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Is AI helping you, or dumbing you down? Yes.

3 questions to help us use AI better.

*****

The Preacher declares in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that “there is nothing new under the sun.” He was saying it with a sense of despair, but there’s a reality there that can prove helpful too. Even with something newfangled like AI, the issues aren’t all new. And because we’ve seen some of this before, we can look to history for guidance.

So here are three questions to help us look to the past to see how we can best use today’s AI.

Q. 1: Am I using AI to skip my exercise?

For as long as there have been schools, there’s probably been boys learning how to do division in ways their math teacher wasn’t intending. If little Timmy and a couple of his third grade buddies did their homework together, the three of them would quickly realize that an assignment of 15 questions could be done 3 times as quickly if they did 5 questions each and shared their answers.

That gets the assignment done in record time, but these “get ‘er done” boys misunderstood the point. The teacher’s goal isn’t simply to get 15 right answers from them – she could go to the back of the teacher’s edition if that was all she was after. What she wants is for her students to go through the struggle of working through each of the 15 questions so that their brain muscles will grow. What Timmy has done instead is the equivalent of recruiting his two friends to each attend a third of his basketball practice for him. That’d be a better cheat actually, because it wouldn’t take him long to figure out that his shooting percentage isn’t going to improve so long as he isn’t putting up the shots.

The issue is older even than schools, addressed in various ways throughout Scripture, but maybe most pointedly in Proverbs 10:4: “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth” and Galatians 6:7: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”

Now, in our AI age, there are students using ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to skip their school “workouts” in this updated fashion, and still not making the connection as to how that’ll keep them mentally and spiritually flabby, stopping them from growing in knowledge, wisdom, and capacity.

Adults have their own version of this problem, complicated by the reality that sometimes it is just about “getting ‘er done,” while other times it’s about needing to get stretched and refined by the work you put in.

Need a pile of rocks moved? Then having a couple of friends help is a great idea. Got access to some tech that will do the heavy lifting for you? Great, go drive that tractor over here.

In an office setting, AI can help us move all sorts of “rocks,” by doing the big-effort-but-little-thought tasks of quickly compiling your week’s billable hours, assembling your spreadsheets into an array of insightful, colorful pie charts, or gathering and summarizing vast amounts of research material.

But if, like little Timmy, we thought it was always about the results, we’d miss out on when it’s important to put in the sweat. There’s a Stephen King quote about how “I write to find out what I think” and it’s exactly there that AI might be most harming us. We don’t all have to be writers, but if we’re going to be thinkers, then we need to be able to get our thoughts down on paper, or up on a computer, or batted around with our coworkers. That process will allow them to be tested and refined, and sometimes discarded. It’s the sweat invested that helps us really think through things. AI can even be a part of the process, being a part of the batting-around refinement. But we can’t use it to skip over that process.

When we should or shouldn’t use AI will depend on whether we just need to get ‘er done, or whether we should be putting in the exercise to increase our own capacity, knowledge, and wisdom.

Figuring out which we’re doing is complicated by the fact that our jobs are going to regularly involve a mix of both. A pastor might use AI as an upgraded search engine to much more quickly gather up what his most trusted theologians have said about the text he’s planning to preach on. But he can’t pull a Timmy and have AI write his sermon, because his job isn’t simply to read a sermon, but to glorify God in the preparation of it, so that he can tailor it to the flock God has entrusted to him and not to AI.

Q. 2: Am I owning my output?

And that takes us to the issue of responsibility. AI brings up some powerful temptations on this front, but, again, it’s nothing new for Man to try to avoid blame by sidestepping his own responsibility.

“The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it’” (Gen. 3:12).

With AI’s instantaneous output, what that prompts is the very strong temptation to skip over the “is this actually right?” stage. After all, if you’ve generated a whole report in seconds, doesn’t it seem weird to spend half an hour checking through it? And that’s how you get output like the pictured post from the US Department of Education. It was meant to promote jobs that AI isn’t going to replace any time soon, but it went viral for showing what kind of output AI can provide when the humans in charge aren’t really taking charge. Pipes, pipes, everywhere… and what is that tool she’s using?

In our day-to-day, this temptation will pop up in small ways, like using Gemini’s auto-response to reply to an email you’ve barely read. See how impressed your coworker will be when he pops by your office door for a follow-up and you can’t recall what he’s even talking about because your brain was never engaged. This isn’t a big thing – it might be the difference between having AI complete an email response in 3 seconds that you should have taken 30 seconds to do yourself so you’d know and recall what you wrote.

In our schools, AI can be used to generate math and spelling worksheets, and history and geography pop quizzes in just seconds. For the most part, that’s just AI helping teachers “move rocks,” and what a wonderful resource for them to have. But their students will be wondering why teachers can turn to AI to do the heavy lifting when their pupils aren’t allowed to. To keep students’ hypocrisy-detectors from firing off, teachers will then need to model the highest standards of responsible AI usage. Practically speaking, that means putting in the time proofreading whatever they have AI outputting. How can they convince students they need to put in the sweat if they’re not willing to sweat themselves?

Q. 3: What’s missing from my AI output?

What makes a lot of AI output cheesy? What’s “off” about it?

The other side of this question would be, “What makes something valuable?” There’ll be a subjective nature to any answer to that question because there’s a degree to which beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One person might like Rembrandt, another AI-manufactured alien landscapes. To each their own.

But a friend passed along something he’d learned from a Tim Keller sermon on 1 Cor. 13. Here Paul makes the point that prophecies, tongues, and even charity, without love, are nothing.

While we were excited about all that AI could do just a year ago, now we’ve coined the term “AI slop” and lament the “AI gloss” detectable in its pictures and written work. Maybe what Paul is saying explains this reaction. Someone could use AI to produce a “new” Rembrandt or maybe a “new” piece by Bach, manufactured in seconds by having these artists’ styles convincingly mimicked. The result could be beautiful, and we might not detect even a hint of “AI gloss.” Yet would we treasure these new works like the old?

No.

Why?

Because AI allowed them to be created without sweat or thought. They were made without love.

Love is why the kids’ art on Oma’s fridge is treasured – because of the love going both ways. And love is why the poems many households craft to accompany Christmas presents were better before AI was there to perfect them. Butchered meters and forced rhymes – and the care involved in crafting each line – were what made the merriment.

