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Internet

We took the "No Screens Challenge"

… and now we’re changing our habits

*****

Do you remember the last time you were without your phone for a day? Maybe you left it at your friend’s house, and couldn’t retrieve it till the next day, or maybe you misplaced it on your camping trip and it never showed up. How unsettling was that feeling? “What if someone needs to get a hold of me? How can I contact my friends about our schedules for tomorrow?” You likely felt very disconnected.

Even more unsettling might have been how much you missed your constant companion. First thing in the morning, you had nothing to scroll on in those minutes between waking up and leaving the warmth and comfort of your bed. When you sat to wait for the meeting to start at work, you had nothing to distract you from the waiting; you might (shudder) even have had to start a conversation with someone! Gasp!

Very different not long ago

Just twenty years ago, none of us carried an electronic device with us at all times, or at least, not one as capable as today’s iPhones and Androids. As of 2020, 96% of Canadians aged 15 to 44 owned such a device, and 87% of citizens aged 45 to 64.

So how are we being influenced by our phones? What habits have we developed that distract us from real life? Theologian David Wells summarizes the influence of smartphones in Tony Reinke’s book 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You:

“There is no doubt that life is more highly distracted, because we get pings and beeps and text messages. We are, in fact, living with a parallel, virtual universe, a universe that can take all of the time that we have. What happens to us… when we are almost addicted to constant visual stimulation. What is this doing to us?”

Think about that phrase – “a universe that can take all of the time that we have” – how sad it would be if Christians allowed all of our time to be essentially squandered.

A challenge personalized

A few weeks ago, inspired by the Reformed Perspective “Screen Challenge” in the May/June issue, I joined a small group of Christians of varying ages in putting aside our screens for ten days. Our goal was to see how we could cope without them, and to discover if there were any habits we had developed that we would like to change.

Each of us had slightly different, self-imposed regulations – only one of us was able to go entirely screen free, since his work didn’t need a phone or screen, and a flip phone sufficed for his needs. For my own rules, I still used my phone’s communication tools (phoning and texting), but I gave up any entertainment or passive consumption through screens – no Netflix, no TV, no YouTube, no Facebook, no Internet browsing, no Craigslist, not even electronic books. I didn’t even watch the Leafs get eliminated in the NHL playoffs, but I figured I can always watch that again next spring (sorry, I couldn’t resist!).

Surprises

Ten days is not very long – but it was long enough for most of us in our group to realize that we had developed some poor habits.

At first, my hands would reach instinctively for my phone when I had a few leisure minutes, particularly in the evening, or first thing in the morning.

For some of us this screen fast was an opportunity to build up some better habits. One of our group said that she was able to start each day with a lot more energy, because she jumped out of bed as soon as her alarm went off, instead of “mindlessly scrolling” for a time. Another decided to make his Bible the first thing he reached for in the morning instead of his tablet, reading an extra few chapters each day, and catching up to the schedule of his “Bible in a Year.”

Almost all the participants said that they read many more printed books than they normally would have. Some visited a library for the first time in a few years, and some enjoyed “Books on Tape” in the car on their commute, rather than a podcast. (Remember when you used to stop in the driveway a few extra minutes because you just couldn’t wait to find out what happened next?) One Mom said that she stopped listening to podcasts, and didn’t really miss them, especially the ones with alarmist views, or fear-instilling content:

“Instead, I found myself pulling out my CD collection and listening to uplifting music – so much more relaxing!”

I was surprised at how much extra time I found in each day. I love watching soccer and hockey highlights, but it is amazing how watching just one set of highlights that should take about 10 minutes leads to a very interesting video about Nissans (they are amazing!), and then to a technology review, and then to coverage of an outrageous political statement, etc., etc.! My conscious decision to watch highlights of the Canucks game often leads to a lot of time wasted – I’m not making an active choice about what I want to watch next, but instead the YouTube algorithm keeps feeding me more and more and more, while I just watch passively. As one screen fast participant said,

“This made me think about my time, what that should look like, even down time. It’s so easy to scroll and watch but it takes a lot more brain power and creativity to be productive (even conversation!).”

A small number in our group did not complete the challenge: after less than 24 hours without screens, they dropped out. Perhaps they hadn't fully realized what they were committing to, or perhaps it was the wrong time to make such a radical change. (I hope they will be inspired to try again!) Most of us, however, were able to last the ten days, and all of us seemed to be glad that we did, because it forced us to look more closely at the relationship we have with our screens and devices.

Being the boss

It is difficult to “get by” in modern society without some kind of internet connected device. (Imagine trying to get on a “Swoop” flight without a phone!) But how can we make these devices better servants, and not allow them to become masters of our time? Here are some ideas to consider:

Delete apps that you know are timewasters for you. Many of these will be apps that continue to “feed” you content based on their knowledge of your viewing preferences – Instagram, Facebook and YouTube are probably the top three for many adults. If you look up after 45 minutes on one of these apps, and can’t remember where the time went, or even what you watched, that’s an app you should delete!
Put a timer on your phone to restrict data usage first thing in the morning, or after your evening meal. You can have a friend or sibling or spouse have the password so that you stick with your schedule.
Don’t take your phone into your bedroom! Leave it to charge on the kitchen counter – you might have to invest in an old-fashioned alarm clock, but you will not regret it!
Set a reasonable goal for how many minutes of “screen time” you are allowed per day, and monitor it daily.
Practice a new household rule – we won’t watch screens alone; we’ll only watch content together (as a family, or as a couple).
If you acknowledge that you too are spending too much time on your screens, and none of these ideas work, maybe you should trade your iPhone or Android for a flip phone, or a phone with no internet data. It’s radical, but why would you let that phone be your master?

Let’s do this together

In Ephesians 5, Paul tells the believers at Ephesus to:

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

The RP Screen-Fast Challenge is an opportunity to encourage one another to “make the best use of the time.” And, if we fill the time that was being wasted with better reading materials, including our Bibles, we will indeed better understand what the will of the Lord is!

Good habits take time to develop, while it sometimes seems that bad habits stick to us instantly, like ticks embedded in our skin. (Can you picture your phone as a tick, engorged on your blood, and infecting you from outside?) If you haven’t taken the 10-day “No Screens” challenge yet, you should! Better yet, challenge your friends and family to join you, so you can encourage each other along the way. Your walk before the Lord will be less hindered by the cares and temptations of the world, and you will progress in godliness and virtue. If you don’t believe that statement – if you think I’m overhyping this – then try the challenge and see!

