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Daily devotional

More of Reformed Perspective!

Christian education

Helping students overcome a fear of failure

The goal of genuine learning isn’t to pass tests

*****

Among the most common mental attitudes hindering the pursuit of a genuine education by young people is fear of failure. When the focus of the student’s attention turns away from the subject matter of a course and how well it is understood and applied, concern will be directed rather to formal considerations like:

• “How much has to be done in order to pass this test?”
• “How many pages must be written for this report?”
• “What will the final grade be on my report card?”

Whether or not one can use algebraic formulas successfully, can write a clear and grammatical sentence, can appreciate the literary merits of Shakespeare, or see the fallacy in materialistic philosophy – all these and similar, educational concerns are lost in the scramble to make sure that one has enough points to pass the course. The worst thing that could happen, in the mentality of many students, is that they would receive an F for a course, rather than that they would have failed to understand a course.

It stands to reason, then, that parents and teachers who want students to receive a genuine, intellectually maturing, personally enriching education – and not simply formal marks on a report card filed away – will aim to overcome the student’s obstructive fear of failure.

Why do students have such fears? Generally because they have not developed successful habits of study (inside and outside the classroom) and are aware of their lacking. They are just not sure how to tackle the challenge of new work, new concepts, and stiff assignments.

How can parents and teachers help students to overcome fear of failure? There are things that can be done. There is no need to throw our hands up in despair, imagining that it is somehow a fortuitous matter of “chance” (fate, luck) that some students do well and others do poorly in schoolwork. Every student of normal ability (i.e., every student who is free of physical or mental handicaps) can do well in schoolwork. As blunt or even as harsh as it may seem at first, we will eventually have to face up to the grim truth that there is no such thing as a (normal) student who cannot do passing work. There are simply some students who will not (choose not) to do passing work. Now they may very well desire to have at the outcome of the course a passing mark. They want that end – BUT without being willing to pursue the means to that end.

The age in which people commonly believed in magic has not passed. It has simply taken on a more sophisticated front. Parents and teachers who believe that (or operate as though) the difference between successful and unsuccessful students is a mystery beyond our control assign good schoolwork, in effect, to magic or chance – beyond any cause-effect explanation. Students who want a passing grade at the end of the course, but who ignore or refuse the means to that end, are hoping for a magical deliverance. We live in a universe where events (effects) have their corresponding causes. There are appropriate causes of good performance in school. This is bad news and good news. The bad news is that students who fail cannot “cop-out” and blame their failure on something beyond their control. The good news is that something can indeed be done to improve a student’s work in school. There is hope because there exist proven methods of achieving success as a student.

What help can we offer them? What are some principles of educational success?

1. Don’t leave things at the Ramada Inn

The first piece of advice which we can give students who fear failure is not to leave things at the Ramada Inn. Let me explain that remark. This last summer my family took a vacation, traveling up the coast to Monterey and San Francisco, then across to Sacramento and Reno. In Monterey we stayed at the Ramada Inn. Imagine that when we left the Ramada Inn we inadvertently left behind the overnight case, only to realize that fact an hour and a half on the way to San Francisco. What a painful discovery that would be! We certainly needed the items in the overnight case, and yet to get the case we would be forced to backtrack an hour and a half on the road.

If this had actually happened to us, what do you suppose we should have done? Well, one thing we could have done is to continue traveling up the road, bemoaning the fact that we were going to be inconvenienced. We could have complained that the Ramada Inn was an hour and a half (now an hour and three quarters) drive back to Monterey. We could have driven on and on, hoping against reasonable hope, that the overnight case which was an hour and half (now two hours) behind us might miraculously catch up with us before we stopped that night. But when all the murmuring and imagination had been indulged, the fact would have been that we knew we had to go back to the Ramada Inn. The trip could not successfully continue until we went back and picked up what had been left behind. The sooner we realized that hard fact, the better for the continuation of the vacation.

The same principle applies to schoolwork. As a course progresses through a semester, more and more new material and new concepts (or skills) are set forth to the student. Later material presupposes the foundation laid by earlier material. Growth in understanding is cumulative. Consequently, when a student does not understand something which has been taught, does not do the necessary homework which has been assigned, does not complete the reading which goes with a unit of teaching and yet continues on in the course, that student is set up to fail the later portions of the course. Understanding the later material depends on a previous understanding or exposure to the earlier material. When something has been left behind, the trip cannot successfully continue.

Students are sometimes funny – unrealistic, really. They figure that they can tune out part of a lecture, omit a reading assignment, or not bother to ask for help when they do not understand something in a course, and then tune in and begin understanding at some later point. But as with vacation travel, so also with schooling. The sooner we realize that we must go back to the Ramada Inn (or to the material, which has not been read or understood), the better it will be for us. Students simply must keep abreast of what is being taught in the course, not hoping to go back later and fill in the gaps in their understanding. And if they do fall behind, then it is important to go back and pick up what as omitted, and so the sooner we do so, the better.

2. Learn how to read

A second rule to be observed for achieving success in school is that students must learn how to read. A shocking suggestion, perhaps, because the assumption commonly held is that high school students already know how to read. But that is held because we erroneously think that reading is merely a matter of knowing how to sound out words, recognize punctuation, and understand basic vocabulary. That is, we are often satisfied simply with the mechanics of reading – getting the encoded message on the page through the eyeballs, into the (reasonably alert) brain. I do not doubt that most (if not all) of our high school students can do this. Reading mechanics – the basics – have been mastered.

But reading has not.

Once the basics have been learned, students need to learn how to tackle a reading assignment in such a way that they understand its meaning, point, and structure. They need to master skills of comprehension and retention. In a word, they need to learn how to analyze and interpret – not simply translate – the message encoded on the page(s) of their assignment.

Let me suggest a proven method of reading. Never plan to read an assignment only once; good readers will read at least twice and usually three times.

1. Read
The first time through should be a quick and casual reading to familiarize yourself with the material and find out the main point(s) the author intended to communicate.

2. Write
The second time through you should take notes for yourself, attempting to outline (roughly) the material presented so that the way in which the author gets to his conclusion is made clear; also write out important lists which may appear in the reading, along with key sentences which express important insights or necessary declarations (as far as the author is concerned).

3. Highlight
Only after these two steps have been accomplished should you go through the assignment again the third time and underline (or highlight) the words, phrases, or sentences which will help you to review and recall the material later. Keep these underlinings to a minimum, for too many such markings will simply force you later to reread most of the assignment again – which defeats the purpose of underlining. By the time these three steps have been completed, the reading assignment will be clearly recorded in the mind.

The reading notes, along with underlinings, will facilitate quick and effective review of the material, which should be accomplished once a week until the end of the term. This method of reading may appear to consume more time initially than the less rigorous style practiced by most students, but in the long run it saves not only time (for instance, rereading the entire assignment every time a quiz is possible) but also emotional energy which is lost over the fear of failure at exam time.

This article was first in two parts in the September and December 1981 issues of The Conqueror under the titles “On Not Leaving Things at the Ramada Inn” and “Learning How to Read in High School.” They are reprinted with permission of Covenant Media Foundation, which hosts and sells many other Dr. Bahnsen resources on their website.

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Assorted

How to write

…for Reformed Perspective ***** Everyone has at least one article in them – I’m convinced that’s true. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking...
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In a Nutshell

Tidbits – March 2025

C.S. Lewis on the danger of indulging in “outrage porn” The term “outrage porn” was coined by a New York Times writer, Tim Kreider to describ...
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Assorted

Life in bloom: The gift of flowers

“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”...
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News

Saturday Selections – Mar. 1, 2025

Why we can't focus (12 min) This fellow is worried that moving from a text-based culture to a video-based one is leaving us all stupider – "we are ...
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Economics

