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News

Saturday Selections – Feb. 15, 2025

Charles Darwin's birthday was Feb. 12, so for this edition we are marking that event by featuring a collection of very different rebuttals. Click on the titles for the linked articles.

Your cells are constantly being recycled and repaired... even as they keep running

Every day your DNA experiences 10,000 lost letters of code in every single cell of your body. Your body is like a library of information... that's constantly on fire. As fast as the environment burns down your DNA, a host of DNA "librarians" in your cells builds back what was being burnt down.

That means that, right from the beginning, our DNA needed these repair mechanisms. But these mechanisms need all sorts of DNA to be formed. It's a chicken and egg dilemma – which came first? Both need to have been in place from the beginning, and couldn't have evolved one at a time.

Better science without Darwin

When you presume that all the life around us came about by random mutation, acting without design or purpose, then you're not liable to look to Nature for brilliant design. And devotion to Darwin might have you falling for all sorts of mistakes, like believing that much of our DNA is just junk left over from our previous evolutionary incarnations. Or you'd be liable to look for and try to point out flaws in our design.

But you'd be wrong.

What if, instead of looking to Nature for bad design, scientists starting looking to it for Inspired design? That's what the field of biometrics is all about – looking to Nature for inspiration, because of the brilliant engineering on display.

Evolution can't explain why we blush

Does blushing make you fitter? Nope. In fact, an argument could be made that this honest unconscious reaction might put someone at a disadvantage. That's why Darwin was perturbed by it, because even blushing exposes the insufficiency of his evolutionary theory.

The astonishing self-organizing human embryo

You start as a single cell that then subdivides into all sorts of other different types of cells. But how does the one decide to become all the others? "...how exactly does an organism without any central control self-organize?" The more we learn, the more apparent it is, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

The Darwin devotion detector

Some years back author and scientist William A. Dembski crafted a test that paired statements – one devoted to Darwin, the other not – that could be used by a person to gauge how devoted or not they might be to Darwin. I think this 40-question test could be used by Christians in university to confront classmates willing to listen (interested opposition, not fingers-in-their-ears fools) to expose to them their blind devotion to Darwin, and how it isn't anything to do with science. Here's one pairing, as an example, with the first showing Darwin devotion, and the second lining up better with reality.

  • Darwin’s theory of evolution is as well supported scientifically as Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
  • Putting Darwin’s theory of evolution in the same league as Einstein’s theory of general relativity is an affront to the exact sciences.

The age of the arches

As the article above notes, Arches National Park has about 2,000 natural rock arches, with roughly one collapsing each year and none forming. So, unless there were  millions of arches to start, that makes it seem that these are not the millions of years old they are purported to be. And the article below highlights how they were not formed as they were purported to be either.

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Christian education

Growth in independent schools and homeschooling

“The public school has become a counter-church. It is a powerful institution for the purpose of squeezing out of our children the worldview of the Bible and saturating them with the worldview of Pelagius, Rousseau, or whoever. The school where the Bible is banned has become a weapon of defense as well as of offense for the spirit that resists God’s Word against the spirit that embraces that Word.” Those are the words of Abraham Kuyper over a hundred years ago as he discussed the “schools question” in the Netherlands. His concern over the state of public education was the main catalyst behind his concept of sphere sovereignty. Rather than schools being controlled by the government (or even the church), he envisioned an educational system where schools were truly independent. While Kuyper’s philosophy of education took hold in the Netherlands, the idea of independent schools – and homeschooling – took far longer to take hold in Canada. But one positive social trend in Canada today is the growth of homeschooling and independent schools over the past fifteen years. The “School Enrollment Growth in Canada from 2007-2023” graph charts these changes based on data from Statistics Canada for Canada as a whole and the four provinces in which most Reformed Christians in Canada live. Note the stagnation of the public school system – what Kuyper labeled the counter-church – and the growth of alternative forms of education. Over the last fifteen years, enrollment in the public school system increased by only 6% across Canada. It even declined slightly (-2%) in Ontario. The significant increase in Alberta is mostly due to the rapid growth of Alberta’s school age population. The growth of independent schools Independent schools, on the other hand, experienced four times the growth that public schools did across Canada. British Columbia and Ontario experienced the largest increases at 32%. The trend toward independent schools is accelerating. Not only are independent schools growing, they are growing faster and faster every year on average. For example, in the first three years of this data (2007-2011), the average annual growth rate of independent schools was only 0.2%. In the last three years of this data (2020-2023) the average annual growth rate was 1.3%. And altogether that does add up. Some of this growth is due to existing independent schools getting bigger. Depending on where you live in Canada, perhaps you can see this growth firsthand in your local Reformed school. But some of the growth is from brand new Christian schools. One example that has ties to Reformed churches is a new classical Christian school, Compass Community Learning Centre, in Langley and New Westminster, BC. This Christian school opened their doors a few years ago to provide Christian families with a thoroughly Christian education a little closer to home, in a more communal setting, and using a classic teaching pedagogy that focuses on grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The growth of homeschooling What stands out the most in the graph above is the growth in homeschooling over the past 15 years. A lot of this growth is due to the impact of COVID, government restrictions on public schools, and the adaptation of independent schools in 2020. Prior to 2020, the number of homeschool students grew by an average of 6.3% per year, which was far more than the growth in independent schools (1.5%) and public schools (0.4%). But in the first full school year during COVID, the number of homeschooled students more than doubled, growing 107% in a single year. And while many (35%) of those students eventually returned to public or independent schools, by the end of the 2022-23 school year, many more students continued on the homeschooling track. In the coming years, we will see whether those students stay within the homeschooling track or also choose to go back to a more conventional form of schooling. Why this growth is cause for gratitude This growth in independent and home schools is a win for two reasons. First, it is a win for the principle of parental involvement in education. Virtually every reference to teaching or raising children in Scripture describes parents – not professional teachers – as the educators of their children. For example, right after the second giving of the law, Moses commands: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut. 6:6-7). Now, this doesn’t mean that only parents are allowed to teach their children. As humanity developed and specialized and as knowledge expanded and became more complex, parents needed help with their responsibility to educate their children, leading to the creation of schools. There, professional teachers do much of the actual work of educating children. But it shouldn’t be that parents hand off the education of their children to others and wash their hands of the matter. That responsibility ultimately remains with parents. (And there is a whole body of evidence that suggests that the more involved a parent is in the education of their child, the better that child will do at school.) Public schools, however, have increasingly wrested this authority away from parents in all sorts of ways. The centralization of power in a provincial ministry of education limits the authority of local elected school boards. In much of eastern Canada, elected school boards have been eliminated entirely. Some public schools withhold information from parents about their children, such as if they are socially transitioning at school. On the other hand, most independent schools strive to deeply involve parents in the education of their children. Many independent schools simply wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the passion, time, money, and involvement of parents. And, of course, homeschooling is the most direct form of parents taking responsibility for the education of their children. Every child that is removed from the public school system and attends an independent school or is homeschooled is a win for the idea that parents – not governments or even schools or teachers – are the primary players in education. Second, the growth in independent schools and homeschooling is a win for Christian education. Public Catholic schools aside, public schools are secular schools. For example, the BC School Act requires that: “All schools and Provincial schools must be conducted on strictly secular and nonsectarian principles. The highest morality must be inculcated, but no religious dogma or creed is to be taught in a school or Provincial school.” Teaching a Christian worldview or the Bible as truth simply is not possible in most public schools. But it is possible to base education around a Christian worldview in independent schools and through homeschooling. Now, not every independent school is a Christian school. Not every homeschooling parent is a Christian parent. While the data on what percentage of independent schools and homeschooling students are Christian isn’t easily accessible, a 2016 Fraser Institute report found that 38.5% of all independent schools were Christian schools. They enrolled 37.1% of all independent school children. And yet, the existence of a wide variety of independent schools and homeschooling movements helps give Christian schools and Christian parents the freedom to educate their students and children in the fear of the LORD. The larger, the more diverse, and the more pluralistic the independent education and homeschooling sector is, the safer Christian schools are from the overreach of a post-Christian government. And so, while there may be many disappointing developments in public schools across the country, one bright spot that we can thank God for is the growth of independent schools and homeschooling across our country....

