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Book Reviews, Graphic novels

I survived the Nazi invasion, 1944

by Lauren Tarshis
art by Alvaro Sarraseca
2021 / 158 pages

Max and Zena are two Polish Jewish children who, at the time our story begins, have survived for almost five years living under Nazi rule. After Hitler's German troops conquered Poland, their mistreatment of the Jewish population started immediately. Jews were spat on, their synagogues burnt down, and their businesses destroyed. In the town of Esties, as happened elsewhere, Jews were forced to all move to the same small neighborhood, which was then walled off with barbwire so the Jews could never leave.

With no employment, food was hard to come by, so when Max and Zena come across a raspberry bush just on the other side of the fence, Max decides to risk it. He slips through the wires to grab some berries. They both get caught. To save his sister, Max attacks the Nazi guard, whose gun goes off in the struggle, the bullet hitting the soldier in the knee.

There's nothing to be done but to run, so off they both go into the woods. During the first long night in the woods, Max does some remembering, and we're given the siblings' backstory, how their aunt had warned them not to move into the ghetto, and how their papa had argued it was best just to go along with whatever the Nazis ordered. Their aunt soon disappeared. To America? That's what Max hopes. When the Nazis then take away Papa and the other men – to where no one is sure – Max and Zena are left to fend for themselves.

Flashback complete, we see the two escapees stumble across a farmer. Will he help or turn them in? Thankfully he is a friendly sort, and after misdirecting the Nazi searchers, the farmer introduces them to the Polish underground. These are Polanders who have never stopped fighting the Nazis, and who have a safe place to hide in the woods. The siblings are delighted to discover that one of the underground fighters is their very own aunt!

CAUTION

When the Nazi soldier is shot in the knee, there is some blood shown, but not in much detail. A little more gory is a two-page recounting of a story that Max's father used to tell him about how David fought Goliath. We see rock-to-face with some blood spattering, but fortunately, the giant's beheading is dealt with just outside of frame (David is described and depicted as a boy, maybe of 10 or 12, and there is good reason to think he was an older teen instead).

The scene is echoed some pages later when Max has to resort to hurling a rock to stop two Nazis about to shoot his sister. Again, we see rock-to-face, some small blood smattering, and, maybe more disturbing, a frame of the soldier, seemingly dead, staring up blankly. A gunfight follows, concluding with Max realizing that the Nazi trying to kill them is just a boy only a little older than himself. He realizes this just as his friend Martin fires and kills the young soldier. That's the most devastating scene in the story, made so not because of the blood spattering, but because we learn that Hitler was turning near-children into murderers.

CONCLUSION

This is a really well-done graphic novel, recounting a part of the war that our Canadian-Dutch heritage children might not be that familiar with: the Polish Jew's perspective. I'd recommend it for 12 and up, but add that many younger kids would be able to handle it too.

There are plans in place for at least ten books in the I Survived... graphic novel series. So far, I've read seven and quite enjoyed six of them, though I don't think the others are as significant as I Survived the Nazi Invasion. The five other recommended ones are, in historical order:

  • I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871 – This is a bit of American history famous enough that many a Canadian has heard of it. A city full of quickly built wooden buildings goes through a heat wave, and while their fire department is impressive, one night they just can't keep up, and a one-mile by four-mile length of the city goes up in flames. This comic has it all, with the brave young lead willing to stand up to bullies and risk it all to save the girl.
  • I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 – Our guides are a pair of young siblings, including a rascal of a boy who manages to discover every last one of the Titanic's rooms, ladders, and passageways. While two-thirds of the passengers and crew lost their lives, everyone we're introduced to in this story makes it out, which makes it a relatively tame account of this tragedy.
  • I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967 – This is the story of what led to two fatal grizzly bear attacks occurring on the very same night in the US National Park system. Melody Vega and her little brother are visiting their grandpa at his cabin in Glacier National Park – their mom recently died, and their dad thinks it's important for them to head out to their traditional summer vacation spot even without her. But when a grizzly follows the girl right back to her cabin and tries to break down the door, Melody and her mom's best friend start investigating why the bears in the park are acting so strange. This isn't a Christian book, but the moral is that humans have to take better care of God's creation – Christian kids should recognize the stewardship implications. People were dumping their garbage where bears could get it, which made for great shows for the tourists ("Come to the back of our inn and see the bears up close as they eat") but which got the grizzlies dangerously familiar with people. It also harmed the bears physically, from the glass and trash they ingested along with the food scraps. There is some minor nonsensical environmentalism along with the stewardship message: kids are told they can protect wildlife by not buying single-serving bags of chips. It's quite the leap to go from showing the danger of feeding bears our garbage to saying that we're hurting them when we buy a big cookie wrapped in plastic. No, not if we throw the wrapper in the garbage. But this departure only amounts to a few sentences in the whole 150+ page book.
  • I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005 – Barry Tucker's family tried to obey the mandatory evacuation order. But when all the roads leaving New Orleans were backed up for miles with wall-to-wall cars, and then his little sister got really sick in the car, they decided to turn back. They were going to tough it out at home, like they had for many a storm before. The difference this time was that a levee – one of the huge walls holding the stormwater back – completely crumbled, and suddenly the city, and Barry's street, were underwater. Even the attic wasn't high enough! Things get more dramatic when Barry gets separated from his family, falling into the flowing water. Then his resourcefulness and bravery are on full display, as he not only saves himself but saves a dog that he used to be terrified of. There is a happy ending for all at the end when Barry reunites with his family. The history here isn't as relevant to non-Americans, but this is a good story. One caution, or at least a point worth discussing with kids, would be the superhero character that Barry created with a friend, and how that fictional superhero serves as a source of hope for him and his sister. This is what unbelievers accuse Christians of doing – placing our hope in a fictional god just to make ourselves feel better. Here, Barry is actually doing so.
  • I Survived the Attacks of Sept. 11, 2011 – 11-year-old Lucas loves football, but football may not love Lucas. When his parents tell Lucas that his third concussion in two years means he has to stop playing, he skips school. He has to go talk to his Uncle Ben, the guy who got him interested in football in the first place. Both Uncle Benny and Lucas's dad are New York firefighters, and Lucas is desperately hoping his uncle can get his dad to change his mind. But as he's talking with his uncle, we see the first plane hit one of the city's Twin Towers. Lucas has to stay behind as Uncle Benny and all the other firefighters head out to help. Author Lauren Tarshis initially considered having Uncle Benny be one of the victims but realized that would be too much for her young readers. So, all the main figures do make it out alive, but many of their friends don't. I thought this would be a heavy book for my kids. It wasn't, or at least not any more so than the others. I get it now – I lived through this and they didn't. It's just more history for them.

I wasn't impressed with I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916, where the new kid in town pranks his friends by spreading ketchup on the dock only to see a real shark swim up the river. Of course, now no one will believe him, and he ends up paying for his prank with a piece of his calf the shark bites off. That makes this unnecessarily grim. After all, why do kids need to learn about this particular shark attack? They can learn not to cry wolf without the panel-by-panel depiction of a shark attack. To be clear, it isn't super gory, but as there is no particular reason to get it, I'd argue there's also no particular reason to overlook any gore.

I Survived the American Revolution 1776 struck me as too simplistic, with the main Loyalist shown as a bully and vicious slave-owner, while the boy revolutionary is brave and anti-slavery. Maybe its my Canadian roots showing, but, really? Additionally, the Lord's Name is taken in vain once.

So, a couple to give a miss, but overall, quite a series. I'm looking forward to the ninth book, scheduled for Spring 2024, called I Survived the Battle of D-Day, 1944.