Tariffs are terrible economics: why Canada shouldn’t hit back

Free trade – free of barriers and restrictions – has, traditionally, been pretty exclusive to the Right side of the political spectrum. But now, with President Trump implementing tariffs on steel and threatening tariffs on Canada and Mexico, we’re even hearing the Left talk about the harms that tariffs could cause. And not just to Canada and Mexico, but to American consumers too. As the far-left stalwart Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC) noted on X, “Remember: *WE* pay the tariffs….Trump is all about making inflation WORSE for working class Americans, not better.” But what is she talking about when she says Americans pay the tariffs it charges? Think of it this way. Imagine two towns located right next to each other – Town A and Town B – and each has a car mechanic. These mechanics are full-service: they go right to your house to do the repairs. The only difference between the two is that the car mechanic in Town A – let’s call him Arnold – is way cheaper, so not only do all the folks in Town A use Arnold, so do most of the folks in Town B. That, understandably, makes the mechanic in town B – we’ll him Bill – quite unhappy, as it really hurts his business. So Bill demands that his town put in a tariff of sorts. He wants a 25% surcharge on any “out of town” car mechanics. He argues that this surcharge will be incredibly beneficial – applying it to Arnold for the work he does in Town B will help fund Town B’s government. It will also help protect Town B’s homegrown car repair businesses – Bill’s – by making his prices seem more competitive. And, Bill notes, if he gets more business, the government will benefit from the taxes he’ll pay. Bill pitches his tariff/surcharge as a win/win all the way around. But Bill is forgetting someone – several someones, in fact. The surcharge will make Arnold’s prices higher. Any Town B clients who do continue to use him will now be paying 25% more. And any clients he loses to Bill will be impacted too, having to pay Bill’s higher prices for their car repairs, taking a bigger chunk out of their household budget than ever before. In other words, Bill is staying in business at the expense of the car repair consumers in his own town. That’s not win/win at all – that’s a win for Bill, at the cost of everyone else in town. This is what AOC meant when she said that Americans will pay the tariffs they charge. Canada rightly fears American tariffs on the energy and goods they produce. Those tariffs could hurt our producers badly. But hitting back at American tariffs with our own tariffs on US goods is only going to compound the pain. It might benefit some of our producers – whoever makes the goods that compete with imported American goods – but that benefit will come at the expense of Canadian consumers overall by making them pay more. Just like Town B’s car repair “tariff” hurt Town B’s citizens. Is there an explicitly biblical perspective to be brought here? Well, what about Leviticus 19:15? “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.” God equates justice and impartiality, which prompts a question: should a government take actions that benefit some of its citizens – some producers – at the expense of other citizens, the consumers and producers who use those goods? Isn’t that partiality? God also speaks to this in His Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12). “Do unto others as you would like done unto you,” applied to the economic realm would mean that car mechanic Bill wouldn’t argue for his surcharge because he wouldn’t want that same surcharge applied to everything he buys. If Town A has cheap car parts, or groceries, or gasoline, he’d love to be able to benefit. The fact is, tariffs always hurt consumers, so no matter what the US does, let’s not let tariffs beget more tariffs. Instead of putting up trade barriers, there are actually interprovincial trade barriers that we could greatly benefit from taking down, as Pierre Poilievre has been highlighting recently. In  the video below Remy highlights one of the ills caused by tariffs – fewer choices and higher costs. ...

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Culture Clashes

How can everyone be wrong about the world?

Hans Rosling discovered that whether it’s world leaders or everyone else, we all share a tendency to overdramatize the state of the planet ***** How well do you know what is going on in the world? Let’s put it to a test. Without consulting the internet or someone else, give these questions your best shot: How did the number of deaths per year from natural disasters change over the last hundred years? a. More than doubled b. Remained about the same c. Decreased to less than half In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has… a. Almost doubled b. Remained more or less the same c. Almost halved Worldwide, 30-year-old men have spent 10 years in school, on average. How many years have women of the same age spent in school? a. 3 years b. 6 years c. 9 years In the 1990s, bald eagles, giant pandas, and snow leopards were all listed as endangered. How many of these three species are more critically endangered today? a. Two of them b. One of them c. None of them How many of the world’s 1-year-old children today have been vaccinated against some disease? a. 20 percent b. 50 percent c. 80 percent Worse than chimps The right answers are all C. How many did you get correct? If you didn’t get a great score, you are in good company. These questions come from Hans Rosling, the author of the fascinating book Factfulness. He made a quiz with 13 questions total, about different aspects of the state of the world – how we are doing as a planet. He asked about things like access to electricity, world population, and where people live in the world. Then he gave the quiz to nearly 12,000 people in 14 countries. On average they got just 2 of the 13 right. That’s remarkable when you consider if people filled in answers at random, they would have done better, getting a third of the three-answer questions right (averaging between 3 and 4 right). More remarkably, out of the 12,000 quizzed nobody got them all right. And just one person got 11 out of 12 right. Why? Is the problem that people aren’t educated enough? Rosling first thought this may be the case, but then he tested the most educated among us – medical students, teachers, scientists, journalists, business leaders, among others – and discovered that the majority still got most answers wrong and some did worse than the general public. Then Rosling realized that not only are people wrong about their understanding of the world, they are systematically wrong – they do worse than if they had no knowledge at all. As Rosling explained, if he went to the zoo to give the same quiz to chimpanzees, “the chimps, by picking randomly, would do consistently better than the well-educated but deluded human beings who take my tests.” Not only is the public consistently wrong, but their errors skewed in one direction – participants consistently underestimated the true state of the world: “Every group of people I ask thinks the world is more frightening, more violent, and more hopeless – in short, more dramatic – than it really is.” Why do we underestimate the good so badly? Since the mid 1990’s, Rosling devoted much of his time to exploring and explaining why we can be so wrong about rather basic facts about the world. At first, he thought that people’s knowledge simply had to be updated and upgraded – they just needed to get educated. So that is what he set out to do – Rosling developed some amazing teaching tools and brought them to TED talks around the world, in addition to board rooms, banks, and even the US State Department. He was excited to show everyone how the world had changed for the good. But it didn’t take long and his enthusiasm waned. “The ignorance we kept on finding was not just an upgrade problem. It couldn’t be fixed simply by providing clearer data animations or better teaching tools.” It was one gathering in particular that convinced him. He was presenting to thousands of the most influential people of the world at the 2015 World Economic Forum (alongside Bill and Melinda Gates). His listeners included heads of state, heads of UN organizations, leaders of multinational companies, and famous journalists. He asked them just three questions – about the true state of poverty, population growth, and vaccination rates in the world. Although 61 percent answered the question about poverty correctly, when it came to population growth and vaccination, the crowd once again did worse than chimps. That is when things crystalized for Rosling. He saw that the reason people were misperceiving the world was because they had a faulty worldview. “People constantly and intuitively refer to their worldview when thinking, guessing, or learning about the world. So if your worldview is wrong, then you will systematically make wrong guesses.” But he was also quick to explain that this isn’t the fault of media or fake news. Rather, he believes that it is inbuilt, and comes from how our brains have a tendency to “overdramatize” things. Look at the two lines on this page. Which is longer? If you’ve seen this trick before you know that they are the same length. But even with that knowledge, they still look different, don’t they? Despite what we know we can still misperceive. Rosling thinks something similar is going on with how our brains analyze the world – even when we know better, we can still fall for the “more frightening, more violent, and more hopeless – in short, more dramatic” misperception of things. Rosling proceeded to devote the rest of his life to this curiosity, and his book Factfulness flowed from this work. “Start to practice it, and you will be able to replace your overdramatic worldview with a worldview based on facts. You will be able to get the world right without learning it by heart.” Through the rest of the book, he trains readers to be aware of the various ways we systematically misperceive the world because of our “gap instinct, negativity instinct, …fear instinct” and more. Most of us would do well to learn about these instincts, which have us consistently underestimating the good around us. The Gap Instinct: Rosling calls it “that irresistible temptation we have to divide all kinds of things into two distinct and often conflicting groups, with an imagined gap – a huge chasm – in between.” For example, many believe that the developing world’s infant mortality rates will always remain much higher than ours. But whereas the global child mortality rate was 27% in 1950 (that’s the percentage of children who didn’t live to reach the end of puberty), now the very worst child mortality rate in the world is about half that, at 15% in Niger. Globally it is down to 4.3 percent (as of 2022). When it came to child mortality there was once a divide between the West and rest, but today that divide persists in people’s minds, and not in reality. The Fear Instinct: We have an inbuilt focus on the frightening, which makes it hard for us to see how things may be improving. So, when a hurricane hits, we might hear about how climate change is going to cause more and more of these, and what we don’t hear is how many fewer people died than in decades past. As they say, if it bleeds, it leads, so we hear lots about what is scary but little of what is reassuring and encouraging. The Negativity Instinct: Rosling shared that when people in 30 countries were asked, is the world getting better, staying the same, or getting worse, more than 50% picked “getting worse” no matter what country they came from (roughly 75% of Canadians said “getting worse”). Yet there are some huge improvements happening, including that the number of people living in extreme poverty – surviving on less than $2/day – has dropped from 50% of the world in 1966 to just 9% in 2017. If our decision makers in government and the Church had read this book before making decisions about Covid restrictions, we would all have benefitted. Then the fears that emanated from Covid and hospitalization projections would have been put into a much more reasonable context. But the implications go well beyond pandemics. I don’t think the world is prepared for the future we will face with half as many children being born per woman as just 50 years ago. Most people, including many in the Church, wrongly assume that the straight line of population growth will keep extending upwards. And they see that as a threat, with an ever-expanding population exceeding the planet’s ability to feed them all. But, as mentioned, even as population grows, fewer people are in extreme poverty. And just as a child won’t keep growing at the same rate through life, we’re seeing the birth rate take a sharp decline. The more informed worry is not overpopulation but a coming population collapse. Which worldview? As helpful as Rosling’s book is, he had his own misperception. He eventually recognized the importance of worldview, but he did so from a evolutionary vantage point. “The human brain is a product of millions of years of evolution,” he wrote, when answering why so many people would be consistently wrong. “We are hard-wired with instincts that helped our ancestors to survive in small groups of hunters and gatherers.” The beginning of wisdom Christians have a better explanation. That people would consistently overlook the many blessings around them and focus instead on troubles, many of them even imagined, is what sinful people do. A look through the Old Testament shows that God’s people are not immune to this ingratitude. But we are blessed to also have the answer. To fight negativity, fear, and ingratitude, we need only remember who God is. He isn’t just the God of the universe – He is our loving Father, the One Who knows who we are and has a perfect plan for our lives and for the future of the Church and the world. When we take this to heart, we can begin to get a glimpse into how this will change how we look at the world. Is it a scary place? Do we have reason to fear the future? Are things going to hell in a handbasket? Not at all. Those conclusions flow from a godless worldview, and perhaps also the worldview from some other major religions (like Islam), where their god is powerful but not a loving father. And they sure aren’t consistent with reality. By God’s grace, the world has been becoming a safer, healthier, more abundant place to live (contrary to what we would think if we only got our information from the news). But even if we face another war or pandemic, we can take comfort knowing that God “still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand” (Lord’s Day 10, Heidelberg Catechism)....