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Assorted

Christians don’t retire

Retirement is unbiblical. Before you think that I’m accusing everyone over the age of 65 of unbiblical behavior, let me lay out the case for why Reformed Christians should be wary of the concept of retirement. God created men and women to work – He placed Adam in the Garden of Eden to “work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). This was an application of the cultural mandate to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion” (Gen. 1:28). Although the fall into sin made work toilsome (Gen. 3:17-19), God continues to call each and every person to work and to labor for His Kingdom. Now, this work is not just paid employment. Paid employment is work, but caring for children is work too. Doing chores inside the house and out in the yard is work. Volunteering is work. Serving and ministering to others is work. Going hard six days a week Throughout our entire lives we are called to work six days of every week, with the gift of regular rest on every seventh day. And Scripture is full of rebukes for those who shirk work. Proverbs calls upon the sluggard to consider the industrious ways of the ant (Prov. 6:6-11). In the parable of the talents, Jesus condemns the servant who buried his talent in the ground, exclaiming, “You wicked and slothful servant!” (Matt. 25:26). In 2 Thess. 3:11-12, Paul warns against idleness, having heard that some “walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.” Beyond just providing for ourselves and our families, a Christian is also called to “labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Eph. 4:28). We are called to work as we are able, for the good of ourselves, our neighbors, and ultimately for the glory of God. Worldly view of retirement But our wealthy, twenty-first-century culture has invented the concept of retirement from work. Public policy and cultural expectations encourage people to work until they are 64 years and 364 days old and then quit working entirely on their 65th birthday. From that day on, our culture promises that life can be one of leisure, full of exotic vacations, games of golf, and doting on grandchildren. It is some sort of horrible, evil thing if people have to work past 65. It is this caricature of retirement that I suggest is unbiblical. There is no biblical precedent for retiring from work or picking an arbitrary age to stop serving in the Kingdom of God. Perhaps some will push back and say that rest is good and biblical. And so it is. But perpetual rest on this side of glory is not. The fourth commandment, although the emphasis is on rest, still commands “six days you shall do all your work.” That is the pattern that God gave from creation. Our eternal rest doesn’t start when we reach the age of 65. That rest is only to be found in the life to come. From one line of work to another And so, to those who are retired from their paid employment or whose retirement is on the horizon, Reformed Christians should encourage each other to look around for ways to consider laboring in God’s Kingdom as they are able. Perhaps that is paid employment. Perhaps that is looking after grandchildren. Perhaps that is serving more in the church or volunteering in the community. (And it is worth repeating as you are able. The diminished health and energy of old age can and do limit opportunities for service.) There are any number of suggestions for service that could be made, so I’ll just make one from my personal experience. This is for the older men in the church. My home church in Abbotsford is very blessed to be a young congregation. It is literally overflowing with families and young children. As beautiful as that is, it comes with challenges too. One of those challenges is that many of the potential office-bearers are young and haven’t served as office-bearers before. I just finished my first term as a deacon and, aside from one experienced brother, the other five of us were first-time office-bearers in our twenties and thirties. We all served to the best of our abilities, but doubtless our youth and inexperience shone through many times. It is in situations like these that retired office-bearers have a perfect opportunity to mentor, advise, and encourage younger office-bearers, perhaps going along on visits, joining with a younger office-bearer in prayer over his task, sharing book recommendations, or offering their expertise and advice on difficult situations. The opportunities for service throughout retirement are endless. But the central point is that we view our entire lives as devoted to service of the Kingdom of God. Not just our first 65 years....

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Pornography

A church response is needed to stop the porn crisis

Parental controls are not enough ***** Over the past several years, I have spoken in dozens of Christian communities to thousands of students and parents on the issue of digital porn addiction. Ten years ago, many parents thought the warnings about the digital porn threat were well-intentioned, but exaggerated. These days, most people are aware that porn use is swiftly becoming a norm in Christian communities. Not a single Christian high school I have spoken at did not have a significant number of students struggling with pornography. Protecting your home doesn’t protect your kids So, how do parents take steps to effectively porn-proof their homes? Many parents try to do just that. They install internet filters. They monitor the devices their children have or have access to. They use Covenant Eyes, Qustodio, or other accountability software. But time and again, frustrated parents tell me that their children have been exposed to explicit content anyways, because the parents of the friends their children hang out with do not take these precautions. Additionally, parents who actively monitor the internet access of their children by not giving them a smartphone face constant fights with their children if they are among the few who do not have one. The reality is that if Christian communities are going to respond effectively to the crisis of porn addiction among the young, it will take a community response. Yes, it is essential that individual households ensure that internet access is both restricted and closely monitored. But this is clearly not enough. In fact, secular governments are for the most part ahead of church leaders in recognizing this reality, which is why American state legislatures, the UK government, and other governments across Europe are grappling with the problem of how to keep pornography away from children. They recognize that this is a social problem requiring a robust collective solution, and Christian communities must recognize this, as well. Christian communities are, for the most part, lagging behind secular leaders in recognizing this problem and considering collective solutions. This needs to be “all in” In a recent essay in First Things titled “Parents Can’t Fight Porn Alone,” in which they make the case for government restrictions on digital pornography, Clare Morell and Brad Littlejohn explain why communities need to work together: “Pornography’s addictive properties raise the stakes. Not only are children ill equipped to make rational choices about whether to consume a product, but their developing brains are more likely than adult brains to become hooked, with lifelong consequences. Adults may abuse alcohol, tobacco, and porn (indeed, for porn, there is no good “use,” but the law cannot suppress every vice), but they are less likely to become addicted if the first exposure occurs after age eighteen, when their brains are more fully developed. And the addictive qualities of porn make a mockery of parental controls: Once a child has encountered porn for the first time (perhaps through a friend, or on a parent’s device, or before the parents realized they needed to put controls on the child’s device), his or her brain will be programmed to hunt for it again and again, so that any and every loophole or glitch is an opening to ongoing porn consumption. “Too often, portals to porn come in the form of friends. For many American children, the dark journey with pornography begins on the school bus, at recess, or even at youth group. Even when parents set up content-filtering regimes for their own families, they cannot control what other families in their communities are doing. With 95 percent of teens carrying around mini-computers in their pockets, it is all too easy for a peer with an unfiltered smartphone to expose another child to pornography. An Oxford Internet Institute study thus estimated that for a single child to be shielded from online pornography in any given year, at least seventeen households in his or her network (and possibly as many as seventy-seven) would need to be employing filters.” Porn is looking for them Re-read that for a moment: At least seventeen households in the network of a single child need to be monitoring and restricting internet usage in order to protect him or her from online porn for a single year. And as I emphasize in my presentations, it doesn’t matter whether your kids are looking for porn – if they’re online, porn is looking for them. As Morell and Littlejohn put it: “Today, the average home has multiple internet-connected devices: smart TVs, laptops, iPads, gaming consoles, and smartphones for every member of the family, not to mention school-issued devices. Each of these ‘smart’ technologies may have hundreds of individual apps, many with their own in-app internet browsers, which means there may be thousands of points of entry to the internet in a single home. A minor using Snapchat, for instance, can reach Pornhub in just five clicks without ever leaving the app. “The abundance of portals requires several different parental control solutions, few of which are intuitive or wholly reliable. Apple’s Screen Time filter, one of the best, requires seventeen steps to set up properly, has been known to stop working without warning, and even when fully functional can be hacked by tech-savvy teens. Better-designed third-party parental control apps are barred from accessing and regulating many of the most popular – and dangerous – apps, such as Discord, Snapchat, and TikTok. And if a parent, recognizing that no one solution is comprehensive, tries to install more than one external control app on the same device, the apps will often conflict with one another. “Parents thus find themselves losing the arms race against Big Tech and Big Porn. This is dire, since children do not need to go looking for pornography; it finds them on social media. The porn industry has adopted the social media influencer model, with porn performers promoting their content on platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, X, Facebook, and Instagram, in order to entice users (many of them minors) to click through to their own sites.” Unsurprisingly, many parents despair. Plenty of parents eventually give up, worn down by the begging and badgering of their children and the lack of community support for their decisions about smartphones and internet-capable devices. If all the other kids have them, they can’t be that bad, right? Porn has been around forever, and most people turned out okay, didn’t they? If we are taking this problem more seriously than our community leadership, we’re probably being paranoid or going overboard, aren’t we? It is far easier to cave, cover our eyes, and hope for the best – but this invariably has devastating consequences, many of which I detail in a comprehensive chapter in my recent book How We Got Here: A Guide to Our Anti-Christian Culture. A growing problem If we are to protect our children from being exposed to explicit content and developing porn addictions – and again, I emphasize that this is a significant and growing problem in every Christian community I have visited – we will need to work together. Christian communities should treat pornography addiction with the same level of seriousness we would apply to a wave of addiction to other drugs. Pornography is more insidious because its effects, at first, are less visible – but they are no less destructive. They rewire and fundamentally transform the mind, alter our ability to relate to the opposite sex, and profoundly poison our ability to have healthy relationships. Thus, community leaders should address the pornography crisis head on. Yes, parents should ensure that every internet-capable device is locked down and monitored. But we must also work with other parents and ensure that the networks we are a part of are pulling in the same direction. (As the American psychologist Dr. Leonard Sax put it in a presentation I attended recently, it is the task of parents to find out if the household their child is visiting has unrestricted internet access.) Christian schools should develop and enforce rigid policies on smartphone use at school and, ideally, cultivate a community with a collective standard that recognizes the dangers of giving teenagers smartphones to begin with. We are all in this together, and we cannot protect our children from pornography if other parents are not willing to do the same. Time to catch up Again, secular experts are ahead of most Christian communities on this issue. Intellectuals such as Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness) are driving a new consensus: Giving a child (and that very much includes teenagers) a smartphone (or device with unfiltered internet access) is one of the most damaging decisions a parent can make. Morell and Littlejohn are right: Parents cannot do this alone. But they shouldn’t have to, either. Christian communities are lagging behind secular governments and experts on this issue. It is time we caught up. This is reprinted with permission from TheBridgehead.ca where it was first published under the title “Parental controls are not enough: A community response is needed to stop the porn crisis” and where Jonathon Van Maren blogs and also hosts a regular podcast....

