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Don’t overlook the blessings of today

Our children are actually wealthier than the very richest of 100 years ago

*****

You stir in your bed as the strains of an orchestra tickle at the edge of your still sleeping consciousness. The volume increases little by little, and you wake up in your warm cozy bed. You stick your toes out of bed onto the floor: even though it’s January, it’s warm and pleasant inside your bedroom, as the furnace has been programmed by your smart thermostat to warm the house fifteen minutes before you need to get up.

You share the bathroom upstairs with your sister, but she won’t be up for another half hour, so you turn on the tap to your preferred setting, and warm water instantly gushes out: you luxuriate in the shower an extra few minutes as you think about the day ahead.

Your mom has put out a delicious breakfast: bacon and eggs on toast, with sliced oranges and a cup of hot tea, just the way you like it. Dad reads the morning devotions, and leads your family in prayer; then you’re off to take on the challenges of a day at work. You drive yourself in the car your parents sold you for much less than it was worth: it’s been sitting in the garage, not outside in the cold, so you don’t even need to scrape frost off the windshield.

You’re new at your job, but the work is interesting and challenging, and your co-workers are mostly kind. The office is always kept at the perfect temperature for working, and the company provides snacks and gourmet coffee for your morning and afternoon breaks: they hope to make the work environment as comfortable as possible, because paying well is not enough to keep associates engaged in their work; people also need to feel appreciated and well cared for!

When lunch hour arrives, you make your way to the company gym for a work out – after a few hours of mental toil, it feels so good to put your body through some physical tests! After a quick shower, you’re back at your desk at 1 pm to continue your tasks through the end of the work day at 5:00. It was a productive day, and you feel good about what you’ve accomplished.

You make your way home, stopping at the sports store to pick up a hockey stick for tonight’s game. At $250, it’s a bit more than you usually spend, but you’ve been saving up for quite a while and it’s time to treat yourself a little bit – and maybe it will help solve your goal scoring drought!

After the game, you relax with your friends in the dressing room, limiting yourself to one beer so you can feel sharp in the morning, but enjoying the camaraderie and fun with your teammates. Home at a decent hour, you chat with your parents before bed time, check the football scores on your iPhone, and head upstairs for a good night’s sleep. Then before you know it, the music starts again…

Life in the modern world

Most of our readers could relate to some of what’s written above: a hardly unusual day for a modern citizen of the western world (although this fictional teenager will be adding many responsibilities in the coming years if he or she is blessed with a spouse and family in due time!) But what you have just read, and, very likely, what you experienced today in your own daily routine, would be unimaginable luxury for 99% of the world’s population over the past 6,000 years.

Waking up in your own private bedroom and having access to running hot water? That would be a luxury reserved for only the wealthiest in centuries past.

Your usage might be limited to checking the weather and texting your friends, but that phone in your pocket has access to more information than the largest libraries of the ancient world.

What we consider a typical work week of 40 or 45 hours would be laughably brief for our grandparents and their parents. And the way our bosses pamper us? Our ancestors would be stunned…

100 years ago

Many of our readers have family trees with roots in the Netherlands: my own grandparents were born early in the 1900s, and so would have been in their twenties a century ago. Perhaps you only know your family members from this time frame as gloomy faces in faded black and white pictures: but they were of course real people with real struggles, joys and sorrows. If we transport ourselves back in time one hundred years, to the Netherlands of the 1920s, we might be shocked at living conditions.

As in most of the world, the infant mortality rate in Holland was very high: it was not uncommon for a couple to bury two or three children before they had reached their teenage years. If you look at the genealogies of your family, you might see multiple children with the same name: if baby Geert died, the next male son might also be named Geert, so that the name of one’s relatives would live on in the family line.

Between 1900 and 1930, the population of Holland increased from 5 million to 8 million, a 60 percent increase in just 30 years. The Netherlands had stayed out of “The Great War” of 1914 to 1918, which we now know as the First World War, and so the country was spared the devastation that swept over other European countries. During that same time frame, average life expectancy in the nation increased from around fifty to around sixty. It was not at all uncommon for adults to die much earlier than today: with less modern medicine and antibiotics, some diseases that would be relatively minor today would be fatal a hundred years ago.

Despite the Netherlands status as the sixth wealthiest country in the world in the 1920’s, the average working family lived without most of the comforts that we consider commonplace today. In the cities, electricity was starting to become more common as a source of light and power in homes, but indoor plumbing was still hit and miss. In the country and small towns, laborers lived in very humble conditions; sometimes even in sod huts (shelters built of turf, or dug into a hillside), with a fireplace burning dried peat – compressed moss – for heating and cooking.

Of course, not everyone in the 1920s lived in such humble circumstances, but even the middle class made do with far less than we would consider a minimum standard. For clothing, most children would have one set of clothes and shoes for the weekdays, and a special “Sunday” dress or suit, often worn with the same shoes. Absent the assistance of a washing machine and dryer, moms would wash all the households clothing by hand (or using a manually powered washing machine), and laundry would be hung out to dry on the clothesline. And in inclement weather, it would be strung up across the attic.

The 1950s

Perhaps 100 years ago seems far removed – how about we move forward a generation and make a comparison with the world of your parents and grandparents in the 1950s?

Everything in the world had changed in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, igniting the Second World War. Unlike the first “Great War,” this time the Netherlands could not stay neutral, as German forces swept through the low countries in the spring of 1940, conquering their neighbor in just a few days. The Nazis treated the Dutch reasonably well at first, but soon began a campaign to eradicate the Jewish population, and to bring food, manpower, and raw material back to Germany for the war machine to continue its fight. The last months of the war, known as the “Hunger Winter,” was the pinnacle of suffering for the Dutch population, as the last gasps of the German forces left little food available, and left behind much trauma and despair.

After the war, many Europeans wanted to get out of the Old World, away from the new dangers of Communism, and towards the freedom, opportunity, and prosperity of western countries. The USA, Canada, Australia, and South Africa opened their doors to immigrants, especially those with a background in agriculture who were willing to work in the farms and fields.

Perhaps you’ve heard stories from your parents or grandparents about the difficult early years in their new homeland, learning a new language, and often living in very difficult circumstances.

While every family’s story is different, you can imagine your family’s own history. You wake up and it’s so cold! As usual, your brother has grabbed most of the blankets, and the brick you took out of the fireplace and wrapped in rags to warm your bed last night has now lost its warmth. It’s your chore to start the fire this morning, so you flick on the single light switch and get dressed in the cold, teeth chattering. The house only has one bathroom, and it’s occupied – you wonder who could be awake before you? Off you head to the kitchen to stoke up the fire, and when you peek inside the wood stove, there are a few embers still glowing. You’re able to get the fire going again and soon the room begins to warm up.

Next, you head outside for your morning chores: Dad has been hired as a farm hand for the Canadian farmer who sponsored your family, and this means the whole clan has to pitch in! The first milking is at 4:30 a.m., and Dad is already out there getting the milking pails ready for you and your brother. After a few hours of hard work in the cold, you head back inside for the breakfast that Mom has prepared. Dad reads the Bible, and then you and your siblings head off to the road to wait for a ride from the neighbors who will take you to school. You’re all crammed in the old four-door Ford; with no seatbelts required, it doesn’t really matter how many are in the back seat!

Dad has already told you that ninth grade will be your last year of schooling: you’re going to need to work full time to help the family out! If you want more education than that, you might be able to go to night school, but your parents don’t really think that is necessary. Your older sister is already working at the shoe factory down the road; she gives all her wages to Dad and Mom, and they give her an allowance in return. This will be the way it is until you leave the parental home!

When you get home from school, there is more work around the farm needing to be done. Dad is often working late nights, especially during the harvest, and you are expected to pitch in every afternoon, and often after supper as well.

Sunday is the day of rest, but the cows still need to be milked, and chores have to be done! Your church is a 45-minute drive away, but there’s no way your parents are not taking the whole family to both morning and evening services. Sundays are a wonderful time to connect with fellow immigrants, to socialize, to compare notes about work opportunities, to marvel at the blessings the Lord has given to your community. While life is not easy, there is so much more opportunity in Canada than there was for you in Holland, and you are grateful to God for His provision and goodness. Despite the hard conditions, you know the Lord is looking after His people, and that in all circumstances, you may lean on Him for all you need for body and soul.

Reflection

While your grandparents may look back with fondness on their early years in North America, and might even miss some of the struggles they had to go through, there is no doubt that life was more difficult than it is today. In 2025, we enjoy and appreciate Christian schools in most of our communities; we have many post-secondary opportunities for our youth; we have incredible economic and employment options in our free market nations, and we are free to worship our God without persecution.

We are collectively the beneficiaries of the sacrifices made by the previous generations in working hard for their families and for their communities. The Lord has been so good to us! We do not need to feel guilty about these blessings, but we should use them wisely for the good of our neighbors, and to the glory of our great God.

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Book excerpts, Book Reviews, History, Human Rights, Politics