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Sliver Mustard's journey

Perhaps as many as a million people lived in Noah's Grove. A thriving community, it had begun small but had grown over decades and centuries. Children were born, grew up and had more children. Farms dotted the surrounding countryside and buildings edged the skyscape. Markets with fresh produce were held every Tuesday and Friday. Housewives milled about stands filled with round cabbages, bright yellow carrots, leafy greens and the like. And there were, as in all towns, the rich and the poor, the beggars and the bag ladies as well as the ones whose pockets were filled with clinking coins, the shy and the forward, the meek and the proud. The mayor of Noah's Grove was a portly man. Well-fed and financially secure, he possessed the gift of persuading people he was the right man for his job. Amiable, he ambled through the cobble-stoned streets greeting both children and adults alike. He wore a great, heavy golden chain about his neck, a chain much admired by the younger population of Noah's Grove. The head of the police in Noah's Grove was very much respected and recognized by all. Perhaps it was due to the fact that muscles rippled through the lining of his shirt. He wore a star on the lapel of his blue jacket. His broad jaw embosomed law and order and commanded obedience. Then there was the local judge – a man venerable and full of years. Grey-headed, thinning hair partly covered by a fur-lined beret, he walked upright - shoulders erect. His green eyes were so piercing that people avoided his glance. They were convinced that his eyes might ferret out every little misdeed they had committed. But he was only a human as they were human - and, as such, he was also prone to sin. There were also the bankers, the bakers, the butchers and the candlestick makers; the soldiers, the sailors and the craftsmen; and the list of Noah's Grove citizens could run on and on and on. An honest man Sliver Mustard, a street cleaner, was also a resident of Noah's Grove. A tiny seedling of a man, shriveled and old, he resembled the broom he perpetually held in his hands. It was his job to sweep some of the sidewalks and the streets of the town. He didn't look up much while he was cleaning, as he was always searching the ground for dust, for dirt, for any sort of refuse. He was a kindly type of fellow, an honest man, for whenever he found anything he considered to be of value, he would pick it up and knock at the door of the house in front of which he had been sweeping. "Pardon me. Have you lost this?" he would ask, holding up the particular object he had just found. Mostly people would glance at the item for an instant before shutting the door in his face. The recovered items were mostly trinkets, baubles, and in Sliver Mustard's rough, grimy hands they usually appeared rather dirty and worthless. Sometimes a small child would remember and recognize a lost necklace, or a toy and a smile of happiness would cross a little face as an eager hand reached for the article the sweeper held up. And in these rare moments the street sweeper felt as if he had performed a singular service which somehow outshone the stars he so admired at night. He sometimes wondered at the possibility of a star falling down from the sky into his gutter. Would he then be able to knock on the gate of heaven and ask God if He had lost it? Then, pondering upon this possibility, he would smile to himself, smile almost shyly, knowing in his heart that such a thing could not be. Who was he to return a thing to the Creator? For were not all things His? Invitations go out The letter carrier brought invitations one day - invitations from His Majesty, the King, for all the citizens of Noah's Grove. The content of these invitations was the same for everyone and commanded citizens to present themselves to be painted by the greatest artist of all times - Mr. Potter. The envelopes containing the invitations were deposited into the various mailboxes around town. Slipped into the black, open-mouthed slots, they were retrieved first by one person, then by another. Word traveled quickly. "You'll never believe who contacted me...." "I received a personal word from ...." The street sweeper heard the town's folk talk, listening as he swept out the gutters and cleaned the grey-mouthed cracks in the sidewalks. He was glad that the widow on the corner of Church Street had received a notice. She frequently smiled at him and was a kind woman. Sliver Mustard also rejoiced when a simple-minded fellow, a lad who helped the blacksmith at the forge each day, was ecstatically waving about an envelope. Sliver Mustard did not expect an invitation for himself. In the first place, he had no mailbox, and in the second place, what interest could Mr. Potter possibly have in him? Indeed, even if Mr. Potter did know him, why would he want to paint an old, grizzled geezer like himself – dusty, dirty and quite, quite unattractive? Yet there it was when he came home that evening. Outlined white and pure on the faded blue tablecloth of the kitchen table, it made every object in the one-room shanty flow with warmth. Sliver Mustard gingerly wiped his right hand on his pants, thereby making it even dirtier than it had been. Picking up the envelope between his thumb and forefinger, he carried it over to the chair and sat down. For a long while he did not move. He simply held onto the unexpected pleasure. It seemed to him this was enough. That he had been remembered - this was beyond belief. Finally, mustering up all his courage and strength, he opened the envelope. Or perhaps, the envelope opened itself in his hands. Later on, he could not quite remember. Fully expecting the note to read along the lines of "Sliver Mustard, perhaps next time I come to town...." or "Sorry, Sliver Mustard, but you do not meet the qualifications as I have set them...." But he read no such lines; he didn't read anything of the sort. The words that Sliver Mustard read were these: "This is to ask Sliver Mustard to present himself as he is, tomorrow afternoon, at three of the clock, at the hill." One shirt, no dryer Sighing deeply, Sliver Mustard leaned back in his chair. He had sat up straight for the reading of the letter but the words overwhelmed him. He stretched out his feet in front of him. He only owned one shirt, a shirt which he rinsed out every Saturday night, hung out to dry and put on again on Sunday morning. He bathed weekly in a nearby creek. There was hardly time to perform these ablutions now. As he contemplated his options, he knew that he had none. Sliver Mustard both longed and feared to go. He sat in the chair all of that night, dozing and waking at intervals. He sat as the dark hours crept by and as the light of morning dawned through the small window in the kitchen. Sliver Mustard still swept the streets that morning. It was his job after all. It was what the town was paying him to do and it would not be proper for him to neglect that job. Promptly at twelve he stopped, and, carrying the broom over his shoulder, headed home. He brushed his hair, regretted the ownership of a hat and rubbed a rag over his shoes. Then he washed his hands at the sink and ran a washcloth over his face. It was time to go. There was no doubt about it. It would never do to keep Mr. Potter waiting. Force of habit made him pick up his broom. Outside, Sliver Mustard trailed, by several miles, all the other people from town also going in the same direction. They were far ahead and he could just make out the glint of the mayor's chain as it shone in the noonday sun. He did appear to be last for when he turned his head, he could see no one behind him. As he walked, he noted with a bit of alarm, that it was later than he had thought. Picking up his steps, he pondered on the pitiful figure he must cut. Perhaps the invitation had been a mistake. But it had read, in unmistakably clear printing, "This is to ask Sliver Mustard to present himself as he is.... With a flower in his buttonhole The sun shone down hotly on Sliver Mustard's body and he began to sweat. Trudging on through what appeared to be endless stretches of road, he felt his shirt cling damply to his body. What a wretched figure he was! He sincerely wished that he was wearing a chain such as the mayor had. Not a gold chain - that would be a presumptuous thing for which to wish. But a metal chain, an inexpensive chain, one that would also glint and shine a bit. Surely the mayor, leading all the folks in Noah's Grove towards Mr. Potter, was a fine sight to behold - dapper and upright. He glanced at the fields around him and noticed a broken lily at the side of the road. Undoubtedly someone from town in his haste to see Mr. Potter had trampled on it. Stooping down, he picked the flower up. There was no door on which to knock and ask if someone had lost it. There was only a field of flowers. For a moment he was enthralled. How beautiful these flowers were! Dressed as the Creator had seen fit to dress them. "Have you lost this...?" He smiled and carefully put the lily in the buttonhole of his dirty shirt. No chain, but surely this was just as good. But as Sliver Mustard trudged on, the thought that Mr. Potter would be unimpressed with him weighed him down more and more. Surely, he would have to be! He fingered the frayed cuff of his sleeve. And for a moment he coveted the star embroidered jacket that the head of the police would be wearing. Still, he reflected a minute later, it would be hot walking in such a uniform jacket today. Sliver Mustard stopped to contemplate. And as he stopped, a bird alighted in his shoulder. It was a sparrow. A lily and a sparrow! What strangeness was this? There was no house here – no house at which he could ask "Excuse me, but have you lost this sparrow?", and he was secretly glad of it. Sliver Mustard kept on walking, embellished with a flower and a bird. "Clothes make the man." That's what people were wont to say and he understood that saying and sentiment. But was it true? Mr. Potter had not said it in his invitation. The words in Mr. Potter's invitation read, "This is to ask Sliver Mustard to present himself as he is, tomorrow afternoon, at three of the clock, at the hill." Clothes make the man? As he pondered, Sliver Mustard almost tripped over several clods of earth in his path. His scuffed shoes kicked the mud unintentionally and they flew ahead of him. Surely, most of the town's people had reached the hill by this time – had reached it clean and well-dressed. Would Mr. Potter be able to paint all of them simultaneously? He sighed and bent down, taking a rag out of his pocket as he did so, fully concentrated on rubbing a bit of a shine back onto his shoes. The lily touched his face as he bent and the sparrow chirped. "Why, Sliver Mustard?!" Startled, he looked up, finding himself face to face with the mayor, flanked by the police chief and the judge. How could he not have seen them coming? "On your way to the hill, Sliver? He nodded. The mayor's chain glinted, glinted so that it hurt Sliver Mustard's eyes. "You need not bother, Sliver," the mayor went on in a kindly sort of way. "You need not bother to go on to the hill." Sliver Mustard was puzzled as he stood up, stuffing the rag back into his pocket. What did the mayor mean? "Mr. Potter," the mayor continued, his voice heating up, "wanted me to take off my chain and my robe of office. Can you believe that? He wanted me to be painted without the symbols that define me. He told me to take them off." Dumbly Sliver Mustard shook his head. The police chief and the judge had walked on without bothering to speak and the mayor began to follow them. **** For a long time Sliver Mustard watched them - he watched them until they disappeared around a bend in the road. Then he turned. He smelled the lily and it was a sweet smell to him. He heard the sparrow on his shoulder sing and it was a song of fullness. In his heart he believed the words of the invitation, and he could see the words as clearly as if they had been written across the wide, wide overhead sky. "This is to ask Sliver Mustard to present himself as he is, tomorrow afternoon, at three of the clock, at the hill." So Sliver Mustard went on and on. At three of the clock he reached the hill. The watchman at the gate opened the gate and drew him in. And Sliver Mustard was painted as he was. Christine Farenhorst is the author of many books, including a short story collection/devotional available at Joshua Press here. She has a new novel – historical fiction – coming out Spring 2017 called “Katharina, Katharina” (1497-1562) covering the childhood and youth of Katharina Schutz Zell, the wife of the earliest Strasbourg priest turned Reformer, Matthis Zell....

Interview with an artist

Rachel VanEgmond is exploring God’s general revelation

Oil on gessoed panel, 20” x 24”November 2024Vivid radiance, impossible complexity, awesome love. Creation sings the praise of its Creator to all who witness it. Artist Rachel VanEgmond attributes her love of nature to her childhood experience of growing up on a rural property near Grimsby, Ontario. Sharing time with loved ones in the great outdoors both nurtured her spiritual growth and cultivated artistic ideas. Raised in a Christian home and community, Rachel was the youngest of three siblings. She says her faith deepened when she started to “appreciate God’s love through Creation.” Her younger self was a “crafty child,” so it was natural that in high school she was drawn toward art as her favorite subject. That passion led Rachel to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting at OCAD (Ontario College of Art and Design) University in Toronto, which she successfully completed this spring. Rachel says of the experience at OCAD U: “It was a blessing to be able to learn technical skills and also decide what content I want to make and what message is worth expressing.” Oil on wood, 15” x 17” March 2025 When we take up the assurance in God that is vital for us, we are rewarded with peace and vibrance. Creation not only reveals God, but shines all the more brilliantly when we love Him. Rachel’s thesis for her Bachelor’s explored God’s “General Revelation,” the Christian belief that God reveals Himself in the natural world (see Rom. 1:18-20, Ps. 19:1-4). What interests VanEgmond the most is, in her words, “How the indescribable intricacy of the natural world speaks to attentive and diligent love.” The result of her study is an impressive collection of paintings featuring the lush interior of Canadian forests. Working on recycled wood with various types of paint, VanEgmond capably utilizes color and value and brushwork to illustrate light and depth and space. Viewing the series is like accompanying Rachel on one of her walks in the forest. As of writing this, the entire collection has almost sold out. Even though her own schooling is behind her Rachel is planning to head back to the classroom again in the fall. This time she’ll be a high school teacher, at King's Christian Collegiate in Oakville, Ontario. Here Rachel hopes to share her enthusiasm for art with her students. “Teachers have such a massive impact on their students, and it is really exciting to be able to spark some passion for art.” Teaching will be a dream come true for Rachel, who has always been a keen art student herself and who “absolutely loves working with youth.” In addition to teaching Rachel is looking forward to completing a few private commissions along with building her personal collection. Follow Rachel at Instagram.com to see more of her work. Oil on wood, 7” x 17”March 2025A haven is always made for the children of the LORD, even in the heaviest thicket....