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In a Nutshell

Tidbits – February 2025

Are there little green men? While there seems no biblical reason to preclude finding simpler life on other planets – plants and even animals – Christians have good reason to doubt we’d ever find intelligent life. It’d be hard to fathom how they would have fallen in Adam’s fall, and how they could be saved in Jesus’ crucifixion, if they don’t share the same human nature both shared. So, then, what are we to make of the many claims of alien encounters? In his book Alien Intrusion, creationist Gary Bates makes the case that some of these were probably demonic encounters instead, with the fallen angels masquerading as aliens. Bates makes a good case, noting how many of the “abductees” were heavily into the occult at the time, which may have opened them to demonic possession. In a recent article, a secular writer, Ron Unz makes a very different case, also compelling, that it is all, or at least largely, pure bunk. He writes: “Sightings of UFOs and aliens have been reported for decades, but the only solid evidence provided usually consisted of a few blurry photos, unable to convince anyone except true believers and sometimes even plausibly accused of being faked. “However, that situation would have completely changed in 2009 with the release of the Apple iPhone 3GS, which introduced the feature of video recording. So for the last fifteen years, the vast majority of Americans have always been carrying those sorts of smartphones, which double both as still cameras and easy video recording devices. If a noteworthy UFO or some strange alien creature suddenly appeared, within seconds a powerful photographic or video record could be produced, documenting that reality in extremely convincing fashion. “Consider, for example, that immense UFO – larger than three football fields – that allegedly hovered over the heads of those five solid Maryland citizens at their dinner-party. If smartphones had existed in 1976, three or four of those individuals would surely have produced a convincing video record of that remarkable encounter, and with exactly the same scene captured from several different angles by such camera footage, a fabrication would have been impossible. Those Maryland eyewitnesses could have sold their collection of videos to our television stations for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the reality of UFOs would have immediately become accepted worldwide. Yet although Dolan claims that America alone has ‘something like 10,000 genuine UFO sightings each year,’ absolutely nothing like this has ever happened.” His take? “I personally regard this argument from silence as absolutely conclusive evidence against the reality of such UFOs.” Christ or chaos Whether it’s folks on the cusp of becoming Christian, like Jordan Peterson seems to be, or outright atheists, like Richard Dawkins, there are a lot of people who like the notion of being “culturally Christian.” That’s the trappings of Christianity – the order, work ethic, inherent human worth, equality of the sexes, do-unto-others-as-you’d-like-done-to-you morality, and more that are the fruits of Christianity – but without having to actually bow at the feet of Jesus as Lord and King. Canadian apologist Wesley Huff took on this notion in a recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. “I have a friend, Andy Bannister. He's out in the UK, and he says if you take Christ out of Christian, all you're left with is Ian. And Ian's a great guy but he’s not going to save you from your sins.” Again! Again! Again! A child never tires of being thrown in the air. In Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton wondered if, in this endless sense of wonder, they were more God-like than somber adults. “It might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. … It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.” There are no atheists In his book Choosing My Religion, R.C. Sproul argues that “...I don't think too many people who have a firm hold on reality can technically be called atheists. Recently a man came to believe in God at a meeting of atheists. The speaker declared that he was going to give God three minutes to prove Himself by striking him dead. The man stopped speaking and stared at the clock on the wall. In perfect silence one minute passed, then two and at least three. As the deadline passed there was an audible exhalation of air throughout the room. People had been holding their breath. ‘I knew in that moment that we were a bunch of hypocrites. There wasn't a real atheist in the place,’ the man said.” There are no atheists II Romans 1:18-20 says that there are no true atheists; everyone, at some level, knows there is a God. As Paul puts it, "since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen... so that people are without excuse.” Sye Ten Bruggencate gave an illustrative example of this deep-down knowledge by sharing a conversation he had while doing street evangelism. “This fellow, in his fifties, he comes up on his bicycle. And he tells me that two of his brothers committed suicide. He said that after his brothers committed suicide, he swore at God. He was angry with God. “He happened to have a book on Hinduism on his bicycle that he had picked up at the dollar store just a day or two before. And you could tell that he'd read through it, because he wanted answers, or so he said. He said, ‘You know this Brahman, this oneness of being, I can get into that. I like it. This makes a lot of sense to me; I could get into Hinduism.’ “So I said to him, ‘Tell me, is that the God you were angry at when your brothers committed suicide?’ “He started crying. “People know... they know God exists.” Choosing to be blind A question every creationist has to confront at some point is, “How can so many very smart people be wrong about evolution?” One answer is provided in Ezekiel 12:2 where God describes Israel as a rebellious people that "have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear." We’ve all been this willfully blind and deliberately blind sort at some time, and if you don’t recall it in yourself, you’ve surely seen it in kids – your son, standing there with a cookie in his hand, insisting that he doesn’t, in fact, have a cookie in his hand. Richard Lewontin once explained how this choice to be blind has also been made by secular scientists when it comes to evolution. To be clear, this is no creationist talking here: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Limited RAM I was recently talking to someone who explained that they knew quite a bit about the Middle East, though “I can’t recall most of it right now.” I loved the way he put that. It’s one thing to have just the right response stored away somewhere in our brain, and quite another thing to be able to pull it up at just the moment we need it. I think many of us have this same problem – we might have an adequately-sized "mental hard drive" but it seems most of us have limited RAM storage. "Banned" books Cartoonist Eddie Eddings made this provocative suggestion on his blog: “When you see a display of ‘Most Banned Books’ at a bookstore or online – ask them why they didn't include the Holy Bible. It is not only the best-selling book of all time – it is also the most banned.” Wit and wisdom of Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell is a 94-year-old American economist who may or may not believe in God – he never talks about Him – but who most certainly has a keen understanding of human nature. What follows are a half dozen quotes that highlight his biblically-aligned insights into man’s fallen nature. “What the welfare system and other kinds of government programs are doing is paying people to fail. Insofar as they fail, they receive the money. Insofar as they succeed, even to a moderate extent, the money is taken away.” “What exactly is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?”“Much of what are called ‘social problems’ consists of the fact that intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world. From this they conclude that it is the real world which is wrong and needs changing.” “One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.” “There are 3 questions that would destroy most arguments of the Left. The first is, ‘Compared to what?’ The second is, ‘At what cost?’ And the third is, ‘What hard evidence do you have?’” “How long do politicians have to keep on promising heaven and delivering hell before people catch on and stop getting swept away by rhetoric?” ...

