden, an attempt to portray what humanity can be. Vigor, commitment, health, and determination are on full display as the nations of the world offer their treasures. There may be wars and rumors of wars around the globe but, for a moment, the world pretends that all is right. At least, that’s how Snoop Dogg described his experience. But that’s just it. It’s all pretend. Every four years, at the cost of billions of dollars, the world pretends that China isn’t a tyrannical power, that Iran doesn’t murder dissidents, and that Western nations don’t slaughter the unborn by the millions in the name of freedom. It is, in the end, a utopian façade. Little demonstrates this moral frailty more than the villages and stadiums that are built, filled, and then left to rot after the Olympic flame is extinguished. Venues from the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo now stand in ruins from war and weather. Facilities from the Summer Games in Rio held just eight years ago now resemble the set of a post-apocalyptic movie. After the pride of hosting fades, often communities are left financially broken In this way, the Olympics are an example of what Augustine called the city of man. A city of man is self-serving and, ultimately, doomed to fall away. In our world, progressives claim to promote justice but make common cause with genocide in the name of intersectionality. Many conservatives are quick to take on a religious mantle when helpful but just as quick to drop it when no longer useful. Detached from the reality of the City of God, which aims to serve God and is therefore eternal, our imitations of righteousness are doomed to fail and to fall, often spectacularly. It’s all a show, one that doesn’t take the human condition seriously. Similar parallels are offered in Scripture between other cities. Jerusalem stands, in reality and as a metaphor, as the place of God’s Shalom, presence, and redemption. Babylon, from Genesis to Revelation, is an archetype of human pride, oppression, and sin. At Babel, humans sought a name for themselves. At Jerusalem, God’s name is central. No matter how hard Babylon tries to be Jerusalem, a city of man will always be a frail echo of the city of God. Seen correctly, the creativity, production, and athletic prowess of the Olympic Games points to God, Who created these athletes, planners, artists, and producers in His image. The key, however, is to keep straight who is the Creator and who is created, who is Potter and who is clay. That’s what humans tend to get backwards. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. 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. Photo credit: Shutterstock / Hethers...

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Saturday Selections – August 24, 2024

Abe Lincoln with a lesson on lying The smartest politicians don't break promises; like Abe here, they try not to make any promises at all. Pro-life voters need to watch out lest their votes go to politicians who won't be pinned down as to what they'll actually do for the unborn. Aging peacefully It comes to all of us, that moment when we realize that there's that certain something that we enjoyed before, but we have to let go of now because of age. This is a mom writing, but I think guys will empathize too. An old challenge to old earth assumptions 20 years ago creationists sent coal samples to secular labs to test for Carbon-14, which has a half-life of 5,730 years, and shouldn't exist in coal beds that are said to be 50 million, 100 million, and 300 million years old. And yet, it was found. So either those coal beds are much, much younger or.... Well, two decades later, evolutionists still don't have much of an answer to offer. How to minimize digital distractions in your marriage "Do you struggle with digital distractions? Is it sleeping next to your phone? Watching TV at night to 'wind' down? Most of our time is spent in front of a screen instead of being in front of real people – most importantly, our spouses – who are looking to us for connection." When “helping” kids hurts them Christians should be wary of secular psychology (and any Christian counseling that leans heavily on it) as it understands us as minds but not also as souls. It also doesn't recognize our true purpose and true identity (as created by God to glorify and enjoy Him forever) and so can't offer any sort of corrective to patients confused about these most important matters. It's lack of any firm footing means it's liable to fall for the latest thing, as it has in siding with the transgender agenda, pushing the impossible notion of "transitioning" on already troubled patients. And it also means that, as this article details: "...over 40% of young adults have a mental health diagnosis, twice the rate of the general population. So, the generation most treated for psychological well-being is doing the worst psychologically." More unintended consequences One of the premises behind government-run economies is that people are simple. The socialists don't put it quite that way, of course, but that's what they'd need if their governments were to have any chance at managing the economy: citizen's interests, desires, and actions would need to be easy to predict and easy to direct with just a push or pull of the right political lever. But what this video, and the many others in this series, show, is that leaders is government and industry too repeatedly fail at properly predicting how folks are going to act. And if people are complex, then the best government is going to be the one that recognizes its own inability to know, let alone meet, those less than predictable, desires. ...