Full Article
News

Saturday Selections - Nov. 4, 2023

Click on the titles below for the linked articles... One reason rent is high Rent control involves the government deciding for apartment building ow...
RPTV

Canadian women's unfulfilled fertility goals and the country's declining birth rate
News

The most popular girlfriends are AI

Satan’s efforts to corrupt God’s design for marriage and sex has evolved yet again, spurred on by the advance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI ...
Christian education, News

“Early Years” mornings help preschoolers, and their parents, build connections
Media bias

Dear Mainstream Media: 4 strikes and you’re out!

Like many of you, I grew up with the mainstream media being a part of our household. We got the Globe and Mail delivered daily; when they displayed too obvious a bias in favor of same-sex “marriage,” my dad switched to the National Post. We got TIME magazine weekly. When I moved out on my own for the first time – from Chilliwack to Calgary, Alberta – the first thing I did was get a subscription to a newspaper. But as the years went on, my “take it with a grain of salt” attitude to the mainstream media evolved into overt distrust. The feeble attempts at fairness largely disappeared, and brazen cheerleading for the movements destroying our society took its place. Strike 1: Hating babies One of the first breakdowns of trust between Christians and the press came with the issue of abortion. Christians view abortion for precisely what it is: an act of violence that ends the life of a developing human being. With only a few notable exceptions, the mainstream media in North America backed the abortion rights movement and opposed the pro-life movement. Dehumanizing language was deliberately used when referring to pre-born children. The issue, in most cases, was presented as a political struggle between the “pro-choice” movement and the pro-life movement, with the main characters – the pre-born babies at the center of the struggle – left entirely out. This bias has only grown exponentially, especially in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s overturn. The media deliberately misrepresents pro-lifers; it seeks to portray the movement in as negative a light as possible, and it actively ignores malfeasance on the pro-abortion side. I have read stories about people I know, in which I am quoted, that are obviously false. To read a story in the mainstream press about abortion is to see journalists assert, with complete confidence, that the baby in the womb is not, in fact, a baby. It is to read “fact-checkers” debunk objectively true claims on behalf of the abortion industry, and to see the pro-life movement portrayed as misogynists, religious fanatics, and, frequently, white supremacists. The mainstream media’s rule is “if it bleeds, it leads” – except when it comes to abortion. In fact, when David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress released bombshell videos in 2015, proving that the abortion industry was trafficking in baby body parts, the media promptly launched a massive investigation…into the Center for Medical Progress. The reality is that when you read a story about abortion in the media, it is almost certainly packed with disinformation and outright lies. Strike 2: Hyping hedonism It isn’t just abortion, of course. On virtually every issue, the mainstream press takes the side of the sexual revolutionaries – and when churches are covered by the media, it is almost always a story about a conflict between Christianity and the sexual revolution. It is not news that Christian institutions generally adhere to a Biblical view of sexuality, for example, but Canada’s state broadcaster and major newspapers treat us to an endless stream of breathless coverage reminding us of the fact. You have probably never heard about the community service work done by staff and students at Redeemer University. You probably have heard the stunning revelation that, as one CBC headline put it, this “private Christian university says no sex outside heterosexual marriage.” Progressive politicians and their media allies have put a lot of elbow grease into stereotyping conservative Christians, and it has been effective. While Christians are condemned for opposing an increasingly radical LGBT agenda, the press – especially Canada’s taxpayer-funded state broadcaster – has bent over backward to condemn parental rights, defend drag shows targeted at children, and justify a pornographic sex ed curriculum. Strike 3: Doubling down on death The same is true for the issue of euthanasia. With one exception – Andrew Coyne, who was then a columnist for the National Post and now writes for the Globe and Mail – the media was entirely in favor of legalization, and treated dissent as unworthy of coverage. I remember tuning into the CBC for a debate on euthanasia, only to discover that the debate was not between someone who opposed it and someone who supported it – it was between an advocate of the incoming law and a fellow who didn’t think it went far enough. In short order, the media wasn’t even calling it euthanasia or assisted suicide anymore – they’d switched the terminology to the sterile, soothing-sounding “medical aid in dying,” conveniently shortened to “MAID.” Only when the horror stories pro-lifers predicted began surfacing in rapid succession did some media outlets begin asking if we had perhaps “gone too far” – and none admitted that perhaps the pro-life advocates they’d ignored were correct. Strike 4: Celebrating castration But the nail in the coffin of the media’s credibility – not only amongst Christians, but in the broader public, as well – was their whole-hearted embrace of the transgender agenda. Prestigious media organizations with Pulitzer Prizes and foreign correspondents in a dozen countries began to publish articles with phrases such as “her penis” and “his breasts.” Scores of “human interest” stories about “pregnant men” – I’m not making that up – were (and are) published with full photo essays. The claims of the transgender movement on everything from suicidal ideation to the acceptability of subjecting gender dysphoric minors to double mastectomies and castration were accepted at face value, regardless of how ludicrous they were or how much contradictory evidence existed. Most damning were the countless stories about allegedly female criminals featuring photographs of ugly, snaggle-toothed men guilty of often horrifying violence against real women. Nearly all of them went viral, and the universality of the mockery was devastating for the media’s credibility. Trust in the press can survive mistakes – even catastrophic ones. But it is a different scenario entirely when the press consistently challenges its viewers and readers with obvious lies and asks them: “Who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes?” I’ve even seen mainstream journalists such as Jonathan Kay (of Quillette and the National Post) make the observation on Twitter – the reason transgenderism is so toxic, he noted, is that “ isn’t just destroying trust in the educational/political elites when it comes to gender. It’s destroying trust, full stop. If elites…think waving a fairy wand turns boys into girls, what other crap do they believe?” Precisely. Over the past several decades, the mainstream press has revealed that it serves as the propaganda arm of the Sexual Revolution – and in the last ten years, it has abandoned reality entirely. You’re outta here This is undoubtedly a serious issue, because in the vacuum left behind, many people merely hunt for sources that back their preferred narrative on a given issue and independent platforms deliberately cater to this. I agree with the mainstream journalists who worry that the collapse of trust in the Fifth Estate is a huge problem. It just happens to be a problem of their own making. Jonathon Van Maren has written for the National Post, National Review, First Things, LifeSiteNews, and many other publications. He blogs at TheBridgehead.ca....