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News

Saturday Selections – Feb. 22, 2025

My pretty pink tractor Tim Hawkins on a problem that I'm sure has happened to many a farmer. Mark Carney - the man who would be prime minister REAL Women of Canada have put together this thorough backgrounder on the candidate who seems most likely to win the Liberal Party leadership race. While this lobby group isn't offering an explicitly Christian perspective, that's their general, implicit worldview. You are more than your brain Materialists – those who say all we are is what we are made of – would say who you are is housed in your brain. All you are, is found somewhere in there. Except it isn't. Neurosurgeon Wilder "Penfield could find no part of the brain that, when stimulated, caused patients to think abstractly — to reason, think logically, do mathematics or philosophy or exercise free will." This isn't an article about the soul, but it sort of is. 10 questions to ask when evaluating a Christian college While you could direct these at the admissions department, it'd be even better to ask them to a recent alumni. As the author notes, college publications really put a spin on things, such that you can almost read in the worldview you are looking for. But when they are having a speaker tackle the topic of gender, is it really clear from the materials what he'll be saying, or are you making some generous assumptions? You really may need to ask someone who was there. (Not all the questions are gold, but I found 8 out of 10 really useful.) Greenland used to be green land President Trump's aspirations for this frozen, mostly unpopulated island have kept it much in the news as of late. But its real news value comes from recently reported findings that could calm climate hysteria. Turns out that Greenland was once green, which means the Earth must have been a lot warmer in the past – 14 degrees warmer, according to these guys. That said, the dates for this latest discovery are way outside of the timescale the Bible reveals – this is supposed to be a look back at between 250,000 and a million years ago – so that's messed up. But for secularists who abide with millions of years, they have some explaining to do as to why 3 degrees warmer would end the Earth today, but 14 degrees warmer didn't do so back whenever. And for Christians, we can stand on God's promise in Gen. 8:22 that the end the climate cataclysmists are predicting simply will not come: "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” 70 million people have seen The Butterfly Circus In this short 20-minute film, a limbless man (played by Christian apologist Nick Vujicic) is forced to get by as a circus sideshow. But that changes when he is recognized as beautiful by a rival circus owner, and welcomed to stay with this "Butterfly Circus." This is a PG film, in part because the backstory of one character involves prostitution (nothing sexual is shown – we just see her pregnant and being shown the brothel door). The other reason parents are needed is because of how the film could be misinterpreted by children. Young viewers (and old ones too) need to remember that the Butterfly Circus owner recognized the limbless man as beautiful at the start of the film. To say it another way, it wasn't anything the limbless man did, or potentially could do, that made him beautiful. We are all called to develop whatever talents God has given us, but it's not our abilities that give us value or make us beautiful. Our beauty and our worth come from God's valuation of us – what He esteems is valuable indeed! ...