Politics

Man Up: ARPA leaderboards and the call to courageous action

We live in a time of deep confusion about truth, morality, identity, and even the basic purpose of life. Many young people today are unanchored, unsure of what faithfulness looks like in the world around them. As Francis Schaeffer noted, “Modern man has both feet firmly planted in mid-air.” But following Christ is not just about holding the right beliefs in private. It means living those beliefs out boldly, in public, and without compromise. God calls His people to bear witness to the truth in every sphere of life, including the political realm, where laws are made, values are shaped, and the vulnerable are either protected or ignored. Young people are not exempt from this calling. Scripture gives us examples like Daniel in Babylon, David facing Goliath, and Timothy in the early church – young men who stood firm in the face of pressure, hostility, or fear. That same spirit of faithful action is exactly what ARPA’s Leaderboards competition aims to cultivate. Over the past school year, students across Canada have stepped up by writing letters, hosting events, engaging with elected officials, and standing for life and truth in their communities. Their efforts are a reminder that Christian youth can be courageous, creative, and committed to something far greater than themselves. This article highlights what they did and why it matters. In particular, it takes note of a striking feature from this year’s competition: the individual winners at the top of the Leaderboard were all young men. In a culture where male leadership is often dismissed or diminished, that’s worth celebrating. More than that, it invites us to consider what godly leadership actually looks like, and how we can raise up the next generation to embrace it. What is ARPA Leaderboards? All sorts of ways to be active, and earn your ARPA club points. ARPA Leaderboards is a national student competition that turns political action into a hands-on, community-based challenge. It’s designed to encourage Reformed high school and homeschool students to bring a Christian witness into the public square, and not just in theory, but in practice. Throughout the school year, students form ARPA clubs – these are usually based in Christian schools or homeschool co-ops – and then choose real-world political or cultural actions to carry out together. These actions include things like organizing pro-life flag displays, writing letters to MPs or editors, meeting with local representatives, collecting donations for pregnancy care centers, or educating others through public events. Each completed action earns points, and photos and reports are posted on the Leaderboards website. There are prizes both for individual students and for school clubs, but the real reward is learning how to serve Christ with courage and clarity in public life. While Leaderboards encourages competition, its deeper goal is to encourage young people to take initiative and speak with clarity in the public square. By combining teamwork, creativity, and accountability, it helps young people gain confidence and conviction as they speak out on issues of justice, life, and truth. And it makes political engagement less abstract – less something “for us as adults later” – and more of a concrete expression of public obedience to Christ here and now. Immanuel Christian School students singing at an old age home. Highlights from this year From September to May, students across the country took action that was thoughtful, bold, and often outside their comfort zone. What began for many at an ARPA Youth Conference (where they learned about pro-life advocacy, wrote postcards, and distributed flyers), soon turned into a steady stream of public witness in their own communities. One of the most visible efforts was the all-pink flag display in Burlington, Ontario, drawing attention to the injustice of sex-selective abortion. Students from TEACH Home Educators of Brant and Emmanuel Christian High School of Fergus came out to plant flags, engage with passersby, and take down the display afterward. Emmanuel Christian High School went on to host not one but four flag displays throughout the year! Some actions were deeply relational. Several clubs, including Immanuel Christian School of Winnipeg, organized visits to seniors’ homes, singing, encouraging, and reminding elderly residents of their value and dignity in Christ. Others gathered resources for local pregnancy care centers or raised funds through school-wide initiatives. Emmanuel Christian High School students meeting with their local Member of Parliament Some students stepped into more direct engagement with public officials. Emmanuel Christian High School met with both their Member of Parliament and newly elected Member of Provincial Parliament to talk about key issues. Mia Vandermaarel of TEACH Home Educators of Brant wrote letters to the editor that were published in the Toronto Sun, Winnipeg Sun, and Hamilton Spectator, helping shape public conversation from a Christian perspective. Many clubs also came up with entirely original projects. One group from Coaldale Christian School hosted a student-led apologetics night, where students taught their parents the basics of pro-life argumentation… and even cooked dinner for them! Another group, involved in ARPA’s Let Kids Be campaign, set up a roadside sign warning about the harms of gender transition for minors. When the sign was vandalized, students from Ebenezer Canadian Reformed School returned late at night to repair and re-install it. Not every action was large-scale, but each one mattered. Students wrote pro-life messages with sidewalk chalk for people to see along public pathways. Others knit baby hats (each one representing a life lost to abortion) and sent them to Parliament. Stickers with clear, hopeful pro-life messages appeared on cars, lockers, and backpacks. Taken together, these efforts showed that faithfulness isn’t about age, comfort, or platform. It’s about showing up, speaking out, and putting your beliefs into action – even when no one is watching. The men on the Leaderboard “The world cries for men who are strong: strong in conviction, strong to lead, to stand, to suffer.” – Elisabeth Elliot One of the most striking details from this year’s competition was the individual leaderboard. At the top were three young men: Evan Roth, James Thalen, and Asher Vandermaarel. These weren’t just occasional contributors; they were consistent, committed, and quietly courageous. Evan registered for an ARPA Youth Conference in the fall, participated in the March for Life, visited an old age home, handed out Let Kids Be flyers, and used sidewalk chalk to spread the We Need a Law message. He also wrote postcards to MPs and MLAs, took part in several flag displays, and repeated most of these actions more than once. James and Asher took on similar efforts, showing the same kind of persistence and dedication over the course of the school year. In a time when male leadership is often absent or dismissed, these young men modeled something countercultural: initiative, responsibility, and public conviction rooted in their Christian faith. They didn’t act alone. Like most students in the Leaderboards program, they had guidance from a teacher or club leader, and encouragement from the ARPA staff along the way. But what set them apart was their willingness to take initiative. They followed through, again and again, often going beyond what was expected. They acted faithfully, consistently, and with conviction, because they believed it mattered. This kind of leadership matters. In many of our churches, we’re seeing fewer men entering the ministry and fewer desiring to serve as elders and deacons. And while ARPA’s local adult chapters across the country continue to thrive, many still see greater involvement from women than men. That’s not cause for despair, but it is a reminder of how valuable it is to see young men stepping into public responsibility with clarity and courage. Evan, James, and Asher are reminders that faithfulness doesn’t require a title or a platform. It requires conviction, courage, and the willingness to be counted. A brief biblical case for male leadership in public life Ebenezer Canadian Reformed School students getting the message out with a ”Let Kids Be” sign. The Bible presents a consistent pattern: men are called to take initiative, accept responsibility, and lead with humility and courage – not just in the home and church, but also in the broader public realm. From the beginning, Adam was placed in the garden to “tend and keep it” (Gen. 2:15), a charge that includes cultivation, guardianship, and stewardship. That calling – to bear responsibility for the world God made – echoes throughout redemptive history. Again and again, we see God raising up men to stand in the public square and confront injustice, call rulers to account, and proclaim His truth: Moses stood before Pharaoh, not merely asking for Israel’s release, but declaring the sovereign rule of God over kings: “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go’” (Ex. 5:1). Nathan confronted King David after his sin against Uriah and Bathsheba, saying, “You are the man!” (2 Sam. 12:7), a courageous act of public accountability. Elijah boldly rebuked Ahab for Naboth’s murder and Israel’s idolatry (1 Kings 21). Isaiah stood before kings like Ahaz and Hezekiah, urging trust in the Lord rather than foreign alliances (Is. 7; 37–39). Jeremiah warned Zedekiah and the officials of Judah, saying, “O house of David! Thus says the Lord: ‘Execute judgment in the morning…’” (Jer. 21:12), even as he was imprisoned and persecuted for his message. Amos condemned Israel’s ruling class: “They hate the one who rebukes in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks uprightly” (Amos 5:10), calling out systemic injustice. Micah declared, “Hear now, O heads of Jacob, and you rulers of the house of Israel… who hate good and love evil” (Micah 3:1–2), directly confronting civic corruption. Daniel, serving under pagan kings, boldly interpreted dreams and declared divine judgment: “You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting” (Dan. 5:27). These men were not grasping for personal gain or prestige. They bore public responsibility because they feared God more than man. Whether they held office or spoke prophetically to those who did, they understood that political power is not evil in itself – it is a tool to be used in submission to God’s authority and for the good of others. They spoke with clarity, even when it cost them dearly. The New Testament carries this same vision of principled courage. Paul exhorts believers: “Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong” (1 Cor. 16:13). Though the church is not a political body, it is called to form men who will lead well in every sphere of life, including the public square. This is not a call to control others or seek power for its own sake, but to take initiative with conviction, courage, and a willingness to bear responsibility for the good of others. What we saw this year in the Leaderboards competition was a glimpse of that calling. In a time when many young men are uncertain about their role or place, we saw a few step forward – not perfectly, but faithfully. And that is something to thank God for, and to build on. Speaking truth at the Toronto March for Life. More than politics: preparing for lifelong engagement Leaderboards isn’t just about winning a prize or checking off action items. It’s about planting the seeds of long-term involvement – helping students gain the confidence, skills, and motivation to be engaged Christian citizens well into adulthood. We often hear from ARPA chapter leaders that they wish more men were actively involved. That gap doesn’t close by accident. It closes when young people are shown early that political action is a normal and necessary part of Christian responsibility. Leaderboards helps do exactly that. It gives students a framework for understanding the issues and a place to start acting on them. The hope isn’t just that they participate for a season. It’s that they carry these habits into the rest of their lives by joining ARPA chapters, meeting with elected officials, and encouraging others in their church community to speak up. If we want faithful, engaged adults tomorrow, we need to invest in opportunities for them to participate today. That’s the kind of momentum we want to carry forward – not just into next year’s competition, but into a lifetime of public faithfulness. The work isn’t finished This year’s Leaderboards competition gave us a glimpse of what’s possible when young Christians take action. Some wrote letters. Others planted flags. A few stood in front of MPs or in front of their entire school. And at the top of the individual leaderboard, a handful of young men took initiative, showing maturity, discipline, and a willingness to lead. But this isn’t just about one season or a few standout students. It’s about what comes next. Canada doesn’t just need more political activity. It needs principled, faithful leadership – rooted in truth and directed toward the good of our neighbors. It needs Christians who understand that public responsibility is part of their calling and who are prepared to act accordingly. As André Schutten and Michael Wagner write in the Second Edition of A Christian Citizenship Guide: “When it comes to political action, if not we, dear Christian citizen, then who? Who else would have the courage? Who else would know what to do? Who else would know how to fix the problem? We are a nation lost, without any sense of reality or morality. Canada needs a compass and a guide. The compass exists: it is the Word of God. The guides to read the compass are the faithful members of the church, scattered like leaven (Gal. 5:9) throughout all the institutions and spheres of Canadian culture and society and applying the truth and beauty and goodness of the Word of God in every sphere of life.” Leaderboards will return in September, Lord willing. Until then, we celebrate those who stepped up and we invite others to join them. The competition may end each spring, but our calling as Christians does not. Paul Lawton is ARPA’s Director of Grassroots Action, while Naomi Meerstra is ARPA’s Eastern Grassroots Coordinator. Pictures provided by ARPA Canada....