News

Saturday Selections – Oct. 28, 2023

Should Christian participate in Halloween? (2 min) A very short take, offered for your consideration... Economics for beginners: 5 articles to get you started Economics is the science of human action, and if you want to get a good introduction to it, the Institute for Faith, Works & Economics has 5 articles to suggest. Why I no longer use Transgender pronouns... and why you shouldn't either Former lesbian (and English professor) Rosaria Butterfield weighs in... More studies show the harm of recreational marijuana use Marijuana use comes with high costs, whether it's emergency room visits for pregnant mothers, children born prematurely, or mental health issues among young men. Comets show how secular science is assumptions built on assumptions Comets melt each time they pass by our Sun. So if they were to do so for millions of years, then they'd all be gone by now, right? And yet Halley's Comet is still scheduled for a 2061 return, and others keep flying by as well. So what's up? Might comets still being around be evidence of a universe that is very young rather than millions of years old? No, say secular scientists, certainly not! They instead see comets as evidence of a cloud of icy objects – the Oort Cloud – far beyond the outskirts of the solar system that hasn't actually been observed, but must be there, because, well, we need something to explain why we still get comets. The idea is that every now and again the icy chunks way out there bump into each other and send a new comet flying inward toward the sun. But not only is the Oort Cloud theoretical, so too is the way the ice chunks form. Two snowballs thrown at each other don't generally cohere into one – as this article explores, what we see is disintegration, not formation. Which leaves us wondering once again, how do we still have comets? Building an alternative economy Don't share your pronouns? Won't apologize for your privilege? Aren't putting a pride flag on your desk for the month of June? Can't work on Sunday? Then maybe you aren't welcome at this company anymore! As mainstream businesses bow to the idol of wokeness, some Christians are trying to create an alternative economy where Christians can buy from, or work at, companies that aren't spending their Monday morning team meetings trying to figure out how best to shake their fist at God throughout the upcoming week. The commercial below is brilliant and funny and tears down the idols of woke culture, but it's worth asking, what do we replace it all with? At just a minute long, it doesn't have time for anything more than idol toppling, so we can be thankful for what the folks at Red Balloon accomplish here, even as we recognize the need to pick up the baton and carry it forward. More does need to be done – the Church needs to present the alternative to the false gods: our Lord, and His Truth, proudly proclaimed as such. Christians have gotten really good at blowing up the other side's hypocrisy, and we've gotten a lot of help even from non-Christians like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, and sometimes from the most unlikely of allies like J.K. Rowling and atheist Richard Dawkins, who've both taken on transgenderism. However, there is a problem with just dismantling the other side's arguments and leaving it at that. If we're not proposing Christianity as the solution, we are acting – whether we mean to or not – as if there is some other choice that could be made. We've become very good at exposing the idiot ideas of the Left for the unworkable nonsense that they are. But by not proudly and loudly sharing God's better way, we are actually acting as if it must be unworkable too... or why else wouldn't we share it? In our reluctance, in our silence, in our embarrassment, we are implicitly arguing for some middle ground, some neutral place, that is neither crazy nor Christian. But the choice has always been between Christ and chaos (Matt. 12:30, James 4:4). Isn't that plain enough to us by now? As the great Will Rogers once said, "You can't beat something with nothing." Yet God's people seem to keep trying. It's time we shared the good news with the world that there really is an alternative to the craziness. They need Jesus. And they need to hear about Him from us (Romans 10:14-15). ...

News, Pro-life - Abortion

Pro-life flag proposal gets town talking about worldviews

A proposal by the Smithers Pro-Life Society for their community to fly a pro-life flag was unanimously rejected by their town council, but not without exposing their worldviews and getting the entire community talking about life and freedom and what to do when worldviews conflict.  An unlikely catalyst Along with many other communities located towards BC’s west coast, the town of Smithers has embraced a very secular ideology, which it understands to be “progressive.” As a part of its recent “Pride” celebrations, the town welcomed a drag queen story reading for children at the public library. Not impressed, over 800 members of the community signed a petition to express their concerns. Jessica Vandergaag, a board member of Smithers Pro-Life, was in attendance when the town council responded to this petition. “The councillors reiterated over and over how inclusive and diverse our community is and that the public square was for ‘everyone.’ Their words rang through my head all evening.  A thought came to mind – why not ask for the pro-life flag now when we can hold them to their words of inclusion and diversity? While they still remember the words they said!” Since the town flies rainbow flags on its main street, Smithers Pro-Life was planning to request next year that a pro-life flag be hung as well. But with the town council’s declaration that the public square is for everyone, now seemed the time to act. In the same month Vandergaag, along with board member Betty Bandstra, stood before Smithers council, backed by a crowd of supporters in the gallery. They requested that the town hang the pro-life flag or paint it on a crosswalk in the same intersection as the rainbow crosswalk. Vandergaag proceeded to give an impassioned speech to Council, explaining that “the pre-born remain the group that is most ignored, even though it has the highest death rate, 100,000 killed per year in Canada.” After quoting the mayor’s and councillors recent comments about welcoming different perspectives and worldviews, Vandergaag had the pro-life flag held up, and she made the case that the most vulnerable deserve public recognition “because it is through the awareness of human rights abuses that empathy is developed and public opinion is changed.” A confused response What was the town council going to do? How could they turn down a request for a symbol that shows inclusiveness for vulnerable citizens, with so many in the community demonstrating their support? The local newspaper gave the story its front page, providing coverage that was surprisingly fair to Smithers Pro-Life. Council put the request on their next meeting agenda, and the pro-life community showed up once again, filling the gallery to show their support for the initiative. Each council member spoke, and their words exposed the impact this proposal had on their hearts and souls. They were emotional and passionate… and also confused. One council member, Genevieve Patterson, who identified herself as both pro-choice and Christian, was in tears as she shared her story of multiple miscarriages. She explained how she had three pregnancies where the baby had died after the first trimester, requiring her to have a D&C procedure, to remove the baby. She went on to call the D&C her “abortion” and said that “I am grateful for my right to choose. It saved my life.” She added “As a Christian woman, and a leader in my community, I will never use my relationship with God to rationalize my political beliefs, as I believe my relationship with God is just that – my own.” Although everyone should sympathize with her experience, it is a fallacy to compare what she went through with abortion, as an abortion involves purposeful action to end the life of a preborn child. The pro-life perspective would adamantly support her in her D&C. And although she professes to keep her faith separate from her political beliefs, her pro-choice stance made it very clear that her beliefs dictated her political beliefs. The one member of Council who is known as a Christian and a member of a local Reformed church also voted against the flag. He explained that the feedback he read about the proposal included the concern that: “there will be women in our town, who might have had an abortion, not because they wanted to but because life circumstances forced them to such a decision. The presence of a pro-life flag or crosswalk could be very triggering.” He could understand why they would conclude that. His other comments made it evident that his main concern was about how people from both sides of these issues talked about the other side. Somewhat ironically, the only Council member who showed support for the proposal explained that he was an atheist, and had opposed the original rainbow crosswalk proposal on the grounds that it would raise one ideology or group over others. He sees this current proposal as proof that he was correct, and voted against it for the same reason as the rainbow crosswalk. He said he wanted to see a new proposal to not allow the town to make any more symbolic statements like the rainbow crosswalk, though he wouldn’t remove that crosswalk now because he isn’t in favour of removing symbols. Gladys Atrill, the town’s mayor, started her speech by reflecting that “residents of Smithers have challenged council in the past two weeks with big issues: issues about who we are, what we believe, our worldviews, what is OK in public, what symbols we should consider.” She proceeded to contrast the rainbow flag, and its alignment with the Canadian Human Rights Act, with the pro-life flag, which contradicts the reality that abortion is legal in Canada. “As such, I’m not in favor of placing symbols in public places that relate to health procedures since there are many that are viewed as controversial….. Miss Vandergaag linked her strong faith in God to her pro-life belief. Others hold different views, that abortion is a medically-necessary procedure and that women have the right to self-determination.” Mayor Atrill failed to recognize that the right to life is foundational to all other rights and is included in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which the town is bound to uphold. She also failed to recognize that many things were legal and even celebrated in the past which we are ashamed of today (including how women were not recognized as persons under the law). The fact that something is recognized by law doesn’t make it right. To add to this, the mayor had no issue imposing her worldview (the right to abortion), over Vandergaag’s and others who are pro-life, within the same minute that she claimed that “The debate over abortion belongs at other tables than this one.” From town hall to town square After the town’s unanimous decision against the pro-life flag, the local media covered the story again. And this sparked a conversation that has carried on in the following weeks. In July, a local radio station invited Vandergaag and Bandstra, along with the drag queen story hour host, to an hour-long discussion about the pro-life flag proposal. Although she was nervous about taking part, she reflected after that “the conversation went well and I really felt at the end that God gave me words and guided me through quite the monologue.” She added that the others who took part expressed thanks to her and Bandstra for the civil conversation and the councillor in particular seemed “quite moved” by it. “I really pray and believe that even if it is not aired, that God did some planting there between the six of us.” Reflecting on the whole ordeal, she commented “while the result was not as we hoped, we do believe it to be a positive experience in the grand scheme.” She proceeded to give one example. “I was contacted by a former co-worker, whom I had no idea was pro-life, wondering what the result from Town Council was. Her family was visiting from Ireland and it was a topic of their conversation. I shared that it had been voted down and she expressed her sadness. I was touched that she contacted me and that conversations about it were still happening over a month later!” Not only do these conversations bring attention to our preborn neighbours, they also break through the veneer of “inclusivity” and “equality” that our secular leaders often champion, without having to defend. It was rather obvious that the council members only welcomed some perspectives, and these were ones that aligned with their own worldviews. The antithesis is as real in 2023 as it was in the Garden of Eden. Vandergaag “absolutely recommends” others to do this in their communities, both because of the conversation it creates and as a voice for the preborn who are otherwise not heard. But she also advised that it be done as a “delegation request” rather than simply a letter request. This is a request to address town council in person about a matter that important to a citizen or group, before a decision is made. “Letters can get passed by but a delegation request gets you extra time to present your request and the town council has to act on it with a motion in the following meeting.”...