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People we should know

Chang Shen: grace to persevere

Like as the armèd knight Appointed to the field With Thy Word will I fight And faith shall be my shield. Anne Askew (1521-1546) ***** The Christian Daily International reported, at the end of December 2024, that two pastors had been murdered in Colombia. Both were shot by criminals who hated the preaching of God’s Word. The Morning Star News reported that same December, that authorities in Sudan barred Christians who’d been internally displaced by war, from conducting Christmas services. This news agency also shared that, in that same month, Hindu extremists in eastern India stripped and beat a Christian woman. Tying her to a tree, they tortured her till she lost consciousness. And the Emergency Committee to Save the Persecuted and Enslaved documented that 14 Christians were killed following a 2024 Christmas carol service in Nigeria. As it has always been Is there something new here? Not really! The history of Christians being persecuted for their faith, is an age-old history. Beginning with Abel, and traversing towards the ancient Roman Empire, it is a fact that martyrdom has always been present. Although more common under certain rulers than others, it has never really been absent. During the Middle Ages, for example, and with the rise of Islam, many Christian communities were subject to discrimination, violence and death. The Catholic Church’s Inquisition took many lives and this persecution swept through the Reformation era. Putting names and faces on these remarkable saints who withstood lies about the Bible, and who testified until their last breath, is helpful and a reminder that the Church is a flesh and blood body of believers – real people who form the essence of Hebrews 11. Anne Askew, a faith-filled woman whose poem is quoted at the top of this article, was one such martyr during the Reformation. The number of saints we will see the other side of this life, is large. As a matter of fact, we cannot even count them. John, in Rev. 7:9-10, proclaims: “…I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” The Boxer Rebellion A little closer to our time period are the Chinese Christian martyrs of the early twentieth century. Specifically, the time period of November 1899 through to September of 1901, were days in which many Christians were killed. This short time span was the time of the Boxer Rebellion. Chinese nationalists, known as the Boxers, fanatically rose up during this almost two-year time period, to protest western influence in China. At this time, many countries had spheres of influence in China, including Russia, Japan, the US, France, Britain and Germany. There were conflicts: the First Opium War, the Second Opium War, and the First Sino-Japanese War. Each war caused western powers to have more control over trade. In China, a feeling of resentment grew against the West, and against the western missionaries. The term “boxer” was actually first used by missionaries to refer to young Chinese men who were skilled in the martial art of boxing. These young men called themselves “The Righteous and Harmonious Fists” and they were especially hostile to Christian and western influences. As a matter of fact, they dubbed Christianity the religion of the foreign devils. Wanting to preserve their own pagan religion, a black magic ritual was performed on these young men which left them foaming at the mouth and which sometimes included human sacrifice. A potion smeared on them by “priests,” was supposed to render them bulletproof. The country’s dowager empress was persuaded to issue an imperial decree waging war on the foreign powers, which also emboldened violence against all foreigners. In the long run, an Eight Nation Alliance – consisting of Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the United States, Italy and Austria-Hungary – fought against and defeated the Chinese Imperial Army. It has been estimated that 136 missionaries were killed during this two-year time period and that 33,000 Christians were murdered. One of these Christians was a man by the name of Chang Shen. A blind heart sees Chang Shen was a man who lived in Manchuria, in north-east China during the mid to late 1800s. Although married, he treated his wife brutally, was unfaithful, and eventually drove his wife and his daughter from their home. He also gambled, and stole whenever he could, and was not liked by many in his neighborhood. When he was stricken blind in his mid-forties, his fellow villagers told him it was a judgment of the gods, because he obviously deserved to be blind. Miserable and dissatisfied, Chang traveled hundreds of miles to a missionary hospital, because he had heard that people who went there had received their sight back. When he arrived at the entrance to the hospital, however, he was told that every bed was occupied. In God’s mercy, the hospital evangelist took him in and gave him his own bed. Chang’s eyesight was, in God’s providence, partially restored. When he heard the Gospel story for the first time in his life, the eyes of Chang’s heart were also opened and he received Christ with joy. “May I be baptized?” he pleaded. “Go home, and tell your neighbors the Good News of Christ,” the missionary replied, “and tell them that you have changed because of Him. I will come and visit you where you live, and if you are still following Jesus, I will baptize you then.” When the evangelist arrived at Chang’s home about five months later, he found that there were hundreds of people who wanted to hear the Gospel. Consequently, he baptized Chang with great joy. When Chang went to see a local native doctor to continue care for his eyes, that doctor, not being skilled, undid what the missionary hospital had been able to partially remedy. Chang became blind – and this time permanently. Despite being sightless, the reborn man traveled from village to village, and God granted that his words did not fall upon the ground empty. Hundreds of hearts were won for the Lord. Chang praised God even when dogs were set upon him and when hateful mouths spit on him. He learned much of the New Testament by heart, and was able to cite many chapters from the Old Testament as well, and other missionaries following in his tracks were able to establish many churches. Willing to die When the infamous Boxer Rebellion began, Chang was spreading God’s Word in Taipinggou, Manchuria. Because local Christians were worried that Chang would be one of the first to be targeted by the Boxers, they hid him in a mountain cave. As they were doing this, a city close to Taipinggou was overrun by the militant Boxers who immediately rounded up fifty Christians. “You are simpleminded to kill these fifty men,” a resident of the city told them, “because for every one you kill, fifty more will rise up as long as Blind Chang is alive. But if you kill him, then you will truly kill Christianity.” “All right,” the Boxer leader replied, “take me to this Blind Chang and we will spare the fifty men here.” There was a long silence. No one wanted to be the Judas to betray Chang. Finally, when it appeared that the Boxers would kill the fifty Christians, one man slipped away and went to see Chang in the cave where he was hidden. Hearing the man out, Chang responded: “I’ll gladly die for these men. Please take me to the Boxers.” When Chang arrived in the village, the Boxers had left for another village but had vowed they would return. Chang was bound by the village leaders and was taken to the temple of the god of war. Then he was commanded to worship this pagan god. “I can only worship the One living true God,” he testified. “Then believe in Buddha,” they insisted. “I already believe in the one true Buddha, even Jesus Christ.” “Then at least bow to the other gods.” “No, I cannot do that. Turn my face toward the sun.” Blind Chang said this because he knew that at this time of the day the sun was shining toward the temple and his back would be to the idols. Obligingly, the village leaders did turn him around, and he knelt down and worshiped God. When the Boxers came back three days later, Blind Chang was put in an open cart and driven to the cemetery outside the city wall. As he passed through the crowds of people who lined the road, he sang. Jesus loves me, He Who died Heaven’s gate to open wide; He will wash away my sin, Let His little child come in. Jesus loves me, He will stay, Close beside me all the way; If I love Him when I die, He will take me home on high. The blind man’s voice rose and reached not only the hearts of the people he passed, but also the throne of God’s grace. At the cemetery, he was led to a place where he had to kneel. Three times Blind Chang cried out before he was decapitated: “Heavenly Father, receive my spirit.” Refusing to let the Christians bury his body, the Boxers forced them to pour oil on his remains and burn them. Fearful that the blind man would rise from the dead, they were certain that he would take revenge on them. Afraid, they fled the scene of their horrific crime and left that village. In this way, the Christians in that place were spared further persecution. Conclusion Everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ is bound to face some sort of harassment or trouble in his life. 2 Timothy 3:12 tells us that all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Charles Spurgeon said, "Christians are not so much in danger when they are persecuted as when they are admired." A good point to ponder. Whereas admiration and prosperity cause us to forget that all we have comes from the hand of God, distress truly causes us to rely wholly on God, to grab hold of the corner of His garment, and to hide in His Word....

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Being the Church

Aged saints can tell you what your peers don’t know or won’t say
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Theology

A serious problem 

God’s people should be confidently playful ***** As a mental health therapist, I once attended a workshop on developing and maintaining healthy at...
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Dating

A creative approach to boundaries in dating

Signing on the dotted line? (Gal. 5:16-25) ***** Several weeks ago, my fiancé and I sat down at a local restaurant with my aunt and uncle, where we...
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Adult non-fiction, Assorted, Book Reviews

Necessary Endings

Finding the courage to let go in business, church, and family ***** Why did my dad’s tomatoes and cucumbers always flourish? I used to think it ma...
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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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Assorted

The peculiar blessings of Covid

God used even this evil for good ***** In the early spring of 2020, Christian pastors from across Alberta sat on a telephone townhall with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Chief Medical Officer Deena Hinshaw. On the call – which had been scheduled to offer Alberta’s religious leaders an opportunity to ask questions about Covid-related regulations – pastors shared opinions, asked for medical advice, and requested clarification on the government’s early pandemic guidelines. Uncertainty about the future of the pandemic and its effect on in-person worship dominated the conversation. In the months following the townhall, as pandemic restrictions became more hotly contested and closely enforced, pastors and other church members reckoned with deep theological questions about the nature of human embodiment, the importance of in-person worship, and the efficacy of the Lord’s Supper. In addition to such practical theological questions, Canadian Christians – like their non-Christian neighbors – faced a litany of disappointments and devastation over the course of the pandemic era. These included cancelled weddings, cancelled funerals, the death of loved ones from Covid, the death of loved ones from suicide, frayed family relationships, and crushing financial hardships. As a result, many Christians – and most non-Christians – now view the pandemic as a long international nightmare which must never be repeated, and which would best be forgotten. This response to the human devastation of the Covid pandemic is natural. And in many ways it might even be healthy: a desire to constantly relitigate past events at the expense of tackling present problems serves no good purpose. However, underneath the severe difficulties of the Covid-era are surprising proofs of God’s covenant-keeping faithfulness – proofs that should make Christians rejoice in God’s sovereign activity during the Covid pandemic, and should produce hope about God’s activities amid today’s often-grievous cultural developments. Nothing to do but be renewed For some, the hated pandemic restrictions became the means through which God saved their soul. Allison, a young government employee from Alberta, spent much of the pandemic in the United Kingdom, unable to return home. As a result, she stayed at the house of a kind friend who invited her to watch livestreamed worship services. Convicted of her sin and curious about the God proclaimed in the sermons, Allison’s atheistic thinking began to fall apart. Renewed by the Spirit, she embraced the gospel. Today, she is a member of a local church in Calgary, having rejected the godless ideology of atheism and instead now embracing the whole counsel of the God who purchased her with His blood. Jared, a young data scientist from Hong Kong, was unable to find work at the height of the pandemic. Forced to change plans, he moved to Canada to pursue his education and career in a new country, eventually taking a job in Calgary. With no immediate social connections in his new city, Jared started consuming hours of YouTube content and the site’s algorithm eventually led him to Christian apologetics. Intrigued by arguments defending Christianity, he was learning as much about the Christian faith as he could, and soon turned to Christ for salvation. He now faithfully serves his local church where he is beginning to teach theology classes to fellow church members. As Covid spread throughout the world in March of 2020, God carefully laid the foundation for Allison and Jared’s conversion. Long before patient zero, God had chosen vessels of mercy to be converted during the pandemic and ordered the decade’s darkest circumstances to bring His chosen sons and daughters into the marvelous light of His grace. Public education exposed A second proof of God’s covenant-keeping faithfulness during the pandemic is the dramatic expansion of Christian school and homeschool participation in Canada. As school buildings closed, and mom and dad began to pay closer attention to the public school content that was now being streamed into their homes, parents didn’t always like what they were hearing. Some then responded by homeschooling their children, or by placing them in faithful Christian schools. As a result, both homeschooling and Christian school registration rates skyrocketed in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. Jeff Park, the Executive Director of the Alberta Parents Union, commented that, during the Covid pandemic, parents, “…saw hostility to their values, and less competence than they had always assumed. Public trust in public schools took a big hit, especially for people of faith.” According to Park, “God meant for good – to wake up the sleeping giant of Christian parents and save their children from godless indoctrination.” God is using the previous difficulties of school closures to help Christian parents think more deeply about their children’s education. And He is causing many to ask deep questions about the kind of education that will most benefit the souls of their children. Conclusion The Lord grieves the death, division, and persecution of His people. However, He is never surprised by such occurrences. As Christians braced for the unknowns of a viral pandemic in early 2020, God had already prepared for the salvation of men and women who previously cursed His name. As congregations bitterly disputed about distancing requirements, God applied His pruning to strengthen the unity of His church. As governments made school closure decisions, God established the steps of Christian families. In 2020 – despite the fears of many of His people – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not falter in His promises to the church He’d bought with His own blood. He used a virus to build and strengthen His chosen assembly, against whom the gates of Hell have not prevailed. And if God’s faithfulness did not falter through some of the most dramatic world events of the modern era, should we not also have joyful confidence that He will use every other sin and disaster that besets Canadian society for the good of those who love Him? None of this lightens the tragedy of death, the pain of unhealed division, or the grievousness of sin. It does, however, offer a small glimpse into the eternal perspective. As we approach today’s news – war in Ukraine, war in Israel, a society in rapid moral decline, skyrocketing inflation – we must not do so as those without hope. Instead, we do so with the expectation of eternal joy and with a lasting confidence in the wisdom of an Almighty King who will one day split the sky and prove forever that what man meant for evil, God meant for good....