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Assorted

Why write?

You might not make a lot of money writing, but you can have an impact ***** It’s been said that all that is needed to become a writer is the strong desire to say something. Writing is simply taking your thoughts and research and organizing them on paper, or in your computer, or on your blog, to prove a point or tell a story. It may soothe someone’s soul, clear up a dispute, record family history, challenge someone to live a more godly life, or simply brighten a person’s day with humor or appreciation. This issue marks the 20th anniversary of my first article in Reformed Perspective, and over the years I’ve had people ask me how they could get started in writing. Sometimes what they mean is, “How can I make money off of writing?” and the short answer is, that probably isn’t a good motivation to write… at least not for most of us. I heard at a Christian writers' conference that with most books you might only make about a dollar off each one, so unless someone famous promotes your book, you won’t earn much. Magazines pay a bit, and if you can get into one with a larger circulation, it will pay more. Newspapers may take articles on a volunteer basis, or give you $25 (for the 6 hours you spent on it!). But getting paid is only one reason for honing your writing ability. In her book The Hidden Art of Homemaking, Edith Schaeffer shared that she thought there was all sorts of “art found in the ordinary areas of everyday life.” “Each person has, I believe, some talent which is unfulfilled in some hidden area of his being – a talent which could be expressed and developed.” Schaeffer pointed out that the ability to write ought to be used to express our creativity and/or to bless others, and not just considered as a way to possibly earn money. She gave many examples of how one might use writing in daily life, such as letters of appreciation, explanation or persuasion; poems, anecdotes, adventure, humor, family history, or stories given as a gift. Writing also helps the writers themselves organize their thoughts and process their feelings – as one best-selling author put it, “I write to find out what I think.” This is true of journaling and of writing fiction, as it can aid you in processing your own thoughts and emotions through your characters. So how did I get started? Let me outline how it has progressed for me. Writing just for fun I discovered in grade school that I enjoyed writing. In 5th grade I wrote 50 stories in 6 weeks to earn an A, and a funny poem in 6th grade that was well-received by my classmates. In high school I found essays very easy to write. However, when I got to college, my previous attempts were deemed "average" and I was challenged to improve. My professor said, "Somebody has to write the books and tracts and magazine articles – why not you?" I kept that advice in mind over the years. When I taught English Grammar and Composition for 5 years, I honed my abilities while seeking to inspire my students as I had been inspired. My interest in writing didn't stop when I got married and had 6 kids. I found opportunities to write for various company and club newsletters for free. I wrote occasional poems for family members, and composed songs for my children. I wrote Sunday School lessons for little children. I also wrote a letter to the sellers of a house we dearly wanted to purchase – and that letter caused us to win the bid! I wrote three articles for free for our local newspaper, which turned out to be good listable experience on my résumé since the articles were posted online. I also attended Christian writers' conferences. These seminars provided advice, encouragement, and connections with seasoned writers and publishers. One thing led to another We cannot know what we might do that will lead us to something else. As far as paid writing goes, here is how my journey has progressed: In 2005, with high hopes, I sent an article to Reformed Perspective. After improvements, my first and second articles were published. Then I was on a roll, tackling numerous topics for my own column, entitled "Soup and Buns." An article about those earlier Sunday School lessons that I had written with a friend, led to an Orthodox Presbyterian Church in California hiring me to write a 2-year curriculum entitled “Bible Overview for Young Children” with matching topics for ages 2-6 and 6-9. Copies have been sold to churches, families, and Ladies' Bible Study groups and given to missionaries. In 2009, I published a book, a collection of Reformed Perspective articles, entitled Soup and Buns: Nourishment from God's Word for Your Daily Struggles. From 2010 to 2013 I began writing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) paragraphs for clients' websites. Each paragraph of 350-500 words paid from $3 to $9 each. I found the opportunities through Upwork.com and wrote about everything from credit cards to chicken recipes. After a month using Upwork.com, I bid on three requests for community newsletter articles in small towns about an hour away. Note: those freebie newspaper articles I wrote a few years back were the proof to this new company that I knew how to write. They got me the job! One thing led to another, and soon I was invited to apply for a full-time position as their Publication Manager. I have continued to write for Reformed Perspective, and occasionally for Una Sancta (a Free Reformed Churches of Australia publication) and New Horizons (the OPC denominational magazine). I have a new book entitled Life and Breath and Everything which contains over 50 articles first published between 2010 and 2024. Encouragement The best writing teacher I ever encountered assigned numerous projects to her 7th graders, and graded them only on content. She wanted them to express, explain, or exult, not be exasperated! Each student then chose their favorite 3 projects and cleaned up all the grammar and punctuation in them for their final grade. If you had a teacher that frightened you away from writing by marking you down for each misplaced comma and word on every project, don't think that you cannot write. Write. Express yourself! If someone else is going to see it, fix it up before you deliver it. Very rarely is a first draft perfect. Conclusion In Ecclesiastes 9:10, we read, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." Schaeffer's book applies this to writing, but also to other forms of creativity, such as sketching, painting, cooking, gardening, or music. We all have God-given skills that can be used in our daily lives. The important thing is to start doing it, and then see where one thing might lead to another. Sharon's new book “Life and Breath and Everything” is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. Her first book “Soup and Buns” and her “Bible Overview for Young Children” are available by contacting her at [email protected]....

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Economics - Home Finances

“Honey I blew the budget!”