Politics, RPTV

RPTV: MP Arnold Viersen on the legal fight against pornography

OVERVIEW 1:05 - Beginnings with local ARPA chapter 3;30 - Why don't you do it, Arnold? 4:09 - Why learning French isn't always a bad idea 5:05 - Three reasons Viersen ran 5:48 - Private Member's Bill on pornography 8:01 - Mindgeek, the Canadian pornography company 9:53 - On protecting children online 12:23 - Ways to fight pornography and human trafficking 14:21 - Christian worldview as a launching pad TRANSCRIPT Welcome to Reformed Perspective; I’m Alexandra Ellison. In today's video, I had the privilege of sitting down with a dedicated Member of Parliament who has been actively using his Christian worldview to champion the cause of human dignity. Arnold Viersen is the Member of Parliament for Peace River-Westlock in northern Alberta Today, let's learn more about how he got into politics and what he is currently doing to combat online pornography. So, to start off, could you introduce yourself and just talk about how you got into politics. Arnold Viersen: Well, thanks for interviewing me. My name is Arnold Viersen. I'm the Member of Parliament for Peace River-Westlock, which is a big chunk of Northern Alberta. I mostly just say Northern Alberta, because... several European countries are smaller than that. I'm married. I've got six kids – my oldest is 11, the youngest is two and we're expecting one in February, so it's exciting. How did I get involved in politics? It was through an organization called ARPA Canada. There was a guy named Mark Penninga – you might have heard of him before – and he came to Edmonton I think back in 2010, just before I got married. There was a notice in the church bulletin – organization called ARPA, a guy named Mark Penninga, be here on Wednesday night, kind of thing – and so I convinced my brother-in-law to drive with me. It was about 50 kilometers to church, so it was a bit of a drive. I said, hey we should go to this thing, And he says, "Well, what is it?" I said that's what is for, to tell us what this is. So we showed up and four other people showed up so there was six of us that showed up to this event. Mark was telling us how he wanted to set up local ARPA chapters all across the the country, and that a local board was, he was kind of hoping for seven people to be on these boards and seeing as there was six of us there, he just kind of told us that we were now the ARPA board for that area. So that was back in 2010 I became a local board member with ARPA. Then I moved to Neerlandia, Alberta – that's where I'm born and raised – and I moved back there, bought a house there. I got married and joined the local ARPA board in in Neerlandia. I was involved with organizing a God and Government in Alberta, and then the following year we organized it for Ottawa. ARPA's big thing was "get to know your Member of Parliament so that you can have some influence with them" and so I went there and got to know my Member of Parliament. Then in 2013, where I lived became a brand new riding. There was no incumbent, there was no Member of Parliament at all. I thought, Well, rather than waiting to get to know my Member of Parliament, if I work hard to elect somebody then I'll know them before they get elected and I'll probably have more influence. So starting in 2013, I started going around asking my friends if they thought they should be Members of Parliament – three friends in particular I talked to, and one was like, "Wait a minute, I've got six kids; I can't do that." The other one was "I've just started a new business here; I can't take my foot off it." And the third just thought it was crazy. But all all of them said. "Hey Arnold, if you think it's such a good idea, why don't you do it?" So I was 27 at the time. I didn't think 27-year-olds were old enough to be Members of Parliament, but turns out there's only three requirements for being a Member of Parliament – be a Canadian citizen, be 18 years old, and get the most votes – so that put me on the path to running in the nomination for the Conservative Party of Canada, and running to be the Member of Parliament. The Reformed community came out very strong in support of me, in the nomination in particular – that was a really important piece that led me on the path to doing this. People always say, "Did you dream of this your whole life?" and, definitely not. I remember Mr. Wielinga in grade seven trying to teach me French and I said, "Why are you teaching me French? Probably Dutch would be a better language to learn than French, seeing as I could probably use that more." And he said, "Well, you never know, you might work in the Parliament building one day." And I said to him, "Fat chance of that happening!" He came back – he lives in South Africa now – he came back a couple years ago and walked to my office and said, "Fat chance of that happening, Arnold!" So, it wasn't something that was on my radar, prior to 2013. That's really interesting to hear how God puts different people in your life to lead you down a different path. So over your years in politics, you've worked on many issues upholding human dignity. Why has this been so important to you? Arnold Viersen: So when I ran in the nomination, there was three things that motivated me to get involved in politics. One was the defense of Alberta. I generally find that the rest of the country doesn't understand Alberta, and also generally is trying to shut down all the things that were we're trying to do – so that was one of the things. I'm a firearms owner and I also find that the country is pretty hard on firearms owners so I wanted to defend firearms owners. And the unborn or pre-born – that was another motivator for me. In Canada there's no protection, there's no law for the pre-born so I wanted to get involved in politics to defend the pre-born. That has branched out into probably more of just a defense of human dignity. Back in 2015, right after I got elected, I had the opportunity to do a Private Member's Bill, and everybody in the whole country shows up with ideas for a Private Member's Bill. Seeing as you get to make the decision on what that is, I just started writing a list. And there's a guy named Mark Penninga again – a character that reappears in my story of politics often – I just remember I had narrowed it down to 12 items that I was interested in. I remember going through it with him, and his criteria for whether it should be a go or no go was how many other MPs would do it. If the issue had wide support and other MPs would probably do it, he said "Arnold, you don't have to do that one; somebody else will do it." So that's how I came to the issue of combating pornography in Canadian society – we eventually settled on doing a private member's motion on the impacts of pornography on Canadian society. That has basically drawn together a whole bunch of groups from across the country that care about that issue, and human trafficking and prostitution. That area, that's kind of been my niche in the world of politics. So I'm a Conservative Member of Parliament – I fight alongside my Conservative colleagues, and then my kind of special thing that I bring to that Conservative movement is the combatting of human trafficking, prostitution, and pornography. And this seems to be fairly well accepted within the Conservative movement and I'm able to get some some action happening on it in other parties as well. Focusing in a little bit, I've seen a lot of kind of campaigning for online safety of children. Would you be able to expand on that, and introduce what is is Mindgeek for people who don't know about that. Arnold Viersen: Mindgeek's a company that owns a whole host of websites in the world. They're based in Montreal, Canada, so they are a Canadian company. They claim that they own 80% of the pornography in the world, and I don't have any reason to doubt that either. Their ownership structure is really murky. We're never quite sure who's in charge and who owns it. We do know that they make a lot of money, despite it being a private company so their are not publicly available. But they brag about how much money they make, which is approaching a billion dollars a year. They've gotten into hot water – we've kind of been pushing this – in that they have no controls on who is viewing pornography, but also who is showing up on their site. In Canada there's non-consensual images laws; there's underage images laws; all this kind of stuff. But Mindgeek doesn't seem to care about the law, and they just want to make a lot of money. They have a big office building in Montreal; I've been out there protesting outside of their office building in Montreal. They are two main executives that we know of, based in the Montreal area, so this is a particularly Canadian story, although the ramifications of their actions are felt all across the world. I know that you've been working on legislation and also working on spreading this message. What do you see the future of protecting children online? What do you hope to get? Arnold Viersen: While my private member's motion way back in 2015/16, kind of opened the door to this discussion, I've seen of other countries – France, Germany, the UK, Australia, and then states like California, Utah – have all really been grappling with this as well. While we got accolades in Canada early on for starting to tackle this, other countries have very much leapfrogged us. There's some good stuff happening in terms of age verification of those that are using pornography, and then also of those showing up in pornography, that's kind of happening all around the world. It's branching out a little bit beyond that, to child safety online becoming more of a much broader topic than just pornography use. It's about, what are the impacts of social media, why are our children more depressed and more sad and participating in other socially detrimental activities? Instagram for example – their own internal documentation showed that one of their notification features was causing suicides in 12-year-old girls. So this whole online safety world and regulation is growing. While I started in this fight around the pornography issue and keeping porn out of the hands of kids and keeping kids out of porn, it's broadening out from there into this whole online safety world. I liken it to traffic laws. When the car was first invented, it was cars and horses and buggies and there were no laws around how the roads work. We've made decisions on which side of the road to drive on; we've made decisions about painting lines on the roads, and the lights on the roads, and what the lights mean, and putting guardrails, and all this kind of stuff. So we're likely going to proceed down a similar path when it comes to the use of the Internet. For a lot of the audience, they're very passionate about these issues but they're not necessarily sure kind of where to start on, you know, wanting to get involved; how can people get involved? Arnold Viersen: Well first, the biggest thing is, just quit looking at porn. That's a big challenge. In Canadian society we know from the stats 85% of the population is participating in the use of porn. So the most impactful. I would say it's the simplest; it's not necessarily the easiest but it's the simplest. Beyond that there's local organizations that are fighting human trafficking in your local area. Human trafficking happens within 10 blocks or 10 minutes of where you live. There's likely an organization in your community that's already participating in the fight against human trafficking, sheltering the victims of human trafficking, that sort of thing. If you want to get involved politically, there's huge opportunities for all of these things municipally, provincially, and federally. Municipally, you have the licensing of body rub parlors, that kind of thing. That all municipal. Libraries, what kind of content is available on library computers, that kind of thing, that's all municipal. Provincial, you have the education system – how do we train our children to identify victims of human trafficking and also to not become victims of human trafficking. So there's education opportunities. Then federally, becoming a Member of Parliament – the more Reformed Members of Parliament we have here the better, in my opinion, so... get involved with your local Conservative association, run for nomination, that sort of thing... Thank you so much for sharing. My final question would be, how do your Christian convictions come into play in everyday life on the hill as an MP? Arnold Viersen: Being a Christian on Parliament Hill is a luxury – it gives me a solid worldview, a launching pad from which to launch from for the issues I work on. It also allows me to see issues clearly, having a solid worldview. Being a Christian on the Hill also sometimes pigeonholes. People see you coming, which has its advantages as well – people, generally, because they know I'm a Christian, they think I'm going to think in a particular way, which often I do. So it opens the negotiation up on any particular issue; you have a good starting point, a good basis point Being a Member of Parliament is an extremely rewarding position, and one that you have to enjoy every day that you're here, because I've watched many Members of Parliament come and go, so make the most of it. Thank you so much for coming on to speak with me today. Be sure to go check out . Arnold Viersen: Yeah, check out my website and follow me on Facebook and Instagram so you can keep up with all the work that I'm doing in Parliament. Thanks for watching this episode. If you would like to support this work, please consider liking this video, subscribing to this channel, and sharing it with friends and family. For Reformed Perspective, I’m Alexandra Ellison in Ottawa....