Internet

How to stay sane in an overstimulated age

Reconnect information and action ***** In today’s hyperconnected world, information comes at us fast and furious, from every direction, 24-7. We wake up to news alerts about a major earthquake in Japan or a political assassination in Ecuador. We open our social media feeds and, within the first minute of scrolling, see the latest grim headlines about war or rumors of war, the latest anger-inducing missive in this or that culture war debate, and the latest foolish oversharing from this or that uncle or college friend. Because we are human and emotionally wired, it’s natural that these things provoke us and inflame our hearts to want to do something. Yet what can we do with this abundance of troublesome information aside from being informed about it? We are overstimulated but underactivated. Information bombards us but action is elusive. I’m convinced this dynamic is one of the major sources of anxiety and mental unhealth in today’s information age, and it’s something Neil Postman warned about. More info than we can do anything with Postman talked about it in terms of what he called the “information-action ratio.” For most of human history, there was a high correlation between the information that filled human brains and the tangible actions they could take in response. “News of the world” was inaccessible to most people. The information that concerned them was closer-to-home realities of family, farm, or community: information with direct bearing on the actions of everyday life. But this all changed, Postman argued, with the invention of the telegraph. Suddenly, the “news of the world” was much more accessible to average people, who found it an amusing novelty. The problem, however, is that this influx of far-flung information “gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action.” As Postman observed, “For the first time in human history, people were faced with the problem of information glut, which means that simultaneously they were faced with the problem of a diminished social and political potency.”1 If Postman’s observations about “information glut” were accurate forty years ago, how much more are they today, when we’re speeding down the “information superhighway” faster than ever via our ubiquitous smartphones and ever-present Wi-Fi? And the resulting problem of impotence is even more pronounced than it was in Postman’s era. In today’s world, it’s not just occasional televised traumas that burden our souls; it’s the constant feed. “Breaking news” is no longer the alarming verbiage that signals a rare calamity; it’s the everyday parlance of twenty-four-hour news and social media publishers skilled at the art of clickbait. These media publishers are eager to garner eyeballs by any means necessary. Another school shooting. A salacious scandal. An election “shock poll.” A helicopter-filmed police chase. An Amber Alert for a missing child. But what are we to do with all these alarming headlines and triggering dings of “breaking news”? Media outlets don’t care about this question. Their only interest is that we have tuned in, clicked, and fallen for the pseudo urgency of the Important Information they’ve put on our radar. Making audiences “aware” – at best, helping them become “informed citizens” – seems to be the chief value proposition the news industry can offer in its defense. But awareness to what end? Is this tidal wave of chaotic information informing us merely for the sake of us “being informed”? Awareness as an end unto itself We’ve come to a point where, yes, the primary goal of most information mediated to us is that we should be informed and aware of it. Not educated or activated about important things happening in the world, mind you; merely aware. The benefits of an informed citizenry have long been trumpeted as a valorous purpose of the free press (and indeed, the benefits are real). But we also need to talk about the liabilities that come with an overinformed or trivially informed citizenry. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman argued that TV had altered the meaning of “being informed” by “creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation.” This is not the same as outright misinformation, he said. It’s rather misleading information, which “creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing.”2 In Postman’s view, mass media (led by television) created a world of dilettante experts whose absorption of vast amounts of information – packaged to them as entertainment – gave them a false sense of know-how about the happenings of the world. Referencing this know-how (e.g., “I saw this news story about ____” or “I read this Atlantic article about ____”) became status markers. Information awareness took on a cultural cachet quite apart from its actionability. Fast forward four decades, and we now take it for granted that “awareness” is a value in its own right. The conversation starters might be different today (“I saw this TED Talk on YouTube about ____” or “I saw this TikTok about ____”), but the status it brings has only increased. Our ability to cite, allude to, or summarize secondhand information about a breadth of things (even if our grasp of the “thing” is actually wafer thin) turns information into a means of signaling our claim on that most coveted virtue, relevance. For digital natives who’ve lived their whole lives in a hyperaware, globally connected information ecosystem, it’s understandable that a word like woke would come into prominence as a shorthand for social justice. In the twentieth century, social justice “activism” involved tangible actions like volunteering or picketing in a real physical place; in the twenty-first century, someone can be an “activist” without ever getting off his or her phone. Activism (or “slacktivism”) moves from being primarily about doing to largely about saying: participating in the correct lingo, hashtags, and accepted speech (e.g., preferred pronouns) becomes the means of activism more than, well, actions offline. “Doing justice” becomes a discursive activity more than a tangible one. In this upside-down world, people can – and often are – accused of apathy and inaction for being silent (“silence is violence”) on social media, even if their offline, unpublished activities are thoroughly oriented around addressing the injustice they’re being accused of ignoring. So it goes in a world where discourse about a problem (talking about it publicly) occupies a higher social standing than actual efforts to solve the problem. This is problematic. Problem of being overinformed Five years after publishing Amusing Ourselves, Postman gave a speech to the German Informatics Society that elaborated on the information-action ratio. In the talk, titled “Informing Ourselves to Death,” Postman described how, for the average person in 1990, “information no longer has any relation to the solution of problems.” The way he described it could just as easily describe the average person in 2025: The tie between information and action has been severed. Information is now a commodity that can be bought and sold, or used as a form of entertainment, or worn like a garment to enhance one’s status. It comes indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, disconnected from usefulness; we are glutted with information, drowning in information, have no control over it, don’t know what to do with it.... Our defenses against information glut have broken down; our information immune system is inoperable. We don’t know how to filter it out; we don’t know how to reduce it; we don’t know how to use it.3 Remember, Postman observed this “information glut” problem in the pre-internet era. How much more are we glutted with information today? If we didn’t have good “information immunity” defenses back then, we’re even worse off now – especially in the age of ChatGPT, deepfakes, political misinformation campaigns, and the resulting epistemological crisis. The information crisis we face is at least threefold: too much information that moves too fast and is algorithmically tailored to be too focused on me.4 In a sense, “being informed” is more of a liability than an asset in today’s world. The quality of digitally mediated information is simply too untrustworthy. What happens to us when we’re overinformed but underactivated? From my experience and observations, some common side effects occur. We become anxious – When a world’s worth of “breaking news” calamities, injustices, and apocalyptic headlines steadily feed our souls, we naturally feel anxious and on edge. We become angry – Rising blood pressure and seething anger follow when we’re constantly exposed to partisan clickbait, triggering troll provocations, and other forms of foolish talk. We become addicted – Algorithms easily figure out what types of information each of us can’t resist. Soon we’re scrolling and clicking like addicts, unable to resist the intoxicating allure of our favorite genres of “news,” trivia, or juicy gossip. We become numb – A diet of information disconnected from tangible action makes information abstract and surreal, disconnected from our real life. Eventually, headlines about a horrific mass shooting become things we scroll past as casually as we glance at a friend’s vacation photo. We become lonely – When we spend large segments of our lives binging on digital information far removed from local, embodied communities – even if it’s information we debate or discuss with others online – we become lonelier. The online influencer we listen to, or the interlocutor avatars we fiercely debate, are hardly substitutes for the know-and-be-known community we really need. We become delusional – Because of the algorithmic shape of information today, no two of us live in the same information universe. We all see things differently, in ways tweaked to please our preferences and biases. Naturally, this further entrenches us in echo chambers, deepening our confidence in our own rightness (however wrong we are). We become detached from reality – The cumulative effect of all the above is that an overinformed life becomes a pseudo real life. When awareness trumps action and we’re more compelled by narratives than by reality, our sense of the world becomes ever more surreal. Perhaps C. S. Lewis sums it up best in this letter to a friend, when he laments the dynamics of an information-action disconnect: It is one of the evils of rapid diffusion of news that the sorrows of all the world come to us every morning. I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. (This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know.) A great many people do now seem to think that the mere state of being worried is in itself meritorious. I don’t think it is.5 Not only is Lewis right to challenge the social merit attached to “the mere state of being worried” (i.e., the social capital of awareness), but he hits the nail on the head when he says we should avoid fixing our minds on problems we can’t solve. This not only burdens us in all the ways described above but tends to distract us from the local problems we can help fix. Neglecting the local With all the energy we devote to keeping up with the goings-on of the world, we might neglect the people we can love and the problems we can address in our own backyards. For Christians called to love our neighbors and tangibly pursue mercy and justice, this is the crux of what’s wrong with an imbalanced information-action ratio. Such is the state of our mass-mediated information environment that your average twenty-first-century young person can tell you far more about national politics than local politics. He develops strong opinions about presidential candidates and Supreme Court cases but couldn’t tell you the name of the mayor or a city council member in his city, nor identify the most pressing challenges facing his proximate community. Of the millions of Gen Zers who posted a blank black square on Instagram in June 2020 (#blackouttuesday) to protest police brutality, how many have ever had a conversation with a police officer in their own neighborhood? Of the millions who changed their social media avatars to the Ukrainian flag in February 2022, how many have tangibly helped refugees or immigrants from war-torn nations in their own cities? Online hashtag actions are well intentioned. And maybe the viral power of such “collective online action” makes some difference. But as Lewis points out, the danger is that such actions “become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know.” There are many reasons why everyone should strive for a more balanced information-action ratio. It’ll help your mental health and ground you in local life and embodied community. For Christians specifically, it’ll remind you of your creaturely limits and deepen your trust in a sovereign God who is omniaware in ways you can never be. And it’ll present more fruitful avenues for loving your neighbor and being a faithful witness in the particular place where God has situated you. Bringing balance to the ratio Christians should be countercultural by striving to reconnect information and action, modeling a healthier way of living for a world out of balance. How can we do this? Here are ideas for individual Christians and ideas for churches and leaders. For Individual Christians Audit your news and information diet – Make intentional efforts to reduce your intake of national and global information while increasing your intake of local information (which has more potential to be actionable). Don’t turn your ears off to the cries of the world. But listen more eagerly to the cries closer to home. Embrace your limits – As you become more “unaware” of the steady hum of information in the news that might be making others anxious, angry, and stressed, see this as an opportunity for resting in God’s sovereignty and praising him for his power. A world’s worth of burdens is too much for you – but not for God. Contemplating our limits in contrast to God’s unlimitedness is a fruitful path toward wisdom (see Ps. 90). Rejoice in how God designed you – You are an integrated mind and body. What comes into your brain has a natural outlet in your physical activities. You weren’t made to just be aware of faraway problems and global chaos about which you can’t do much. You were made to bring order to the chaos in your immediate vicinity. You weren’t made to be a gawker but a gardener (Gen. 2:15). Pray – Prayer is an important action we can take. When you inevitably encounter information about an injustice or tragedy in some far-flung part of the nation or world, don’t let the information sit idly in your troubled brain. Take it to the Lord in prayer. As much as our secular culture demands more than “thoughts and prayers,” Christians know prayer is actually potent and crucial. If we can’t do anything else in response to troublesome information, we can pray to the one who can. For Churches and Church Leaders Disciple people in media habits – Information intake should be a subject addressed in discipleship – not in a legalistic sense but as part of wisdom. Help the people in your church think through the amount and type of information they consume and how it’s shaping their souls. Promote localism – Church leaders should lead people (especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha) to prioritize the local, proximate, and offline as much or more than the distant, disembodied goings-on of the online world. Make the case for why a balanced ratio of information and action is not only a recipe for improved mental and spiritual health but conducive to a more effective Christian mission. Gather people for prayer – When some national or global calamity does occur, in such a way that most in your Christian community will be aware of and troubled by it, prayer is an appropriate communal response. Both in the regular church gathering and in impromptu meetings, the church can and should take the action of prayer. It’s an “action” in the truest sense, and one we should never neglect. Call people to take action – Churches should regularly organize opportunities for people to tangibly solve real problems in the community. Often this works best by establishing long-term partnerships with organizations already doing specific work that aligns with biblical neighbor love: crisis pregnancy centers, foster and adoption agencies, homeless shelters, food distribution centers, and so forth. There is no end to the needs in your own backyard. And if a national news headline happens to be about something happening in your city or community, then your church should spring into hands-on action. This is a rare opportunity for burdensome information about calamity to directly translate to tangible community service, in partnership with local organizations and civic authorities. Beauty of activated Church For much of my adult life, I was an overinformed news junkie. The onset of social media amplified this addiction – and my soul suffered as a result. Thankfully, I found a healthier way to live, in no small part because I rediscovered the beauty and necessity of the local church. Once I gave myself wholeheartedly to local church life, I came to see that the burdens and griefs of ten people in my small group were far more important for me to carry than the burdens and griefs of countless sufferers on social media. Not only could I see the actual tears on actual faces as they shared, but I could hug them and know them in their suffering – and help them through it. I also came to see that the tangibly activated local church is a far more satisfying and functional community than the virtually aware community of social media. Whether they’re distributing food in partnership with local food banks, mobilizing volunteers for a local foster and adoption agency, or simply rallying the congregation around the needs of the community (single moms, meal trains for sick families, house cleanup for elderly members, and so forth), a church’s localized, tangible action is beautiful to behold. And when troublesome news from distant places does reach our corner of the world – as it invariably will – the local church is where I go first to process and pray through it, even if no other “action” is possible in response. For centuries, the church’s “prayers of the people” liturgies have borne witness to the fact that in those instances where we can’t “do” anything with our hands to help, we can always drop to our knees and pray. Christians can model a different mode of living in an over-informed, underactivated world. It’s a mode that isn’t numb or ambivalent to the countless problems that plague our world but realistic about our limited scope and where we can best be used. It’s a mode that leads to calmer minds, more focused souls, and more engaged bodies. It’s a mode that syncs up with how we were created and resists the digital era’s many temptations toward god-like limitlessness. Content taken from “Scrolling Ourselves to Death” by Ivan Mesa and Brett McCracken, ©2025. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, crossway.org. Endnotes 1 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 20th anniversary ed. (1985; repr., New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 68. 2 Postman, Amusing Ourselves, 107. 3 Neil Postman, “Informing Ourselves to Death” (address to the German Informatics Society, Stuttgart, Germany, October 11, 1990), https://web.williams.edu/HistSci/curriculum/101 /informing.html. 4 I devote chapters to each of these three challenges in my book, The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), chaps. 1–3. 5 C. S. Lewis, letter to Dom Bede Griffiths (1946), quoted in Paul F. Ford, ed., Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 119....

Religion - Roman Catholic

The Way

Jesus told his disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6) **** Many years ...

Being the Church

Christians don’t pray

Who says that Christians don’t pray? Of course, Christians pray, don’t they? Isn’t prayer one of the essential characteristics of Christian life...

Internet

How to use AI like a Christian boss

Imagine you’re the boss of your own company. After months of searching, you’ve just landed the most brilliant assistant in the country. He’s lig...

Assorted

Fun is something you make

11 tips for family road trips ***** “Bored” is a curse word in our house. Say that word, and my mom is liable to wash your mouth out with soap. ...