Could an aspiring poet partner time and intent with AI to lovingly craft a poem for his beloved wife? Certainly. AI usage doesn’t have to be loveless.

But AI without love? That’s nothing at all.

Jon Dykstra realizes he should write his beloved wife more poetry, with or without AI help.

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Science - Creation/Evolution

The day is not an age

Billions of years don’t fit with the Bible ***** When my daughter was young, I introduced her to sketching and how to use colored pencils to enhance her drawings. She continued to practice and develop her technique until now, as a young woman, her skill has far exceeded my ability to draw. After examining one of her drawings of a horse – so real that its muzzle looks soft to the touch – one would never believe that she just randomly chose a few colored pencils, blindly allowing them to contact the paper in random strokes. Yet, this is how some Christians attempt to reconcile the historical account of Creation, the world of order and beauty recorded in Genesis 1-2, and the “fact” claimed by secular scientists that everything in the world around us is the product of random processes, occurring without a plan, over a very long period of time. What if we stretch the days? There are good reasons to believe that God did create everything in six, literal 24-hour days (Gen. 1:1–31). However, some people feel the need to interpret each “day” in Genesis 1 as symbolic of millions or even billions of years, because Science tells us that the universe was created by the Big Bang, that the Solar System and our Earth formed out of the chaos of this unique explosion, and that all life came about through the random processes of Evolution. This attempt to reconcile the Bible with science is called the Day Age Theory because it posits that each “day” in Genesis 1 represents an ‘age’ that is millions or billions of years long. The problem with the Day Age Theory is that it contradicts the Biblical narrative. This theory assumes that the reigning cosmological theory for the origin and history of the universe – from the Big Bang to the evolution of all life on Earth – must be correct because it is proven by Science. However, the Day Age Theory does not reconcile scientific belief with the events described in Genesis 1 because the order of events in Big Bang cosmology are completely different from those given in the Bible. The Sun or Earth: which came first? Secular science says that the Sun came before the Earth, and the Bible says the opposite. So who are you going to believe? For example, Genesis asserts that: the Earth was formed (on Day 1) before the Sun and stars (Day 4), plants were formed (on Day 3) before the Sun (Day 4), and that birds were formed (on Day 5) before the land animals (Day 6). Secular scientists, on the other hand, claim that: over 4 billion years ago the Sun formed first from a collapsing solar nebula, followed by the planets, including Earth, plant life only began to colonize the land around 450 million years ago, and some land animals (i.e., dinosaurs) evolved from birds. The Day Age Theory is, therefore, entirely at odds with the Biblical account and so it does nothing to reconcile the historical account in Genesis with scientific opinion. History can be symbolic too because God writes it The Literary Framework Hypothesis dispenses with the need to harmonize the “facts” of scientific cosmology with the Biblical narrative by teaching that the Biblical account is not intended to be taken as a chronological history but as a figurative, poetic narrative that teaches that God is the creator of all things. This notion that the Biblical narrative is allegory or poetry stems from a perceived parallel structure between Days 1-3 and Days 4-6. Beginning with Genesis 1:2, which describes the cosmos as “formless and void,” this argument contends that Days 1-3 create the “form” and Days 4-6 fill the “void.” However, as Dr. Noel Weeks has pointed out, “even though there is no logical reason why the presence of a structure should prove that a passage is not to be taken literally, this idea seems to have great emotive appeal.” Just as the process of constructing a building follows an ordered process – site preparation, laying the foundation, erecting the framework, etc. – the process of creating the universe will also be structured and not chaotic. Therefore, the presence of a structure in the creation narrative actually supports the fact that this is a record of a real historical and creative event that occurred over six literal days. In addition, parallel literary structures are also found elsewhere in the Bible, such as in the historical narratives contained in Exodus and the gospel of Matthew. For example, in Matthew 2, Jesus took a journey into Egypt and was led back into Israel, fulfilling the prophesy that “out of Egypt I called my son,” which parallels the nation of Israel being led out of Egypt by the Spirit of God, with pillars of fire and smoke going before them (Ex. 13:17–22). Also, the people who came out of Egypt passed through the waters of the Red Sea (Ex. 14), which Paul describes as passing through the waters of baptism into Moses to be identified as God’s people (1 Cor. 10:1–4), parallels Jesus passing through the baptismal waters and being identified as God’s Son (Matt. 3:13–17). Many other parallels could be listed, making it evident that parallel structure in a narrative does not indicate that the text is allegorical. Rather, it demonstrates God’s involvement in history. As with the examples of historical parallels described above, historical events and objects may also have spiritual significance. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, points out the error of assuming that because something described in Scripture has spiritually symbolic significance it could not exist as a “visible and material object.” He writes: It is arbitrary to suppose that there could not have been a material paradise, just because it can be understood also in a spiritual significance… there was no rock from which water flowed when Moses struck it, just because it can be interpreted in a symbolic sense, as prefiguring Christ; which is how the same Apostle takes it when he says, ‘Now the rock was Christ’ .” In the same way, states Augustine, one may attribute symbolic significance to the Tree of Life (cf. Gen. 2:9, 3:33; Prov. 3:18; Rev. 2:7, 22:2) and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – even the entire garden paradise of Eden: “There is no prohibition against such exegesis,” says Augustine, “provided that we also believe in the truth of the story as a faithful record of historical fact.” Jesus taught that Genesis was literal The Bible clearly teaches that humans did not evolve but were created, first man and then woman. Dr. Weeks asserted that Genesis 1 is to be understood literally stating that “a number of passages which refer to the original creation of man and woman and their relationship may be considered together (Matt.19:4; 1 Cor. 11:8–9; 1 Tim. 2:13–14). Note that the account is taken literally and made the basis of teaching on the relation of man and woman. Even if in only this point we take issue with evolutionary theory we find ourselves in complete antithesis to naturalistic