Parenting

Preparing to inherit the earth

Does slow and steady growth have Christianity primed to take over the West? **** First published in the November 2013 issue. Current events make ...
News

Saturday Selections – Oct. 21, 2023

Click on the titles below to go to the linked articles... On the Irreducible Complexity of sperm cells This video is not a Christian presentation, b...
Book Reviews, Graphic novels

Mister Invincible: local hero

by Pascal Jousselin 96 pages / 2020 My dad wasn't a fan of superhero comics because he figured that Superman and Batman were too much like God-sub...
News

5 years of legal marijuana is wreaking havoc on children and adults
Pro-life - Abortion, RPTV

RPTV: Katrina Marshall on being a pro-life advocate

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to Reformed Perspective, I'm Alexandra Ellison. Today we bring an inspiring video of a young woman who has been working to make a difference in the pro-life movement. Her journey has taken her to the heart of Canada’s capital, Ottawa, where pivotal decisions about the sanctity of human life are made. Through dedication and passion, she has been working tirelessly to reshape the way people view the value of every human life. Join us to learn more about her challenges and her commitment to a cause that has the power to change lives. Katrina Marshall: "I'm Katrina Marshall. I wanted to be in Ottawa. I was connected with a church here, sort of online during COVID, before I was actually in the city. And it's not too far away from my parents in Kingston." Marshall got involved in the pro-life movement after an internship with the Canadian Center for Bioethical Reform (CCBR), an educational human rights organization dedicated to making abortion unthinkable in Canada. Katrina Marshall: "I actually heard about the CCBR internship from an ARPA Canada newsletter – my brother shared the ad with me and I applied to their four-month internship March of last year, and I could not go back from that experience. So it's been kind of life-changing." As part of the internship Marshall spent the past two summers traveling around western Canada educating people about the truth of abortion. Katrina Marshall: "Basically we spend most of it doing pro-life street outreach and various projects. We do what we call 'Choice Chain' which is basically a public protest. We use abortion victim photography in all our projects, and we do things like door-knocking, and we do flyer delivery known as postcarding. So we are witnessing to a world that is often very pro-choice in our society, and we have conversations with people. Sometimes we'll just display the photos so that everyone knows what abortion actually looks like, and it's incredible. It's very hard work to do it all day, every day, but it's so rewarding. "It's hard to summarize, but you live for those conversations where they do end up changing their mind. They often end up sharing a lot, even a person, male or female, starts out completely supporting abortion, often by the end of the conversation, they will completely reject abortion in all circumstances, including the hard ones. So when that happens, it's almost hard to believe, because it's such a controversial topic. And often we see a lot of people who are really set in their ways, and who don't want to give us an inch. So when someone changes their mind it kind of just makes your day, sometimes even makes your week, depending on how it goes. But it's also definitely something that we get a lot of hate for, as you can probably guess. So we get a lot of verbal abuse, and things like that, but it is really worth it for the positive moments." Marshall spoke about the process of what having on-the-street conversations is like. Katrina Marshall: "Everyone is coming from a different place. So we always just try and ask them what they think about abortion, get their viewpoint. Often they'll bring up a hard circumstance where they think it is justified. Some people support abortion for any reason; some – in fact many, mostly – for limited reasons. So we always want to speak into that, into the specific situations they're discussing, and the issues they're raising. Not only that, but find out where their ideas are coming from, where that opinion was formed, and what's going on in their life, to really have compassion for them, and not just for the babies (as we are often accused of). "So if someone said they supported abortion for most situations, but not for casual encounters which they deem is irresponsible, I would ask them to consider a toddler in that same situation. If someone brought up the case of poverty, I would ask them if they would tell a mother who is in poverty, a mother of a 2-year-old, if she could kill that child to solve that problem. People are often taken aback: 'Of course not; of course we can't do that!' We use this common ground especially to begin. Then we use that analogy with the toddler and question, 'If we can't harm born humans, then why can we ever harm the same humans a few months earlier?'" Changing the general public's mind about abortion can be a path toward succeeding in political legislation. Katrina Marshall: "A lot of people have asked me why I do this specifically, and my answer is that there are so many people, especially pro-lifers, who don't recognize the value of educating the public on the issue of abortion, and how that plays into other arms of the pro-life movement, such as the political arm, or the pastoral crisis arm. If the public doesn't see that abortion is wrong then these other arms will not succeed. I see a large gap in the educational arm of the movement. What better way to save babies than to to talk with people who don't think that abortion is wrong at all, and in fact it's often celebrated." As a Christian, Marshall says that she can educate others about abortion as much as possible but at the end of the day it is Jesus Christ who saves lives. Katrina Marshall: "You can't change everyone's mind. When you realize what abortion is, how children are being starved to death, and ripped apart, and no one loves them, it's hard to recognize that sometimes you're the only one that will stand up for them. You're the only one that will love them, and honor their legacy, and it's hard to recognize that only God can change minds and only He can save lives in this work and you have to surrender that to Him." For Reformed Perspective, I'm Alexandra Ellison in Ottawa....