A FEW THOUGHTS ON GETTING BACK IN THE BLACK AFTER TAKING A PLUNGE IN THE RED “Honey I blew the budget!” Do those words sound familiar to you?  Were you one of many Canadian couples that made a New Year’s resolution to build a budget and live according to it?  And February 14th came along and you blew it?  Or perhaps the budget was blown before you even started because your Christmas spending made the budget a non-event? Or perhaps it is a much less dramatic event that got you off to a bad start: you just can’t seem to stay within the amounts you had agreed on. How to start: prayer Let’s see if a frank discussion of some potential issues can benefit us all.  Before we do that I believe that everyone should begin their budget process with prayer.  Pray that God would grant you the courage you need to be honest with yourself and your spouse as you build the budget. Also pray that God will grant you a sense of satisfaction with the gifts He does grant. Pray that God remove the sense of covetousness from your heart. Pray that God would forgive your sense of entitlement if that is something you struggle with. A sense of entitlement? What do I mean with that last line?  In my business I often hear the following excuse when a couple comes to me and they are having serious difficulty making ends meet. Often it is because one or both of them have what I call “a strong sense of entitlement.”  They say things like, “We deserved that one-week vacation in Mexico because we both worked very hard these past three months.” Or, “I deserve that new dress or new suit, because I have not treated myself to anything new for a long time now.” Or perhaps you blew it on Valentines Day; you dropped in at the flower shop on your way home and purchased a dozen roses for your wife and then, when you got home, you told her, “Honey, I am taking you out for dinner tonight!” So you take her to that very special (read expensive) restaurant downtown.  The dozen roses are $25 and the dinner was $100.  But your entertainment budget for the month was $30. So what do we do now? Well, the temptation now is to reduce your contribution to the church for the month because the church, after all, has lots of other people that can pay. No easy way, but there is a way So, how can we deal with these kinds of blown budgets? Discipline. One word only. Discipline. There is no easy way to deal with this temptation.  Once again, let me urge you to pray.  In John 15 Jesus encourages his disciples to bear good fruit and He also says, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (verse 7).  You see! Jesus clearly says it.  Of course we need to keep this in its context. Jesus is saying this in light of His other comments regarding the bearing of much fruit.  I take this to mean that there is a relationship between what we are to ask for and bearing fruit. So, pray that God will help you in your struggle with covetousness.  Or ask God to grant you His peace and satisfaction so that you are truly at peace with what He gives you and you don’t just use that Visa credit card that makes it so easy to grab “stuff” that God has not granted you. Looking at the grocery budget But let’s move on, because there may be other ways we can help you with your budget. Let’s take a hard look at your grocery budget. Do you really think $800 per month is what it takes to provide a family of five, two parents and three children, with all that is needed? Perhaps we can find a way to do this for $500. This is not always the most fun part of running a household but perhaps you can make it a little more enjoyable. First, it’s vitally important that you plan a menu for every day of the week. If you know that Monday you are going to have chicken and rice and a vegetable for dinner, then the two weeks before you can keep an eye on the flyers and purchase that chicken when it is on sale at one of the grocery stores.  If you put together a planned menu for the entire month, you have a great weapon that you can use in your battle with the budget.  If pork comes on sale this week and you know that there is pork planned for next Thursday’s dinner, buy it now when it is on sale, and freeze it. Or if your family regularly has oatmeal for breakfast, (I know, oatmeal is old school, but it’s healthy and it’s cheap) then find a store that sells oatmeal in bulk - leave the individual packages on the shelf and buy it in bulk. You will easily save 20 per cent. As I said earlier, grocery shopping is not always the most fun, but what you can also try is to band together with one or two of your friends. I know, for example, that here in Alberta one of the grocery outlets will give you a $25 gift card when you buy $250 dollars of groceries.  So join forces. Go to the store with two or three of you. Make sure you all have a list - impulse buying is dynamite on grocery budgets (it blows them up!). When you go through the check-out, ask the cashier to sub-total at each person’s purchases. That saves you the hassle of having to total it up at home.  And then share the gift card on your next trip. Try to purchase fruits and vegetables that are in season (when possible).  In the summer and fall, find a farmer’s market and buy some extra beans and carrots and freeze them. Don’t improvise In my experience though, it is not the grocery dollars that destroy a budget; it is the impulse buying. It is the idea that I must have a new 40 or 50-inch television, even if that means it goes on a credit card. Or, it is the new stereo for the car or the new cellphone with all the latest technical stuff. Or even just the cellphone plan that we just have to have - the one with unlimited texting! - or the cable plan that has all those sports channels. or the new chesterfield and chair that we just have to have. The unexpected expenditure Some other things that can blow a budget are things like a hot water heater that bursts, or a furnace or a refrigerator that packs it in. Now these truly are valid items that need to be dealt with. But once again, a few tips may be beneficial. Check out the nearest used furniture and appliance outlet or go through the local free “buy and sell” magazine. You may be surprised at how often you can find a very good used furnace or a refrigerator (I have a used hot water heater stored away just in case).  The wealthy in your town or city often will be replacing perfectly good mid-efficiency furnaces for a high-efficiency furnace and often you can buy their used one for as little as $200. Insurance There are some other areas in which we can save money as well.  One of the areas I often look at with my clients is the cost of all their insurance.  Call to a few other brokers and see if the premium you are paying to insure your home really is the best premium available. If you are not in BC or Manitoba, check the rate on your car insurance as well. Another high cost is the cost that many young people pay for life insurance.  The life insurance industry will go to quite some lengths to show you why you need a million dollars of life insurance and a further $200,000 critical illness policy.  But I would suggest that you look at that more carefully.  Also look at the type of life insurance that you have.  Ask the insurance salesman why he might be recommending whole life or universal life insurance when a 20-year-term policy at less than half the price may be all you really need. You won’t live like your parents Another mistake we often make is we compare what we have to what we had when we were still living with our parents.  But remember, our parents have been working for 20 plus years and are often at the top of their pay scale while we are starting at the bottom of the pay scale.  Once again, at risk of sounding repetitious, be satisfied with what God grants you. Greed and covetousness are sins that are spoken of in many places in God’s Word and these are sins that we need to fight against daily. So, if we go back to our initial statement, “I blew the budget,” don’t despair. Ask God to bless your attempt to start the process again. And do not be afraid to start a third or a fourth or even a tenth time.  Living within a budget is a tough thing to do and it does require some determination.  But when it works it works well....

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News

Saturday Selections – Jan. 18, 2025

Click on the titles to go to the linked articles... Motorized machines in your cells? Yes there are! Kinesin are "motorized transport machines" that transport materials around the cell to their proper locations – that's why they are known as the "the workhorses of the cell." Oops, I locked my wife in the chicken coop! This is Ray Comfort with the most original plug for a gospel tract that I've ever read. Why true charity can only blossom under capitalism This article starts with some $10 words, but makes the point that: "If a pickpocket robs Peter to pay Paul, the pickpocket is not being charitable. And neither is Peter, because he had no choice in the matter." It is not care if the government does it – it is compulsion. And if the government has to do it because no one else will, that only shows the extent of that uncaringness. As a single man, I felt little pressure to get married. I wish I had. (10 minute read) Not all are called to marriage. But in a culture that hates marriage, marriage needs its defenders... and nudgers. Also important here is the idea that Christians can defend one thing without then becoming guilty of denigrating the other – ie. that marriage is being defended does not mean that those who are single are necessarily being attacked or shamed. Some singles are being called out, but only those who are being passive about it. Life passes us by – we bury our talents (Matthew 25:14-30) – when we don't make choices. 10 fantastic books to understand Genesis The producer of the documentary Is Genesis History? has 10 books to recommend for doing a deep dive. Buy dirt (4 min) A celebration of family, marriage, hard work, and blowing up your TV. And dirt. That too. ...