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Parenting

Have a child – change the world

In his best-selling book Atomic Habits, James Clear makes the case for committing to tiny changes in your life, for drastic change. “Here’s how the math works out,” he explains. “If you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done.” The reverse is also true. “If you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero.” With time, little changes cause exponential shifts. That is exactly what is happening beneath the surface when it comes to the world’s fertility. The challenge, simply put, is a lack of children. The world is aging quickly, with too few children to replenish the work force, let alone care for the seniors. We are on the brink of a population collapse. Our opportunity is to welcome the gift of children even while the world isn’t. The contrast between the two directions may hardly be noticeable in one year or even 10. But in 75 years (by the end of this century), it could result in a world filled with people who know the LORD. But that will only be true if Christians embrace new life, and raise these children with love and in the fear of the LORD. Unfortunately, God’s calling for us to do this is increasingly being shushed, including in Reformed churches. The world is aging quickly From the 1800s to the 1960s the average woman gave birth to 5 or 6 children. In the 6 decades since, the fertility rate has plummeted worldwide – in Canada, we’re down to 1.26 children per woman, and in BC it is even worse, at just 1 child per woman. That is even lower than China. To put this in context, for the world’s population to stay stable, the fertility rate must be 2.1. This demographic challenge is widely recognized, but especially in some countries where fertility rates decreased a little sooner. For example, according to Pronatalist.org, “at current birth rates, there will be six great-grandchildren for every hundred Koreans. This is equivalent to a disease that wipes out 94% of the population.” And if we look at Italy, in just 30 years it is projected that 60 percent of Italians will have no brothers, no sisters, no cousins, no aunts, and no uncles. In just the last year or two, the rest of the world has been waking up to the problem as well, as it’s become evident that decreasing fertility rates are far more widespread, and dropping faster, than previously thought. That includes countries like Iran, known for its hardline Muslim population, which has seen its fertility rate drop from 6.5 children per woman in 1982, to 1.68 in 2022. Two-thirds of the world’s population now have a fertility rate below replacement. Like Iran, the countries that have had high fertility are decreasing the fastest (1-3 fewer children per woman in just 20 years). Most people still don’t see this as a big issue today because it feels like there’s no shortage of people. Indeed, the world’s population will likely keep growing for a few more decades as people live longer and we continue to experience the fruit of the higher birth rates that occurred in the 20th century. But the effects of how the world is increasingly saying no to children will become far more acute soon. The first thing most people will notice is an aging population. The number of seniors in the world is expected to double to over 1.4 billion in just 30 years. Let that sink in. The number of seniors is projected to double in just 30 years! Generally speaking, seniors need more care. Their health care costs increase substantially even as their employment income plummets. Normally we look to the next generation to step in, both through providing care for their parents and grandparents, and by becoming the new labor force to keep the economy moving. But in places like Korea, if there’ll be just 6 great-grandchildren to replace every 100 Koreans, how is that going to work out? For those for whom fewer children has been a deliberate choice, efforts to change this attitude have so far been futile. According to the Globe and Mail, “no country has successfully reversed birth-rate decline.” And if that is true of individual countries, it is hard to be optimistic about the population of the world as a whole. “Great civilizations are not murdered. They commit suicide.” These words are credited to the famed historian Arnold Toynbee, who wrote about the rise and fall of 26 civilizations. I believe it is fair to conclude that much of the world is committing civilizational suicide. Technology is allowing us to live according to our desires. What we are witnessing in the world today is, for the most part, not the result of sickness, calamity, or oppression. Much of humanity, and western civilization in particular, is choosing this. The difference between the empires of centuries ago and now is that the challenge isn’t contained to a relatively small geographical area. Most of the world is succumbing, and the rest of the world is rushing even faster to join in. There is no reason the Church has to follow course In a world of birth control, having children is, increasingly, an act of faith that our life is a part of something much larger than ourselves. Perhaps this is why God’s first words to humanity were a command to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.” One of our readers recently wrote to Reformed Perspective expressing concern that we’ve been trumpeting this topic, since fertility can be sensitive and personal. But this call to be fruitful and multiply isn’t just my opinion, or Reformed Perspective’s hobby horse. It is God’s commission to the world. The goal isn’t political dominance, or to outbreed other religions. No, God has made it very clear from Genesis through Revelation that He is a God of the covenant. Already in the Bible’s third chapter we are promised that the seed of the woman – one of her offspring – would crush the head of the serpent. Likewise, most of us are very familiar with the encouraging words that “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” Fertility is the means through which God grows His kingdom. That kingdom includes both those who become Christians mid-way through life and the children of believers born into the covenant. And this calling isn’t the burden the world believes it is – it is a blessing! Psalm 127 is well known and loved for good reason: Children are a reward. We are blessed if we have many! Imagine the impact on the world if Christians embraced God’s gift of children! Deciding to pursue a spouse, and then get married, and welcoming the children that the LORD gives is exactly what this world needs. It is exactly what the Church needs. Having a child, or another child, and raising them with love and in the fear of the LORD can be one of the most impactful things you do for God’s kingdom. I got a glimpse of this when I spent time in a couple of American towns, such as Lynden, Washington, and Sioux Center, Iowa this past year. It is probably the closest thing I have experienced to seeing the gift of life welcomed. These places are strikingly different from most Canadian towns and cities, even than my own home town. Families are everywhere. Kids are the norm. Playgrounds are busy places. There is something very special there. And it’s no coincidence that these are very “churched” towns. That the world wants to reject children is no reason for the Church to follow! It only means we can be a massive light to the world by bringing new life into the world. Notice how sad faces brighten when a child walks by. That child is a light! Want to be missional? Bring new life into the world! Our decisions are more impactful than we realize Not only does God want us to reproduce, He is looking for multiplication. Here too, in His wisdom, God has designed life in a way where the cultural mandate is very realistic for most people. My parents were married in 1971. Unlike most Canadians, they didn’t contribute to the fertility rate decline. They were blessed with eight children. Now if a couple has 8 children, and this is maintained for just 10 generations, how many descendants will they have in about 200 years? Over 1 billion! That is almost twice as many people as in North America. Now, I didn’t have 8 children, at least not yet. We have 6. If each generation had 6 children, how many descendants would there be in 10 generations? Over 60 million! That is one and half times the population of Canada. What about 3 children? Even with three children per generation, there would still be 59,000 descendants – enough to fill an NHL stadium three times over. How about two children? Unfortunately, it is very well possible that we never get to 10 generations. The family line will likely disappear. The point here is that a decision to have another child, multiplied over successive generations, can have a monumental impact on the world. What is holding us back? So, what do the stats tell us about the fertility rate of Christians compared to the world? Our fertility rate is higher than the “nonreligious,” but only a little bit more – just over 2 children per woman in America, and about 2.7 worldwide. Looking at the Reformed community, it is evident that the fertility rate has