The bad king that prompted the Great Charter

How Robin Hood’s nemesis Prince John was the impetus behind the Magna Carta In this excerpt from “A Christian Citizenship Guide” by André Schutten and Michael Wagner, we go way back to the time of the fictional Robin Hood and the very real Prince John to learn about the development of the Magna Carta, which has been described as “the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.” ***** Once upon a time there was a king named Richard the Lionheart. He became king of England in 1189. The time before this date, in English law, is known as “time immemorial.”1 Important legal and political developments occurred in this “time out of mind” and contributed to the development of the system of law and government that we have today.2 While important and formational, those developments can’t be covered in detail here. However, we must begin the story of our constitution somewhere, and so we will begin the day after time immemorial. Most storybooks suggest that Richard the Lionheart was a good king, but that’s really quite debatable. All we know for sure is that his brother John was worse. Richard was a military man and mainly used England to fund his military exploits. He spent all but 6 months of his 10-year reign outside of England fighting various battles and pursuing various exploits. Once, on his way back to England, King Richard was kidnapped in a German territory and held for ransom. His brother John, temporarily ruling England in his place, not only refused to pay the ransom but offered the kidnappers money to keep his brother in custody! (You get a sense of John’s character, don’t you?) King Richard eventually returned to England but died shortly thereafter and, because he had no children, his younger brother John officially took the throne in the year 1199. King John ruled as an absolute monarch, as had most of the kings preceding him. He was the ultimate law maker and the final judge of any legal dispute, and he set himself above the law. King John was also a particularly cruel and greedy king, which is where the tales of Robin Hood come in. His excessive taxation impoverished the people and united the factions opposed to him. All sectors of society rose up: the barons, church leadership, merchants, and commoners. Signed not just twice or thrice In early 1215, a group of 39 barons (out of a total of 197) openly revolted against the king, with the blessing of Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury. The barons successfully took over the city of London and more barons came to their side. By midyear, King John knew he had to negotiate. And so, on the 15th day of June, 1215, in an open meadow known as Runnymede, the barons and the king signed a truce negotiated and drafted by archbishop Langton. That truce is known as the Magna Carta, or the Great Charter, and it is quite possibly the most significant legal document in the history of English law. Lord Denning, one of the greatest English judges in history, once described the Magna Carta as “the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.”3 Lord Chief Justice Bingham wrote that “the sealing of Magna Carta was an event that changed the constitutional landscape in and, over time, the world.”4 The Magna Carta stands for the rule of law that all free men must be treated fairly and that no one is above the law, not even the king.5 By signing the Magna Carta, King John swore that he, and subsequent kings, would not be able to order the execution of his political enemies or any other citizens that displeased him without a proper criminal trial, heard by an impartial jury. Nor could he exact taxes from the people without first consulting with a council of barons (the very beginnings of a Parliament). And, often overlooked in modern political textbooks, the very first clause of the Magna Carta guaranteed the freedom and protection of the church.6 This was particularly important because King John wanted the power to appoint only those who agreed with him to be bishops of the church. The ecclesiastical leaders were known to speak out against the excesses and abuses of the king and often paid a steep price for doing so. King John’s father, King Henry II, infamously had archbishop Thomas Becket murdered inside Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 for standing up to the king on matters of church independence. While most parts of the Magna Carta have since been replaced or repealed by subsequent statutes, the ancient Charter has enduring value. One clause still in force today is Clause 40 which states: “To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.” This clause is an expression of the principle of equality before the law, cemented into Canada’s Constitution in section 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms 767 years later. The Canadian version reads, “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection of the law and equal benefit of the law without discrimination.” If you’re wondering whether the Magna Carta was a particularly Christian document, the answer is, “Yes!” Not only does the Magna Carta open and close with declarations about the church’s independence from state interference (the beginnings of constitutional protections for religious freedom), but the author, archbishop Langton, was the leading churchman in all of England. His legal training in Europe was in canon law (or church law), and he applied this legal training and the scriptural principles of law to his drafting of the Magna Carta. He had “a scripturally informed conscience from which emerged truth’s uninhibited voice in Magna Carta encourages proper and good government, resulting in increased justice.”7 Unfortunately, the signing of the Magna Carta didn’t restrain King John’s excesses all that long. Three months after signing it, the devious king had it annulled by the pope, and England was plunged into bloody civil war. But thankfully (for the English people anyway), King John died the next year from excessive diarrhea8 and the war came to an end. The Magna Carta did not die with King John. John’s nine-year-old son Henry III became king and reigned for the next 56 years. With the advisors and supporters of the young king seeking stability and an end to the civil war, the Magna Carta was reinstated in 1216. And when Henry reached adulthood in 1227, he reissued the Magna Carta again as law, though a shorter version of it, in exchange for the barons’ consent to a new tax. In 1253, in exchange for another tax to fund his battles in France, King Henry III swore on pain of excommunication “and stinking in hell” to uphold the Magna Carta.9 A decade later he broke his oath, imposing yet another tax, which sparked a rebellion known as the Second Barons’ War. That war concluded in 1267 with a peace treaty that required King Henry III to reaffirm the Magna Carta yet again (if you’re counting, that’s the fourth time).10 The development of the Parliaments King Henry III eventually died in 1272, and his son Edward I became king. Edward I (a.k.a. Edward Longshanks, because he was quite tall) did much good from a constitutional perspective, despite his depiction as a particularly cruel and cold-hearted English king in the Mel Gibson movie Braveheart. Edward I instituted a major review of political corruption and the abuse of power by citizens who held substantial power. In 1275, he passed The First Statute of Westminster to put on paper many of the existing laws in the country. He also worked to strengthen the policing system and restore public order. One of King Edward’s biggest contributions is that he initiated the first official Parliaments in England, calling about 46 Parliaments in his reign. The first Parliament, in 1275, included members of the nobility, clergy, and the election of two county representatives and two representatives from the towns or cities to attend.11 Twenty years later, this form of representative parliament became standard practice, known as the Model Parliament, and all future Parliaments, including Canada’s, are based on it. The nobility and clergy make up the House of Lords (comparable to Canada’s Senate), and the elected representatives of counties or towns make up the House of the Commoners (or House of Commons). Importantly, before the king could increase taxes, he had to gain approval from Parliament. Parliament was also a check on the absolute authority of the king in other respects. After another dispute over taxes between the king and Parliament between 1294 and 1297, the Magna Carta was amended and passed by Parliament as a statute for the first time and signed into law by King Edward I. This 1297 version of the Magna Carta is the officially recognized legal text in English law today and remains a part of the constitutions of Britain and Canada. Over the next one hundred years, Parliament continued to pass statutes (known later as the Six Statutes12) that clarified and expanded on sections of the Magna Carta, constantly working to restrain by law the otherwise unlimited power of the monarch. These statutes ensured that any action taken against a subject, whether taxes, fines, evictions, imprisonment, or execution, had to be done by trial or due process of the law and not at the whim of the king or his officials. Some of these constitutional principles developed in the 1300s13 are enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.14 The passing of the Magna Carta as a statute in Parliament marks a significant shift in the understanding of the power and authority of kings. The kings from the Norman Conquest (William the Conqueror in 1066) until the establishment of Parliaments believed “they ruled by means of their force and will (vis et voluntas), not by the grace of God or legal right.”15 Most people accepted this at the time, but cultural developments shifted toward “the principle of the supremacy of law.”16 The law was no longer a tool used by the king to get his way; rather the king himself was bound by the law and under the law. This shift did not happen by accident. Many of the legal rules and procedures that developed around this time were adapted from canon law (church law) which the king’s lawyers would have studied in the universities, which were also run by the churches. In the canon law tradition, “the idea that the rule of law was antithetical to the rule of men lay dormant.”17 To read the rest of the story, order a copy of André Schutten and Michael Wagner’s “A Christian Citizenship Guide” available for a suggested donation of $25. Email [email protected] or visit arpacanada.ca/CitizenshipGuide. Watch a conversation between the two authors below. Footnotes 1. “A time out of mind” or “time immemorial” refers to a point beyond which legal authorities believed it was impossible to speak with certainty. See Ryan Alford, Seven Absolute Rights: Recovering the Historical Foundations of Canada’s Rule of Law (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020), pp. 79-80. 2. This includes the Law Code developed by King Alfred the Great (r. 871-899) which incorporated the 10 commandments into the laws of England, the tradition of the coronation oaths of the Anglo-Saxon kings, the Norman Invasion of 1066 led by William the Conqueror and the Charter of liberties his son King Henry I (r. 1100-1135) instituted. 3. Danny Danziger & John Gillingham, 1215: The Year of the Magna Carta (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2004), at p. 278. 4. Tom Bingham, The Rule of Law (Penguin Books, 2011), at p. 11. 5. Clause 39, still in force today, states: “No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go against him or send against him, unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.” The only other clauses still in force today are Clause 1, which guarantees the freedom of the church, and clause 13 (renumbered clause 9 in Magna Carta, 1297), which guarantees the ancient liberties of the City of London. 6. The first clause reads in part: “First, that we have granted to God, and by this present Charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired.” 7. Brent Winters, Excellence of the Common Law (2008: self-published), p. 554, note 1383. 8. We are not 100% sure, but this may be why toilets are called “johns”. Some observe that, because King John was so despised, no king has ever been named after him. There has only ever been one King John, and he was bad enough. 9. Alford, Seven Absolute Rights, note 2, at p. 84 10. The Magna Carta was reconfirmed by various kings dozens of times, having last been confirmed by Henry VI in 1423. Ben Johnson, “The History of the Magna Carta,” Historic UK: The History and Heritage Accommodation Guide, online 11. Some might argue that King Edward’s father, King Henry III, instituted the first Parliaments. However, those earlier assemblies were more a collection of barons as advisors than a Parliament. Henry III did issue the first summons of parliamentum generalissimum to 24 barons to convene in January 1237, though only 18 attended. This evolved over time into the House of Lords. King Edward I was the first to have elected representatives from the towns and counties to attend. Those elected representatives evolved into the House of Commons. 12. See discussion on the Six Statutes in Alford, Seven Absolute Rights, note 2, at pp. 885-88. 13. These principles were developed by Parliament in the 1300s but are borrowed from canon law developed in the 1200s. For example, Pope Innocent III maintained that “a prince could not abolish the judicial process or ignore an action, because he was bound by natural law to render justice.” See Alford, Seven Absolute Rights, note 2, at p. 89. 14. These rights include the right not to be arbitrarily detained (s. 9 of the Charter), the right to a fair trial (s.11(d) of the Charter) and a trial by jury in serious offences (s.11(f) of the Charter). 15. Alford, Seven Absolute Rights, note 2, at p. 87. Alford further explains, “The expression of royal anger and ill will (ira et malevolentia) was integral to royal status. Vassals had to accept the possibility of their destruction at the king’s hands as a fact of life.” 16. Alford, Seven Absolute Rights, note 2, at p. 88. 17. Alford, Seven Absolute Rights, note 2, at p. 88....

History

USS Meredith Victory: the “Gallant Ship”

There was nothing about USS Meredith Victory that would make it stand out from the crowd. The ship was a cargo vessel, built as part of the merchant marine during the Second World War. It was 455 feet long from bow to stern. The width at the widest point was a mere 62 feet. To give that context, a Canadian football field is 450 feet long from the farthest part of the endzone to the tip of the other end zone, and 195 feet wide. The Meredith Victory was not an especially big ship. The ship, however, was destined for a brief moment of fame. During the Korean War, the vessel was sent to bring supplies for the troops of the United Nations forces. With the Chinese invasion in December 1950, United Nations and South Korean forces were pushed to the brink. Close to 100 ships, including Meredith Victory, were sent to the port of Hungnam to evacuate 100,000 troops and as many of the 100,000 civilians as possible. Leonard LaRue, captain of Meredith Victory, offloaded any cargo or weapons that had been on board and set off for the port in order to accommodate as many refugees as he could. Room for two dozen On December 22, his vessel was guided through the minefield in the harbor by a minesweeper, and was then left to load passengers. Meredith Victory normally had a crew of 35, with 12 officers, and bunks for up to 12 additional passengers. There was food, water, and sanitation supplies for only that small complement of 59. By the time the ship had been fully loaded, around 11 the next morning, Meredith Victory had brought on approximately 14,000 Korean civilian refugees. No one would have blamed the captain if he had left the port hours earlier, leaving many of the refugees behind. The ships that had escorted Meredith Victory safely in had left during the night, making the vessel’s trip out through the minefield extremely perilous. All around, United Nations ships were shelling the port in order to deny it to the enemy forces. Yet Captain LaRue stayed until his ship was, literally, standing room only. Left vulnerable without a military escort, the ship arrived in the port of Pusan on Christmas Eve. First Mate D.S. Savastio, with only basic first aid training, had delivered five babies en route. Despite the bitter December cold, the lack of light or heat in the holds, and the fact that many were forced to stand on the ship’s deck shoulder to shoulder due to overcrowding, there were no injuries. However, Pusan already had its own problems with refugees, and was only able to accept those injured before boarding the ship. Meredith Victorysailed another 50 miles to Geoje Island, where it was able to unload the refugees on Boxing Day, December 26. Seeing rightly begets bravery After the war, the South Korean government awarded the ship the Presidential Unit Citation. An act of the U.S. Congress gave the vessel the title “Gallant Ship.” And the Guinness World Records group has called the event the largest evacuation from land by a single ship. Considering when it happened, it’s tempting to look at this story as a Christmas Miracle, the kind you might find in a Hallmark movie. The description certainly fits. However, it’s worth noting that Leonard LaRue, the captain of Meredith Victory, said that he believed “God’s own hand was at the helm of my ship.” His words are backed up by his later decision to give up the sea in favor of a life in a monastery. While that was a wrong turn, it’s clear that LaRue saw his life, and the lives of these thousands of others, as gifts from God. So he cherished them. And took enormous risks to try to protect these fellow Image-bearers. Faith isn’t a guarantee of success, but trusting God fully can be the catalyst for us to show love to others – even at great risk to ourselves – because we know that come what may, God’s got us. James Dykstra is a sometimes history teacher, author, and podcaster at History.icu “where history is never boring.” Find his podcast at History.icu, or on Spotify, Google podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts....