Pro-life - Euthanasia

Ontario shows why euthanasia “safeguards” can’t work

A lengthy article in the Winter 2025 edition of The New Atlantis, titled “A Pattern of Noncompliance,” shows how Ontario isn’t strictly enforcing its euthanasia regulations. The provincial “Office of the Chief Coroner” is in charge of monitoring how euthanasia killings are committed and from 2018 onward they have, “…thus far counted over 400 apparent violations — and have kept this information from the public and not pursued a single criminal charge, even against repeat violators and ‘blatant’ offenders.” Ontario’s Chief Coroner, Dirk Huyer, admitted back in 2018 already that: “we see a pattern of noncompliance, we see a pattern of not following legislation, a pattern of not following regulation, and frankly we can’t just continue to do education to those folks if they’re directly repeating stuff that we’ve brought to their attention.” So what penalty have the “non-compliers” had to face? As journalist Alexander Raikin reports, one of the most severe cases of non-compliance involved a euthanizer who brought the wrong poisons, which didn’t work, but did, according to Huyer, cause tremendous suffering. What penalty was imposed? The euthanizer will no longer be allowed to kill people, but he maintained his medical license. And the case was never referred to the police. The lack of compliance was evident even early on. In a report on Ontario’s first 100 euthanasia killings, 39 percent of the euthanizers skipped a notification requirement. They were supposed to notify the pharmacist of the purpose intended for the drugs requested, and they just didn’t. Euthanizers either didn’t understand the regulations or couldn’t be bothered with them, but either way it underscores the ineffectiveness of such regulations. The point Christians need to highlight is that it doesn’t matter what “safeguards” are included with euthanasia legislation, they won’t work. They can’t work, because the only real line that can be drawn is the God-given one, that our lives are not our own, but are entrusted to us by God, and that the taking of any life is a violation of His command, “Do not murder.” Our culture has tried to draw other lines, but they are drawn in shifting sand and are constantly being ignored or wiped away by the next cultural shift. So yes, our legislators have made a distinction between the unlawful killing of a human being, codified as murder, and the lawful taking of a human life, described as euthanasia (and abortion). But what would it be then, if someone committed euthanasia unlawfully? It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that any unlawful taking of a life must be a murder. But that’s not a conclusion they are willing to come to. Why? Well, how many doctors do you think would be willing to do a procedure that, if they ever didn’t do it quite right, would send them to jail for murder? Not many, right? Which means that whatever the regulations or “safeguards” in place, if they were strictly enforced, it would have a chilling effect – doctors would be reluctant to consider killing for their living if it could cost them their freedom. That, then, could put an end to euthanasia altogether: it wouldn’t matter if was legal if there was no one willing to inject the poison. So, for euthanasia to be both legal and available, the government will always be motivated to overlook irregularities or neglected safeguards. And since the victims are dead, there isn’t going to be much of an outcry either. Careless with matters of life and death – that’s the natural outgrowth of a godless culture. It’s only when we turn to God’s unchanging law that we can find a standard that can’t be bent and can’t be ignored with impunity....

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – June 2025

A one-question test During an episode of the TV drama West Wing, the President of the United States has to figure out whether a boatload of Chinese refugees are really Christian. If they are, they’ll get to stay in the US, since they would be true refugees from China’s persecution of Christians. However, they might only be claiming to be Christian so that they will be able to stay in the US. The President has to figure it out so he summons one of the refugees to the White House, and asks him a simple question. “Can you name any of Jesus’ disciples?” He didn’t ask him a theological or doctrinal question, but instead tested the man’s Bible knowledge. If the man was really a Christian he was expected to know basic well-known parts of his Bible. It was not an unreasonable expectation, and on the television show the Chinese refugee passed the test with flying colors, naming all twelve. But would we do as well? Do you know your Bible well enough to name all twelve disciples? Quiz your family - answers can be found at the bottom of this article. Did you hear the one...? Did you hear the one about the three-legged dog who walked into a saloon? He sidled up to the bar, pulled out his gun and fired a shot in the air to get everyone's attention. Then he barked, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw!" Did you hear the one about the bear who rumbled into a saloon and said, "I'd like a grilled.............. cheese." The bartender asked, "Why the big pause?" "I'm a bear." Did you hear the one about the world's worst thesaurus? Not only is it terrible, it's terrible. Don’t make big out of little While the Bible never names the “principle of proportionality,” it does presume it, teaching us not to treat small things as big, or big things as small. In Matt. 7:3-5 Jesus teaches us not to correct a small fault in others, even as we overlook our own big sins. Then in Matt. 23:23, the Pharisees are taking to task for tithing mint, but neglecting the love of God. Today our society also treats as unimportant what is big (God, the plight of the unborn, the sanctity of marriage, etc.) and treats the small as big, Osychologist Jonathan Shelder detailed some examples in a series of tweets: “What psychologist Ellis called ‘awfulizing’ and ‘horriblizing’ has become a culturally-accepted to speak and think It wasn’t upsetting, it was trauma I wasn’t annoyed, I was harmed They’re not difficult, they’re toxic I wasn’t uncomfortable, I was unsafe It wasn’t disagreement, it was gaslighting It wasn’t words, it was violence “In this way, we transforms life’s unavoidable difficulties into the Most Important Thing in the Universe And ourselves into the Main Character in the Universe.” This sort of narcissism ignores that there are truly horrible and awful happenings in the world. Every time little is made out to be big, it makes it more likely that the truly wicked will be ignored. So Christians mustn’t be like the boy who cried wolf. Screen-fasts seem to be trending! A CRC publication called Christian Courier asked readers to go on a screen-fast, and in the May 5 issue, editor Angela Reitsma Bick reported on the results. Her volunteers went one to three days without their phones. That’s not a lot of time, but they still learned some lessons. One gentleman, Dan DeBruyne, a physiotherapist, went just one day, and was anxious about all the unanswered texts he assumed must be piling up. At day’s end he realized, yes, there were 16, but only a couple were actually important. He shared, “It was an exercise in humility. To think I am required to be reachable 16-18 hours a day has an air of pride about it.” He also noticed that setting his phone aside, even for that one day, allowed him “quiet moments of daydreaming.” He was able to be “fully engaged playing with my daughters and making more eye contact during conversations.” His brief digital detox also allowed him to “realize how frequently I look to my phone to fill silence. How frequently I try to drown out any ‘still small voices’ with newsfeeds, friends’ photos or memes.” So how about? Are you up for RP’s own social media screen-fast? See the details here. Democracy from the comfort of your home? Mail-in ballots and e-voting are supposed to be the very latest improvements to the democratic process. The touted benefits are that it should increase voter participation by making voting quicker and easier. But do we really want to make voting any easier than it already is? As it stands now, we have to vote once each for the federal and provincial governments every four years or so. That works out to an average of once every two years. Traditional elections require us to leave the house and walk or drive to the nearest poll. If you’re a city voter the whole process will take about half an hour, and if you live in the country it may take up to an hour (or two if it’s snowing). That works out to an average of 15 – 60 minutes of voting time per year. And still, only about half the country is willing to spend the time to go out and vote. Electronic voting promises to make the process less time consuming, down to an average of around 2 minutes per year, and it consequently promises to increase voter turnouts. The downside is that the increase in voters will be made up of people who only started voting when it would take less than 15 minutes of their time! Per year! Instead of making voting easier, we should make the whole process a good deal tougher. Next election we should tell all the voters in Edmonton that their polling stations are in Calgary, and vice versa. A 700-km round trip, once every couple of years. Now that's something that could improve the democratic process! Grandpa...? A little boy asked his grandfather if he had been on the ark with Noah. The grandfather chuckled a little and told his grandson that no, he had not been on the ark. The confused grandson asked, “Then why didn’t you drown Grandpa?” Democracy and polygamy don’t mix Some years back, political scientist Tom Flanagan pointed out how polygamous marriage may be more harmful than homosexual "marriage"... at least for democracy. In his National Post article, “Democracy, polygamy, and the sexual constitution,” Flanagan argues that polygamy is detrimental to constitutional democracy. Democracies throughout the Western world are all monogamous, and constitutional democracy was only adopted in non-Western societies like Japan and India, when they too, accepted monogamy as the norm. Flanagan doesn’t believe monogamy causes democracy – there are monogamous societies like China that are dictatorships. But he does believe that widespread polygamy is detrimental to democracy. Areas where polygamy is popular like the Sub Saharan Africa, or parts of the Middle East are also areas where constitutional democracy has made the least progress. But why? Three reasons. First, polygamy almost always involves one (usually rich) man with multiple wives, which leaves many men with no chance of marriage, since there are fewer available women. Without the responsibilities of having to provide for a family, men are more inclined to crime. Studies in the US have found that crime is higher in areas where men won't marry the mothers of their children and won't, consequently, take on family responsibilities. A surplus of aimless, frustrated males also seems to make wars more likely, and generally creates instability, which is detrimental to democracy. Finally, as more men are left without wives, women become valuable as commodities. They are used as bartering chips to seal alliances and are treated as little more than property. And pieces of property don’t usually get to vote. Flanagan concludes that if we want to preserve democracy, the state must take a stand against polygamy. Making it work In the West, many pick partners based on qualities that may disappear over time: looks fade, intellect dulls, and charm may become cloying. The very qualities that made us fall in love initially, when gone, may have us thinking we've fallen out of love. The arranged marriages common in Asia and Africa aren’t based on attractive attributes or qualities. Instead of spending time wondering who they should marry, these couples are forced to figure out, given the person they are married to, how they will make it work. So they know right from the start that marriage is something you have to put effort into, and that love is something that can be built up. I'd never want an arranged marriage, but the West would benefit if they understood better that a good marriage takes work. Quotables “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – commonly, but probably wrongly, attributed to Edmund Burke “When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.” – Max Lerner Atheists are living in the wrong world Every met a morally outraged atheist? What’s that about? That’s akin to… well, it’s akin to a flat earther taking a vacation trip round the world. In the Spring/Summer 2025 issue of Barnabas magazine, Owen Pikkert told a story about a flat earther who wanted to go on an exciting holiday. When his travel agent pitched the idea of polar circumnavigation – crossing both the North and South Poles – he had objections: The trip was too long. It was too expensive. Parts of the trip would be cold. His travel agent could have tried to solve these objections, perhaps by finding a discount rate, or providing blankets. “Or she could observe that the flat-earther is living in the wrong kind of world. For his objections presuppose that the world is spherical. In other words, he is borrowing from the spherical world in order to critique some aspect of the spherical world. Surely he should not raise such objections. Or, better yet, surely he should give up on a flat earth.” Debate can be a powerful way to discover the truth; so notes Prov. 18:17. But debate can also be a tool of obfuscation (as can the use of big words) by bringing up what’s irrelevant to hide what’s important. Parents experience this downside when a teen caught out past curfew starts asking why his brother gets away with so much more than he does. His parents shouldn’t go there, should they? When an atheist starts attacking God we shouldn’t go there either. Instead we need to demand the atheist explain on what basis he’s condemning anything or anyone at all. The purposeless pitiless universe his worldview proclaims doesn’t have wrong or right – it doesn’t care. So he needs to either live out his worldview and stop complaining, or admit to atheism’s shortcomings and reject it. But in the meantime we shouldn’t treat his moral objections seriously – it’ll only make him think he has a point (Prov. 26:4-5). Answers What are the names of the twelve disciples? Simon Peter, Andrew, James (the son of Zebedee), John, Phillip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James (the son of Alphaeus), Thaddeus (Lebbaeus), Simon, and Judas....