News

Saturday Selections – August 17, 2024

Click on the titles below to go to the linked articles... The wrong folk think God, the Bible, and Christianity are relevant in the political sphere After Trump was shot, a picture circulated showing Christ with a bandage on his ear – they were equating Trump with the Son of God, and that wasn't the first time either! On the Left, California governor Gavin Newsom's campaign paid for billboards to run in Mississippi that read "Need an abortion? California is ready to help" and underneath were the words from Mark 12:31: "Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these." In the clip below you'll see 50 preachers who are taking their talking points from the Kamala Harris campaign, preaching to their congregations that they need to support one of the most pro-abortion candidates ever. This isn't a reason to keep religion out of politics. It is a reason for God's people to speak up more, lest we abandon the public square to blasphemous pseudo-Christians. SUPERCUT: The week after Biden dropped out of the presidential race, I found over 50 churches hyping Kamala Harris during their worship services, clearly using shared talking points. Here we see some of them sharing the good news of the Vice President's fundraising numbers: pic.twitter.com/Z7BPr8x6VZ — Woke Preacher Clips (@WokePreacherTV) August 9, 2024 How long pets live Parents, if your kids are asking you for a giant tortoise, just say no! They might not eat all that much, and be easy to keep up with, but getting one for your family is a commitment that could last 300 years! To find a pet that won't outlast your children's children, click on the link above for a very helpful chart. Conspiracy fact: there really is a brilliant malevolent force working behind the scenes Peter Mead writes on how Christians are "inclined to bury our heads in the sand regarding evil in this world." We'll affirm Satan is real but won't acknowledge his work "in almost every layer of human influence and authority." And the problem with overlooking our spiritual adversary is that we're liable to miss the spiritual nature of the battle we're in – it's all about God's glory. The Devil would love it if he could get the world to follow their feelings, but he'd also enjoy everyone submitting to an objective reality so long as they do so without holding to God as the Author and Creator of it. When we mistake the battle we're in for some sort of merely political or cultural one, then we'll defend it as such, never mentioning God and robbing Him of the glory that is His due... which is the end the Devil was after in the first place. The curious case of the Christian Reformed Church (10 minute read) "'How many denominations have gone this far down the road toward theological liberalism and then put on the brakes in a significant way?' Monroe asked. None." This is a longer piece, but a fantastic overview of the liberal and orthodox twists and turns that have happened in the CRC denomination over the last 40 years, and in particular the last half dozen. On the brink of plunging into all sorts of sexual perversion, the CRC seems to be solidly reversing course. Praise God! Green Greenland was good A headline from the New Scientist this month read, "Fossils show Greenland was once ice-free – and could be again." That has some rather big implications for our climate change catastrophists who hold that it is a crisis for the Earth to be warmer. A shovel dance? (3 min) I'm not going to bother mentioning the title of the old Western this comes from because this is the best scene in it. And boy is it good! ...

News, Pro-life - Euthanasia

State-sanctioned murder now the 5th leading cause of death in Canada

State-sanctioned murder, euphemistically called “medical assistance in dying,” has quickly become one of the leading causes of death in Canada, according to a new study by the Canadian think tank Cardus. Their report noted that MAiD deaths have increased thirteenfold in the short time since it was legalized in 2016 (growing from 1,018 deaths then to 13,241 now). That makes it the fifth leading cause of death in the country, and the “world’s fastest-growing assisted-dying program." Only 3.5 percent of requests for assisted killing are denied, and that number continues to decrease. The study also noted that “MAiD request can be assessed and provided in a single day.” When doctor-assisted murder was first decriminalized, the courts stressed that it had to be “stringently limited” and “carefully monitored.” But those who argued against euthanasia explained that limits would be impossible to maintain once “my body, my choice” is regarded as a sufficient moral justification for murder. If that justifies the assisted killing of someone sick, why wouldn’t it also justify the killing of someone who is healthy? But murder and suicide are wrong precisely because it isn’t our body, so it isn’t our choice. As God notes in Gen. 9:6 the reason murder is wrong is because He made us in His very Image. In a world where the law doesn’t testify to the gift of life like it used to, the Church has all the more calling to share this positive and life-affirming message through our words and, more importantly, through our deeds. We are surrounded by so many neighbors whose hopes are quickly diminishing as their bodies age or they face sickness. May we seize every opportunity to show them the Gospel of Life, which gives hope in this life and the next....

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News, Pro-life - Euthanasia

State-sanctioned murder now the 5th leading cause of death in Canada