History

"I have a bridge to sell you" (and other deals too good to be true)

I recently received an e-mail from a Nigerian prince who wanted to share his wealth with me. He told me it was millions and millions of dollars. However, he needed a few thousand dollars from me upfront to help cover bank fees and other expenses. I’d have to be a fool to turn him down, wouldn’t I? What could go wrong? I just received a text from a bank where I don’t have an account. They said they had four million dollars to transfer to me from a great uncle I can’t remember. All I had to do was click on the link in the text. I’d have to be a fool to turn that down, wouldn't I? What could go wrong? Preying on the newly landed These are the types of scams a lot of people fall for and it’s nothing new. Preying on people’s greed is probably as old as time itself and, yet, we fall for it again and again. Perhaps one of the most infamous people to prey on that desire for easy riches was George C. Parker, a New York-based confidence man. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Parker made a habit of meeting the immigrants getting off the boats at New York’s Ellis Island. While many of the immigrants coming in at the island were the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, some came to America with substantial amounts of money. It was these that Parker sought out. When he was able to strike up a conversation with one of these wealthy individuals, he would maneuver the discussion to the topic of the Brooklyn Bridge. This New York landmark, joining the districts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, is visible from Ellis Island. In the late 1800s it was one of the most recognizable symbols of the prosperity of the mighty America. Just imagine how much money you could make if you owned the bridge and were able to charge tolls to cross it. Once, twice, thrice... When Parker managed to get his new immigrant friend to the beginning of the bridge there was, as if by magic, a "For Sale" sign attached to the bridge. Like other con men who tried to sell the structure, Parker likely learned the schedule of the regular rounds of the New York City beat cops. If the police never saw a sign advertising the sale of the bridge, they really couldn’t get upset about it. To further the scheme, Parker apparently had impressive, but forged, papers showing him to be the owner of the famous landmark. And so with the documentation, the "For Sale" sign, and the promise of fabulous wealth from tolls, Parker managed to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to the gullible immigrant. And, being successful as a con man - if successful is the right term - Parker sold the bridge to someone else as well, and then he sold it again, and again, and again. It wasn’t until the unfortunate purchaser of the bridge tried to set up toll booths that they learned from the police that they’d been fleeced. There’s a story that Parker bragged about selling the bridge twice a week for decades on end. And while no one I read believes the claim, it highlights Parker’s audacity. He got caught sometimes, being convicted of fraud on three occasions. But in 1908, after his second conviction, he put on a sheriff’s coat and hat that had been left lying around and simply walked away from the courthouse. "I've got a statue to sell you.." The man was flexible as well. If the bridge had no appeal for his mark, Parker was not above trying to sell the person Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Statue of Liberty. What did him in was not trying to sell New York infrastructure, but passing a bad check. A state law imposed a mandatory life sentence on anyone convicted of four felony offences. Though the check was only one hundred fifty dollars, and not the fifty thousand that he’d sometimes scammed from his victims by selling the Brooklyn Bridge, the offence sent Parker to prison for the last eight years of his life. He was said to be a popular prisoner since, as a scam artist, he had learned how to spin a tale and most of those tales were of his own exploits. Something for comparitively nothing is a bad deal What allowed Parker’s career was simple human greed. Greed blinds us. We see an enormous profit and we fail to understand the risks. We fail to do what the investors call “due diligence.” Wanting something too badly can blind us to the risks whether in our finances, our relationships, or our careers. We can’t – or won’t – see the obvious peril right in front of us. It’s a risk we all run, and we’ve all certainly felt the sting out of wanting something a bit more than is good for us. And if you don’t believe me there, let me just say that I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. James Dykstra is a sometimes history teacher, author, and podcaster at History.icu “where history is never boring.” Find his podcast at History.icu, or on Spotify, Google podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts....

History

The Canadian Revolution of 1982

When we speak of a political "revolution," we usually think of a violent event that replaces one political system with another. Among the best known revolutions are the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century and the Russian Revolution of 1917. Canada, thankfully, has never experienced anything of this sort. Nevertheless, Canada did experience a dramatic change in its political system in 1982. In that year, Canada's constitution (the British North America Act, or BNA Act of 1867) was patriated from Great Britain, and the Constitution Act of 1982 was added to the constitution. The latter Act included the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It seems to me that the adoption of the Charter amounted to a political revolution. For most people, talking about the constitution is probably rather boring. It appears to be just a dull legal document with little relevance for day-to-day life. But what if a change in the constitution initiated the uprooting of the original underlying Christian basis of our society? Wouldn’t that affect the day-to-day life of Canadian Christians? This is indeed what has been happening in Canada for a few years now. The government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau staged a non-violent revolution in 1982, and although Trudeau himself is now dead, the implications of his revolution continue to work themselves out in our political and legal systems. Two approaches Historically speaking, there have been two major approaches to protecting rights and liberties in liberal democratic countries such as Canada. One is the British parliamentary model, and the other is the American separation of powers model. These models, and their relevance for Canada, are discussed in a lengthy article by Prof. Ted Morton, of the University of Calgary, entitled, The Living Constitution (contained in Introductory Readings in Canadian Government & Politics R. M. Krause and R. H. Wagenberg, ed., second edition, 1995). Morton summarizes the differences between the two approaches this way: The American model is ultimately based on and organized by a single document – a written constitution. By contrast, the Westminster model is based on an unwritten constitution – a combination of historically important statutes, the common law tradition, and numerous unwritten conventions and usages. The second difference is that the written constitution of the Americans includes an enumeration of the fundamental rights and liberties of the individual against government, known collectively as the Bill of Rights. While individuals enjoy basically the same rights and freedoms under the British parliamentary model of democracy, they are not spelled out in any single basic document of government – that is, they are not constitutionally entrenched. In the American system, the courts play a much larger political role since they can be appealed to in order to enforce explicitly enumerated rights against the government. In the British system, however, there is an understanding that Parliament is the supreme political institution, and that the courts are primarily to interpret the laws that are passed by Parliament. Thus court challenges against the government are usually ineffective in the British model. With the exception of its federal structure (i.e., separate federal and provincial governments), Canada's constitution was based on the British model until 1982. "Accordingly, Canada until very recently followed the British approach to the protection of civil liberty: parliamentary supremacy, the rule of law, and the conventions that support them.” While it is probably natural to think that the American approach to protecting rights would be more effective, since there is an explicit declaration of rights, this is not necessarily so. A comparison of Canadian and American history does not show that rights were better protected under the American system than under Canada's British-style system. Think of the treatment of black people in the southern states, for example. So it cannot be argued that Canada needed the Charter of Rights to protect the otherwise threatened rights of citizens. Bill vs. Charter of Rights In 1960 the Canadian government adopted a Bill of Rights, but since it was just a simple piece of regular legislation, it had virtually no noticeable effect on Canada's political system. The Charter of Rights is an entirely different affair than the 1960 Bill of Rights. "The adoption of a constitutionally entrenched Charter of Rights fundamentally altered the Canadian system of government by placing explicit limitations on the law-making power of both levels of government. Parliament was no longer supreme; the constitution was.” Morton notes that the exception to this is section 33 of the Charter which allows governments to pass legislation that violates certain sections of the Charter, although only under certain conditions. This is known as the "notwithstanding clause." However, this clause is rarely used (being widely viewed as illegitimate) and is therefore unlikely to play much of a role in Canadian politics. It is important to note, as Morton does above, that the Charter "fundamentally altered the Canadian system of government." This was the initial revolutionary change. The effects of the revolution primarily work themselves out through court decisions, especially decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada. The courts interpret the Charter and it is through this role that they are implementing the changes required to complete the revolution. The opposition loves it The Charter of Rights was not adopted to codify and protect the existing rights and freedoms of Canadian citizens, but instead to bring about important political changes. Some leftwing scholars have noted (and celebrated) the fact that the Charter promotes "egalitarianism," i.e., the modern notion of social equality. Kathleen Mahoney, a prominent feminist law professor at the University of Calgary, points this out in an article in the 1992 Winter issue of the New York University Journal of International Law and Politics. She states: It is my view that the Supreme Court of Canada, to quite a remarkable degree, has recognized the egalitarian challenge the Charter presents. In the past few years, it has launched a promising new era for equality jurisprudence quite unique in the western world. The equality theory it has developed goes far beyond that which underlies constitutional law of other western societies including Europe and the United States. A cruder way of saying this is that Canada's Supreme Court is further to the left than any other supreme court in the West. The Charter, then, contains within it the seeds for dramatic left-wing change in Canada. Mahoney refers to "the transformative potential in the Charter, a potential to achieve social change towards a society that responds to needs, honors difference, and rejects abstractions." Note again that the Charter has a "transformative potential . . . to achieve social change." You can be sure that she is referring to left-wing social change. A revolution, in other words. The constitutional change of 1982 fundamentally altered Canada's political system. The adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was the most significant component of this change. As a result of court decisions interpreting the Charter, Canada's abortion law was struck down, homosexual rights have been greatly expanded, and other left-wing policies have been advanced as well. Canada would likely be taking a somewhat left-wing path even without the Charter, but the implementation of the Charter has greatly strengthened and accelerated this trend. Left-wing social change has effectively been institutionalized by the Charter. Canada's revolution was not a violent one, but it was a revolution none the less. This article first appeared in the February 2002 issue. Postscript: A sampling or revolutionary rulings The New Constitution Versus the Fourth Commandment "R. vs. Big M Drug Mart" (1985) This decision by the Supreme Court struck down Canada's "Lord's Day Act." This Act had placed some restrictions on business activity on Sundays. A business in Calgary that had been charged under the Act (for remaining open on Sundays) claimed that it violated the Charter of Right's section 2 "freedom of religion" clause. The Supreme Court agreed, and struck down the Act. Because the Lord's Day Act was based upon Christian beliefs, and therefore entailed government enforcement of a Christian teaching (i.e., not working on the Lord's Day), the Court said it violated the Charter's guarantee of religious freedom for non-Christians. The New Constitution Versus the Sixth Commandment "R. vs. Morgentaler" (1988) In 1969 abortion was legalized to a certain degree in Canada. A woman could have an abortion in a hospital if her request for an abortion received the approval of the hospital's therapeutic abortion committee (TAC). To be sure, a large number of abortions were conducted under this provision, but it did nevertheless limit where abortions could take place and who could do them. Infamous baby-killer Henry Morgentaler challenged the restrictions on abortion. To make a long story short, he won the case, and the section of Canada's Criminal Code limiting abortion was struck down. Although some of the Supreme Court judges offered differing opinions as to why they sided with Morgentaler, the main thrust of the decision was that the procedures involving the TACs violated the section 7 Charter right to "security of the person." Canada was left with no legal restrictions on abortion whatsoever. The New Constitution Versus the Seventh Commandment "Vriend vs. Alberta" (1998) Delwin Vriend worked for King's University College in Edmonton. Because Vriend was openly homosexual, and therefore in clear violation of the College's Christian code of conduct, he was fired. However, he could not appeal his dismissal to Alberta's Human Rights Commission because the province's Individual Rights Protection Act (IRPA) did not include sexual orientation as a protected category. Thus Vriend challenged the IRPA as violating the Charter's section 15 equality rights provision for not protecting sexual orientation. The Supreme Court agreed, and ruled that the failure to include sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination was unconstitutional. This clearly extended the scope of homosexual rights....