Assorted

Our family’s trip to the Ark

Ken Ham’s creationist organization Answers in Genesis has built a life-size replica of Noah’s Ark in the State of Kentucky. These Christians are proudly leading with the Flood – one of the most ridiculed portions of Scripture – and attesting to the reliability of God’s Word in this big bold way. It is glorious! ***** It started in the airport. We were picking up a rental car and the friendly agent asked why we were in town. I had a moment’s hesitation, the mental blip I get when a stranger totally sets me up to talk about God and I’m wondering what the guy will think if I take him up on it. A fear-of-man moment. It helped that I was wearing my “Made in His Image” t-shirt so onward I plunged: “We’re here to see the Ark.” "It just kept getting bigger and bigger!" “Oh that’s great! I think half the people who rent a car from us are here to see it,” and then he went on about his uncle – or maybe it was a friend of his grandfather – who had donated a biblical manuscript featured in the Ark’s Bible Museum display. Not quite sure I got that all right, but what I do remember is the surprise of meeting a stranger who just started talking about things biblical. I come from a small town where there’s about 5 churches for every coffee shop, and I was still struck, in this spot somewhere in Kentucky, that this might be the most Christian place I’ve been. And the airport was just the beginning. Shucks, even our Airbnb rental was bedecked in a full shopping cart load of Christian crafts and signs. But what we came for was the Ark, and it is enormous. You can’t see it from the parking lot because it’s situated in the middle of 800 woodland acres – these folks are planning for all sorts of expansion possibilities (we could see the beginnings of their ancient Jerusalem walk-through exhibit). The Ark is set so far back you have to take a five-minute bus ride just to get there. Then you see it! It is wonderful and just a bit surreal. A replica of the Ark, to try and reach a lost world? But the world thinks the Ark is a fairy tale, and kids’ stuff! They’ll make fun of anyone who takes it seriously, won’t they? Yes, they will. And worse too. When the Ark opened they had to have pretty intense security – there are still guards everywhere – because they were getting all sorts of bomb threats. So, yes, the world will mock anyone who believes the Bible’s Flood account, and that’s what got me just a little verklempt as we walked up to the Ark. It kept getting bigger and bigger! I couldn’t miss just how many people had to have been involved to plan and build it. And to keep it running there are more than 1,200 part- and full-time staff employed by Answers in Genesis across their three enterprises – the Ark, their Creation Museum, and their publishing arm (it had me thinking of 1 Kings 19:18). These are Bible-believing folk who are happy to risk the ridicule of the world to proclaim the gospel of their God. If that doesn’t get you right in the gratitude, I don’t know what will. Favorites inside the Ark Our family went to the Ark one day by ourselves, and a second day with our neighbors so we got to share our favorite sights with them, and see what you might skip if you just had the one day. The first floor should be your last priority. It is still interesting – half the length of the floor is filled with bamboo cages showing how Noah and his family might have housed the smaller animals. How could just eight people feed and clean away the waste for thousands of critters? Well, the exhibit designers had some ideas: gravity-fed water and food dispensers that would only need to be filled every few days, and chutes that would also use gravity, this time to funnel the waste away from the cages to where it could be easily collected and carted away. This is all “Arktistic” license (as one display puts it), since the Bible doesn’t go into detail about the Ark’s inner workings. But these cages show how a small crew could have taken care of thousands of animals. So the first floor is worth seeing, but all our kids’ favorites were on the top two floors. As you move from one level to the next, challenge your kids to spot Noah and his family. All eight members can be found on each of the three floors, caring for the animals, and doing other chores. That’s 24 family members to spot in total. We all had our favorite spots and exhibits. One of mine was the bookstore below the Ark. It’s one thing to read online reviews of creationist books, but so much better to be able to page through a physical copy. Another of my favorites were the two ten-minute films being shown on the third floor. It was just nice to take a break from walking, but these were also clever stories. They take place 4,000 years apart, but cast the same actors in both films, and in similar roles. The first is set right before the Deluge, with a hostile secular reporter scoffing at Noah, asking why he built his boat. The second story takes place today, and once again we have a hostile reporter, this time asking the Ark Encounter president, Noah Zomarsh (a Ken Ham stand-in) why they built the Ark. Street evangelist Ray Comfort, who might be familiar to some readers, makes an appearance via holography to issue a call to repentance, and offer up a gospel presentation. The Gilgamesh ark was not the seaworthy vessel the ark was. My wife Janice loved how everything was a gospel presentation. She also enjoyed the science and engineering aspect, with Ark Encounter designers addressing the problems Noah’s family would have had with pumping waste out, and bringing fresh air in. We don’t know how they did do it, but the designers showcase some pretty ingenious ways they could have done it. Our neighbor Brian loved how he didn’t have to correct the information for his kids, like we get used to doing whenever we go to a secular museum. Everyone enjoyed the crew quarters. Again, a lot of imagination was involved, including names given to Noah’s wife, and his daughters-in-law (the Bible doesn’t list any). Since Noah’s three sons probably all bore a resemblance to each other, the Answers in Genesis folk wondered if the differences we see today among the world’s ethnicities came about via Noah’s sons’ wives. The three women are presented as the progenitors of the three “races” – one looked African-ish, another Caucasian-ish, and the third Asian-ish. It’s an intriguing idea, so long as your kids understand it is more “Arktistic license” and just a guess, not a fact. The third floor was tops among almost everyone, though for different reasons. My oldest was intrigued by the different Ark stories found in other cultures, and the mock-up models of their Arks. Bible skeptics will point to the Story of Gilgamesh and its flood account as the precursor for what we read in Genesis. They say Noah’s Flood is just a rip-off. But if you work out the dimensions of Gilgamesh’s “Ark” you get a square that would get rolled over and over by the waves. The dimensions of Noah’s Ark are the only realistic measurements among all these accounts. The top floor also featured a teaser exhibit for the Bible Museum in Washington, DC. My youngest liked the very last hall which features what was basically a comic book enlarged and thrown onto the walls. The plot revolves around a group of university friends who are wrestling with the purpose of life in very different ways. The story’s got a bit of grit to it, and, again, ends with a gospel presentation. Favorites outside with the animals What would an ark be without animals? The zoo here isn’t as large as you might find in some big cities – there’s no lions or elephants – but when was the last time you’ve pet a kangaroo? (They aren’t soft like a cat, but are maybe as soft as a Labrador.) For just a bit extra, our girls got a short camel ride, and for free they got to pet goats named Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. We all got to see a Zorse – half horse, half zebra – and a Zonkey – half zebra and half donkey – which highlighted that these species might all be part of the same single horse “kind” that was taken on the Ark. Janice and our girls caught a “creature feature” – a zookeeper bringing out an owl to speak about it and show it around – and Janice was struck again by how this too was a gospel presentation. They didn’t want the audience to miss how amazing this owl was, and more importantly, how amazing its Creator was. 3 tips Depending on when you go there can be some pretty lengthy lines to enter the Ark. If you start with the crowds, it’ll be slow progress all the way up. One way to skip the lines is to enter through the gift shop on the bottom floor at the front prow of the boat (on the far left end as you approach). Then take the elevator up to the third floor and start there where it won’t be crowded yet. If you do go through the entrance at the back of the boat, they’ll try to take your picture, which you can purchase as a souvenir later. It only takes a minute, but you can save your time and money by politely but firmly expressing that no, you don’t want a picture. Food, even snacks, are quite expensive, and they don’t want you bringing in food. There are cheaper options nearby, but be sure to get a wristband before leaving so you can get back in. One caution Before our visit, a friend suggested we read Genesis 6-9 for family devotions, to act as a refresher for what the Bible actually says about the Flood. It was a great idea. And while you’re there you’ll want to encourage your kids not to take everything on display as fact. This is quite the counter to the Ark-as-a-children’s-bathtub-toy, or as a fable likened to the Greek myths, but there is still a lot of imagination going on here – possibilities and maybes and might have beens. And our kids need to know it. Conclusion An Ark selfie, with my wife Janice So who would enjoy the Ark Encounter experience, and how long should you go? I can’t really imagine a Christian adult not loving this. I could have stayed longer, even after sneaking in part of a third day while my family was resting back at the rental. Some of my appreciation comes from remembering my youthful wrestlings with evolution, back when it disturbed me. I’ve long since settled that issue in my head and heart, but I still appreciate the encouragement and insight on offer in such a concentrated form at the Ark Encounter. My kids and my wife loved going two days. That was, in part, because going two days meant we didn’t have to race through the whole thing. We could meander, linger, and stop wherever we liked because we knew we were coming back to see the rest. That also meant we didn’t have to make it a super long day. We didn’t even get to the third floor on our first day. Our neighbors went for just one day, and with a little help from us, were able to hit the highlights. If you skim through that first level, and focus on the last two, and the zoo, that’s do-able, and a good way to save some money – tickets are expensive! As to age, adults are going to be awed, and teens will find lots of little things here and there to pore over. It’s more of a question of how young is too young? All of our kids – both the neighbors and ours – are ten and over and I suspect that’s about how old you’d need to be to get a lot out of the experience. So if you have only littles, you might want to wait a few years yet before making it a family trip. And then what a trip it will be! After I marked 25 years as RP editor, the RP Board gave the whole Dykstra family a wonderful present, sending us to the Ark and to the Creation Museum (which I might have to write about too!). It was the trip of a lifetime and we are very grateful!...

Culture Clashes

Get out of the game

Christians need to steer clear of sports gambling ***** When I was a kid, I remember my aunt asking, whenever we were traveling somewhere, “Are we having fun yet?” Of course, we usually said “Yes!” However, by the time I reached my teens, I thought (briefly) that my leisure activities needed just a little bit more to really be entertaining, so I came up with a way to make a pinball game at the neighborhood arcade more interesting – bet on the outcome. My idea was that whoever had the lower score would pay the other player a certain amount, based on the difference in the scores. Math must not have been my strongest subject at the time, and I wasn’t any better at pinball, because after just one game, I owed my friend six hundred dollars. Thankfully, he was a generous soul, and never did make me pay up. That is not the case for sports betting online. Countless commercials play up the excitement of being more involved in what’s happening out there on the ice, or field, or track. We’re told we can “get in the game” if only we put money down on the score, or how many points or penalty minutes a player will get, or what minute the first goal will be scored – there are dozens of betting possibilities for every game. But the company on the other end of your bet is not going to forgive you if you get in over your head. Still, what if you’re not as foolish as I was? What if you bet small, and you even use apps that restrict how much and how often you can bet? Is “just a little” sports gambling online still a problem? Yes it is. And God’s Word gives us several reasons to stay away from any sports gambling. 1. Christians are called to productivity An article on ARPACanada.ca titled “Gambling: Value or Vice” points to several risks of gambling, based on Lord’s Day 42 of the Heidelberg Catechism. Among other reasons, the article notes that in the unlikely event that you do happen to be successful in betting online or any other form of gambling, you are making money without creating anything of value – the exact opposite of the creation mandate of Genesis 1 – and at the expense of others. Any money you won could only come because many others lost. Your gain is their pain. 2. Love your weaker brother And that pain can be of the life-destroying kind. Saagar Enjeti, an American anti-gambling activist, notes that online sports betting companies make about half of their revenue from about five percent of their clients, because they are targeting the problem gamblers: the addicts. Enjeti cites the notorious example of a man whose wife is suing a sports betting company, because her husband gambled away his salary, his wife’s retirement account, and even the money he got by selling a baptism present for his children. For a Christian, if you know of any brothers or sisters in the Lord who are gambling addicts in your congregation, this is even more serious, since your (extremely unlikely) success is made at the expense of someone who is not only going into debt, but destroying their family, and even possibly endangering his relationship with God by making money, that next win, their god instead. In 1 Cor. 8:13 Paul writes, “Therefore if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” When Paul makes this commitment, it is in regard to an activity – eating food sacrificed to idols – that is not wrong in itself. How much worse it is when you continue to indulge a sinful habit that destroys your brother! 3. Don’t be a fool The same ARPACanada.ca article shares how gambling is just plain old unwise, since “the house always wins.” Saagar Enjeti notes that as foolish as gambling in a casino is, since the odds are stacked against you, sports betting generally offers much worse odds. Our provincial governments look to betting as a major revenue source – they’ve got billions dependent on you losing …and that you’ll eventually lose is still the only sure bet in all of gambling. 4. Do we really need to “get in the game” more? When I asked an Edmonton-area pastor about sports gambling, he could, thankfully, share that the young people he worked with most (from the pre-confession class) are not, by their own account, involved in any online or sports betting. However, he did address another, related, issue. In his preaching and catechism classes, he warns against the potential for idolatry in viewing sports. If your team is heading to the NHL finals, there’s a vibe in your city that is hard to describe as anything short of a religious devotion. If you don’t have God, a winning team becomes a stand-in for many. For them, “Hockey is life,” as one t-shirt proclaims. Obviously, if you are tempted toward an obsession with watching professional sports, the opportunity to bet on them is not going to help you overcome that. Are we having fun yet? As I am writing this, “my team” is winning in the second-last round of the NHL playoffs. Obviously, I will not be betting on the results, but the games will be just as exciting. Just how enjoyable is watching sports when there is money on the line anyway? Even the sports betting companies themselves are, ironically, admitting how corrosive betting is to the real enjoyment of rooting for your team. Slogans like “Your loyalty is real, but so are the odds” and “Sometimes it pays to be a bad fan” speak to how in the world of sports betting, money is the only thing that many fans now care about. Are we having fun yet? In a recent broadcast of The Agenda on TVOntario, entitled “Is Business Ruining Sports?” Morgan Campbell, from CBC Sports, notes, “We’ve seen coaches like J.B. Bickerstaff saying that they open up their social media, …their email, and there are these angry fans in here berating them about, ‘You made me blow my parlay’…. And… the specter that’s overhanging all of this is match-fixing…. And so what we don’t want is this idea that this match is fixed, that the outcome is predetermined.” Are we having fun yet? With all of the problems that we could criticize in professional sports, there is inspiration in seeing “your team” play with heart. Paul even uses sports as a metaphor for the Christian life, exhorting the Corinthians to emulate the athletic virtues of self-control and self-discipline (1 Cor. 9:24-27), just as the writer to the Hebrews commands them to “run with endurance” (Heb. 12:1). With proper discernment, we can admire honorable, excellent (Phil. 4:8) sports competition, but not if we are focused on the financial payoff for ourselves. Conclusion ARPA Canada has more articles on its site about recent provincial responses to sports betting (in Alberta and Ontario), but we do not need to wait for the government to react (wisely or unwisely) to the rise in sports betting to make up our minds. We do not want to test God by placing even small bets, thinking that we can beat temptation. We also shouldn’t want to take advantage of the weakness of others by gaining their money without working for it. Instead of trying to make the game more interesting – whether pinball or polo – let us “flee youthful passions” (2 Tim. 2:22) and follow the example of Christ: “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself….” (Rom. 15:1-3a). ...