evolution.” The gospels contain several examples of Jesus referring to the events recorded in Genesis as real history. When speaking of the prophets who had been martyred by the Jews, Jesus refers to Abel as the first martyr and Zechariah as the last (Luke 11:48–51, Matt. 23:49–51). In Matthew 19:5–6 (and Mark 10:7), Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24 to clarify that marriage is between one man and one woman: “‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Jesus uses the real history of Genesis to explain the basis of the marriage covenant. Finally, Jesus tells us that His return will bring judgement on everyone in the world in the same way God judged all people in Noah’s day. In Luke 17:26–27, Jesus says that “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all” (also Matt. 24:36–44). The world-wide flood recorded in Genesis 6-9 was a real event, and so Jesus expects his listeners to believe that the final judgement will be just as real. Still, some people are tempted to believe that God used millions of years to create because the Bible says that, “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Pet. 3:8). However, we need to look at the context of this statement. The whole passage says, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” Peter is not writing about long ages of creation but about the Lord’s willingness to wait patiently so that every person has an opportunity to repent and restore their relationship with God. Peter is repeating the same illustration that he used in his first letter where God waited patiently so that people would have every opportunity to repent and be saved “when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared” (1 Pet. 3:20). Even with the help of his sons and hired men, it would have taken Noah many years to build and provision a ship as large as the ark and so those aware of Noah’s project would have had a long time to come to repentance. In other words, God is more than willing to wait a long time so as not to lose anyone (Eze. 18:23). Gradualistic assumptions took hold While there were exceptions, in the late-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries, scientists seemed to readily accept the Genesis account of a global flood, concluding that it was responsible for the Earth’s geology, including the creation of fossils. Grand Canyon formed gradually? If you assume that “all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” then the Grand Canyon’s depth and size, and the small river running through it would all be evidence of it being formed over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. But the Bible speaks of things being different in the past than they are today, with a worldwide Flood and its enormous volume of water able to carve out much more quickly what would take a small river eons to do. But by the end of the eighteenth century the majority of scientists began to favor a more “naturalistic” view of geology, no longer seeing a need for their ideas to fit with the Biblical account of Creation nor its account of watery catastrophe on a global scale. This naturalistic geology relied on slow and gradual processes, such as the laying down of layers of sediment to form layers of rock. Physician James Hutton, considered the father of contemporary geology, stated that the natural forces we observe shaping the Earth in the present also operated in the past, slowly and gradually over long periods of time. In his treatise on the subject, Theory of the Earth, Hutton says that “in examining things present, we have data from which to reason with regard to what has been..., therefore, we are to examine the construction of the present earth, in order to understand the natural operations of time past.” Hutton writes that such slow and gradual processes occurred on Earth “for millions of ages.” Hutton’s gradualist, or uniformitarian, views were later popularized by Charles Lyell in his three-volume work titled Principles of Geology. And it was the acceptance of slow and gradual geological processes that provided Charles Darwin with the long-ages required for his theory of biological Evolution, Origin of Species, published in 1859. This dramatic shift in scientific thought, currently held by many scientists today, was the antithesis of the Biblical account of Creation contained in Genesis 1. Thus, The Day Age Theory was invented in an attempt to reinterpret the days of Creation as symbolic of the “deep-time” required for the Big Bang and biological Evolution required by scientific thinking. God foreknew that people would invoke ideas like uniformitarianism to deny the historicity of the global Flood and bring doubt concerning the final judgement of the world: “Scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished” (emphasis added; 2 Pet. 3:3–6). Thus, it should come as no surprise that, rejecting the Creation account in Genesis 1, scientists claim that the Universe formed 15 billion years ago after the Big Bang, and the geology of the Earth was formed by slow, gradual processes over millions of years, and that life evolved over millions of years. When we are encouraged by scientists to believe that the universe was created over billions of years, and that life evolved over millions of years, we are being asked to doubt God’s Word. Logically, once the beginning of the Bible is called into question, we will also begin to doubt everything else written in the Bible as well. Did God really say? Hearing ideas that may cause us to doubt God’s Word is not a new phenomenon; in fact, sowing seeds of doubt was the first ploy used by Satan to deceive humanity. It was not long after God created a world that was “very good” and placed the first couple in the Garden that Satan came along and tempted them to doubt God’s word. We read in Genesis 3:1 that “ said to the woman, ‘Did God really say....’” In this way Satan caused the woman to doubt God’s goodness, convincing her that God does not really mean what He says. Some people do not want to believe in a God Who will hold them to account for their thoughts and actions. They do not want to acknowledge that they are sinful – that they disobey God – and that the only way to restore a right relationship with God is through repentance and belief in Jesus, God’s Son, Who died to redeem them and was raised from the dead (Rom. 10:9). Nor do they want to believe that Jesus will come again to judge each one of us. As a result, they make up their own stories about how the world began so that they can write God out of history, pretending He does not exist. The apostle Paul wrote that some people would deny God and create their own stories: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Tim. 4:3-4). We are living in such a time and Big Bang cosmology and Evolution are those myths. When Satan uses the authority of science to cast doubt on God’s Word – “Did God really say...He created the heavens and the earth in six days?” – remember how Satan deceived Adam and the woman in the garden, which had devastating consequences. Dr. Mark Sandercock is a retired forensic chemist who worked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the author of “Foundation: A Biblical Worldview.” This is an abridged extract from Chapter 4. His book is available on Amazon....