Book Reviews, Economics, Teen fiction

The Hyperinflation Devastation

by Connor Boyack 400 pages / 2019 Remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books kids loved back in the 1980s? Readers would be brought to a fork in the road, given two options to choose from and if they chose Option A, they would be told to go to one page, and if they chose Option B then they would be directed to another. Afterward, they would continue on their chosen track with the adventure continuing to branch repeatedly thereafter. In The Hyperinflation Devastation, author Connor Boyack has taken that concept and expanded on it, creating a 400+ page “Choose Your Consequence” adventure to teach teens various lessons about economics. In this, the first book in the series, Emily and Ethan Tuttle, a pair of 15-year-old twins, head out on their own to the small South American country of “Allqukilla.” If 15 strikes you as young to be out without parents, I’m with you. However, these two are a particularly independent pair who have spent the last year planning and saving for this trip. They want to go to Allqukilla to check out the country’s ancient ruins. But is it to be? Right after their plane arrives, they see local news reports warning about an impending earthquake and it’s here that readers face their first choice. Are the Tuttle twins going to have an incredibly short adventure and head back on the very next plane, or are they going to go on to their hotel? Of course, no reader is going to take the cautious route, so onward and forward the adventure continues. While exactly what happens depends on the choices a reader makes, the twins will encounter that earthquake, and then, with power disrupted, they’ll have to deal with roads in bad repair, hyperinflation, a lack of available food and water, and no cell phone service, as the two figure out their way home. The author’s economic outlook is a small government, libertarian one, which comes out in the lessons the twins learn. So, for example, in one story branch, they end up in a small village in the hills that still has power because these villagers have never relied on the government to provide it. In another branch, they encounter some not-so-warm-hearted help – entrepreneurial sorts who will do them good…for a price. The twins sometimes get entirely altruistic help, but the point is, they also get help from people who wouldn’t otherwise be helpful, except that it is in their own self-interest to do so. The lesson here is that the free market is important because it gives people a motive to provide things other people want. While this is intended as an educational story, Boyack doesn’t beat readers over the head with the lessons he’s trying to teach. Only once, in the eight or so different story arcs does a character offer up a prolonged economics lecture. But even then, it isn’t too long. CAUTIONS The one caution I would offer deals not with this book, but with the author. He writes from a generally Judeo-Christian, libertarian perspective. Often times, those two perspectives can match up quite nicely since both Christians and libertarians recognize that the government shouldn’t try to be God. Thus we both believe in some form of smaller, limited government, which sets us apart from the many who call on the government to solve whatever problems they face. But in some of Boyack’s other books, his libertarian perspective comes in conflict with his Judeo-Christian perspective. In The Tuttle Twins Learn About the Law (one of the Tuttle Twins picture books he’s written for younger readers) he teaches readers that governments gain their authority from people, and not God. Based on that assumption the author argues that governments should only be able to do what people are able to do, therefore just as it would be wrong for a person to forcibly take money, so too the same must be true of government. But this simply isn’t true. God has empowered governments to do some things which individuals must not do, and taxation is one of them (Luke 20:25, 1 Peter 2:13-14). The libertarian perspective in Hyperinflation Devastation is more restrained, and thus in keeping with a Christian worldview that understands God as distributing powers and responsibilities not simply to the state, but to parents, and the church, and individuals too. CONCLUSION I would recommend this for any kid from 10 to 15. The adventure is a solid one, and the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure component will grab their attention. Yes, this is an economics lesson, but it is a generally subtle presentation that never gets in the way of the story. That allows most kids, whether they are politically-inclined or not, to enjoy this. But because the economics angle is so very different from what they are reading in other books, it may well spark an interest in learning more about money, inflation, politics, and more. It may interest parents to know there are other titles in this “Choose Your Consequence” series so far, but as I haven’t read them, I can’t recommend them as of yet. There is one mistake in the book, on page 388, where we are directed to Page 335 but should be directed to Page 111. I recommend some of the Tuttle Twin pictures books on my personal blog here....