dropped significantly in the past few decades. We still have more children than our neighbors, but we have far fewer than we had not long ago. And the difference is more apparent in urban areas than rural. When I was doing presentations on this topic to Reformed communities across Canada over the past two years, it struck me how rural areas responded to the message very warmly. In contrast, in the more urban areas, I was clearly walking on sensitive ground. Yes, fertility is a sensitive topic. There is no way that I can understand the pain and heartache that many women and couples face daily because they aren’t able to have children, or because they have lost children. Likewise, there are many singles who would love to be married and have children, but haven’t been blessed with a spouse. Or their spouse is no longer with them. To add to this, many people grew up in homes where their parents had many children, but then failed to provide the care that those children really needed – the impact of this neglect can carry on for a lifetime. We live in a very broken world, and the curse of the fall is still being felt daily. There are very good reasons why many people can’t have children. Likewise, there are good reasons to not have more children. The challenge with sensitive topics like this is that, out of love for the hurting, we might feel a pressure to just stay quiet. But we so easily forget that encouraging God’s people to marry and have children isn’t just some opinion that we can choose to hold to or not. It is, instead, God’s express command to humanity. We are silent to our own peril. And whatever our situation, all of us can play a role in welcoming the gift of life. 1. Considerations for couples with children If you already have children and wonder if you should have more, I heard one Christian couple recommend that you literally write out each reason you may have for not having another. And then, for each reason, put it in a column. Is this reason an example of faith, trust, love, or fear, or selfishness? Since this is a self-administered test, it’d be easy to skew the results however you might wish. So be careful to use it to evaluate your thinking, not simply justify it. Remember that one day we will all stand before the Judge of the universe and it is His standard that matters. If you are open to having more children, first confirm that your spouse is as well. God wants us to be faithful to the marriage and baptism vows that we have made, which means we have to have the physical and emotional capacity to love and care for our spouses and the children He has given us. The goal is not to have as many children as possible. If, based on your feelings right now, you think there is no way you can have more children, it likely isn’t wise to take measures that would prevent you from changing your mind a few years from now. It is amazing how much our situation can change in just a couple of years. We can only see and feel this moment. God may have something very different for us in the future. I have had people pull me aside to tell me how much they regret taking steps to prevent more children. And I’m sure you are aware of many families who thank God almost daily for every child He has given them. 2. A thought for couples without children If you are a couple who has decided that you want to wait with getting married, or wait with having children until you have reached certain milestones that have to do with studies, career, or finances, how does this align with this passage from James 4:13-17: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” The world promises that women can make plans to have it all – they can plot out their career track and after they are established then they can have their children. But as many women have discovered too late, fertility declines sharply in a woman’s thirties. We never know what tomorrow might bring us. 3. Singles The number one reason for the declining fertility rate is that more women are childless. This is also evident in the Church. I have been struck time and again by the number of quality girls in Reformed churches who are age 20, then 25, then 30, and guys still haven’t snapped them up yet. I see groups of young adults where the guys and girls seem to prefer to hang out as singles rather than to date, get married, and start a family. Single young men, it is your responsibility to find a girl and start a family. This takes courage and effort. But you can do it! What are you doing to make this a reality? If your fears, career, or your hobbies and sports are keeping you immobilized or too preoccupied, make changes starting tonight. Ask God to give you eyes to see a godly woman who could be a great wife. And when He shows you one, ask her out on a date! Young women, are your decisions about career and studies making it harder for solid Christian guys to meet you? Are your standards for guys aligning with God’s will or your own? Both guys and girls, if practical things like the cost of housing is keeping you from getting married, my encouragement would be to prioritize marriage. Trust in the LORD’s provision, and be open to changing some of your expectations if need be. As Christ tells us, “seek first His kingdom and righteousness, and all these will be yours as well.” If the cost of housing means you think you can’t get married or have children, consider moving to a new community where housing is less expensive, or be content with renting for the time being. 4. Everyone else If God hasn’t given you children, or if you won’t be having more children, you can still be a massive help simply by looking beyond yourself and loving your neighbors, young and old alike. This can be through your job (we need teachers, nurses, and truck-drivers), and on the side (catechism teachers, baby-sitters, and coaches), and in hundreds of other ways. Changing the world, while being sanctified A lot of people are trying to change the world through activism, political engagement, and missions. These things matter a great deal – in fact, they flow from our identity as prophets, priests, and kings. But we can get so caught up in good things that we neglect our most basic callings. One lesson that I have learned is that the greatest blessings I have are not the things that I have worked the hardest to make happen. They are the gifts that God freely gives. After high school I studied in university for 7 years and received a diploma, then a degree, then a Master’s degree. I then worked for 15 years and gave that job my blood, sweat, and tears. Around that same time, my wife and I worked very hard to tame a wild piece of land in northern BC to be a place where we could raise our family. What has come of these things? All of them I have given away or would be willing to. My wife and I sold that land a few years ago because it was too difficult for me to stay on top of it with my other responsibilities. And I left that job about a year later. And if my degrees were taken away from me, it would make almost no difference in my life or to anyone else. But it is very clear to me that what matters the most is my marriage to Jaclyn, my six wonderful children, the many blessed relationships I have in church and beyond, and most of all, the promises of God. These things are not a result of my effort. They are a gift from God. But I had to be willing to accept these gifts willingly and to prioritize life accordingly. It takes courage to ask a girl out, to leave a career to prioritize raising a family, to be open to having more children when there are already toddlers around our legs. Like many of you, I was scared about the prospect of having more children and about seven years ago the epicenter of a burnout I experienced was when our sixth child was born. It isn’t easy. But I wouldn’t trade these gifts for anything. There is incredible pressure in our culture for women to be something more than a mom. Yet a mom can have a monumental impact on this world for centuries to come. A career may come with perks like money and recognition, but these things can disappear overnight. Your offspring will change the world and will live into eternity. As we get older, we go to more and more funerals. They are always hard, but I also can’t help but be convicted every time again when I go to a funeral. I get such clear perspective on what matters most in life. At a funeral, does it really matter if someone really nailed that hobby, or built up a successful business? Only if these things were a blessing to others. So many of the things they worked so hard for are not even considered at the funeral. What matters most is whether they loved their family and others, and whether they loved the LORD. I don’t think I’m the only one who doesn’t know what is best for myself. I need to follow God’s Word, even if it clashes with how I feel – my fears, my ambitions, my desires. That is true for all of God’s children. If you made it to the end of this article and still aren’t convinced, consider these two questions: 1) To Whom do you (and me) owe our own existence? 2) Shouldn’t we trust the One who made us to know what’s best for us, and best for the world He’s placed us in?...