News

“Transition” victims decry conversion therapy law

In early May, seven people hosted a press conference in Ottawa to express their concerns with Canada’s conversion therapy law. This law bans any practice, treatment, or service designed to help someone identify with the sex that God gave them – if, for example, a man feels effeminate, but wants help aligning his feelings with his male reality, this law bans professionals (including pastors) from helping him. But the group’s unspoken petition was to ban sex-denying medical interventions like puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries. Each of the seven took their turn at the microphone. Parent Jeff Evely shared how an Ontario hospital tried to surgically “transition” his teenage daughter without his consent. Scott Newgent shared her testimony of how these sex-denying interventions led to lifelong health challenges. Mia Hughes, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the Director of Genspect Canada, described the lack of evidence to support these medical practices. Kellie-Lynn Pirie, a detransitioner and founder of the DeTrans Alliance Canada, Dr. Ann Gillies, a former therapist, and Barry Neufeld, the former Chilliwack school trustee who was fined $750,000 by the BC Human Rights Tribunal for speaking out against gender ideology, also offered brief remarks. But perhaps the most moving comments were offered by Faith Groleau, who shared her personal story of the dangers of ideological gender medicine. She described being born with a hole in her diaphragm that required extensive surgery as a newborn to fix. At the age of two, she was sexually assaulted. That assault broke her collarbone, reopened that diaphragmatic hole, and rammed much of her intestines further up into her chest cavity. These internal wounds, misdiagnosed as mere asthma, also left her in poor emotional and mental health. Eventually, the same hospital that provided the life-saving surgery as a baby suggested sex-denying interventions as the fix. “A pediatrician overrode a psychiatric diagnosis – several of them,” she explained, to clear her for sex-denying hormones and surgeries. “Instead of assessing my mental health thoroughly, they decided to assume in the emergency room that my suicidal ideation came from the gender confusion. It did not. It was already there long before.” And yet, the medical professionals used this fiction to fast-track sex-denying interventions, giving her cross-sex hormones at the age of 16 and approving her for top surgery at 18. “Everything that had happened to me was wrong and had nothing to do with evidence-based medicine,” she accused. (You can hear both fury and sorrow in her voice during the entirety of her remarks.) “I was experimented on. I was not told they were experimental. I was told it was medicine and that it would help. And it did none of that. It gave me complications that the doctors ignored or would treat as separate illnesses. It made my already pre-existing mental health worse. And my physical health continued to deteriorate.” “These people do not know what they are signing up for because they are children,” she continued. “I was a child. I wanted help. That’s all I wanted. I did not need to be medicalized. I did not need to be cut up. I did not need to be drugged. I just wanted to be loved the way I was.” Faith didn’t further explain what she meant by “the way I was.” But for orthodox Christians, her identity is obvious. God created her as a female, just as He creates every person to be a member of one of two sexes. Whenever someone is confused about their identity as a man or a woman, they don’t need to be “medicalized,” “cut up,” or “drugged.” They need to be counseled that they are wonderfully made in the image of God and to embrace their God-given identity as male and female. Yet these are truths denied by conversion therapy bans across the country and the practice of sex-denying medical interventions. While no explicitly Christian perspective was offered at this press conference, all seven took a stand against harmful conversion therapy bans and sex-denying medical interventions....

Interview with an artist

Trees, rocks, water, sky, wildlife - Sheila Van Delft paints refreshment for the soul

48x36 acrylic on canvasNear Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island – Sheila finds the forest one of the places where she recharges the best. She is so grateful to live in the country with trees all around her – and the endless inspiration they provide! The quiet cool of a forest trail brings inspiration to artist Sheila Van Delft. As an introvert, she finds she can recharge by breathing deeply in the midst of nature. And in her work, she brings that feeling to others, through haunting scenes of groves on Vancouver Island, fog-filled vistas of the West Coast Trail, or serene views of a lone eagle surveying his kingdom. “When I think deeply about why it’s always nature ,” she says, “I realize that I’m painting my longing for the new earth and fellowship with God. Adam and Eve in Paradise enjoyed perfect nature with God, and the renewed earth will also have landscapes and seascapes, trees, animals, and big skies – all perfected and even more incredibly beautiful than what we enjoy here because of the redeeming work of Jesus. I long for this, and dream of this, and in my own way, must paint it again and again.” Sheila is blessed to be able to work in art full-time – part-time as an art teacher and the rest of the time in her home studio. A typical day for her might involve: catching up on email requests and admin tasks, painting, taking a break for household tasks, taking the dog for a walk, brainstorming the next twenty paintings, painting some more, reluctantly making dinner, and then painting the rest of the evening because, really, it’s her favorite thing to do. 36x24 acrylic on canvasThe artist’s granddaughter in a field near her home in Ontario Van Delft has been an artist since she was a child, encouraged by her parents. Later, she studied graphic design, and then even later, as a mature student, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts. Through it all, she honed her skills, motivated by Colossians 3:23: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” “I sometimes have market customers tell me that they feel so at peace when they look at my work, or that they don’t want to leave because it’s all so beautiful. I marvel at this! How can it be that what I do can have this effect? It’s all God’s hand working through my hand.” One of the things she’s most proud of is her work as a high school teacher. Through it, Sheila nurtures her students’ ability to use their talents to share beauty and truth. Students she never expected have come up to her and admitted she made them care about art, and that brings her a feeling of fulfillment. “When I try capture emotions like awe, contentment, gratitude, harmony, joy, peace, and wholeness in my paintings, I think others can feel that too. And that’s why I paint, so others can also feel the hopeful anticipation of the better life that is coming. I’m trying to share a bit of Heaven.” Learn more about Sheila Van Delft's work on her website, where you can also stay up to date about the markets and other events where you can view her work in person. And she shares her work on Instagram and Facebook. Send Harma-Mae Smit suggestions for artists to profile at [email protected]...