In a Nutshell

Tidbits - October 2023

Halloween in a small American town I live in a delightful and occasionally comical small town where the church-attending Christians make up a solid majority of the population. This is such a Christian town that when Halloween comes around, one of the local churches will set up a hot chocolate stand for our area, and you'll see a dad or two dressed up as a monkish Martin Luther, tonsure and all. When I first moved here Halloween fell on a Sunday, and I was impressed to see most of the kids did their trick-or-treating on Saturday instead. Then I was quite surprised when one of the trick-or-treaters at my door – a little princess – told me "my brother is the devil." Sure enough, there he came toddling up the path, a two-year-old dressed in a bright red satin, forked tail wagging behind. Lynden: it's a town where trick or treating on Sunday is verboten, but dressing up as Satan ain't no big thing. “The free market is a bathroom scale” “The free market is simply a measurement. The free market tells us what people are willing to pay for a given thing at a given moment. That’s all the free market does. The free market is a bathroom scale. We may not like what we see when we step on the bathroom scale, but we can’t pass a law making ourselves weigh 165. Liberals and leftists think we can.” – P.J O’Rourke Are you wearing anything ten years or older? About ten years back, Christian Courier's editor Angela Bick shared that her friends were surprised to learn that they weren’t wearing anything as much as ten years old. The surprise was probably prompted by the realization that 40 years ago the situation would have been quite different. Kids’ clothing in particular was treated differently then, with patches (and patches upon patches) being far more common. Darning socks was more common, and the resoling of shoes too. Whenever one generation decides to do something differently than the previous, it is worth a moment’s reflection - if you aren’t wearing anything from a decade ago, why might that be? Is it a result of shoddy manufacturing and living in a throw-away culture? Are clothes simply not made to last like they once were? Are we financially blessed, to the point that we don’t need to wear worn out clothes? Are we financially irresponsible, spending money on clothes when that money could be put to better use? Is it a matter of clothes being less expensive to replace than they once were? Might it mean we are overly concerned with keeping up with the latest fashions? The way it was… and could be? In the 1940s, in the Netherlands, most men worked six days a week at physically-taxing jobs. So, come Sunday it could be quite a struggle for these men to stay attentive through the church service, especially when it came time to pray and eyes were shut and heads were bowed. And to make it harder still, the prayers were quite often fifteen minutes long. In his wartime biography The Way It Was, author Sid Baron notes that to help these men stay awake it was the practice then to allow the option of standing during prayer. So throughout the church, as most bowed their head to pray, many farmers and laborers would rise. This practice is no longer common anywhere in Reformed churches, most likely because ministers no longer tax their congregation’s attention with fifteen-minute prayers, and because far fewer members do heavy physical labor. Still, it might be a practice worth reviving for some particularly sleep-deprived folk: the mothers and fathers of newborns! Brother, can you spare a dime? by Gregory Koukl You can't help having mixed feelings when people beg for food on the street. Your heart goes out to them, but you have reservations too. Is there a real need here, or is this just laziness disguised? Here's a simple solution. Give food to the poor by helping fill the cupboards of your local church feeding program. If your church doesn't have one, find a Christian facility that does. They make sure food goes to people with a genuine need, and the Gospel goes out along with it. Another alternative is to make up a couple of bags of food and keep them in your trunk. Include the kinds of things that can be opened without tools and eaten without cooking. Include plastic silverware that's sealed together with a napkin that you get from take-out food places. Then give it in Jesus' name. Welfare is not God's answer to the needs of the poor. Instead, He asks for charitable, responsible, obedient giving. Don't give money to someone begging in the street. Instead, send your money to a reputable Christian agency in your area, or give food in prepackaged parcels. You'll have the peaceful confidence you've really done something for the poor and homeless. SOURCE: Reprinted with permission from www.str.org Biblical, musical ABCs Jamie Soles is well known among conservative Reformed churches in Canada, but for those that don’t know of him, below are the lyrics of a song from one of his children’s albums “The Way My Story Goes” which is available (along with more info) on the artist’s website SolMusic.ca. “These Are They” Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures For in these, you say, your life will never end, Don’t be misled; the life you’re looking for Is found in Me, for I am found in them. And… "These are they, these are they, These are they which speak of Me.” Adam, Abel, Abraham, Aaron, Ammon, Amnon, Andrew, Abishai, Abishag, Abigail, Ahab, tell the world of Me. Ahaziah, Amaziah, Ahimaaz, Ahasuerus, Ahithophel, Abiathar, Ahitub, too, Asahel and Absalom, Abner and Abednego, Asa and Amasa, just to name a few. Now… These are they.... Boaz, Balaam, Barzillai, Balak, Barak, Baal, Babel, Baasha, Baruch, Benjamin, all tell the world of Me. Barnabas and Bethel, Bezalel and Bilhah, Benaiah, Belial, and Bashan, too, Bethlehem and Ben-Hadad, Beelzebub and Babylon, The Bible bubbles over with Me; how ‘bout you? Now… These are they.... Caesar, Caleb, Caiaphas, Canaan, Cain, and Chedorlaomer, Cushi, Chloe, Claudius, all tell the world of Me. Corinthians, Cyrenians, Cyrus and the Cretans, Cornelius, Capernaum, and Chimham, see? These are only part of it This is but the start of it Stories are your biblical ABCs! Now… All these stories, they show My glories These are they which speak of Me. Top 10 verses: important omission BibleGateway.com is a website that includes dozens of different translations of the Bible. It gets more than 8 million visitors each month, and back in 2011. when they listed their site’s most-searched for verses of the Bible, Collin Hansen at TheGospelCoalition.org noticed a startling omission among them. While the top ten includes verses that are often emblazoned on shirts, or are held up on signs at sports events (John 3:16 was the #1 verse) none of the top ten most-searched-for-verses talked about sin! It isn’t until verse #19 that sin is mentioned: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” It’s not surprising that talking about sin is unpopular. But the Good News of the Gospel only makes sense after we understand our own sinfulness, and God’s hatred of sin. Then it is good news indeed that God has sent us a Savior and Mediator! So it isn’t a surprising omission, but it is a glaring one. It should be polite to ask a woman’s age Our culture worships youth, so it’s no wonder they think it’s rude to make mention of someone’s age. But why do we think it’s rude? After all, the Bible speaks quite highly of the elderly, as it is with age that wisdom can come (at least among the righteous). That’s why Proverbs 20:29 notes that “gray hair is the splendor of the old” and Prov. 16:31 tells us: “the silver-haired head is a crown of glory.” Among Christians old should be excellent! 30% of Gen Z Americans would welcome gov’t monitoring inside their homes Nearly a third of Americans under 30 would welcome a government surveillance device in their homes, in the name of reducing spousal and child abuse. Clearly they haven’t been taught about the surveillance states of the past, like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. And they must not know about China’s current “social credit system,” where citizens are constantly monitored and granted freedoms based on how obliging they’ve been to their government’s every requirement. And they haven’t read 1984 or any other dystopian fiction. That a third of American young people trust the government to watch their every move isn’t an endorsement of our political leadership’s trustworthiness, but is instead an indicator of how badly they are educating our youth in their public schools. Now Christians might think that if we aren’t doing anything wrong what does it matter if we are being watched? But do you spank your children? Might some government official somewhere want to recast as abuse what you know to be appropriate and measured? Do you teach your children that God made us male and female? Do you insist that marriage is between one man and one woman? What might the government think about that? To be constantly monitored is to be constantly assessed. And knowing, as we do, that our governments don’t measure right and wrong by God’s standards, we should fear the prospect....

News

Saturday Selections – Oct. 14, 2023

Click on the article titles below to go to the linked articles... Evidence for design: the push-pull principle Evolution is supposed to happen in small, random steps. What it can't account for is the push-pull principle, when two independent systems are needed to start and stop a body function. This would require that these two systems evolved not in small random steps but in a tight simultaneous choreography. On Hamas: so this is what they mean by decolonization RP contributor Jonathon Van Maren encourages us to listen to what they are telling us. John Stonestreet and Timothy Padgett also weigh in, on the reality of evil: "Hamas didn’t simply attack Israeli military units or take out strategic targets. They mutilated the bodies of Jewish soldiers, killed entire families, kidnapped children and the elderly, and sexually assaulted women and girls before either killing them or carting them back to Gaza as trophies. One of the kidnapped is a survivor of the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews." The crisis of trust in science In recent years "Science" has been celebrated as our only reliable guide, and not really to be questioned. But how is this God-substitute doing? Well, in 2016, Nature reported that more than 70% of researchers had "tried but failed to reproduce another scientist's experiment, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments." Homosexuality is getting pushed in evangelical churches under the guise of neutrality We've seen it happening in the CRC, and now mega-church pastor Andy Stanley is leading the way for sexual compromise in his influential mega-church. As Stand to Reason's Alan Shlemon notes: "Andy Stanley is either naïve or crafty. Either way, he’s dangerous. He’s naïve if he thinks he can host the Unconditional Conference and it will not corrupt the church’s teaching on sexual ethics. Or he’s crafty and is using this conference to change the theology of his church and possibly other churches. Either way, he’s dangerous." Why Johnny can't read.... but can spell G-A-Y God gave us His Word, and thus, Christians love and promote literacy. While the Enemy can misdirect literacy, he can also use ignorance, which might be the best explanation for why many of his schools aren't that interested in the ABCs. This article is a shocker. "With large majorities of their students incompetent in English and math, Los Angeles schools are ramping up efforts—for more gay pride and gender indoctrination." When artificial intelligence makes art, what becomes of the artist? A machine can make a picture, but can it discover meaning? Stop the slinging in politics (2 min) Potty humor aside, this makes an important point – insults don't advance an argument and don't win hearts or minds.  ...