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Assorted

More time to pray

Martin and Christina Veenstra on retirement in your nineties ***** Little did Christina Veenstra know, more than six decades ago, that meeting her future husband, Martin Veenstra, at Reformed Bible Institute would help her preparations for retirement. I recently had the opportunity to interview Christina and Martin, and as she explained, prayer was a part of her life then, and is all the more so now, in her nineties. “I went to Reformed Bible Institute (RBI). I wanted to go into nursing, then, but I didn’t know enough English yet, after three years, so they advised me to take . So I went to RBI and that’s where I met Martin. He was in his first year, and I was in my last year, and for me, it was love at first sight. But he had other plans, and he had other girlfriends, but I prayed for three years. When I was in nurses’ training, I prayed for three years that the Lord would give me Martin. “I was a C student in nursing at RBI, but I always passed everything. But then I did not pass my state boards for nursing, because it was multiple choice, and I still was having some problems with dealing with English, so my mind went blank. So I became a graduate nurse. And after I graduated, I think it was either the same week, or the week after, I got a letter from Martin that we would correspond. Then I knew that’s what the Lord meant me to be, that the husband I prayed for would become my husband.” While we do not always get the spouse that we desire, even when we pray for them, in the grace of God, Christina’s three years of prayer brought her two great spiritual benefits: a partner to pray and serve with, and practice in persistent prayer, which she carries on now in her retirement years. Partners in prayer and service God did see fit to grant Christina the husband who, sixty-three years later, continues to join her in prayer for the people they care most about. Martin: “Now that we’re retired, and we’re both 90, I think that our service is more here , because I don’t drive anymore either. But we do get a ride to church every Sunday. So we talk to people here, the people here who don’t know the Lord. We hope that we can help to mold them, and talk to them at hymn sing.” Christina: “We have a hymn sing every Monday evening. Martin plays the organ, and I more or less lead it. We have 50, sometimes 60 people come, and some of them are not from the church. So we are so happy about that. I pray the Lord that I can sing until the day I die.” Practice for persistent prayer Three years of earnest prayer for a very specific thing is good practice for the life of prayer that is now the focus of Martin and Christina’s retirement. Me: “What do you see right now as your role in your own family?” Martin: “Prayer, and more prayer, and then some more prayer, because we have some grandchildren or great-grandchildren that don’t walk with the Lord. They all love us, and we love them too, but they need the Lord.” Christina: “That’s why I pray every morning for the whole family, every one of them, in the morning.” Me: “What do you think is your greatest challenge in life right now?” Martin: “The greatest challenge is prayer, and just, to live daily for the Lord. And hopefully that somehow, in time, rubs off on our children, that they say, ‘We love the Lord.’” Christina: “The Lord can change the heart. As long as we are alive, we’ll pray for them until the very end. The Lord can change their hearts and lives.” “Living the dream” Of course, a life of prayer is not what our culture sees as ideal “golden years.” Back on May 20, 2000, John Piper told a crowd of 40,000 college students to aim for more than just comfort in their retirement: “I tell you what a tragedy is. I’ll read to you from Reader’s Digest what a tragedy is: ‘Bob and Penny took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Fla., where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.’ “That’s a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. And I get forty minutes to plead with you: don’t buy it. With all my heart I plead with you: don’t buy that dream. The American Dream: a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells as the last chapter, before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did: ‘Here it is Lord – my shell collection! And I’ve got a nice swing, and look at my boat!’ “Don’t waste your life; don’t waste it.” Is that “Freedom 55” attitude still around? It seems to be harder to achieve now, but many of those who have the money still want it. Recently, as I was waiting in line at A&W beside an older gentleman, he said that it was good that “we” retired people (I guess I look retired) had plenty of time to kill. So I asked him what a typical day was like for him. He told me that he spent six months every year in Arizona, playing softball and tennis. Living the dream? A counter-cultural daily life Martin and Christina have certainly not bought into that “American dream.” Me: “In what ways are you staying close to the Lord?” Martin: “I love to read Scripture. One thing we learned at Bible school; we fell in love with our Bibles. We love our Bibles; we want to read it more, and I should read more, and now I have the time, so I can. There’s some wonderful things in there that we can know, and remember, and put into practice.” Christina: “I do it in the morning. I’m an early bird. I’m up at five, and Martin gets up at seven, so I have my devotions in the morning.” Martin: “So I read more at night.” Me: “Do you have any things that you share, Bible readings that you share?” Christina: “More or less all day long. If he finds something, then he will tell me, and if I find something in my Bible reading….” Me: “Do you have a list of people that you pray for?” Martin: “Mostly family. We pray for people when we hear about the need, but it changes all the time…” Christina: “And people from the church…” Greatest joy in life So, what is retirement like without the 30-foot boat, the shell collection, or even a driver’s license? For Martin and Christina, it is, even with all the problems of aging, a time of joy: Me: “What is your greatest joy in life now?” Martin: “You raise a wonderful subject. Yesterday we heard about Levi, who is a tax collector who came to know the Lord. He could instantly know the Lord. I think the greatest joy is that we can serve the Lord, and we know that we are His. He made a covenant with us: ‘I am your God, and you are my people,’ and we take that to heart, and believe that, and we rejoice in that. I do think that sometimes there may not be joy enough in this place. We need to dwell on that more. The joy of the Lord is our strength.” Christina: “What is your only comfort in life and death? That I belong with body and soul to my Lord Jesus Christ.” Martin: “I think He strengthens us daily for the walk that we have with Him, and if we want to live with Him, we get reminded of that daily. He wants us, daily, to read the Scriptures, how He loves and cares for us each day….” While Christina needs a walker for her daily walk, because of peripheral neuropathy – ”The outlying nerves don’t like getting old, so they let me know” – she also finds joy in the Scriptures, and the opportunities she has to serve others less formally. Christina: “Over the years, the Bible means more and more to you – how much the Lord means to you. It’s just wonderful. I love this age. You have all the time in the world to be of help, or to read the Bible. When I see somebody that looks a little bit sad, I do encourage them, as much as I can.” Martin: “You want to encourage people as much as you can. When people live in a community, it gets very lonely for people, especially when their spouse dies. So when somebody says, ‘Hi, how are you today?’ – sometimes that’s all it takes.” Christina: “We love it here. We do believe that God put us here….” Unlike Bob and Penny from John Piper’s illustration, who have cause to tremble at their eventual meeting with their Creator, Martin and Christina are not wasting their lives. They are, instead, living in genuine hope in the time that God continues to give them on this earth, as the final Bible passages we discussed show. Me: “Is there a specific Bible passage that lifts you up at this time in your life?” Martin: “Philippians 1: ‘For me to live is Christ; to die is gain.’” Christina: “‘The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life.’ (Ps. 27).” Martin: “Or 103 would be a good one: ‘Bless the LORD and forget not all his benefits.’” Christina: “He is in communion all the time.” Interview responses have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity....

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News

Saturday Selections – Feb. 8, 2025

Monarch butterflies are freaky cool  (7 min) We know that caterpillars become butterflies – two creatures in one! – but did you know that Monarc...
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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 B...
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Being the Church

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 ...
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Pornography

A church response is needed to stop the porn crisis
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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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News

Saturday Selections – Feb. 1, 2025

How people would run if they were dogs (2 min) Should he do one on cats? Does it matter where women work? Some Christians might love to have a more definitive answer than this article provides, but it does offer a biblical perspective worth considering. Why nobody has friends anymore "The Survey Center on American Life reports that that in 1990, almost 70% of men had five or more close friends. By 2021, just 40% reported having that many." Christian apologetics on Rogan Last year Canadian Christian apologist Wes Huff dismantled a former Joe Rogan guest, Billy Carson, who then threatened legal action. That kerfuffle got Joe Rogan's attention, and then, suddenly, a Christian apologist was invited onto the world's most popular skeptical podcast. The way a fly flies is fly! The speed at which a fly flaps is so fast it has been hard to investigate what it is really up to. But now, as we're starting to get in-depth looks for the first time, evolutionists are awestruck at how intricate and amazing a fly's flight mechanism really is. Springtails do their own stunts They jump the equivalent of 6 stories, exploding upward 150 times faster than the blink of an eye!  ...