History

The Pope who hated black cats

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Adult biographies, Book Reviews, History, Teen non-fiction

Listen! Six Men You Should Know

by Christine Farenhorst 161 pages / 2021 The six men we get introduced to here are given 25-30 pages each which is enough space to get a very good...

History

Why History matters

It’s not surprising people aren’t that interested in history. The evolutionary perspective that’s dominated the West for decades now, undermines...

History, Indigenous peoples, News

Residential schools: what worldview is to blame?

We’ve seen at least ten Canadian churches burnt down and others damaged by fire since unmarked graves at two former residential schools became front...

History, Indigenous peoples, News

Residential schools and the devastation of State-perpetrated family breakup

For the past several months, Canada has been convulsed by the heartbreaking rediscovery of hundreds—and likely thousands—of child graves outside residential schools where Indigenous children were placed (incarcerated is probably a better word) by the Canadian government to “kill the Indian in the child.” The history of residential schools is one of the blackest in Canadian history, and anyone who has read even portions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report (I did research on forced abortions in residential schools several years ago) must conclude that this was a systematic crime committed against entire peoples. As Terry Glavin wrote in the National Post: "Imprisoned in chronically underfunded institutions that were incubation chambers for epidemic diseases, the children died in droves. Enfeebled by homesickness, brutal and sadistic punishments and wholly inadequate nutrition, they died from tuberculosis, pneumonia, the Spanish influenza and measles, among any number of proximate causes. At the Old Sun boarding school in Alberta, there were years when children were dying at 10 times the rate of children in the settler population… "The TRC report chronicles barbaric punishments, duly recorded by federal bureaucrats and officials with the churches that ran the schools. Students shackled to one another, placed in handcuffs and leg irons, beaten with sticks and chains, sent to solitary confinement cells for days on end — and schools that knowingly hired convicted “child molesters.” Only a few dozen individuals have ever been prosecuted and convicted for the abuse those children endured." In much of the debate over the nuances of these re-emerging stories, I think an opportunity for appropriate empathy is sometimes lost. Yes, it is true that not all of the children were abused. Yes, it is true that healthcare standards during that time meant that diseases were far more deadly. Yes, some students remain ambivalent about their experiences to this day. But none of this changes the central fact of the matter: Children were forcibly removed by the state from their families for the express purpose of destroying their family bonds and eradicating their language and culture. If they'd come for our kids... I hail from the Dutch diaspora in Canada, and like many immigrant groups in our multicultural patchwork, our communities have remained largely culturally homogenous. Imagine if the Canadian government had decided, at some point, that Dutch-Canadian (or Sikh or Ukrainian or Jewish) culture needed to be destroyed for the good of the children in those communities, who needed to be better assimilated. Then, imagine if the government forcibly removed children as young as three years old from the parental home – state-sanctioned kidnapping. At school, they were deprived of their grandparents, parents, siblings, language, and culture—and told that their homes were bad for them. At the end of the experience, if the child survived disease, abuse, bullying, and loneliness, he or she would have been remade in the image of the state – and community bonds would have been severed and many relationships irrevocably destroyed. The children who died of disease were often buried on school grounds. That means many children were taken by the government – and their families simply never saw them again. Imagine, for just a moment, if that was your family. If you were removed from your family. If your children were removed from you. How might you feel about Canada if her government had, for generations, attempted to destroy everything precious to you? It is a question worth reflecting on. Over the past decade, as religious liberty has been steadily eroded by Western governments, many Christians have wondered, fearfully, whether the authorities will eventually interfere with how they raise their children. Christian parents have been presented as a threat to their own children because of their “hateful” Christian values. When considering the residential schools, Christians should realize that what happened to Indigenous people in Canada is their own worst nightmare. This happened to real children and real families within living memory. Those families have not yet recovered. That devastation cannot be undone – it can only be survived. The intergenerational damage from these state-inflicted wounds ripples forward in time – and social conservatives, of all people, should be able to understand the fallout from family breakup. Except in this case, the families were forcibly broken up, against their will. As a father and member of large families, I cannot fathom the helplessness, despair, and rage that those who saw their family members stolen from them must have felt. Imagine losing your three-year-old son or daughter to the government, with no recourse for getting your child back. Imagine never seeing that child again. Hatred is absolutely never the answer. But I can certainly understand it. Why minimize this crime? If it had been my child stolen from me, who then died from disease years later and was never returned, I can imagine how I would feel if the response from people was: “Well, lots of people died from disease.” Or: “Many of the educators tried their best.” Or: “It wasn’t feasible to send the bodies of the stolen children home.” I can imagine how I would feel if I heard that in response to raw pain and grief at state-perpetrated injustice. I would feel as if people weren’t listening; didn’t care; and were simply, once again, making excuses. There are times when injustice must be faced in the raw, and the intricacies of healthcare in the early part of the last century can be discussed some other time. Over the past several weeks, residential school survivors have come forward anew to detail their experiences. Many of them struggled with substance abuse as a result of what they endured; many of the issues with alcohol and drugs on some Indigenous reserves today stem from the state-perpetrated breakup of their families. It is easy for those looking at reserves from the outside in to criticize without realizing the context for the state of many families, which would likely still be whole if the Canadian government had not intentionally destroyed them. This is not to say that people bear no responsibilities for their actions. It is to say that we should consider how we would think if the government had perpetrated this on our own communities. Christians know how important families are For several generations, social conservative and Christian scholars have been warning that family breakup is at the root of many of our social ills. Largescale family breakup results in crime, risky behavior, substance abuse, mental illness, PTSD, and other traumas and anti-social behavior. Fatherlessness is one of the greatest disadvantages a boy can face. In the case of our society at large, family breakup was largely facilitated by the Sexual Revolution (and in many communities, wealth has cushioned the blow and masked the damage). In Indigenous communities, family breakup was inflicted by the state, and the consequences they have suffered as a result have been devastating. Social conservatives should be able to intuitively understand this. I’ve said many times that I believe the real “privilege” in our society is not primarily racial, as progressives claim – but the blessing of growing up in a two-parent home where a mother and father love their children. This is a tremendous social advantage, and it was denied to generations of Indigenous children by the government, who felt they would be better off without the love and influence of their parents and grandparents. In her recent book Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics, Mary Eberstadt explored how family breakup inhibits the passing down of knowledge and skills from one generation to the next. Again, this is a key part of the puzzle that social conservatives should instinctively recognize. During university, I toured an abandoned residential school in British Columbia with several other students. Our guide was a survivor who told us about the children who had died there and the abuse they had suffered. I remember the cold, damp chill of a dark tunnel in the basement as he told us how he and others had been locked there in the blackness for using their own language. His voice was heavy with pain, and it struck me again that these things are not history – they are still memory. There are thousand of Indigenous Canadians still living with the effects of these government policies, and their anger is well-warranted. We should listen to them and remember once again the horrors that unfold when the government wields power over families for the so-called good of the children. Jonathon Van Maren is an author and pro-life activist who blogs at TheBridgehead.ca from where this is reprinted with permission. Jonathon was the guest on a recent edition of the Real Talk podcast. Photo is "All Saints Indian Residential School, Cree students at their desks with their teacher in a classroom, Lac La Ronge, March 1945" and is cropped from the original in the Library and Archives Canada collection....