News, RPTV

RPTV: Ed Fast wants to stop gov't from offering euthanasia to the mentally ill
Politics

Being in the room at the Conservative Convention

There’s a line from the musical Hamilton that’s been on repeat in my head: “I wanna be in the room where it happens.” That’s why I attended ...
News

England joins growing group of countries banning phones in schools
Human Rights

The biblical and historical basis for parental rights
News

Climate mandates will hike house prices, do little for CO2 emissions

The federal government’s upcoming energy efficiency mandates will make new homes more expensive. That’s according to a recent Fraser Institute report, “Wrong move at the wrong time,” which says mandates could increase the cost of new homes and commercial buildings by 8.3%, even as the mandates would have little effect on greenhouse gas emissions. The Liberal Party’s “2030 Emission Reductions Plan” requires that newly built homes must use 65% less energy than houses built in 2019. The “Plan” also mandates a 59% reduction for new commercial construction. The result? The Fraser Institute report expects that housing prices will increase about $72,000 in Ontario, $78,000 in B.C., $35,000 in Alberta, and $27,000 in Manitoba. This increased cost is projected to result in just a 1% drop in greenhouse gases emitted nationwide, while causing a loss of construction jobs, and a decline in national gross domestic production. When the cost to build new homes and business places increases on this scale, investors and consumers rethink their plans, perhaps deciding not to open a new restaurant location, or deciding not to develop a piece of property. That softens demand for new construction, and the demand for the many industries that support builders. Ross McKitrick, the report’s author, suggests that if the free market were allowed to operate without government intervention, many individuals and businesses would choose to upgrade their new homes or buildings with energy-efficient appliances anyway, and add more insulation to their building envelope. For some the reduction in their long-term living or operating expenses would justify the initial costs, so they would make the upgrades themselves. But by making these energy-efficient systems mandatory, the government will be hampering economic growth for the nation, while increasing costs for its citizens, and all for very little benefit to the environment....

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A new twist on book-banning

Asha’s Mums. Jacob’s New Dress. Concerned Christian parents have often worked hard to keep controversial titles like these ones off school and public library shelves. Others, however, have fought with equal determination to include them in library collections. As Richard Beaudry, former president of the Canadian School Libraries, has explained: “I’m worried that book ban movements are shutting down important conversations, rather than encouraging diversity of thought and exposing kids to new experiences.” In Ontario, however, we’ve just seen a curious instance of anything but “diversity of thought.” In Mississauga’s Peel School District, most books published before 2008 were recently removed from school library shelves – unless they could be proven to be “accurate, relevant to the student population, inclusive, not harmful, and support the current curriculum.” It’s easy to imagine most older books failing the test, considering the worldview of those judging what is “accurate” and “relevant.” As Jonathon Van Maren has commented, “Progressive educators seem consistently stunned to discover that the writers of the past did not hold the values of the present” – and they often seem determined to shield their students from this reality....

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Saturday Selections – Oct. 7, 2023

The challenges and reality of climate modeling (5 min) Steven Koonin is a scientist whose experiences include time as undersecretary of science at the Department of Energy in the Obama administration. He's also written Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters and the point he's arguing here is that scientists need to speak with a lot more humility in acknowledging the uncertainty about the conclusions their climate models come to, since they are built on assumptions upon assumptions. For his 1-hour-long interview on the same topic, click here. What makes a man manly? (10-min read) Evolution and God have two very different answers to that question, as Nancy Pearcey explains. Evolution leads to bad science example #6819: human tails Once every few hundred million times or so, a child will be born with what looks somewhat like a tail. Charles Darwin pointed to these instances as examples of our evolutionary origins - throwbacks to tailed ancestors we once had. Then: "In the 1980s, scientists took this theory and ran with it. They argued that a genetic mutation, evolved by humans to erase our tails, could sometimes revert back to its ancestral state." It took a long time, but the facts finally overwhelmed the evolutionary assumptions - these are not evidence of our origins, and not tails at all, but major mishaps, typically associated with an improper fusing of the spinal column. Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) Though I myself am a fan of Ranked Choice Voting – where you rank all the candidates from your first preference down to your last – it does have its downsides, which are explored in the article above. While there is no perfect electoral system, some are better and others worse. For example, electronic voting machines are touted for their convenience, but their coding is most often a proprietary secret, which is just one reason they don't allow for the accountability and transparency that pen on paper ballots can offer. And of course, the problem with all democratic systems is that voters can be very wicked and they may just get what they voted for. COVID-19, hygiene theatre, masks, and lockdowns: “solid science” or science veneer? (15 min read) "In an ideal world, there would be some process by which our public health agencies, at least, could come to recognize and admit how badly they managed to 'follow the science' on COVID-19, and how vast was the gulf between their expressions of absolute certainty and what the scientific literature showed at the time was, in fact, a sea of uncertainty. Until such a 'truth and reconciliation' process takes place, it is hard to see how public trust in public health institutions might be restored." Unintended consequences: a reason for restrained government Chesterton is said to have quipped "If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments," his point being that if men won't be restrained by God, then the government will have to step in, and they'll do a hodge podge of it. As opposed to God's divine law, governmental rules and regulations are a clumsy tool, devised as they are by fallible men and often at a great distance from the problems they are trying to address. So it is then, that governmental "solutions" often cause bigger problems – unintended consequences. Understanding this reality, lawmakers should, in humility, use the tool of lawmaking only when they absolutely must. ...

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Population up; birthrate way down

Canada’s population passed 40 million in June, and has grown by more than 1.1 million in the past year, according to a Sept 27 Statistics Canada report. The 2.9% increase in our country’s population is the highest rate of growth since 1957, which was the peak of the baby boom and also a year when Canada opened its doors to refugees from Hungary. Over the last 5 years, the population has increased by 5 million, and over the last year we were “likely among the top 20 fastest-growing countries in the world.” So Canada is growing. But a closer look at that data shows that this growth masks a problem. Our current growth is dramatically different than it was in the ‘50s. An astounding 98 percent of the growth today is from international migration, whereas just 2 percent is from births – almost all our growth is coming from the outside. As the same report shares, in the course of just the last year, the fertility rate in Canada has plunged from 1.44 to 1.33 children per woman, far below the 2.1 required to keep a population stable. Canadians and Americans are used to growing populations, and rely on immigration to keep our economies functioning. From a pragmatic perspective this works, but only as long as others are able and willing to come here. However, what few people seem to notice is that the fertility rate has been dropping fast in every continent, and it won’t be long before the world’s population begins to decline. The secular organization www.Pronatalist.org is concerned: “If we fail to address plummeting birth rates, humanity has a very real chance of experiencing an extinction event.” Christians can understand this coming demographic crisis as both a judgment and an opportunity. As the world has embraced abortion, and rejected the blessing of children, we can see here a fulfillment of Paul’s warning to the Galatians: “…God is not mocked; for whatever a person sows, this he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7). That’s the judgment. The opportunity comes if the Church, in obedience, remembers God’s first words to us: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28). What an antithesis it will be – what a bright and shining light it will be – when a world that has rejected babies sees laughing, crying, beautiful children, found in abundance still, among God’s people....

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