Music

When the Church stops singing

or, What I learned from the organ bench ***** The first time I realized something was wrong with congregational singing, I was sixteen years old, sitting at the pipe organ bench at Tabor Presbyterian Church in Portland. The hymn introduction ended. I lifted my hands for the first verse – and almost no one sang. A few scattered voices appeared, hesitant and thin. The melody was there, printed clearly in the hymnal, but the room itself stayed quiet. From the organ bench, with the congregation behind you, silence is impossible to ignore. I remember thinking, Is this normal? Over the next several years I played organ in several churches around Portland, and that moment kept repeating itself. Some congregations sang with surprising strength. Others barely sang at all. I remember one Sunday playing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” The first verse was hesitant and quiet, but by the final verse the congregation had found its voice and the room suddenly felt alive. The difference between those two moments – the hesitant beginning and the confident ending – revealed something important: congregational singing does not simply happen. It is something churches either cultivate intentionally or gradually lose. The sound Scripture expects The New Testament assumes that the gathered Church sings. Paul writes in Colossians: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Col. 3:16). Notice what singing does here. It is not merely an emotional expression. Through singing, believers teach and encourage one another. Truth is carried not only through sermons but through the voices of the congregation itself. Paul makes the same assumption in Ephesians: “Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Eph. 5:19). In both passages, singing is participatory. The church does not merely listen to music; the church sings. For centuries, Christian worship assumed this. Choirs and musicians might assist, but the central voice in worship was the congregation. Today, that assumption is not always as strong. When worship music becomes something we watch One of the things I noticed while playing in different churches was how dramatically congregational participation could change depending on how music was led. In some congregations the moment the introduction ended, the singing began. The sound filled the sanctuary almost immediately. Even people who did not sing especially well sang confidently because the music supported them. Other congregations responded very differently. The musicians played beautifully, the sound system was excellent, but the congregation remained hesitant. A few voices scattered here and there, but many people simply listened. This shift often happens gradually and unintentionally. Churches want music to sound good. Musicians want to serve faithfully. Technology makes it easier than ever to produce polished sound. But the unintended result can be subtle: music becomes something happening at the front of the room rather than something shared by the whole church. From the organ bench, that difference is unmistakable. The quiet disappearance of church musicians Another challenge is less visible but just as real: many churches struggle to find musicians. When I first began playing as a teenager, many congregations still had longtime pianists or organists who had served for decades. These musicians often trained younger players and gradually passed on their role. That pattern is becoming less common. More than once a pastor quietly asked me if I knew anyone who could play because their longtime pianist had retired and no one was ready to replace her. Sometimes churches relied on a single volunteer carrying the entire responsibility for music week after week. This shortage changes the dynamic of worship in ways many people never notice. When musical leadership becomes fragile, congregational singing often weakens as well. Leading congregational singing requires a particular kind of musician – someone who understands that their role is not performance but support. What the organ bench teaches From the organ bench, you quickly learn that congregations sing best when they feel supported. If the accompaniment is steady and confident, people join in. If the tempo drifts or the melody becomes difficult to follow, the congregation hesitates. Some Sundays the congregation would surprise me. A hymn I expected to struggle suddenly filled the room, especially on the final verse when people realized the organ was carrying them. When that happens, the room changes. People sing more boldly. The sound grows stronger with each verse. The organ historically served this role well because its sustained sound naturally supports voices. But the deeper principle is not about instruments. Congregations sing best when the music invites participation rather than replacing it. Why this matters It might be tempting to treat this as a small issue. There are certainly larger challenges facing the Church today. But Scripture treats the gathered worship of God’s people as something deeply significant. When a congregation sings together, the Word of Christ dwells richly among them (Col. 3:16). The truths of the gospel are not only preached but sung. Believers encourage one another through shared confession of faith. Children hear their parents sing. Older members who can no longer serve in visible ways still contribute their voices. Corporate singing reminds us that worship is not about personal preference. No one in the room loves every song equally. Yet everyone participates. In that sense, congregational singing becomes a small picture of the unity of the Church itself. Recovering the sound of the Church The encouraging news is that strong congregational singing is not complicated to cultivate. Churches that sing well usually share a few simple habits. They choose songs ordinary people can sing. They train musicians to support the congregation rather than showcase themselves. They encourage participation openly rather than assuming it will happen automatically. In several churches I played in, the problem was not that people refused to sing. The problem was that no one had intentionally thought about how to help them sing. Once that question was asked, the difference could be remarkable. Listening again One of the strange privileges of sitting at an organ bench is that you learn to listen carefully to the room behind you. When a congregation really sings, you feel it through the bench and pedals as much as you hear it. The sound moves through the room like a single voice made up of many imperfect ones. It is not polished. Some voices drift off pitch. Some enter late. Yet the sound carries a unity no performance can create. It is the sound of the church speaking together. And once you have heard it clearly, you begin to notice when it starts to fade. The question facing many churches today is not simply what style of music they prefer. The question is whether the congregation itself is still expected to sing. Felix Lilly is a musician in Portland, Oregon who has served as a pipe organist in several local churches. He writes about church life, music, and Christian discipleship....

News

Saturday Selections – May 23, 2026

"Bury the workmen" by Covie, featuring Lance Thompson For some encouragement check out this new group – or maybe just new to me – singing about h...

News

BC midwives allowed to now kill pre-born babies

On May 5th, the British Columbia government decided to celebrate International Midwives Day by authorizing midwives to participate in something antith...

Science - Creation/Evolution

Perfect planet

It all had to be just right for life on Earth to survive and thrive ***** In our garden is a plum tree. Now this may not sound unusual except that...

News

Saturday Selections – May 16, 2026

Athanasius vs. Arius, the rap battle Athanasius offers up a hard-rocking right.... "I've never seen a problem so solvable!" – parents hold the...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – May 2026