History

Slip sliding away: a very different chapter in Dutch history

You can download or listen to the podcast version (5 minutes) here. **** Paul Simon once sang that the nearer your destination, the more you keep slip sliding away. While it’s a song about your journey through life and the places you visit, it’s also a sentiment that anyone in a northern, icy, country can understand. As a Canadian, I can confidently say we understand ice. It’s something that defines us in a way that’s hard to explain. The waters of the North are covered in ice much of the year. The ground in many areas is frozen with permafrost. The highways in the winter are either covered in treacherous black ice, or in some areas ice itself acts as the winter road. In the cities we learn to walk stiff legged like a penguin to avoid sliding on the ice. And we’ve even made ice our ally, playing hockey or figure skating to turn ice from foe to friend. Though we Canadians may know ice, we’re not the only ones. The Dutch have a reputation as speed skaters par excellence, having won bronze, silver and gold at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. In English literature, the familiarity of the Dutch with skating has survived as the tale of Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates. Though the Dutch may not know the snowfalls that can leave you trapped in your house for days, or the blizzards that can leave you unable to see more than a couple of feet in front of you, they do understand ice and maybe in a way the rest of us never will. Historically, for the Dutch skating has not been a sport or a playtime activity, but a practical way of getting around. Much of the Netherlands is located below sea level and large chunks of the country have even been reclaimed from the seas. This is a country with a lot of experience dealing with water. Not surprisingly, it’s also a land crisscrossed by canals because they’re necessary for drainage, and stopping the sea from taking back the land stolen away from it. Zip vs. slip Come winter, and especially the cold winters that the Netherlands frequently experienced in the 1500 and 1600s, these canals freeze. With that many canals, that’s a lot of ice. And since there are relatively few bridges spanning the rivers and canals, knowing how to skate gave you a really fast way to get around. You could get anywhere you wanted, and could get away from anywhere you didn’t want to be. Starting in the 1560s, the Dutch began to battle their colonial overlords, the Spanish. With on-again, off-again battles raging over the years, the troubles came to a head near Amsterdam in 1572. The small Dutch fleet, highly maneuverable against the much larger Spanish vessels, was frozen into the ice in the port of Amsterdam. Though the Dutch fleet was immobile, the cold weather had brought the Spanish similar problems and they were unable to attack the Dutch city with their fleet. Forced to disembark, the Spanish started to cross the ice to the city on foot, and this was their fatal mistake. Walking gingerly in the penguin walk that natives of northern climates know well, the Spanish made slow progress towards the city. Yet as the Spanish struggled, coming at them with unbelievable speed were the Dutch soldiers. They would swiftly skate just within musket range, fire, and then skate away to reload. The speedy attack and retreat gave the Dutch incredible striking power and left nothing for the Spanish to fire at in return. The Spanish commander, the infamous Duke of Alva, was grudging in his respect for the Dutch. He ordered a swift retreat back to the Spanish boats (or as swift a retreat as the ice would allow), having suffered hundreds of deaths at the hands of the Dutch. The Duke did manage to kill a few Dutch soldiers and capture their skates. Acknowledging the innovative tactics of his enemies, he sent skates back to Spain and ordered that 7,000 pairs be made. From then on, soldiers posted to the Dutch frontier were all given skating lessons. It gave the Spanish increased mobility, but learning to skate and to skate well is not the work of a few lessons but of years of practice. The Dutch, as it were, could still skate circles around their foe. The ice-ing on the cake? While ice played a factor in the Dutch eventually winning their independence from the Spanish after 80 years of war, there were other factors, too. They formed alliances with other powers, and the women learned to shoot and guard the city walls while the men attacked the Spanish. But throughout that long war, strategic flooding of the lowlands, and its wintertime counterpart of skating played a role that the Spanish never could overcome. Though there were a lot of reasons that the Dutch beat the Spanish, it certainly helped that the Spanish learned a bit of what Paul Simon would later sing about: The nearer your destination, the more you keep slip sliding away. This article is taken from an episode of James Dykstra’s History.icu podcast, where history is never boring. Check out more episodes there or on Spotify, Google podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts. For further reading… 80 Years War (Wikipedia) How Ice Skates Helped Win the War Ice Skates for Military Use The Dutch Army on Skates Unusual battle in the 80 Years Wars (Board Game Geek) The First Ice Skates Weren’t for Jumps and Twirls – They Were for Getting Around (Smithsonian Magazine) ...

History

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835

You can download or listen to the podcast version (7 minutes) here. ***** Back when I was studying history as a graduate student, one of my profs played us an episode from the CBC Radio program IDEAS. The radio show told about a strange malady that hit Upper Canada in the 1800s. People died of a sickness, later called Sarner’s Disease, and were promptly buried. However, on one occasion a coffin was unearthed. The body inside was contorted and had clearly been clawing at the roof of the coffin, trying to get out. The person inside had been buried alive, or, at least, not fully dead. The show went on to detail how people became reluctant to bury their relatives for fear they weren’t fully dead and so held off burying them. Fear of a public health crisis mounted, with the proliferation of dead and probably dead but unburied bodies. People started hiding bodies in the barn, under the dock, and anywhere they could find until they could be sure their loved one was fully dead. The program quoted professors from important universities, and gave a logical, comprehensive account of the strange malady of Sarner’s Disease. As sophisticated graduate students in history, the class drank it all in…until the very last sentence of the program which started out “This work of fiction has been created for the CBC by...” You could have heard a pin drop. We had been duped. Our prof had schooled us and given us a good lesson in critical thinking, and, frankly, not believing everything you hear. Nowadays, we’d call that fake news – a story that’s told so convincingly that it’s possible to believe it, even though it’s simply made up nonsense. Somehow we have the idea that fake news is something new. The Russians have been taking over Facebook or Twitter, or the leftwing media is withholding information in order to make the President look bad. Maybe, maybe not. But if fake news is out there, it’s certainly not new. PT Barnum supposedly claimed, “there’s a sucker born every minute” and he might have had something there. Batman on the moon? In August of 1835 the New York Sun published a series of six articles about recent astronomical discoveries made by the noted astronomer John Herschel. The articles were initially billed as being reprinted from the Edinburgh Courant. The Sun related how Herschel had taken an enormous telescope from Britain to South Africa to do his observations. The weight of the lens was reported as 6,700 kilograms, and the magnification power was 42,000 times! The lens was said to be 24 feet wide. Since high power telescopes have trouble with proper illumination, a second “hydro-oxygen microscope” lens illuminated the view. It was a truly magnificent toy for an astronomer. And to give it more credibility, a scholarly journal was now said to be the source of the articles – the Edinburgh Journal of Science – and it said that Herschel had found planets around far away stars Tales far more fantastic than these would come out of these stories. When the telescope was focused on the moon, life was discovered. There were flowers, and forests full of food and animals including some animals resembling goats and bison. There was a beaver-like creature that walked on its hind legs and carried its young in its arms. The most fantastic thing of all was a sort of creature that appeared to have wings attached to its back – a kind of bat-man if you will. This creature was seen in what appeared to be conversation with other bat-beings, suggesting the creatures were intelligent and capable of higher thought. Ultimately there had been no further story to tell. This was because, thoughtlessly, the astronomer had left his telescope set up in such a way that it caught the sun’s rays during the day. With a magnification of 42,000 times, the observatory that housed the telescope was quickly ablaze and everything in it was destroyed, the telescope included. People were fascinated with the tale and reprint after reprint of the Sun was made. Briefly it was the best selling newspaper in the entire world. Newspapers all over the world reprinted the article because everyone wanted to know about the newly discovered moon creatures. The articles were reprinted in pamphlet form and in weeks sold 60,000 copies. Even the New York Times described the story as “plausible and probable.” Falling for fake news because we want to? There was just enough truth there to get people going. Herschel was a real astronomer. And he really had gone to the Cape of Good Hope to study the skies. The Edinburgh Courant was a real paper, as was the Edinburgh Journal of Science. Unfortunately, Herschel was not the author of the articles and hadn’t even heard about them before they were published. The Journal of Science, while real, had gone out of print several years earlier. As for the Courant, it too was real, but it had been defunct for over 100 years. As for the telescope, what’s a hydro-oxygen microscope lens anyway? So why did people fall for it, hook, line and sinker? Maybe because they really wanted to. Science was making great strides and people were prepared to believe all sorts of incredible things in the name of science. Religion was taking a beating, and many people felt their faith shaken by a science that often insisted God was irrelevant. We needed a place to belong, and someone to belong with, and if not a higher power why not bat-people? But in case you think this was an isolated incident, don’t forget how a 1930s radio play – one hundred years later – of HG Wells War of the Worlds convinced people we were being invaded by Martians. They believed it despite the radio program repeatedly reminding listeners that it was only a story. Alone in the universe, we feared the bogeymen of the night. Whatever the reason, there’s always been fake news and there always will be. We devour it ravenously because the creators of fake news have learned to do the one other thing Barnum supposedly advised: Always leave them wanting more. This article is taken from an episode of James Dykstra’s History.icu podcast, where history is never boring. You can check out other episodes at History.icu or on Spotify, Google podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts. To dig a little deeper see: EarthSky.org's "Would you have believed the Great Moon Hoax?" Hoaxes.org's "The Great Moon Hoax" JSTOR Daily’s "How the Sun conned the world with “The Great Moon Hoax” The Irish Times’ "The Great Moon Hoax" The Smithsonian Magazine on "The Great Moon Hoax was simply a sign of its time" Wikipedia on"The Great Moon Hoax"...

History, Parenting

Questioning daycare and preschool: how young is too young?