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Gender roles

Striving to be godly men

A men's conference that had to turn hundreds away can now be watched online ***** I don’t think I can quite grasp the measure of tension that must have seized the hearts of those three young men on the morning of November 2. Months before they had together hatched the concept of a Men’s Conference pitched to encourage men to provide support to one another in the abundant strife of this mortal life. They’d cobbled together a web presence to push out the concept, had highlighted the featured speakers and invited expressions of intent to join the effort. Slowly momentum for the event had grown. A few dozen said they’d come…, then a hundred, two hundred…, five hundred – and ultimately more than 750 men from across Ontario (and beyond!) raised a finger to commit to coming to Smithville to attend the 2024 Strive Conference! But the venue could seat only 550; the three spearheading the initiative had to tell more than 200 men that they were placed on a waiting list. Why would three family men expend the effort to organize a Men’s Conference? Why seek to capture its purpose under the term Strive? And why would so many men give up their normal Saturday routines to seek encouragement to strive together? What was this huge interest saying? This was autumn 2024. For months and years already Christian straight men had been told to sit down and shut up; it was time for women to give leadership, for people of alternate sexual orientation to shine, for minorities of all sorts to take the reins. How were the sidelined meant to respond to that signal? The three men who birthed this Strive Conference saw the need to encourage men to push back against this effort to emasculate Christian men. As the autumn of 2024 unfolded, awareness grew across our civilization that men needed to dare to be men. Instead of sitting down placidly and passively, men should boldly strive to be the men God created us to be. More than 750 men from some 14 denominations understood the need and sought encouragement in the battle. But planning a conference is one thing. Making sure it runs smoothly is another, especially when attendance demonstrates the Strive concept hit a nerve. Would the plans deliver?? I dare to say that Scott, Dan & Kevin had to be men to handle the nervous tension that invariably dominated their collective persona that morning. Strive The term “strive” appears in numerous passages of Scripture in the context of encouraging Christians in the battles of faith. The passage that featured in this Strive Conference was Phil 1:27f, where the apostle Paul instructed his readers: “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.” The concept of Christian men battling alongside each other in the face of serious opposition lies at the heart of God’s will for His people as we live in our present world. Such striving needs encouragement, equipping, arming. Three speakers had been lined up to open the Word of God for us listeners eager to understand better how we can best strive side by side to be the men God wants us to be. Speakers Dr Will denHollander, professor of New Testament at the Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary, started us off with an address under the promising title: “Be Complete: the Word of God for the Man of God” (asking our attention for 2 Tim 3:16f). On the basis of that Scripture, he drew out that the “man of God” has all the resources he needs to “be complete, equipped for every good work” – for the Lord God has given us a God-breathing Bible that prepares us to handle all the hard questions of our day. The obstacle we face is not a lack of resources to handle the battles of life but is rather that we too often choose to give some other activity greater priority over reading and wrestling with God’s divine Word in the face of today’s challenges. So we end up floundering in the dark in the midst of those challenges, unable to function as the men of God we otherwise can be. The speaker’s public admission to his own personal struggles added considerable credence to his encouragement to us to be men of the Word – both personally and side-by-side. Dr. Ian Wildeboer, pastor at Mercy Christian Church in Hamilton, followed with an address that could not help but hold the attention of today’s men: "Men in covenant with God: Guarding our hearts and those we love from Sodom." He ably laid a finger on the fact that Lot chose to live in Sodom and made his decision on the basis of present-day comforts. The potential price to his family did not seem to play a role in making the decision or in sticking with it. We cannot get out of our world, but we can certainly take responsibility for how living in our world impacts our families. Here was a challenge to us to have our eyes wide open to the abundant attacks of our families and how we men can best strive side by side to protect those whom God has entrusted to our care so that in turn they flourish in God’s service. After a hearty lunch of pulled pork on a bun capably served by a number of ladies from the John Calvin Christian School in Smithville (and the bonus of lots of valuable heart-to-heart conversations among the attendees), a third talk followed; Rev Al Besuyen, pastor of Zion United Reformed Church in Sheffield, encouraged us to “Strive for Godliness in our leisure time.” Speaking from personal experience, he pressed on us that misuse of leisure time can become a trap that takes us to places where we cannot strive side by side as men of God. He urged us to recognize that the time we receive has purpose: it’s not for self and personal preferences but is opportunity to serve the other in service to the Master of all time. In service to others we’re also making ourselves available for another to encourage ourself. A panel discussion followed the three speeches, under the capable leadership of Rev Rolf denHollander from Living Light Canadian Reformed Church of Grimsby. As he pulled the material of the day together with the assistance of the three speakers, perhaps the most unforgettable moment was when a brother, once a slave to alcohol, expressed the fervent hope that soon he could drink the wine new in the kingdom of God with Christ himself. Till then, total abstinence. Yes, it’s a fight, one in which we need one another. His public testimony was distinctly an inspiration to many. Singing Interspersed throughout the day were multiple opportunities for the assembled men to sing the praises of the God in whose service we battle. 550 men on their feet, under the leadership of capable musicians using various instruments – it truly was momentous, stirring, most heartening. And then the accompaniment ceased… and 550 men were on their own, side by side leaning into the privilege of raising voices and hearts to God Most High with eager abandon, each line building on the previous in volume and joy and enthusiasm – as here and there men reached up a hand to dry an eye at the sheer beauty and majesty of together delighting in the God whose servants we may be. To so many of us Ps. 150 will never be sung the same again. Example In concluding remarks, a grateful participant made mention of the fact that God’s first words to the man Adam was the instruction to guard and keep the garden – for God knew there was an enemy out there intent on hijacking God’s world. Where Adam failed, Christ Jesus did not. Now the task still to guard God’s world remains. Organizers Dan and Kevin and Scott set us an example in doing precisely that, striving side by side to pull off an excellent conference! The 550 men then headed out in all directions. I dare say the conference sparked in every participant a renewed determination never to sit down and shut up, but instead to stand tall together in the battle, striving side by side in struggles against pornography, gambling, alcohol misuse, drug abuse, slothfulness and countless other vices seeking to emasculate men of God. May Strive 2025 be just as successful. Information on the 2025 Strive Conference will be posted to www.StriveMensConference.com as it is developed. ...

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History

Don’t overlook the blessings of today

Our children are actually wealthier than the very richest of 100 years ago ***** You stir in your bed as the strains of an orchestra tickle at the edge of your still sleeping consciousness. The volume increases little by little, and you wake up in your warm cozy bed. You stick your toes out of bed onto the floor: even though it’s January, it’s warm and pleasant inside your bedroom, as the furnace has been programmed by your smart thermostat to warm the house fifteen minutes before you need to get up. You share the bathroom upstairs with your sister, but she won’t be up for another half hour, so you turn on the tap to your preferred setting, and warm water instantly gushes out: you luxuriate in the shower an extra few minutes as you think about the day ahead. Your mom has put out a delicious breakfast: bacon and eggs on toast, with sliced oranges and a cup of hot tea, just the way you like it. Dad reads the morning devotions, and leads your family in prayer; then you’re off to take on the challenges of a day at work. You drive yourself in the car your parents sold you for much less than it was worth: it’s been sitting in the garage, not outside in the cold, so you don’t even need to scrape frost off the windshield. You’re new at your job, but the work is interesting and challenging, and your co-workers are mostly kind. The office is always kept at the perfect temperature for working, and the company provides snacks and gourmet coffee for your morning and afternoon breaks: they hope to make the work environment as comfortable as possible, because paying well is not enough to keep associates engaged in their work; people also need to feel appreciated and well cared for! When lunch hour arrives, you make your way to the company gym for a work out – after a few hours of mental toil, it feels so good to put your body through some physical tests! After a quick shower, you’re back at your desk at 1 pm to continue your tasks through the end of the work day at 5:00. It was a productive day, and you feel good about what you’ve accomplished. You make your way home, stopping at the sports store to pick up a hockey stick for tonight’s game. At $250, it’s a bit more than you usually spend, but you’ve been saving up for quite a while and it’s time to treat yourself a little bit – and maybe it will help solve your goal scoring drought! After the game, you relax with your friends in the dressing room, limiting yourself to one beer so you can feel sharp in the morning, but enjoying the camaraderie and fun with your teammates. Home at a decent hour, you chat with your parents before bed time, check the football scores on your iPhone, and head upstairs for a good night’s sleep. Then before you know it, the music starts again… Life in the modern world Most of our readers could relate to some of what’s written above: a hardly unusual day for a modern citizen of the western world (although this fictional teenager will be adding many responsibilities in the coming years if he or she is blessed with a spouse and family in due time!) But what you have just read, and, very likely, what you experienced today in your own daily routine, would be unimaginable luxury for 99% of the world’s population over the past 6,000 years. Waking up in your own private bedroom and having access to running hot water? That would be a luxury reserved for only the wealthiest in centuries past. Your usage might be limited to checking the weather and texting your friends, but that phone in your pocket has access to more information than the largest libraries of the ancient world. What we consider a typical work week of 40 or 45 hours would be laughably brief for our grandparents and their parents. And the way our bosses pamper us? Our ancestors would be stunned… 100 years ago Many of our readers have family trees with roots in the Netherlands: my own grandparents were born early in the 1900s, and so would have been in their twenties a century ago. Perhaps you only know your family members from this time frame as gloomy faces in faded black and white pictures: but they were of course real people with real struggles, joys and sorrows. If we transport ourselves back in time one hundred years, to the Netherlands of the 1920s, we might be shocked at living conditions. As in most of the world, the infant mortality rate in Holland was very high: it was not uncommon for a couple to bury two or three children before they had reached their teenage years. If you look at the genealogies of your family, you might see multiple children with the same name: if baby Geert died, the next male son might also be named Geert, so that the name of one’s relatives would live on in the family line. Between 1900 and 1930, the population of Holland increased from 5 million to 8 million, a 60 percent increase in just 30 years. The Netherlands had stayed out of “The Great War” of 1914 to 1918, which we now know as the First World War, and so the country was spared the devastation that swept over other European countries. During that same time frame, average life expectancy in the nation increased from around fifty to around sixty. It was not at all uncommon for adults to die much earlier than today: with less modern medicine and antibiotics, some diseases that would be relatively minor today would be fatal a hundred years ago. Despite the Netherlands status as the sixth wealthiest country in the world in the 1920’s, the average working family lived without most of the comforts that we consider commonplace today. In the cities, electricity was starting to become more common as a source of light and power in homes, but indoor plumbing was still hit and miss. In the country and small towns, laborers lived in very humble conditions; sometimes even in sod huts (shelters built of turf, or dug into a hillside), with a fireplace burning dried peat – compressed moss – for heating and cooking. Of course, not everyone in the 1920s lived in such humble circumstances, but even the middle class made do with far less than we would consider a minimum standard. For clothing, most children would have one set of clothes and shoes for the weekdays, and a special “Sunday” dress or suit, often worn with the same shoes. Absent the assistance of a washing machine and dryer, moms would wash all the households clothing by hand (or using a manually powered washing machine), and laundry would be hung out to dry on the clothesline. And in inclement weather, it would be strung up across the attic. The 1950s Perhaps 100 years ago seems far removed – how about we move forward a generation and make a comparison with the world of your parents and grandparents in the 1950s? Everything in the world had changed in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, igniting the Second World War. Unlike the first “Great War,” this time the Netherlands could not stay neutral, as German forces swept through the low countries in the spring of 1940, conquering their neighbor in just a few days. The Nazis treated the Dutch reasonably well at first, but soon began a campaign to eradicate the Jewish population, and to bring food, manpower, and raw material back to Germany for the war machine to continue its fight. The last months of the war, known as the “Hunger Winter,” was the pinnacle of suffering for the Dutch population, as the last gasps of the German forces left little food available, and left behind much trauma and despair. After the war, many Europeans wanted to get out of the Old World, away from the new dangers of Communism, and towards the freedom, opportunity, and prosperity of western countries. The USA, Canada, Australia, and South Africa opened their doors to immigrants, especially those with a background in agriculture who were willing to work in the farms and fields. Perhaps you’ve heard stories from your parents or grandparents about the difficult early years in their new homeland, learning a new language, and often living in very difficult circumstances. While every family’s story is different, you can imagine your family’s own history. You wake up and it’s so cold! As usual, your brother has grabbed most of the blankets, and the brick you took out of the fireplace and wrapped in rags to warm your bed last night has now lost its warmth. It’s your chore to start the fire this morning, so you flick on the single light switch and get dressed in the cold, teeth chattering. The house only has one bathroom, and it’s occupied – you wonder who could be awake before you? Off you head to the kitchen to stoke up the fire, and when you peek inside the wood stove, there are a few embers still glowing. You’re able to get the fire going again and soon the room begins to warm up. Next, you head outside for your morning chores: Dad has been hired as a farm hand for the Canadian farmer who sponsored your family, and this means the whole clan has to pitch in! The first milking is at 4:30 a.m., and Dad is already out there getting the milking pails ready for you and your brother. After a few hours of hard work in the cold, you head back inside for the breakfast that Mom has prepared. Dad reads the Bible, and then you and your siblings head off to the road to wait for a ride from the neighbors who will take you to school. You’re all crammed in the old four-door Ford; with no seatbelts required, it doesn’t really matter how many are in the back seat! Dad has already told you that ninth grade will be your last year of schooling: you’re going to need to work full time to help the family out! If you want more education than that, you might be able to go to night school, but your parents don’t really think that is necessary. Your older sister is already working at the shoe factory down the road; she gives all her wages to Dad and Mom, and they give her an allowance in return. This will be the way it is until you leave the parental home! When you get home from school, there is more work around the farm needing to be done. Dad is often working late nights, especially during the harvest, and you are expected to pitch in every afternoon, and often after supper as well. Sunday is the day of rest, but the cows still need to be milked, and chores have to be done! Your church is a 45-minute drive away, but there’s no way your parents are not taking the whole family to both morning and evening services. Sundays are a wonderful time to connect with fellow immigrants, to socialize, to compare notes about work opportunities, to marvel at the blessings the Lord has given to your community. While life is not easy, there is so much more opportunity in Canada than there was for you in Holland, and you are grateful to God for His provision and goodness. Despite the hard conditions, you know the Lord is looking after His people, and that in all circumstances, you may lean on Him for all you need for body and soul. Reflection While your grandparents may look back with fondness on their early years in North America, and might even miss some of the struggles they had to go through, there is no doubt that life was more difficult than it is today. In 2025, we enjoy and appreciate Christian schools in most of our communities; we have many post-secondary opportunities for our youth; we have incredible economic and employment options in our free market nations, and we are free to worship our God without persecution. We are collectively the beneficiaries of the sacrifices made by the previous generations in working hard for their families and for their communities. The Lord has been so good to us! We do not need to feel guilty about these blessings, but we should use them wisely for the good of our neighbors, and to the glory of our great God....