On logic Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr. Watson once went on a camping trip. Some hours after they lay down for the night and went to sleep Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see." Watson replied, "I see millions and millions of stars." "What does that tell you?" Holmes asked. Watson pondered for a minute – accompanying Holmes for years had given him countless opportunities to see the power of careful observations, and, as he was no intellectual slouch himself, he thought now might be a good opportunity to put his own keen observational abilities on display. "Well, Holmes, astronomically speaking it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all-powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you, Holmes?" "It tells me, Watson, that someone has stolen our tent!" Source: Adapted from a joke making its way around the Internet Simply and truly... There once was a man whose parents had given him the highly unusual name of "Amazing" when he was born. They gave him the name in the hopes that he would live up to it and achieve great things. But as far as most people were concerned, Amazing never seemed to do anything to live up to his name. He never even got far from where he was born. He worked in the family business, and had some limited – one might even say quite normal or ordinary – success and married his high school sweetheart. While she thought him quite extraordinary, no one else did, and his name left him as the unfortunate butt of countless jokes. These jokes so bothered him that he told his wife that when he died he didn't even want his name put on his tombstone; maybe then the jokes would stop. Well, when Amazing did finally die, his wife honored his request. But she also wanted to have people finally understand how extraordinary her husband had been. So in place of his name she had this inscription placed on the tombstone: "Here lies a man who was loving and faithful to his wife for 60 years." And now, whenever people walk by, they point and say, "Well, isn't that Amazing!" Source: A joke passed along by my father-in-law Do you like being corrected? David did. We're supposed to love correction. Not throw a fit in response to it, or even stoically accept it. No, we're supposed to love it. Proverbs 9:8 is just one of the texts where God makes this point: Don’t reprove a scoffer, lest he hate you. Reprove a wise man, and he will love you. God tells us that reproof is, in fact, a sign that He loves us: "whom the Lord loves, he chastens, And scourges every son whom he receives" (Heb. 12:6). This verse makes good sense to any parent – it's a lot easier to not discipline our kids, to just let it go this time (and the next, and the time after that) but if we love them, then we want to teach them what's wrong and right, and that will necessarily involve reproof of some sort. Still, "love correction" is a hard command to follow, so it struck me when I came across King David's response to the prophet Nathan's rebuke. As you'll recall, Nathan came to David after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and murdered her husband to cover it up (2 Samuel 11-12). Nathan came with condemnation, and a curse. Though David confessed his guilt, Nathan informed the king that the LORD would kill the child that he had conceived with Bathsheba. And the child did die. We would all understand it if David didn't think all that kindly of Nathan after that. But, despite his great sins, David was still a man of God, and he shows this in his response to Nathan's reproof. In 1 Chronicles 3:5 we read that, of the four sons David had with Bathsheba, one was named Nathan! Here, then, is a man who was reproved, and seems to have loved the messenger who brought him that correction. The next time you’re grumpy… I saw this four-step cheer-yourself-up process on my sister-in-law’s social media feed and had to try it out. And it worked! Whisper “beep boop” to yourself. Repeat randomly over the next couple minutes Pinch your nose and say “sneep snop” Nose pinched, say “boopdedoop” in a really deep voice Nose still pinched, say “bubbles” in the angriest voice you can Give it a go and let me know if you find it effective too (the fourth one really gets me). But why does it work? The world often acts as if emotions control us, but God talks about self-control as being a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). There’s a sense too, in what God tells us, of emotions being actions we can do. So we might not be called to feel happy, but we are commanded to rejoice always (Phil. 4:4), and rejoicing is something we can express no matter how we might feel. This involves a person trying to actually control their emotions. And because the attempt is something that lines right up with God’s commands, the fruit that results is good. God’s love comes out in His commandments, such that obeying God is good for us. What is the purpose of your home? Some years back Rev. Peter Moelker wrote a head-clearing piece titled "My home, my idol?" in Faith in Focus. He asked Christians to give their head a shake and really think about why we buy, renovate, paint, scrub, tidy, dust, vacuum and have our homes: "Have you ever sat back and asked yourself the question: 'what is my home really for?' What is its purpose? A place to store our stuff? A museum to be shown to select guests? A fast-food restaurant to prepare quick meals for those who hurriedly pass through? What is the purpose of my home? The Bible tells us that our homes are to be places where children are instructed in the Law of the Lord (Deut. 6:7, 11:19), where the righteous experience the Lord’s blessing (Prov. 3:33), where Christians fellowship and worship God together (Acts 2:46), and where others are invited in to enjoy that same blessing of the Lord (Acts 16:15, 18:26, Romans 12:13, 16:23, 1 Peter 4:9, 3 John 1:8)." We might be embarrassed to have guests over when our home isn't pristine and smelling of lemon-scented Mr. Clean, or when we're having some problems with the night's menu. But if we realize the purpose of our home is for it to be used to the glory of God, rather than presented at its best for our own glory we'll have the proper perspective and not sweat such little stuff. Sola Opus Dei "I guess you could say we’ve been saved by works. His.” - Shai Linne, "Active Obedience" from his album Lyrical Theology Part One Why God can't make a square circle Here’s a trick question atheists pose: "If God is all-powerful, can He create a rock so heavy He can't lift it?" If Christians answer yes, then God must not be all-powerful since He can't lift the rock. And if we say no, then it again calls into question God's omnipotence – He must not be all-powerful, because it isn't within His powers to make such a rock. But the question misunderstands what Christians are saying about God when we talk about God's omnipotence. While we claim it is within His power to do anything, we aren't saying it is within His character. There are, in fact, many things God cannot do, because to do them would violate His own character. For example, God is eternal, so He cannot cease to be. He also cannot lie, and cannot abandon His elect. And, for the very same reason – because it would violate His character – He cannot make a rock so big He can't lift it (or make a square circle, or homosexual marriage, etc.). God's character is the very basis for reason and logic, and He will not do anything that would violate the essence of Who He is. Diversity by Rob Slane Up is like down when left is like right Cold may be hot when the day is like night The cat and the dog are the same only when The men are like women and the women like men Celebrate diversity for sure, but recall That small really is small and tall really is tall Calling smiling a frown will not make it a frown Up really is up and down really down Updating a "classic" Have you noticed how grim many nursery rhymes are? Jack goes up a hill to get water and ends up cracking his head, while precariously perched Humpty Dumpty breaks his whole body... irreparably. Years back, I decided I absolutely had to draw the line when I made the mistake of reading "rock-a-bye baby" as a goodnight story to my two-year-old. I quickly made a last-line revision that would be far more conducive to my toddler having a restful – nightmare-free – sleep. This is how my version goes: Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop, When the wind blows, the cradle will rock, If the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, And Daddy will catch them, cradle and all. On patience “Patience is a quality you admire in the driver behind you, and scorn in the one ahead." “Living would be easier if men showed as much patience at home as they do when they’re fishing.” Source: God’s little instruction book Man vs. beast "...our best moralists tell us to treat other animals well – never dreaming of telling the animals to treat us well!" – C. John Collins explaining how even those who say we came from the animals can't help but acknowledge how distinct we are from them. ...

People we should know

J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937)