News

Saturday Selections – May 24, 2025

Whiter than snow - Jimmy Clifton and Haddon Some high-energy Christian folk coming at you. Kevin DeYoung on why struggling with difficult doctri...

News, Politics

What if we said what we mean? – political party edition

Apologetics 101

Forewarned is forearmed: Seeing through 5 common logical fallacies

Amazing stories from times past

On conmen and other masters of deceit

God made man upright, but they have sought out many devices (Eccl. 7:29) There are vagabonds and there are villains; there are crooks and there are v...

Internet

Is TikTok the ultimate contraception?

The social media app that’s convincing youth that babies are boring, and other such lies. ***** A hundred years before the invention of the television, Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote: “Suppose someone invented an instrument, a convenient little talking tube which, say, could be heard over the whole land … I wonder if the police would not forbid it, fearing that the whole country would become mentally deranged if it were used…” The prescient comment was part of his criticism of the daily press, specifically how the constant stream of news inflates the importance of momentary events in people’s minds. Imagine what he might have said about the evening news on television, once a literal “tube,” which Neil Postman criticized for making us all dumber. In the end, it is the smart phone, along with social media platforms like TikTok, that has finally fulfilled Kierkegaard’s nightmare. The ultimate “talking tube” that goes everywhere with us, the smart phone has proven to be particularly detrimental, especially to young people. The connection between social media use and depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems is now well-established, for all the reasons Kierkegaard foresaw. And now, as it turns out, social media platforms also make users less interested in having children. Recently, Finnish sociologist Anna Rotkirch published an article in the Berlin Review entitled, “The TikTok Baby Bust.” In it, she explains how the introduction of the app coincided with a rise in “anti-natalist values memes,” worsening mental health (especially for girls), and degrading social skills. Specifically, TikTok users became “more likely to embrace the idea that ‘I want to do other interesting things in life besides having a child.’” One way that TikTok discourages fertility is by portraying the childfree life as more fulfilling than parenthood. Another way is by portraying singleness as more fulfilling than marital life. The combination of the device, the platform, and the messages broadcast on them have, as sociologist Brad Wilcox remarked, “. . .proven to be the ultimate contraception.” Though few influencers will outright proclaim, “don’t get married or have babies, it’ll ruin your life,” the platform rewards certain messages. So, consumers consistently hear, subtly and quietly, that “life is about self-expression and public performance,” and “you need to be pretty at all costs,” and “sex is only for pleasure,” and “your fertility is an obstacle to your happiness,” and “there are already too many people on this planet.” I often ask parents and teachers what they would do if a creepy old man were walking around the school whispering awful messages in the ears of their daughters and students. Well, that’s TikTok in a nutshell. The messages common to the platform are damaging enough, and the medium only adds to its power and influence. In A Practical Guide to Culture, Brett Kunkle and I talk about the importance of artifacts in a culture. Any idea that influences or transforms a culture, for good or for bad, requires tangible things to enable the message. The Protestant Reformation would have never happened without the printing press. The sexual revolution would have never happened without the pill and porn. In the same way, the anti-natalism of our age is made possible by the smart phone equipped with social media. Platforms like TikTok make it possible to think about ourselves in radically disembodied ways, with a business model that relies on envy and addiction. The constant, unapologetic demand for screentime catechizes users to reject personal relationships, as if the opinions, experiences, and values of distant strangers selected by an algorithm matter more than the people in their own, real lives. So-called “influencers” are put on a pedestal, where they not only champion bad ideas but reward followers who imitate their lifestyles with the promise that they too can be famous. No wonder that over half of millennials report that their ultimate career goal is to be an influencer. In his book The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt urged parents and educators to get smart phones out of kids’ hands. Exposing young people to the messages common on social media, on a limitless basis, behind closed doors, or during school is simply insanity. A cultural revolution as deep as the TikTok baby bust requires our cooption. Had Kierkegard seen the smart phone, he would have warned of it as well. He understood, as too few philosophers in his day did, that human beings are not brains on sticks. We are creatures of habit, body, and relationships, which means what we believe has a lot to do with what we do. If we are to effectively make the case for why marriage and family matter, why children are gifts from God, and why young people should prioritize these real-life relationships, it will require more than words. In this battle of ideas, we must grasp that the “convenient little talking tube” in each of our hands is one of the things deranging young minds today. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to Breakpoint.org. This is reprinted with permission from the Colson Center....

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – May 2025

Joke o' the month Two cars were waiting at a stoplight. When the light turned green, the man in front didn’t seem to notice. The woman in the car behind him did though, and she started pounding on her steering wheel and yelling at the man to move. But he didn’t. The woman began to go ballistic inside her car, ranting and raving at the man and pounding on her steering wheel and dash. When the light turned yellow the woman let out a long blast on her car horn, flipped him off, and screamed something out her window about “male drivers.” This finally got the man’s attention and, looking up, he saw the yellow light so he put his foot on the gas and scooted through the intersection just as the light turned red. This left the woman practically beside herself with rage – the man had made her miss her chance at getting through the intersection! In mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up to see the barrel of a gun held by a very serious-looking policeman. He told her to shut off her car and “keep both hands where I can see them.” She complied, speechless at what was happening. When she got out of the car, the policeman quickly cuffed her and hustled her into his patrol car. Too bewildered by the chain of events to ask any questions, she was driven to the police station, fingerprinted, photographed, searched, booked and placed in a cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell, opened the door, and escorted her back to the booking desk, where the original officer was waiting with her personal effects. "I'm really sorry for this mistake,” he said, “but when I pulled up behind your car you were blowing your horn, flipping that guy off, and cussing a blue streak at the car in front of you. When I noticed your ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘No Jesus, No Peace; Know Jesus, Know Peace’ and ‘Follow Me to Church’ bumper stickers, and the chrome plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk I naturally assumed you had stolen that car." Source: Adapted from a joking winging its way around the Internet Where do babies come from? Perhaps one of the best non-explanations ever, from a Waltons episode: little girl: “So where did you find me pa?” pa: “I found you hiding behind one of your mother’s smiles.” Death penalty discussion In a discussion on the death penalty I came across a Reformed Christian who was adamantly against it but only because he wanted to give the convicted murderer as long a time as possible to repent. He was worried that if this killer was going to repent on Wednesday, but was executed on Tuesday then his executioners would have effectively sent him to hell. What this brother was overlooking is what God has taught us about His own power – if God has predestined this murderer to heaven, then nothing that man could ever do would supersede God’s plan for that killer. This Christian was Reformed, but in his argument he was adopting an Arminian view of the death penalty – he denied God’s ability to choose His followers from before the beginning of the world. Not all values are equal "Once upon a time we knew what to do. A British district officer, coming upon a scene of suttee, was told by the locals that in Hindu culture it was the custom to cremate a widow on her husband's funeral pyre. He replied that in British culture it was the custom to hang chaps who did that sort of thing. There are many great things about India – curry, pajamas, sitars, software engineers – but suttee was not one of them. What a pity we're no longer capable of being 'judgmental' and 'discriminating.'” – Columnist Mark Steyn The Bible as a textbook The Siloam Tunnel in Jerusalem is an engineering marvel ahead of its time. Built by King Hezekiah the tunnel burrows a third of mile south to connect a spring outside Jerusalem with the Siloam pool within the city walls, giving the city a secure supply of water they could count on even when besieged. But while the Bible credits Hezekiah with this amazing tunnel’s construction (2 Kings 20:20), for years critics argued that it was built five hundred years later, in about 200 B.C. The Bible’s critics were wrong, of course, and eventually the proof came. In a September 11, 2003 Nature article geologists from Hebrew University described how they had carried out carbon-14 analysis on wood, coal and ash found in the plaster walls of the tunnel. They also ran isotopic tests on the uranium and thorium present in stalactites hanging from the tunnel’s ceiling. The test results corroborated the Bible’s account and left critics look for new ways to disbelieve. Our God is different There is only one real God, so if Muslims worship a being who created the universe and who will judge it, and Christians also worship a God who is both Creator and Judge, does that mean we are both worshipping the same God? No. God is more than just an abstract idea; He is more than his job description. God is a real person – three persons in one, in fact. The Muslims’ god never had a son (they would say it is blasphemous to even suggest such a thing). He never sent that son as a mediator. Their god never humbled himself taking on human flesh, and he most certainly never died on a cross to save them from their sins. So how can their god be our God? Put this in human terms for a moment. Imagine that someone comes up to one of my friends and claims to know me. "I know the editor of Reformed Perspective." "Oh you do, do you? Well what is he like?" "Oh, he has black hair, is three feet tall, and hates basketball." "Sorry" my friend might reply, "You don't know Jon, and the reason I can tell you that is the person you describe is not Jon - Jon is tall, grey-haired, and loves basketball." "But I’m sure the guy I know is editor of RP. Doesn't Jon edit RP?" "Yes he does, but the guy you’ve described is most definitely not the RP editor" God has revealed himself to us and when Muslims describe their god it’s clear they aren’t describing God. They’ve got the wrong person. And it’s up to us to tell them so. As seen on t-shirts and church and protest signs... A faith that demands nothing, and costs nothing, is worth nothing – seen on a church sign There is no God but YHWH and Moses is His messenger – written in Arabic on a t-shirt Let a wife make her husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave – Martin Luther Guns don’t kill people; Abortion clinics kill people – another t-shirt Christians keep the faith, but not from others – church sign Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip – Will Rogers quote For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program – circulating on the Internet Choose life: it’s better than the alternative – should be on a t-shirt Ignorance is bliss? Since terrorists often do what they do to get attention, we shouldn’t even report their names. That’s the thinking of psychiatrist and terrorism expert David Hubbard. In his book Winning Back the Sky, he recounts a number of terrorist incidents and names the pilots, policemen and victims involved, but the terrorists are left nameless or are designated with the letter X. As he puts it, “I believe we must give recognition to committed and courageous people, rather than to those who are destructive.” Egyptian gods take a beating Author James Nickel calls the ten plagues “one of the greatest blessings that ancient Egypt ever received from God.” A blessing for Egypt? Yes, the ten plagues didn’t just show how powerful the true God was and is, but also showed how powerless the Egyptian gods were. The first plague turned the Nile into blood, showing that Khnum and Hapi, two gods associated with the Nile, were powerless. The plague of frogs mocked Heket (Heqt), a goddess with the head of a frog. The plague of darkness strikes at the very heart of Egyptian worship, humbling Ra the Sun god. The final plague, the death of all the firstborn, mocked Pharaoh himself, who was worshipped as a god – he couldn’t even save his own son and heir. So God blessed the Egyptians by bringing judgment on their false gods (Numbers 33:4). And in Exodus 12:38 it sounds like some of the Egyptians took to heart what God was showing them, and joined up with the Israelites. Source: Nickel’s "Mathematics: Is God Silent?" and Logos Quarterly Volume 3, Numbers 3 and 4 Deep thoughts • We live in a society where pizza gets to your house before the police. • Count your blessings! Recounts are OK. • Midwives help people out. • Quit griping about your church; if it was perfect, you couldn't belong. • Archeologists make the best husbands; the older you get the more interested he becomes. • Get the last word in: Apologize. "Poem" of the month: Clothes by BarlowGirl Clothes aren't what they used to be They don't seem to fit you and me, anymore Modesty is out the door Flaunting what we've got and more is in Yeah, it's in They're sayin' "Don't ask why, just wear what we say You'll look like a model if you'll only obey To get the attention, just do what we say" Pay so much for clothes so small Was this shirt made for me or my doll? Is this all I get? I looked so hot but caught a cold I was doing just what I was told To fit in We're sayin' "Let's ask why, don't wear what they say Don't want to be a model; they can't eat anyway That kind of attention will fade with the day So, I'll stand up and say… Clothes that fit are fine Won't show what's mine Don't change my mind I'll be fine Did Jesus have long hair? Does the 2nd commandment forbid making depictions of Christ? One of the most popular Christian TV shows of today has no problems with doing so, and the many Christian fans of The Chosen must agree. Can we, so long as we don’t intend to bow down before it, make a picture or image of Christ? To answer that question, I'm going to offer up a practical objection: even if the 2nd Commandment did allow it, how could we actually pull it off? Back in 2004, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was loved by Roman Catholics and Evangelicals alike, and there was even a seeming uptick in interest in Christianity for a time after the film's release, much as is being said of The Chosen's impact today. But how accurate was the film’s portrayal? It was a brutal film by all accounts, and Gibson's emphasis on Christ’s physical suffering seems to have overshadowed His infinitely more significant spiritual struggle. Some have suffered worse than Christ did physically, but no one suffered more so spiritually. So when the physical is emphasized how accurate is the impression left, of what Jesus actually endured? Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:14 are a good indicator that Jesus did not have long hair: “if a man has long hair it is a dishonor to him.” But what does every film portrayal of Christ do? Portraying Jesus with long hair – especially in the 60s but still today – presents Him as a “peace and love” persona. But is that a fit for the Jesus we read about who had harsh words for the Pharisees and performed a violent cleansing of the temple. And He talked an awful lot about hell too. The Chosen offers a swarthier Jesus, more in keeping with His Middle Eastern heritage, but the actor is still an attractive man, and we have Scriptural reason to think Jesus was not so (Is. 53:2): ""He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." Worse still, the many paintings and films that show Jesus as a tall Anglo-Saxon, making him more attractive to Europeans (though for all the wrong reasons) but probably less so for people on other continents who may not have liked white men. I've sometimes wondered how purportedly Christian nations could ever have been anti-semitic – how can you hate Jews when your Lord was one? – and I'm left wondering if these misportrayals of Christ might have had a hand in it. If you paint Jesus as white, clearly you've forgotten He was not. So even if the 2nd commandment doesn't forbid depiction of Christ (and to be clear, I think it does), I'll argue that the many ways we keep getting it clearly and sometimes terribly wrong would be good reason to, in humility, steer clear. But by reading Scripture, we can indeed encounter Jesus as He really was and remains....