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News

Saturday Selections – Dec. 21, 2024

The perfection of beauty Even if rap isn't a favorite musical genre, you may well be impressed by this, from Blair Linne, wife of Reformed rapper Shai Linne, with her introduction to his Attributes of God album.... It's amazing what happens when you repeat pro-aborts' arguments back to them In this exchange between a pro-lifer and a passerby, we see that we don't all have to be brilliant debaters to stand up for the unborn. The pro-choice side is horrible, so sometimes the best argument can simply be to get them to plainly state their position. And they may well be shocked at what they hear themselves say. Pastoral Q&A: How often should I confess my sins? "You could also simply take the two great commandments and ask: how did I fare in loving God with all my being and my neighbour as myself? Or you could think in terms of sins of omission and commission. Where did I fail to do what God commands today (sinning by omission)? Where did I directly contravene what God positively commands (sinning by commission)?" Does biblical submission of a wife position her to be abused by her husband? The biblical doctrine of male headship in marriage is being denounced as simply a means for abusive men to dominate and abuse women. But that's not true. You are your body "It’s odd that after years of being accused by atheists and materialists of being trapped in our spiritual fantasies and ignoring the real world, Christians now find themselves as the ones saying that the physical world – especially the human body – matters, is real, and is of utmost significance. But here we are. If Christ came in the likeness of men, if He promised to redeem humanity, and if our humanity includes the body, then our bodies really do matter." Russ Tamblyn’s unforgettable “Shovel Dance” (3 min) This is an absolute must-see (even if the movie it is from is not). ...

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Assorted

The pot experiment has been a disaster

If marijuana definitively destroys lives, should we be free to smoke?  ***** A few weeks ago, Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports publicly supported a measure that would legalize marijuana in Florida. “As an adult,” Portnoy said, “I should be allowed to smoke weed, watch football, and eat pizza on Sunday regardless if I’m at home in Mass or Florida.” To which, Matt Walsh replied: "Can you point to any state or city in the country where life has been, in any way, measurably improved after legalizing marijuana? Where are the legalization success stories? Give me just one please." After the rushed social experiment by many states to legalize marijuana, we know the answer to this important question. Study after study has demonstrated that legal pot has been even more disastrous than predicted. The most obvious consequences have been in basic safety concerns. 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, which is significantly stronger than what was passed around at Woodstock. Analyzing medical data from 6 million people, researchers in Denmark found that up to 30% of schizophrenia cases among young men could be linked to marijuana use. Though advocates and lawmakers have worked to “decrease the public’s perception of its harm,” as the study’s lead author said, they have misrepresented the reality. Other studies also have shown a clear link between marijuana use and psychosis. For example, according to a report at CBS News, "eople who smoked marijuana on a daily basis were three times more likely to be diagnosed with psychosis compared with people who never used the drug. For those who used high-potency marijuana daily, the risk jumped to nearly five times." In other words, pot isn’t a victimless crime and, given its social impact, cannot simply be reduced to a matter of personal freedom. Not only are cannabis users more likely to start using opioids, but the National Academy of Medicine reports that using pot “is likely to increase the risk of schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.” Between 2006 and 2014, emergency room visits for marijuana-induced psychosis tripled to 90,000. Most troubling of all is the link between pot and teen suicide. According  to Colorado state statistics, the drug was found in the system of some 42% of teens who had taken their own lives, a rate nearly twice that of alcohol and four times that of any other substances. Colorado consistently ranks among the worst states in terms of suicide rates. Critics will quickly argue that correlation does not imply causation, but connections like this must be investigated. If nearly half of stroke victims took the same medicine, would we wonder if there was a link worth our consideration? Why the reluctance to connect the dots when it comes to marijuana? Since suicide rates have risen every year that pot has been legal, we’re far past giving the benefit of the doubt. Of course, if lawmakers took up Matt Walsh’s challenge, they’d have to reconsider and recant their promises of personal liberty, not to mention millions of dollars for education and better roads. The science here is all but settled. Pot is bad for individuals, and it’s bad for society. The kind of freedom Portnoy is claiming ends in slavery, a slavery to one’s own passion. It is a freedom from rules and restraint, not a freedom for the good life. True freedom is a necessary means for human flourishing, but as Chuck Colson often noted, there is no true freedom without virtue. A freedom that wrecks the mind, puts families, children, and neighbors at greater risk, and contributes to general social degradation is not freedom. It’s license built on selfishness. 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....