Stood strong against the tide of liberalism engulfing the Church ***** One of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century was an American Presbyterian named John Gresham Machen. More than any other individual in the English-speaking world, Machen led the intellectual defense of Biblical Christianity against the attacks of theological liberalism in the early twentieth century. Machen was among the top-ranked Biblical scholars of his generation, and he was the point man for conservative Protestantism when it looked like believing the Bible was no longer going to be plausible for educated people. Started OPC & WTS Among Machen’s achievements was the founding of three notable institutions: Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. All three of these institutions continue to exist today. One of the most recent biographies of Machen is J. Gresham Machen: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought by Stephen J. Nichols. Nichols recounts Machen’s life and also describes the significance of his books. Machen was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1881. His father was a successful lawyer and his mother came from a well-to-do family in Georgia. She was a staunch Presbyterian and raised her son to love the Bible. He did very well at school and ended up attending Johns Hopkins University. Subsequently he decided to do graduate studies at Princeton University while taking some divinity courses at Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS). It’s important to note the historical significance of PTS. That seminary was the leading conservative Protestant seminary in the English-speaking world from about the mid-1800s until 1929 (when it would be taken over by theological liberals). In the latter part of the nineteenth century and initial part of the twentieth century, the best known of the Princeton theologians was Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield the leading defender of Biblical Christianity in his day. Warfield would have a strong influence over Machen, and the two became friends. In the lion's den If this short article has whetted your appetite to learn more about J. Gresham Machen, you'll be interested to know there is a 41-page biography by John Piper available online, for free. Gresham's biography is packaged with 2 others, about John Owen and Athanasius, in Piper's Contending For Our All. A free pdf copy of the book can be downloaded here. During the 1905-1906 academic year, Machen studied in Germany under Wilhelm Herrmann, an influential and articulate theological liberal, who argued, among other things, that it wasn't even vital whether Jesus really lived. Machen’s conservative views were severely challenged at this time, but ultimately he was able to resist Herrmann’s sinister theological perspective. After returning to America, Machen became a professor at PTS, teaching the New Testament. He was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) or PCUSA in 1914. When the United States finally entered World War One in 1917, Machen volunteered to serve in France with the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), where he would operate a canteen, serving refreshments to French and American soldiers on the front line. Although he didn’t engage in combat himself, he saw the fighting and its effects first hand. You can’t split a rotten church During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the insidious tentacles of theological liberalism were rapidly spreading among the Protestant churches of North America, turning people away from belief in the Bible as a supernatural revelation from God. The stage was being set for a showdown between orthodox believers and the adherents of fashionable unbelief. Machen discussed with B.B. Warfield the possibility of a split in the PCUSA that would separate real Christians from the theological liberals. But as Nichols records, Warfield, seeing the widespread success of liberalism among the leadership of the PCUSA, famously replied, “No, you can’t split rotten wood.” In 1921 Warfield died, and with him (in the estimate of many people) Old Princeton also died as the stalwart defender of theological conservatism. Soon the pack of liberal wolves (in sheep’s clothing, of course) would seize control of the seminary and place it in the service of unbelief. On a more positive note, Machen’s first book entitled The Origin of Paul’s Religion was published in 1921. In each of his books Machen would defend historic, orthodox Christian beliefs against the rising tide of liberalism. Theological liberalism, as Nichols helpfully summarizes it, takes “as a starting point the position that the Bible is not a divinely inspired book, but a human one, deriving from a religious community and traced with legend and myth.” Machen had a thorough knowledge of the current scholarship on the apostle Paul and was able to defend genuine Christianity against its challengers. Christianity and Liberalism Besides being a theology professor and author, Machen was becoming increasingly popular as a speaker at various Christian events. In the theological battle between conservatism and liberalism, Machen was beginning to take center stage as the conservative champion in the academic field. In 1923, his book New Testament Greek for Beginners (a text for learning Biblical Greek) appeared to wide acclaim. It’s still in use today. But it was another of his books published in 1923 that would become his most important: Christianity and Liberalism. “With this book,” Nichols writes, “Machen emerged as the singular spokesperson for the rigorous defense of orthodox Christianity in response to the challenge of liberalism.” It became a classic, clearly demonstrating that historic Christianity and theological liberalism are, in fact, two entirely different religions. Due to his efforts in defense of the truth, Machen received the support and accolades of fellow believers. From some of those on the other side, however, Machen received hate mail. According to Nichols, one liberal sent him a letter addressed to “Prof. of Bigotry” that referred to his “miserable theology” and instructed him to “learn to be a Christian or else get out.” The fall of Princeton Seminary As time went on, momentum was clearly on the side of the liberals within the PCUSA, and in 1929 they managed to “reorganize” the governing board of Princeton in such a way as to give control to liberals. Nichols states that with this development, Machen “was left no real choice but to resign.” As a result, with a small band of supporters he founded Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) in Philadelphia in 1929, with the intent to recreate a seminary in the image of Old Princeton. Among others who left PTS to join with Machen in this endeavor were Cornelius Van Til and John Murray. Some PTS board members also resigned in order to be on the board of WTS, including Samuel Craig, the founder of Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company (or, as it is more commonly known today, P&R Publishing) In 1930 Machen produced another significant book, The Virgin Birth of Christ. Liberals, of course, denied that Christ had been born of a virgin because they were unwilling to believe the miracles recorded in the Bible. Nichols writes that this book became “the standard scholarly defense of this crucial, orthodox doctrine for decades to come.” The final battle A decisive showdown between conservatives and liberals in the PCUSA finally occurred in the mid-1930s. In 1933 the PCUSA (along with six other denominations) released an official report entitled Re-Thinking Missions. It “advocated a paradigm shift in missions premised on the notion that Christianity is not the exclusively true religion.” This was the liberal view: Christianity should accommodate people of other religions rather than proselytize them. A battle within the PCUSA ensued between conservatives (led by Machen) who believed that Christianity is the one true religion, and the liberals who were religious pluralists. To make a long story short, the liberals won. In response, Machen founded the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions (IBPFM) so that conservative Presbyterians could give money to missionaries who believed in evangelizing non-Christians. Having a missions board that is not under the authority of the church is not the Biblical ideal, of course, but the intent was good. However, the General Assembly of the PCUSA declared the IBFPM to be unconstitutional and proceeded to discipline its supporters. Nichols notes, On March 29, 1935, making front-page news in The New York Times – "Presbytery to Try Machen as Rebel," ran the headline—Machen was officially defrocked and stripped of his credentials. Machen appealed this decision but his appeal was rejected by the General Assembly in 1936. Then in June 1936, Machen and his supporters founded the Presbyterian Church in America. In 1939 its name was changed to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) due to a lawsuit filed by the PCUSA. Machen had a lot of work on his hands as the leading figure of both WTS and the OPC. He was becoming worn out and exhausted. Then in December 1936 he took a train out to North Dakota to help a struggling congregation there. He caught pneumonia and died on January 1, 1937. His death was a tragic loss for the cause of truth. But he had fought a good fight and left numerous books that would help to strengthen believers in their faith. He also left the institutions he founded that would continue to maintain a testimony against theological liberalism. Conclusion Gresham Machen was widely recognized as one of the greatest Christian scholars of his generation. He used his God-given talents, education and social standing to uphold Biblical Christianity in the face of unrelenting attacks from theological liberals who sought to undermine the faith. Machen was the conservative scholar of highest standing in this struggle, and his efforts encouraged many Christians to stand fast for orthodoxy. Of course, Biblical Christianity would have survived even without Machen, but he demonstrated that genuine Biblical scholarship supported the truth of the Bible. The conflict wasn't between educated, intelligent liberals and uneducated, ignorant conservatives as some believed. The liberal scholars could not refute Machen's work. Christians did not need to fear that their religion was being disproven by modern scientific discoveries, as the liberals alleged. In his own way, Machen lifted high the standard of orthodox Christianity, providing a rallying point for those who continued to believe the historic faith. The tide of opinion in his day swirled furiously against Biblical Christianity, but he was a rock against which the waves of unbelief harmlessly broke....