News

Saturday Selections – May 17, 2025

Micah Tyler's "Praise The Lord" It ain't always easy following God, but His goodness is certain. The daily battleground we often ignore in our therapy culture "In his book on spiritual depression, the late Welsh minister, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, wrote: 'Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?... The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself.'” Common logical fallacies Tackle one a night with your family to become familiar with the bad arguments that the world, and sometimes even fellow Christians, are using. Forewarned is forearmed! IVF and the rise of intentionally single mothers IVF has enabled both same-sex couples and single women to have children without a father, creating and celebrating a situation that would otherwise have been decried as abandonment. And we should never forget what IVF has done to the millions of babies who have been abandoned to cold storage and the millions more that have been aborted in the selection process. 5 red flags to watch for in YA Christian romance fiction It's the books your girls will want to read. But how Christian is it? And how much of it is too much? "Comparative advantage" – economics Christians need to know (4 min) What's this principle of "comparative advantage" and why is it so important to understand in the middle of our tariff wars? As Jacob Clifford highlights, trade allows people and countries to make what they are best at – just as different people have different skills, different countries also have some kind of advantage in their skills, location, or resources that will equip them to produce some products better than other countries can. When we do what we are best at, then we can trade with others for what they are best at producing. This makes everyone more productive and wealthier than if we all tried to make everything for ourselves. Just consider how productive you'd be if you had to do everything yourself, including cutting down and shaping the boards to make your home, manufacturing your fridge, growing your food, building your car, and more. You would likely starve while you were still at the shaping boards stage. Thankfully, you can trade your labor (in whatever role you have) for all these things. So being able to trade freely makes you wealthier. And being able to trade makes our neighbors wealthier, too. Trade enriches everyone! So if we are to love our neighbors (Mark 12:31), then we'll want what's best for them, including in a material sense. That's why we won't want to put unnecessary restrictions on trade... because it hurts both ourselves and our neighbors. ...

Assorted

“It’s only a dollar!” – on bingos and raffles

Some churches hold bingos and sell raffle tickets, so can gambling really be wrong? ***** “I think we should have a bingo night to raise money for our community.” “All you spend is $1.00 on a ticket and you could win $1,000,000!” “Our organization is having a raffle to raise money for the handicapped; will you buy a ticket for only $1.00? You might win a 10 speed bicycle!” “I just won $2,000 in the lottery – isn’t that great?” Often we have friends and neighbors and perhaps even relatives who participate in the lottery, raffles, or other types of games of chance. And among secular and some professing Christian groups, games of chance are popular fundraisers because they are a fairly easy way to raise a large amount of money fast. I once came under quick attack in a neighbors’ meeting for refusing to participate in a raffle. “What do you mean it’s against your Christian principles? St. Whoever’s church at the corner has bingo every week, and raffles twice a year to raise money. How could it be wrong?” It was too difficult on a moment’s notice in a suddenly hostile group to formulate and express my reasons. I finally stated that I was not going to defend myself there in front of an entire group; however I would be willing to explain to them individually at another time just why I was against all forms of gambling. Happily, one Baptist neighbor spoke her agreement with me and the issue ended. It is sometimes difficult to give a quick answer because there are no specific Bible verses which state, “you shall not gamble.” Is it “only a dollar” and therefore unimportant whether we participate? Or are there principles from God’s Word which regulate even this small purchase? Does it become acceptable when the recipient is a worthwhile cause? Furthermore, how do we react to a friend or relative’s big winnings? Though the odds are ridiculously high, you might know a winner from time to time. Should someone feel so generous as to spread his/her newfound wealth in our direction, what should be our reply? (The questions only get harder, for instance: what if a relative won a large sum of money – what about accepting a Christmas gift of a new car?) I spoke with our minister, the Rev. Kenneth A. Kok, concerning how to express an answer to the basic question, “What’s wrong with gambling?” He provided three answers: 1. It encourages a “something for nothing” mentality Throughout the Bible, we clearly find that God expects us to work to provide for our material needs: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread…” (Gen. 3:19) “He who tills his land will have plenty of bread, but he who pursues vain things lacks sense. The wicked desire the booty of evil men, but the root of the righteous yields fruit.” (Prov. 12:11,12) “He who tends the fig tree will eat its fruit; and he who cares for his master will be honored.” (Prov. 27:18) “…give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.” (Prov. 31:13-31) Why would we want to get something for relatively nothing? Aren’t we thankful to God for all He has given us? Doesn’t He provide us with all that we need? And as LD 42, Q 111 of the Heidelberg Catechism states in regards to the commandment “You shall not steal,” here we also learn, “In addition God forbids all greed…” Perhaps we are tantalized with the thought of what we would do if we could only have $1,000, or maybe $5,000, or better make it $10,000, or what if we got a million? With the character Tevye, from “Fiddler On The Roof”, we inwardly pray: Lord, who made the lion and the lamb You decreed I should be what I am But would it spoil some vast, eternal plan If I were a wealthy man? Does this reflect the same sentiment expressed by Paul in Philippians 4:11-13: “Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” It is one thing to work hard and have God bless your endeavor. It is another to look for an easy break. 2. It encourages poor stewardship Gambling often encourages the people with the least amount of money to be irresponsible with what they have. Much money is wasted on chances and this money could be put to better use – saved, spent well, or given to a worthy cause. As Heidelberg Catechism question 111 goes on to say, “…God forbids all greed and all abuse or squandering of His gifts.” Numerous references are listed there. By participating in even a small way, we promote an activity which may be weakening the financial status and even the family life of others. Only one or a few win, at everyone else’s expense. Is this loving our brother as we love ourselves? As Question 112 further states, “I must promote my neighbor’s good wherever I can and may, deal with him as I would like others to deal with me, and work faithfully so that I may be able to give to those in need.” Even if the “chances” benefit a worthy cause, we still have the question from point 1 regarding our attitude. In this case, if we want to help, we should simply donate the money and not take the raffle ticket. 3. It encourages seeing money as one’s savior People begin, with the larger gambling items, to see money as their savior. Their hope is placed upon money, rather than God. This is evident in the long, long lines which form as the state lottery “pot” soars to $24 million or more. People call friends in other states requesting the purchase of these tickets for them, just for that chance – that possibility of being one of the ones to win. Conversations at the office turn to: “What will you do with it if you win?” Smiles and sighs. “Pay off all my debts.” “Buy a fabulous house.” “Quit working here.” “Take a trip to Hawaii.” Or perhaps even “Make a large donation to the school/church/hospital.” It seems, in those few moments of dreaming, as though our main problems in life, i.e., financial ones, would be solved. We do not believe the various accounts we’ve read or heard about money causing new problems. But the point here is this: “My God shall supply all your needs, according to His riches in glory” (Phil. 4:19). We must behave as children of God, children who present our needs and desires to Him, who work diligently for them as far as possible, who trust Him to provide, and who accept with thanksgiving, not as a young child asking after Christmas, “Is that ALL I get?” “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant… ungrateful, unholy, unloving… without self-control… reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these” (II Tim. 3:1-5). The next time we are faced with the temptation to “get rich(er) quick,” to spend “only a dollar” with the mostly false promise that we might gain much more, let us ask ourselves, “Why am I doing this? Does this reflect a godly, thankful attitude? Am I looking for a different savior?” God’s Word answers the whole question the best: “Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (I Tim 6:6-12). This article was originally published in RP's March 2006 issue....

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