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Politics

Top 10 political wins in recent years

Reformed Christians spend a lot of time discussing and resisting bad policy developments. We have much to lament when it comes to public policy in Canada in the last few decades. But we often forget that we’ve had some wins too. And so, the ARPA Canada staff brainstormed more than two dozen political wins in the last decade or so and voted on which were the best. Each staff member gave 10 points to their top pick, 9 points to their second pick, etc. Here’s the consensus on the top 10 political wins in Canada in recent years. #10. Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Initiative (18 pts) In 2010, Canada played a leadership role in the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Initiative (MCHN), a joint project among several developed countries to end the preventable deaths of newborns and children in developing countries across the world. Canada committed $6.5 billion to this endeavor. While that program itself is a laudable pro-life policy action, it was a victory in another regard. In almost every possible measure, Canada has succumbed to the sexual revolution, and to the pro-abortion advocates, as evidenced by the fact that we are the only democratic country in the world not to have any laws against abortion whatsoever. There was enormous pressure for the Harper government to include funding for abortion in this program. But they resisted the pressure and excluded funding for abortions in developing countries. #9. Reversal of Alberta’s gay-straight-alliance policy (26 pts) In 2017, Alberta passed Bill 24, An Act to Support Gay Straight Alliances, which required all schools to establish a gay-straight alliance club upon the request of any student. The legislation deleted the requirement that parents had to be notified if their children joined the club. It also required schools to “immediately grant permission” to any activities and events initiated by the club and threatened to revoke the funding and accreditation of independent schools who failed to establish these clubs. Christian schools and Christian parents were rightfully alarmed by this legislation. They fought back. And they won. Just a couple of years later, a new government deleted the worst of Bill 24’s provisions via Bill 8 (2019). #8. National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking (30 pts) After the landmark Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act was passed in 2014 (see #1a), the Canadian government realized that simply having this good law against prostitution wasn’t enough to stop the horrendous crime of human trafficking. Far too many women and girls were being trafficked into sexual slavery in Canada. And so, in 2019, the government created a National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking that ran from 2019-2024 to provide greater focus on enforcing the existing law and helping trafficked women escape prostitution. The strategy promoted greater cooperation among various federal government departments and even provincial and local police forces. #7. Removal of hate speech offences from Canada’s Human Rights Act (37 pts) Free speech has long been under attack in Canada. Many of the most egregious violations of free speech in our country happened under the hate speech provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act. It was relatively easy to bring a successful hate speech complaint. Many of the complaints brought to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled against Christian speech and let non-Christian speech off the hook. For example, musicians were found not guilty of hate speech for a song that repeated “kill the Christian,” but Christian ministers and activists were found guilty of hate speech when criticizing homosexuality. Given that this hate speech law broadly violated our society’s guarantee of free speech and was often aimed squarely at Christians, we rejoiced when this section was deleted from Canada’s law in 2013. #6. Improvements to provincial drug policies (39 pts) Tens of thousands of Canadians have died from illicit drug use in the past decade. These tragedies sparked many calls for provinces to change their approach to drug policy. British Columbia went perhaps the furthest, effectively decriminalizing the possession of a wide variety of illicit drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine, handing out “safe supply” of drugs on the street, and even allowing the public consumption of these drugs. But in recent months British Columbia has begun to realize the errors of this approach to drug policy and has changed direction, recriminalizing the use of illicit drugs in public and promising to require those who are unable to escape their addiction to go into treatment programs. Another province, Alberta, has adopted a robust drug recovery program policy in response to this growing crisis. #5. Manitoba’s conscience rights legislation (39 pts) In 2016, right after the legalization of euthanasia across Canada, Manitoba passed legislation to ensure the conscience rights of health professionals not to participate in euthanasia if the practice violates their conscience. This legislation trumps any policy that a medical regulatory body might try to impose on its members. In many other provinces, medical regulatory bodies have policies that require health care professionals to provide an effective referral for euthanasia even if they don’t want to participate in euthanasia themselves. For many Christian doctors and nurses, effective referrals amount to aiding and abetting a suicide so these referrals violate their conscience. Manitoba is the only province that has passed legislation to protect the right of such health care practitioners to follow their conscience in this matter. #4. Saskatchewan Parents’ Bill of Rights (41 pts) Last year, Saskatchewan passed a comprehensive parents’ bill of rights in education, becoming the first province in Canada to do so. Other provinces have some statements and protections of the rights of parents in legislation, but none go as far as the new Saskatchewan bill of rights. Among other things, this legislation guarantees the right of parents to act as the primary decision-maker for their child’s education. This includes requiring that parents be informed on a regular basis of their child’s attendance, behaviors and academic achievement in school, be informed of any sexual education in the classroom, and give consent before a school uses a student’s newly preferred name or pronouns. #3. Delay of expansion of MAiD to mental illness (82 pts) Euthanasia was first legalized in Canada in 2016. Over the last eight years, through a combination of court rulings and new legislation, Canada’s euthanasia regime has become increasingly permissive. It has often seemed like Canada’s euthanasia laws only change in the wrong direction. Thankfully, it is still illegal to euthanize someone who requests MAiD on the basis of a mental illness alone. While the government had planned to legalize this earlier this year, significant pushback led Parliament to delay this expansion until 2027. That might not seem like a huge policy victory. But this delay does protect Canadians with mental illness from euthanasia for four years longer than the original legislation intended. Furthermore, 2027 is after the next federal election and the party currently leading in the polls (the Conservatives) has vowed to entirely cancel this planned expansion. #1b. Alberta’s new gender identity laws (85 pts) Next up, we have the suite of laws newly introduced (but not yet passed at the time of writing) in Alberta to combat gender ideology in the province. Three separate bills aim to: ban medical transitioning for minors under the age of 16 require the consent or notification of parents for their children to learn about gender and sexuality in the classroom or change their gender identity at school limit women’s sports to biological women only While all three bills could be improved in various ways, they are by far the most ambitious steps taken by any Canadian government to reverse the spread of gender ideology. While New Brunswick and Saskatchewan (see #4) took steps in this regard, Alberta has gone further with its changes to the education system and, if these bills pass, will be the only province in the country to significantly limit medical transitioning for minors. #1a. Canada's revised prostitution law (PCEPA) (85 pts) Tied for the top of the list is Canada’s new prostitution law, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, commonly known as PCEPA. It was passed in 2014 after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s existing prostitution laws. The original prostitution laws criminalized almost every part of prostitution except the actual act itself. So, while prostitution itself was legal, it was illegal to advertise the sale of sex, operate a brothel, or profit from someone else’s prostitution. When the Supreme Court struck down these laws, Parliament seized the opportunity to adopt a very different policy model. Canada’s old laws treated prostitution as a public nuisance to keep out of public view. But PCEPA treats prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation, which better accounts for the ugly realities of prostitution. This new law criminalized both the sale and the purchase of sex, thus publicly condemning prostitution in every circumstance. However, it gave individual immunity to prostitutes to better enable them to seek the help of police and other community services to escape the abusive system of prostitution. PCEPA is both a good and durable law. Originally introduced under the Harper government, the legislation has survived several court challenges. The Trudeau government hasn’t touched the legislation, despite the Liberal party officially favoring the legalization of prostitution. PCEPA is an important piece of legislation that was intentionally designed to help women escape prostitution, enable law enforcement to crack down on pimps, and discourage men from purchasing sex. Note: this list only includes laws passed by the federal Parliament and provincial legislatures, and policies that the Prime Minister or Premier have the power to enact. A top ten court decisions would be an entirely different list!...

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