In this twenty-first century, more and more children are being relegated to daycare or other institutions that look after them for a great many hours each day outside of the parental home. According to the US Census Bureau, as of 2015, about 3.64 million children were enrolled in public kindergartens in the United States, and another 428,000 in private ones. Statistics Canada reported that in 2011, almost half (46%) of Canadian parents reported using some type of childcare for their children, aged 14 years and younger, during that year. Many children obviously spend more time with childcare providers than with their family. Various studies have shown that young children who spend time in daycare may bond less with their mothers than those who stay home. And it has also been concluded by other studies, that children who attend daycare experience more stress, have lower self-esteem and can be more aggressive. “Even a child,” Proverbs 20:11 tells us, “is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right.” It seems a simple enough proverb and easy to understand. We have all encountered children’s actions – at home around the supper table, in a supermarket while we were shopping, in a classroom setting or on the street – and frequently found their actions lacking in moral wisdom. Greed, selfishness, anger, sloth and you name it, these vices surround cherubic faces like black halos. So it neither surprises nor shocks us when Proverbs adds commandments such as: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death” (Prov. 23:13-14). “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him” (Prov. 13:24). But what does that have to do with preschool and daycare? Read on. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi: education is key to a better society To understand today’s education system we need to know something of its history. On January 12, 1746, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (pronounced Pesta–lotsi) was born in Zurich, Switzerland. His father died when he was only 6 years old and Johann was sent to school with the long-term goal of becoming a pastor. As he grew older he developed a keen desire and vision to educate the poor children of his country. After completing his studies, however, and making a dismal failure of his first sermon, he exchanged the pulpit for a career in law. He reasoned within himself that perhaps he might accomplish more for the poor children of his country through law than through preaching. But after studying law, as well as opting for a number of other careers, in the long run Pestalozzi ended up standing behind a teacher's lectern. Now, throughout these formative years Johann Pestalozzi had been greatly influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau was that philosopher who repudiated original sin and who penned the words: “there is no original perversity in the human heart.” Pestalozzi fell for these false words – he fell hook, line and sinker. Consequently, his principles in teaching strongly reflected the view that education could develop the pure powers of a child's head, heart and hand. He thought, and he thought wrongly, that this would result in children capable of knowing and choosing what is right. In other words, educating students in the proper way would evolve towards a better society. Such a thing happen could only happen if human nature was essentially good and it was on this principle that Pestalozzi based his teaching. Pestalozzi died in 1827 and his gravestone reads: Heinrich Pestalozzi: born in Zurich, January 12, 1746 – died in Brugg, February 17, 1827. Saviour of the Poor on the Neuhof; in Stans, Father of the orphan; in Burgdorf and Munchenbuchsee, Founder of the New Primary Education; in Yverdon, Educator of Humanity. He was an individual, a Christian and a citizen. He did everything for others, nothing for himself! Bless his name! As the engraving indicates, Pestalozzi was much admired, and his approach to education lived on after him, having a massive influence on various educators who followed. Friedrich Froebel: the father of Kindergarten One such person was a man by the name of Friedrich Froebel. Born in Oberweissbach, Thuringia in 1782, he was the fifth child of an orthodox Lutheran pastor. Interestingly enough, the boy heard his father preach each Sunday from the largest pulpit in all Europe. On it you could fit the pastor and twelve people, a direct reference to the twelve apostles. Friedrich's mother died when he was only nine months old. Perhaps his father did not have time for the boy, because when he was ten years old, he was sent to live with an uncle. During his teenage years he was apprenticed to a forester and later he studied mathematics and botany. When he was 23, however, he decided for a career in teaching and for a while studied the ideas of Pestalozzi, ideas he incorporated into his own thinking. Education should be child-centered rather than teacher-centered; and active participation of the child should be the cornerstone of the learning experience. A child with the freedom to explore his own natural development and a child who balanced this freedom with self-discipline, would inevitably become a well-rounded member of society. Educating children in this manner would result in a peaceful, happy world. As Pestalozze before him, Froebel was sure that humans were by nature good, as well as creative, and he was convinced that play was a necessary developmental phase in the education of the “whole” child. Dedicating himself to pre-school child education, he formulated a curriculum for young children, and designed materials called Gifts. They were toys which gave children hands-on involvement in practical learning through play. He opened his first school in Blankenburg in 1837, coining the word “kindergarten” for that Play and Activity Center. Until that time there had been no educational system for children under seven years of age. Froebel’s ideas found appeal, but its spread was initially thwarted by the Prussian government whose education ministry banned kindergarten in 1851 as “atheistic and demagogic” because of its “destructive tendencies in the areas of religion and politics.” In the long run, however, kindergartens sprang up around the world. Mom sends me to preschool My mom was a super-good Mom as perhaps all Moms are who make their children feel loved. And how, at this moment when she has been dead and buried some 25 years, I miss her. She had her faults, as we all do, and she could irritate me to no end at times, as I could her. But she was my Mom and I loved her. She was an able pastor’s wife and supported my Dad tremendously. Visiting numerous families with him, (in congregations in Holland she would walk with him to visit parishioners), she also brewed innumerable cups of tea for those he brought home. Always ready with a snack, she made come-home time after school cozy for myself and my five siblings, of whom I was the youngest. In later years, being the youngest meant that I was the only one left at home, and it meant we spent evenings together talking, knitting, embroidering, reading and laughing. She was so good to me. Perhaps, in hindsight, I remember her kindness so well because I now see so much more clearly a lot of selfish attributes in myself – attributes for which I wish I could now apologize to my Mom. My Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 32 – a young mother myself, with five little sets of hands tugging at my apron strings. I was devastated. But my quiet mother who always had been so nervous in leading ladies’ Bible studies and chairing women's meetings, was very brave. She said she literally felt the prayers of everyone who loved her surround her hospital bed. She had a mastectomy, went into remission and lived eight more good years Many young mothers are presently faced with a fork in the road decision – shall I go back to work or shall I stay home? Should I send my children to daycare, and thus help pay off the mortgage or should I stay home and change diapers? Times are tough. Groceries have to be bought, gas prices are ever increasing, and so is school tuition. I delve back into my memories and remember – remember even now as my age approaches the latter part of three score plus years – that my father and mother placed me in a Froebel School, a preschool, when I had just turned four years old. I was not thrilled about the idea. As a matter of fact, I was terrified. My oldest sister, who was eleven years my senior, was given the commission of walking me down the three long blocks separating our home from the school which housed my first classroom. My sister was wearing a red coat and she held my hand inside the pocket of the coat. It must have been cold. When we got to the playground which was teeming with children, she took me to the teacher on duty. I believe there was actually only one teacher. My sister then said goodbye to me and began to walk away. The trouble was, I would not let go of the hand still ensconced in the pocket of her coat. The more she pulled away, the tighter I clung – and I had begun to cry. Eventually the lining of the pocket ripped. My sister, who was both embarrassed and almost crying herself, was free to leave. I was taken inside the school by the teacher. It is a bleak memory and still, after all this time, a vivid memory. I do not think, in retrospect, that my mother wanted to get rid of me. Froebel schools were touted as being very good for preschool children. She, a teacher herself with a degree in the constructed, international language of Esperanto, possibly thought she was being progressive as well as making more time to help my father serve the congregation. Dr. Maria Montessori, a follower of Heinrich Froebel, established the Dutch Montessori Society in 1917. By 1940, 5% of the preschools in Holland were following the Montessori system and 84% called themselves Froebel schools or Montessori schools. The general nametag is kleuterschool, (kleuter is Dutch and means a child between 4 and 6). Today the age limit is younger because of the increased interest in sending children of a younger age to school. Creativity and free expression are the curriculum norm. Most of the memories I have of attending the Froebel school, (and let me add that it was for half days), are not pleasant. I recall braiding long, colored strips of paper into a slotted page. Afraid to ask permission to go to the bathroom, I also recall wetting my pants while sitting in front of a small wooden table in a little blue chair. My urine dripped onto the toes of the teacher as she passed through the aisle, checking coloring and other crafts. Such an experience as I gave that teacher cannot have been inspiring for her. Perhaps she always remembered it as one of the most horrible moments of her career. In any case, she took me by the hand to the front of the class and made me stand in front of the pot-bellied stove. Skirts lifted up behind me, she dried me off with a towel. Then she made me stay there as she put the little blue chair outside in the sunshine. At lunchtime she brought me home on the back of her bicycle. Knocking at our door, she called up to the surprised figure of my mother standing at the top of the stairs. (We occupied the second and third floor of a home.) “Your daughter’s had an accident.” I think I dreamt those words for a long, long time afterwards. But this I also clearly recall, that my mother was not angry. Would I have been a better child had my mother kept me at home? Felt more secure? More loved? Perhaps. Perhaps not. There is always the providence of God which like a stoplight on a busy street corner abruptly halts one in condemning the actions of another. God had a purpose for me, no doubt about it, in all that occurred in my life – whether things during preschool days or later. And so He has in all our lives. Conclusion We live at a time when everything is fast-paced – food, travel, and entertainment. What we often don’t realize is that time is also fast – fast and fleeting – gone before we know it. Our little children, sinful from the time of conception, two years old today, will be twenty tomorrow and thirty the day after that. And when they wear out the coat of their allotted time span, will it have mattered who fed them each meal, who read books to them, who played with them and who disciplined them? When we think back to the Proverbs we started with, we realize this is a question we have to answer with the Bible as our guidebook. The strange thing is that I now regret that I did not spend more time with my mother when she was old. I loved her very much and love usually translates into time. For parents concerned with mortgage and groceries and other bills, the simple Proverb "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6) is good to hang over their lintels. First things should be put first. I have never heard God’s people say that He has forsaken them....

History

Charles Darwin's grave mistake

One hundred and thirty-seven years ago, on April 19, 1882, a seventy-three-year-old man died at home in his bed. He was surrounded by his wife and two...

Church history, History

The Queen on our coins testifies to Canada's Christian roots

History, Politics

The rise and fall of Canada's most effective opposition MP

History

Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms was always meant to be revolutionary

History

Ulrich Zwingli: Reformer in the shadows?