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Pro-life - Euthanasia

Euthanasia changed the abortion battle

Dozens of pro-life volunteers spent the summer talking to strangers about the unborn ***** In 2016 euthanasia was legalized. That was also the summer I did my first pro-life internship with the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform (endthekilling.ca). After that I was involved for several years, and then, after a bit of a break, I returned – my sister and I interned for the summer. We spent our time door-knocking, having conversations, and showing abortion victim photography in the streets of Calgary. One heart at a time One young man I talked to said abortion was okay earlier on in the pregnancy, and in difficult circumstances. I agreed with him about how difficult those situations would be, and then I asked him to consider a girl who ends up in a difficult situation once the child was born. I asked if he thought we could ever kill that child, because of her situation. Then we talked about the humanity of the preborn – that if abortion ends the life of a biological human being, then it’s a human rights violation. At the end of the conversation, he agreed that abortion was never okay, and he took a pamphlet with resources to share with his friends. That was one of three conversations I had during that one hour of activism. And throughout the city about 20 other activists were having similar conversations! So many people change their minds when they see the signs and hear the arguments. And many of them end the conversation saying, "Thank you for being here." Euthanasia changed things It's still shocking to me how many times we hear "I had an abortion," "My girlfriend had an abortion," and "I drove my friend to the abortion clinic." Everyone has been affected in some way or another. I’m also stunned that we live in a society where so many people think it's better to die than to live through suffering. There's so much need for the gospel. We can show the inconsistencies in pro-abortion logic, and when we do, even the most philosophical nutcases will agree (at least in theory). But when people don't even value themselves, how can we expect them to value other human life? This summer is showing me clearly what a hurting society we live in – and how that brokenness has progressed even since I started in 2016. When I first did pro-life work, euthanasia rarely came up, which is why I clearly remember one instance where it did. A man came up to me and shared that he had helped his mom get euthanized in the Netherlands, when it wasn’t accessible in Canada. It was a good thing, he argued, because she hadn’t wanted to be a burden on the rest of the family. I was shocked. Now, eight years later and euthanasia is widespread. A few months ago, a friend shared with me that his grandma chose MAiD – and she had considered herself a Christian. They used to meet us halfway We’re no longer just talking with people who think it’s okay to kill preborn babies; we’re talking with people who want to be killed themselves if their life no longer seems worthwhile. Beliefs are a bit different person to person, but the equation goes something like this: a person’s life is worth living, if (and only if) they have awareness of what’s going on around them, they aren’t suffering, and they aren’t a burden to society. One of our strongest anti-abortion arguments concludes: “If we’d never kill a born person for (X) situation, why is it okay to kill a pre-born human for the same situation?” The underlying principle is that we don’t kill people, regardless of situations. The foundation of our pro-life arguments is built on two premises: 1) that the pre-born are human 2) and that killing humans is wrong. Now we’re having a rising number of people challenge the second premise. If life has no meaning death becomes attractive Why should we be surprised when a generation that’s okay with killing babies decides that it’s also okay to kill parents? Abortion and euthanasia are symptoms (and certainly not the only serious ones) of materialism and abstract spiritualism. You live for personal happiness, you don’t judge, and have only personal morals and religion – don’t impose those on others. It’s an echo of an earlier time when “everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25). The root issue here is a loss of values of our nation; virtue itself is no longer a virtue, and suffering is seen as the ultimate evil. Victor Frankl talks about suffering in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, where he reflects on his time during the Holocaust. He observed that some people shut down while others became more determined to live, and he found that meaning (purpose) was the ultimate difference. For some, meaning was the literal difference between life and death. With Medical Assistance in Dying, the messages are clear: “Your life no longer has meaning. You are a burden to society and to your family,” and “Your value is dependent on your circumstances.” Where does our worth come from? If materialism is the secular religion of our day, then the message of the Gospel stands in sharp contrast. That contrast is highlighted in Dr. Goligher’s book, How Should We Then Die? where he brings the discussion back to whether human beings have intrinsic or extrinsic value. Do we have value based on our humanity, or do we assign value based on age, circumstances, and usefulness? As Christians we know that we're made in God’s Image. That’s why we know that we have value and purpose in every stage of our life. And we know to treat others according to that intrinsic value. Christians also understand that pain and suffering are often a means to refine and shape us. In our suffering, there’s meaning and comfort that we ultimately cannot lose. Our society lives for pleasure and comfort, but it is also craving purpose and meaning. And because it can’t find meaning, it’s not shocking that we find ourselves in a culture of death. Going all Prophet Nathan on them (2 Sam. 12) While doing activism, I met a woman named Janice. Her sister had died of a terminal illness a few years ago, and she cried as she said, “They wouldn't let her have MAiD, so I had to watch her suffer.” I had nowhere to go but the Gospel, and I was able to bring it in. Logic and truth are also essential and effective in ending abortion – I've seen the fruits over and over again. Our nation’s moral conscience can only be numbed so much; the Law is still written on our calloused hearts (Romans 2:15). We might obscure the Law and justify ourselves, but everyone still knows that it’s wrong to kill innocent humans. To show that abortion is wrong, we draw out an analogy that makes it real. I often say, “I know of a baby named Laura. Laura’s mom was on drugs while she was pregnant, but she thought she could handle it. After Laura was born, her mom realized she couldn’t handle it, and she abandoned her. Now, just a few months old, Laura is suffering from neglect and from drugs in her system. She may end up in foster care her whole life. Would it be okay to kill Laura to spare her from a difficult life?” When this picture is drawn, murder is harder to justify. In the same way, it’s much more difficult to justify abortion after looking at an abortion image, and much easier to justify it if the discussion is kept in the abstract. This is the reason everything gets covered in euphemisms – euphemisms help us to forget what we are actually talking about. With euthanasia, we can use the same type of argument. We appeal to cases where it’s clearly wrong, and use that to show our listeners that they are creating a hierarchy of value. “You’re saying that there’s one category of people to whom we should offer help, and another group that we can kill.” And if there’s one thing this culture likes, it’s equality. So, there are ways to humanize the victims and to change minds. It’s a heart issue In pro-life apologetics, we recognize some conversations as “heart conversations.” When we deal with a heart issue, we check in with the person and hear their story. We show them that we care. And then, gently but with full truth, we bring the conversation back to abortion – they can't heal until they acknowledge the wrong. The reality is that every person you and I ever talk to has a heart issue; we’ve all hurt and been hurt. And what sin is heavier than killing your own child or grandparent? That's the burden of guilt weighing down on our nation. And who else can take away this burden, than the One who died to save us? As Christians we convict and grieve, but we aren't stuck there – we can share the Gospel of redemption and forgiveness. My brief encounters on the street are one step in pointing people to a higher morality and a higher purpose. Most often it’s a first step, but sometimes it’s a later one. But especially in a world where it's so countercultural to just love your neighbor, we have a profound opportunity to show the difference of living with the Gospel. Conclusion Early Christians in Rome were set apart by the Gospel they preached and by the Gospel they lived. In that culture, it was normal and socially acceptable to abandon babies outdoors so that they would die of exposure. There was no question on the humanity of those children but in Rome a child that wasn’t wanted didn’t have value. Value was assigned, not inherent. Where were the Christians? Rescuing those they could and raising them as their own. Eventually, culture changed so much that exposure became a crime. When I walk through downtown Calgary, there’s little that makes me think of Rome. On the surface, we’re extremely civilized. But our values aren’t too different – we just hide it better. Whether we’re headed for destruction or revival, our calling as Christians is clear: Be salt and light; defend the orphan; share the Good News. To find out more about the work of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform, or if you want to investigate spending a summer working for them, go to EndTheKilling.ca....

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Evangelism

It's necessary: use words!

I hadn’t expected to meet a witch on the bus, what with their alternative form of transportation. Yet there she was, not a wart to be seen, sitting across the aisle. She had started the ride buried in a book, but her head came up when my friend and I discussed a particular point of theology in a slightly louder than normal fashion. This friend was on his way to becoming a minister, and theological topics always had the effect of cranking up his volume. I suspected that this was a conscious decision, rather than just an outburst of enthusiasm, since he always talked about how Christians had to be more of a light to the world. And he was a light: a roaring, exploding bonfire of light that could not be ignored by anyone within earshot. Whether we were sitting in a steam room, or hanging out at a coffee house, or sitting on the bus, he provoked obviously unchristian people into talking with us. This time around it was the witch. A few minutes into the ride she interrupted us to ask us what religion we followed. My friend was happy to explain, and then asked her what church she went to. “Oh, I don’t go to a church,” she said, “I worship my personal goddess at home.” The way she explained it, witches (or Wiccans) sounded a lot like New Agers. They did try and cast the occasional spell, but only love spells, and the central tenet of their religion was a respect for all of nature. It was just mumbo jumbo, nothing shocking or new for us, until she started talking about her personal goddess. After listing all sorts of benefits that came from having a goddess on call, she admitted it was nothing but a fabrication. That admission left both me and my conversationally-endowed buddy at a loss for words; we just couldn’t understand how someone could knowingly choose a delusion over a real, caring, and powerful God. So we asked. They don't understand The question surprised her. “You guys have to understand,” she blurted, “You pray and that makes you feel better, right? So what’s the difference between what you do and what I do?” The basic fact she didn’t understand, the thing no one had told her before, was that we Christians serve the one real God. This woman had never heard that before. Her Wiccan experience with religion was an openly delusional one, so she, quite logically, assumed that all other religions were similarly based. I found her ignorance surprising, but since then I’ve found it isn’t unusual. In fact, I had a similar sort of encounter less than a month later. This time my friend and I were making our semi-regular pilgrimage to a display sponsored by our university’s pro-choice club. I always went to pick up as many free brochures as possible, which, once I was out of sight, I would gleefully destroy. It was a small thing – a very small thing – but I thought it was at least as good an approach as the one my friend tried time and time again. He always debated with the pro-choicers. But what was usually a waste of breath turned out a differently that day. After a heated five-minute exchange one of the young ladies at the table asked for clarification, “Do you mean you really, honestly think it’s a baby?” “Of course,” my friend replied, “Why else would we even care?” Well, that just didn’t fit with what she had been told, “I thought you religious types were just using this issue to try to control women.” Her friend nodded in agreement. They didn’t understand – they were utterly ignorant. Conclusion I’ve always wanted to believe that evangelism was as simple as living a good Christian life. I wanted to believe I didn’t actually have to talk about God as long as people could see His presence in my life. Actions are louder than words, right? The problem is, in this post-Christian age people don’t have the background – they don’t know the basics of Christianity – to understand our actions. A Christian who doesn’t work on Sunday is just a guy who gets the day off. No sex before marriage becomes the rational act of someone who’s scared of sexually transmitted diseases. Action against abortion is understood as a power grab against women, and even prayer can be explained away as nothing more than a type of meditation or some psychological self-talk exercise. Actions only speak louder than words when the reasons for the actions are understood. And the world doesn’t have a clue anymore. So, as John MacArthur once put it, we need to “Preach the Gospel and always use words.” The world doesn’t understand so we all have to start talking and explaining. If you already are, you may have to start talking a little louder. And if you’re uncomfortable with cranking up the volume maybe you can just hang out with a conversationally-endowed buddy who isn’t. A version of this article first appear in the January 1999 issue under the title "Dumb, but not deaf"...

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