In 1983 churches all over the world commemorated the 500th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther. Ulrich Zwingli should have gotten the same sort of celebration a year later, when his own 500th birthday came and went on January 1, 1484. But Zwingli (1484-1531) has had to stand somewhat "in the shadows" of such giants as Luther and Calvin. But Zwingli's person, work, and life merit some more attention than he has received through the years. The call to "remember your leaders" (Hebrews 13:7) extends also to this man and the work he was enabled to do by the Lord. Early life Ulrich Zwingli was born into a relatively prosperous family living in the mountainous region of Wildhaus, Switzerland, as one of many children. Already at a very young age he left home, first to learn from an uncle, Bartholomew Zwingli, who was priest in the town of Wiesen. When he was ten years old, Zwingli proceeded to the grammar schools in Basel and Bern. Fearing that, because of his beautiful singing voice, Zwingli would be inducted into monastery life, his parents sent him on to Vienna, where he studied (natural) science and literature. Here in Vienna, Zwingli was drenched in the humanistic philosophy of his time. In 1506 Zwingli returned to Basel where he was promoted to magister artium (Master of Arts). After a brief training in (mostly scholastic) theology, Zwingli was ordained as priest in the village of Glarus. At this time Zwingli is a typical priest: well educated but humanistically oriented in his thinking. Taking a pacifistic turn Zwingli's period of service in Glarus is significant in many ways. It is here that he begins to study both Christian and secular classics, and becomes attracted to the works of Erasmus, the Dutch humanist. Here, also, Zwingli displays some of the patriotism for which he will become legendary. Although he twice accompanies Swiss infantry in battle for the Pope against the French, Zwingli begins to discourage young Swiss men from becoming mercenaries in foreign service. He expresses these sentiments strongly in an Aesop-like morality tale, The Fable of the Ox. Having experienced the ugly, mass slaughter of the battlefield, Zwingli turned to a more pacifistic philosophy. In 1516, Zwingli left Glarus and took up ministry in Einsiedeln. Here Zwingli further refined his emerging pacifistic views. During this time he considered all service in foreign armies a curse, although he maintained that it is one's patriotic duty to defend one's homeland. While in Einsiedeln, Zwingli met Erasmus and discovered Erasmus' edition of the Greek New Testament. As he proceeded to study this edition, Zwingli began to distance himself more and more from Erasmus' humanistic views and from the prevailing allegorical interpretation of Scripture. He began to study the Word of God in its own light and began to understand that Scripture require a literal interpretation. He realized that the scholastic and philosophical approach to the Bible and theology must be rejected. It is during this same time that Zwingli made a serious study of the works of Augustine and came to condemn the worship of relics and the adoration of saints. This growing resistance gradually deepened into a carefully-worded warning against the worship of Mary, and into a ridiculing of the indulgences. Ministry in Zurich In 1519 Zwingli was installed in Zurich, and it is in this city that he clearly made himself known as a prophetic reformer of great influence. It became evident that Zwingli wanted to let the Scriptures speak for themselves, and that he understood traditions and precepts of men that are made binding for the church are to be rejected. The sola Scriptura of the Reformation began to take powerful form in his ministry! Zwingli supported those who rejected the Romanist laws of fasting. He spoke out against celibacy and himself married a widow of class, Anna Reinhart, a marriage which became officially known two years later, in 1524. That same year Zwingli broke with the Church of Rome by declaring that he can no longer accept the Pope as the "head of the church," instead accusing the Pope of abusing worldly power. Christ is declared as the only Head of the church and His Word as its only guide. Spurred on by Zwingli's preaching, the city council of Zurich refused to give in to the objections of the Bishop of Constanz, but it did agree to conduct a public disputation. The first of these disputations — not unknown in the days of the Reformation — took place in January 1523 between Zwingli and the influential Romanist prelate, Johann Faber. The result was a smashing victory for the Reformation, for at its conclusion the city council of Zurich decrees that from then on nothing may be preached which is not in full accord with the gospel. Growing divisions Many Swiss cities, such as Basel and Bern, took the side of the Reformation in Zurich and, in 1528, formed a Christian federation. However, the Roman Catholic cantons were also organized against the influence of Zwingli and Zurich. This situation ultimately led to battle and bloodshed. On October 11, 1531, in a battle near Kappel, Zwingli was killed along with 400 other citizens of Zurich. After having declared him to be a heretic, a hastily formed court lets his body be quartered and burned. Zwingli paid the price in blood; at age 47, his earthly course suddenly came to an end. While the rift between the Romanist and Reformed factions in Switzerland was inevitable, there also emerged other, perhaps not so expected, divisions. In the years before Zwingli's death, there were radicals in Zurich who felt that Zwingli was not going far enough in his reforms. These radicals, such as Konrad Grebel and Felix Mantz, began to reject all civil authority. The Anabaptist movement was born and it causes so much dissension and confusion that the city council of Zurich arrested its leaders. One of these, Felix Mantz, is executed by drowning in 1527, and the Anabaptist movement then also had a martyr. All this was a source of great sorrow for Zwingli; many of the Anabaptist leaders were former associates and close friends. Of greater significance, perhaps, was the growing division between Zwingli and Luther. In 1529, in a meeting in Marburg, Luther and Zwingli discussed at length the matter of the Lord's Supper but could not come to agreement. Luther's theory of consubstantiation is too far from Zwingli's symbolic interpretation. Although both agree that Christ is present in bread and wine, they cannot agree as to the manner. Luther and Zwingli depart bitterly from each other and become estranged. This controversy, of course, greatly damaged the cause of the Reformation. Since it furthered Zwingli's isolation, it also contributed to his death. Conclusion It is not easy to estimate the significance of the work of a person such as Zwingli. Because of his own development and changing insights, Zwingli's significance cannot be caught in an easy formula. In liberal circles, Zwingli is hailed as the reformer who was a true humanist, a worthy forerunner of contemporary radical and political theologians. His humanistic background and patriotic zeal, perhaps, cause him to recede somewhat to the background in Reformed appreciation. We generally turn to Calvin for advice. Yet it cannot be denied that Zwingli's basic convictions and personal endeavors are true to the spirit of the Great Reformation. Zwingli wanted nothing else than to live by the Scriptures alone and to let the Scriptures explain themselves under the illumination of the Holy Spirit and not under the tradition of the church. For Zwingli it was without doubt that it is not the church with its sacramental administration that governs the flow of grace, but that men are reconciled to God only by the death of His Son. He clearly rejected the "cursed idolatry" of the mass and its excesses in the worship of saints and relics, proclaiming that our salvation lies only in the sacrifice of Christ, once offered on the cross. Zwingli did not tire in defending the just cause of the Reformation over against the Anabaptists, remaining firm with respect to the Scriptural doctrine of infant baptism. Although in many ways a disciple of Erasmus, he refuted the teaching of the master that the will of man is free. Man cannot save himself, Zwingli emphasized time and again, but must have true knowledge of God and sin, knowledge learned only from the Word of God. Man has no saving knowledge in himself! It is clear, then, that in these key issues there is a direct line from Ulrich Zwingli to John Calvin. In the turbulent era of the Reformation, Zwingli maintained the Scriptures over against the prevailing humanism and emerging radicalism of his time. In this respect he is still an example for the church, some five hundred years later. It would be good if in this commemorative year his works were rediscovered and studied anew. Since we are faced in our time with similar extremes, humanism and radicalism, we can learn from Zwingli's struggle. Zwingli definitely does not belong in the shadows between Luther and Calvin. Rev. Clarence Stam (1948-2016) was the editor of Reformed Perspective for eight years, from 1985-1993, and was a contributor for many more. This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the June, 1984 edition....

History

Karl Marx: preaching a different gospel

To mark the 100th anniversary this month, of the Communist Revolution in Russia, we're sharing Piet Jongeling's brief biography of Karl Marx, first published 34 years ago. **** Karl Marx was both an economist and a politician, but in fact he was much more than that. He was the founder of a new atheistic political religion, the prophet of a new world-to-come in which righteousness would dwell. Man in his own strength would bring this about. Marx proclaimed the coming of a new messiah, the proletariat, which through suffering and struggling would eventually bring salvation to the world. His message has had great influence, not only before his death, but especially after it. At present one third of the world's population lives under a political and economical system that can be called "Marxist" . This indication as "Marxist" is valid, even though there may be many differences between Marx's theoretical concepts and the practical application which the communist countries have made of them. Life story Karl Marx was born on May 2, 1818, at Trier, Germany. He descended from a long lineage of rabbis. His father was the first to break with that tradition. Instead of becoming a rabbi, he studied law and he broke with the Jewish religion. His mother was Dutch. When young Karl was six years old, he was baptized together with the other members of the family. That baptism, being a social affair, had little religious significance. It served only as evidence that the Marx family belonged to those modern Jews who favored assimilation and who desired to eradicate their cultural and religious heritage. Baptism functioned as a ticket of admission to European civilization. That could — as it did in this case — coexist with atheism in practical life. Marx Junior was uncommonly intelligent. He studied law and the history of philosophy in Bonn and in Berlin, and he received his Ph.D. degree in 1841 at Jena. After he was awarded his doctorate, Karl Marx became a journalist. Soon it became apparent that he espoused some very radical social and economic ideals. His paper, accused of inciting rebellion, was closed up. Karl Marx married a woman from an outstanding German family. Shortly after his wedding he fled to Paris. There he studied the history of the French Revolution. He got to know the French laborers in their often bitter poverty and in their just as bitter revolutionary zeal. Sometimes he lived in poverty himself, so as to gain deeper insight into, and firsthand experience in, the painful inequality and the depth of the social injustice of those days. When France also expelled him a few times, he fled back to one of the German states (the federal German state was not in existence yet). In 1849 he departed for London, where he remained living and working until his death in 1883. Turn socialism into a system Marx perceived very clearly that the society of his days was distinctively a class society, in which the working class was badly abused. He even invented a new name for this class: "the proletariat," people who have no possessions except their "proles" – that is, their children. It was Marx's intention to come to the aid of this oppressed bottom layer of society. He believed that socialism was the solution. But the socialism of his days was more of a golden pipe dream of the future than a usable doctrine and practice based on a principled structure. The road towards the ideal state had not been charted in a system that was methodically and logically acceptable. This bothered the intellectual in Marx. Rejecting this socialist romanticism as "Utopian Socialism," he developed a well-thought-out system himself in which he delivered the "proof" that the prevailing economic system, which he gave the name "Capitalism," was itself instrumental in unleashing the powers that would inevitably bring about the downfall of Capitalism and the victory of a new and superior system: Communism. The Communist Manifesto and Das Capital In 1847 Karl Marx and his German friend and spiritual brother, Friedrich Engels, drafted the Communist Manifesto. Published in 1848, it contained three main points: 1. Communism is a historically determined direction of society, a development which will unstoppably continue and whose eventual victory cannot be held back by anything. 2. The road toward that victory is marked by the class struggle, which, after an ocean of misery, shall lead to the great showdown. Capital and the means of production will accumulate in the hands of ever fewer owners. The proletariat shall encompass ever greater numbers, suffer more and more poverty, and so be better prepared and determined for the great battle. Eventually the proletariat will rob the last of the supercapitalists of their possessions. After the great expropriation for the benefit of all, the conflicts between the classes will disappear. 3. The proletariat must be well-organized in national and international societies, accept proper leadership, discipline, and order, and be able to act as one man. The Communist Manifesto thereby condemns the revolutionary movement of the anarchists which had a much greater individualistic character and would not accept a strict organization, a systematic approach to the problems, or subjection to a leadership. The Communist Manifesto was probably written mainly by Friedrich Engels, the son of a rich merchant and manufacturer. Marx and Engels were both gifted students of Hegel, the German philosopher. The two worked together for many years, and during this partnership, Karl Marx became more and more prominent. When the year 1848 did not bring the expected and hoped for breakthrough of Communism, Marx went back to elaborate on the thoughts developed in the Communist Manifesto. He attempted to place the Manifesto on a scientific footing in his trilogy Das Capital. The first volume came out in 1867. The second and third volumes were published after his death by Engels, in 1885 and 1894. Communism in theory and practice Now, this column is not the place for a detailed analysis of the Marxist political dogmas so a few broad outlines will have to suffice. Karl Marx has attempted to construct his study in a scientific manner and to base his conclusions on irrefutable evidence. This impressed a great number of people. The evidence that the communist victory was inevitable was backed up by a mathematical formula! Nothing and nobody could avert that triumph. Later thinkers have undermined this foundation of scientific irrefutability. They pointed at errors in the line of theoretic reasoning. But history has done greater damage to the system than the critics. Many of Karl Marx's predictions never came true. 1. The Soviet Union has had sixty-five years of experience with its "new" system. But although Karl Marx predicted that after a short transition period the state would wither away, the reality was that anywhere Communism took power, the state became stronger, harder, mightier, and more brutal: an all-oppressive dictatorship! Communism is nothing short of state Capitalism! 2. During this transition period, mentioned above, the dictatorship of the proletariat would have to be established to do its task of destroying the capitalist structures, until, after the last remnants of Capitalism had been eradicated, it itself would disappear. But in reality it was a dictatorship not of the proletariat but over the proletariat. And that dictatorship did not disappear. It is bent on self perpetuation. 3. Also in the countries where free enterprise prevailed (called Capitalism by Marx), things went clearly different from what Mr. Marx had predicted. In the previous century, during Marx's lifetime, there were admittedly very serious dark sides to the free enterprise system. However, social laws, social actions, and mutual consultation have brought about great improvements. That does not mean that the world has become a paradise. Sin keeps doing its work. There is much social injustice even now; violations are committed by employers and employees alike. But looking back at the past we must admit: the improvements are enormous. The material welfare of those whom Marx called "the laboring classes" is much greater than in the previous century. The "proletarians" are no longer the dispossessed. The wealth of the working people in the capitalistic West is considerably greater than is the case in the communistic East. And, more importantly, the Western people enjoy a relative freedom, while the Communist system of servitude takes away spiritual freedom, oppresses the church and church members, and places callous atheism high on the throne. A different gospel What the Red Revolution delivered was the opposite of what it promised. It is terror instead of freedom, serfdom under masters instead of equality, brutal force instead of brotherhood, and above all, the dread of the secret police. How could Karl Marx's doctrine then be so successful? It must be admitted that Marxism achieved great victories. One third of the world's population today lives under a political and social-economic system that is named after Marx. The reason is that Marx came to the world with a new gospel! It was the doctrine of self-redemption which he dressed in the shining apparel of scientific certainty. Marx, the man of Jewish descent, may have broken with the religion of Israel, but he was very well versed in it. His rich and impressive writing style betrayed the influence of the Old Testament. In his writings he has the grand manners of the prophet who proclaims to the people the glad tidings of forthcoming deliverance. The Jews had refused to apply Isaiah's prophecy of the suffering servant of God to Jesus Christ, the Savior. The rabbis applied this prophecy to the suffering people of Israel itself, so that its nation, through suffering, would gain deliverance for itself and so also for the world that surrounded its people. Israel was its own messiah! Marx adopted this model in a secularized format. For him the messiah is the proletariat. Through struggles and sufferings the proletariat shall redeem itself and the world and so bring into the world the eternal "peaceable kingdom." This alternate gospel with its false-religious message, with its inversion of Christendom, has cast its spell on many millions of people. It was not an unstoppable historic determinism that brought the victory to Communism. It was not an automatic, inevitable course of world events that led to the Red welfare state. Wherever Communism gained control it was always a power grab by a minority which used the confusion of wartime or national unrest to its own advantage. And once in power, it could only stay that way by keeping its weapons trained on the oppressed people. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany — there are many examples to illustrate this fact. Marx's style of writing is eschatological. He prophecies of a new earth, created and cleansed by man. From that time on, the history of mankind will find rest, because the final destination, the eternal wellbeing of mankind, has been reached. It was that prophetic zeal that attracted so many. Conclusion But how different was the reality! Sixty-five years have passed since the Red Revolution, and still the shining final destiny is far out of reach. This image of the glorious future is a fata morgana – an illusory reflection that recedes as one approaches it and finally dissolves into thin air. According to eyewitnesses, one finds very few genuinely committed communists in the East Bloc countries — percentage-wise, certainly far less than in the Western nations. There is little more than an outward conformation to save one's hide. Open protests will only pave the way to concentration camps, prisons, or, more recently, psychiatric institutions. The Red Bloc, with the Soviet Union as its core, has grown into a superpower, which, armed to the teeth, has become a constant threat to world peace. It is to be hoped that those people who are still free may find the fortitude to oppose that threat. The continuing de-Christianization has robbed the Western nations of their spiritual strength in the face of Marxism, or, at least, has seriously impaired it. If Marx could witness the reality of today, he would very likely be appalled by the manner in which his prophecies of the glorious future have been fulfilled in the drab present. But the negative forces which he has helped to unleash are continuing to have their impact, even now, a hundred years after his death. Piet Jongeling (1909-1985) was a politician, journalist, and children's fiction author, and it is in this latter role that he might be best known to our readership, though under his pen name, Piet Prins. This article first appeared in the May 1983 edition....

History

The untimely death of Emmett Louis Till: The power of graphic pictures

Pictures have a power that words simply cannot match. That became evident in the tragic death of Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old Chicago teen who was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955. Till was in the Mississippi town of Money visiting his uncle. Out with friends one afternoon, he did the same dumb thing many teenage boys will do; he whistled at a pretty girl. The problem was Till was black, and the woman he whistled at, Carolyn Bryant, was white. Foolish for the fifties While in any time period it’s crude to wolf whistle when an attractive woman goes by, in 1955 it was just plain crazy for a young black teen to whistle at a pretty white woman. No one seems quite sure why Till did it. Mississippi was a difficult place to be black, and Carolyn Bryant’s husband and brother-in-law were livid when they heard what Till had done. According to a cousin, "They said they were just going to whip him." Sadly, Till soon encountered the vicious realities of racism in 1955. He was kidnapped from his bed at his uncle’s house on August 28, beaten, and shot in the head. His body was then tied to a heavy metal fan with barbed wire and thrown into the nearby Tallahatchie River. Some fishermen found his battered corpse in the river three days later. The husband and brother-in-law were tried for the murder but acquitted. In a 1956 interview with Look magazine, the two admitted to the murders. Though they had confessed, no further legal action was taken against the men since under American law you cannot be tried twice for the same crime. To anyone who knows about the American South in the ‘40s and ‘50s, this story is hardly surprising. It seems that there are many stories of blacks who were lynched, driven out of town, or otherwise put out of the way. The whites accused of the crime, generally speaking, received little or no punishment. The story of Emmett Louis Till is neither unusual nor surprising. Open casket One thing about the story is different. Till’s mother held the teen’s funeral in Chicago, and it was an open casket funeral. No mortician, no funeral director, no matter how skilled, can fully hide the effects of being beaten, shot in the head, and left in the river for days. Reporters were present at the funeral and took pictures. The stomach-churning photos were duly published in Chicago, and picked up by papers around the world. Though anyone living in 1955 who was familiar with the American South would have heard of stories of the brutal murder of blacks, few would have seen the pictures. It is easy to ignore it when someone writes about the suffering of people in a distant county or state. It is much harder to ignore it – to let it just go away – when you see pictures of one of the victims. When you can see the bruises from the beating, the wounds where the bullet would have entered and exited the head, and marks that the barbed wire would have left around Till’s neck, then violence against blacks becomes very, very hard to forget. The start of something big The murder of Emmett Louis Till is credited by many with waking up Americans to the extent of the problem of racism. According to U.S. Assistant Attorney General Alexander Acosta, Till’s death “stands at the crossroads of the American civil rights movement.” On December 1, 1955, only three months after Till’s body was found, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man and was thrown off the bus. This triggered the Montgomery bus boycott, and because they couldn’t ignore the problem any longer there were whites willing to support the fight for equal treatment of blacks. When Martin Luther King went from playing a support role in the bus boycott, to leading a nation wide movement for racial equality, there were whites working with blacks to change their nation. The problem could no longer be ignored. The murder of young Emmett Louis Till was not at all unusual for the time. Newspapers had run countless stories with thousands of words detailing the treatment of blacks. The murder of one more teenage black was not at all surprising. What was surprising were the pictures of his battered body. They were gut-wrenching photos that could not be forgotten or ignored. They had an impact that mere words simply could not. Sometime a picture really is worth a thousand words. We haven't shared the graphic pictures of Emmett Till because we understand it is quite possible younger children may be viewing this over their parents' shoulders. Instead we've included a link to one of the photos, as it was placed in the Chicago Defender, here. This article first appeared in the June 2004 edition of Reformed Perspective....

History

Our heroes have feet of clay

You find them everywhere. They’re the people we look up to. They sing, they dance, they play hockey, they win battles and they found nations. They’re our heroes. You know the people: George Washington, Wayne Gretzky, Winston Churchill, or Ginger Rogers. They’re larger than life figures that do larger than life things flawlessly. We want to be like them. Unless you’re Canadian. When an Internet poll asked Canadians who their heroes were some of the results were predictable, like Terry Fox, but there were also a few less likely individuals. Don’t misunderstand: these people did some incredible things and were certainly larger than life. However, they were also hopelessly flawed. John A. One man who topped the list was Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A Macdonald. It is to Sir John A. that much of the credit goes for the founding of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. He helped pull together a disparate bunch of English Canadian Reformers and Tories and united them with French Canadian Bleus. Then he got the British to bully Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a grand confederation of colonies that formed the nucleus of the present day Canada. While that’s impressive, Canadians know Sir John A. in a more intimate way than that. You see, as most Canadians are aware, Sir John was bounced from office in 1873 for the Pacific Railway Scandal that involved suggestions of bribes, patronage, and all kinds of corruption. Additionally, the prime minister was a habitual drunkard. It was no secret for he bragged about his drinking, yet Canadians forgave him, returning him and his party to office in 1878. There are other unusual Canadians as well. William Lyon Mackenzie King made the list of heroes for his impressive job of shepherding Canada through the Second World War. If that doesn’t sound impressive, keep in mind that when Prime Minister Borden tried to guide the country during the previous world war, he succeeded in alienating French speaking Quebec, and much of the farming population, as well as accidentally splitting the opposition Liberal party in two. King kept peace and tranquillity, while Borden created a political crisis that threatened to undo Canada. Though a master politician, Canadians were aware of King’s oddities, including consulting with mediums, and talking to his dead dog – stuffed and sitting on the mantle. Rebel Riel Louis Riel was also on the list of heroes. While the man who initiated the only rebellions Canada has ever had may seem an odd choice as a hero, to many Western Canadians Riel is exactly that. With his rebellions at Red River and then in the North West Territories, Riel was probably the first Westerner that ever made “the East” sit up and take notice, and to perpetually alienated Westerners, that makes Riel a hero. However, Riel was a religious fanatic, believing himself a prophet and in communication with God. He had spent time in a mental asylum, and at the time of the 1885 Rebellion may have actually been mentally unbalanced. E is for equal rights...and also eugenics In its heroes, Canada is an equal opportunity employer. One of the most significant women to make the list was Emily Murphy. A successful writer under the pen name Janey Canuck, a Member of the Canadian Parliament, the first female police magistrate in the British Empire, and a participant in the landmark “Persons Case” that gave Canadian women legal status as people, Murphy has had her reputation tarnished in recent years. The United Farmers government of the province of Alberta enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act in 1928 that allowed for the sterilization of the mentally incompetent and others unfit to parent. This version of eugenics, repugnant to most modern Canadians, was strongly backed by the otherwise progressive and reform-minded Murphy. Conclusion Canadians choices for heroes have been odd. The less savory facts behind the lives of most of Canada’s heroes are well known and thoroughly documented, but Canadians picked these people anyway. Someone once told me that you can’t tell an American something bad about their heroes. They don’t want to know about George Washington’s dismal military record as a British lieutenant, and they won’t listen if you tell them that Thomas Jefferson had slaves on his plantation. They certainly don’t want to hear any suggestions that Martin Luther King cheated on his wife, or may have plagiarized his dissertation. But Canadians are different. They know the weaknesses of their heroes and accept them for that. The Bible also contains some unusual heroes, “heroes of faith” like Noah, Abraham, and Rahab. Noah got drunk, Abraham denied that Sarah was actually his wife, and Rahab was a prostitute. These were flawed people, but by God’s strength, they were allowed incredible moments and even years to do deeds that we still remember today. We look back at them, and we look up to them for those deeds. Heroes are not flawless people. They make mistakes, but that doesn’t negate the good that they’ve been allowed to do. That doesn’t mean we can’t look up to them, but it does mean we can’t idolize them. It’s healthy to know that even great women and men have feet of clay, for it reminds us who is ultimately in control. James Dykstra is both a student and teacher of Canadian history....

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Our heroes have feet of clay