People we should know

That cloud of witnesses....

Mina and Marco in Egypt Open Doors is a non-denominational mission working in over 60 countries where Christianity is socially or legally discouraged or oppressed. The mission recently reported that last year during Ramadan, two young boys from Egypt watched in horror as their father and other faithful believers were brutally murdered because of their faith in Jesus. The children were passengers on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the monastery of St. Samuel. Their father, a security guard at the monastery, was also on the bus. "Deny Jesus, or die," was the choice given to each person. The younger boy, Mina, said: They forced our father to get out of the bus first. The terrorists shouted that he had to convert to Islam. But my father said “no.” Then they shot him. Although the lives of both of the brothers were miraculously spared, the tragic death of their father still plays through their minds on a daily basis. The older son, Marco, vividly recalled his last moments of his father: My father was still breathing. He couldn’t talk anymore, but he wiggled his fingers, signing us to go away. But we didn’t want to leave him there. I leaned my father against my chest. Soon my clothes were soaked with his blood, but I didn’t care. The father of Mina and Marco was a persevering father, a father training his children in the way they should go. It is not at all unusual for parents in North America, or anywhere else in the world, to be concerned about their children’s physical welfare. Moms and dads want their little ones to be warmly dressed, and to have nutritious meals. It is not unusual either for parents to want children to have things to which they themselves did not have access when they were little. These might include piano, flute or violin lessons, or swimming, karate, and soccer practice. As well, and most importantly, parents can, or should be, concerned about the spiritual welfare of their offspring. This encompasses teaching a child to pray, to have personal devotions and to participate in family devotions, to attend church, to understand and practice fasting and to have discussions on, and knowledge of, life after death. Siao-Mei in China Sometimes, strangely enough, it is the other way around – sometimes children encourage parents to be faithful. There is a story told by a man named Amelio Crotti, about the persecution of Christians in China in the 1960s. A mother and her daughter, a child of five, were imprisoned by the Chinese authorities because the mother had protested the arrest of her pastor. Other prisoners in the jail were indignant at seeing a little five-year-old within the confines of the prison especially because the little girl often cried because she was cold and hungry. “Have pity on your small daughter,” they reprimanded the poor mother, “It is quite reasonable for you at this point to agree that you will not go to church any more. There is no doubt in our minds that you must say that you will stop being a Christian so that your child will not have to suffer the degradations which are imposed upon all of us here in prison.” The mother, after listening to the other prisoners for days on end, and beginning to feel very guilty at depriving her child of food, clothing and proper shelter, finally gave in to them. She recanted her faith and was released. Two weeks after her release, however, she was forced by the authorities to stand on a stage in front of some 10,000 people and shout, “I am no longer a Christian.” The little daughter was in the audience when she shouted this denial. Afterwards, on their way home from this horrific and humiliating public confession, the little girl spoke to her mother. “Mother, today I think that Jesus was not too happy with what you said.” Her mother replied, “I only said those words because I love you. You wept in prison because you were hungry and cold. I wanted you to be warm. I wanted to take you away from that misery.” The little girl, whose name was Siao-Mei, smiled as she answered at her mother, “I promise you that if we go to jail again for Jesus’ sake, that I will not weep.” Ashamed that she had denied her Savior, the mother went back to the prison and told the people who had arrested her that she had acted wrongly, that her love for Jesus was greater than anything the earth could offer, and that her daughter had more courage and strength of character than she herself had. As a result, both mother and child were imprisoned again. Only this time the little girl did not cry at the cold and the hunger. Both mother and child persevered and trusted God. Leah Sharibu in Nigeria There are other stories. On the evening of February 19, 2018, more than one hundred girls were sitting down together for a meal at a secondary school in the town of Dapchi, Nigeria. As they sat around the dining table, gunshots were heard outside. It was very frightening for the young girls, especially when a bullet hit the front of their building. As the sound of the gunshots increased in volume and frequency, the Christians among the girls decided to hold hands and run away. They were very aware that they were probable targets. Teachers saw them running and tried to stop and reassure the frightened girls. But the sound of the gunshots was growing closer. Continuing their escape, the girls made for the dormitory of a Christian friend – a girl named Leah Sharibu. Upon reaching her building, they called out loudly for her to come. Leah was caring for a sick roommate. Aware of the danger, however, both for herself and the roommate, she heeded her friends’ warning. Not willing to leave her sick friend alone, Leah tried to carry the girl. Running with her burden as best she could towards the fence surrounding the school, she often tripped and fell. The sick girl eventually persuaded Leah to put her down, and managed to make it to the staff quarters on her own. But Leah herself, and some of the other students, continued to head for the fence gate through which they hope to obtain safety. Unfortunately, this was precisely the place where the Boko Haram truck was parked. Leah was one of the girls captured and put on the truck. Many of the other girls hid in the thick bushes behind the school. They hid throughout the night until a teacher found them the following day. By then the terrorists, with Leah and other young captured women, were gone. Many parents arrived to ascertain the safety of their children that morning. There were both tears of happiness when parents embraced the daughters who were at school, and tears of anguish for those parents whose daughters had been taken prisoner by Boko Haram. Leah’s mother, Rebecca Sharibu had also come. Rebecca lived in the town of Dapchi. It had been a very long night for her as she had been informed by a friend that some of the students had been abducted. As soon as she was able in the early morning hours, by the light of a torch, she walked to the school. And she prayed as she walked. When she came to the school, she stood among a crowd of other parents. She silently watched ecstatic reunions as girls who had hidden were joyfully embraced. Leah was not one of those girls. The school chaplain took roll call and Leah was the only Christian girl missing. At this point, mixed messages began to come in and government officials confessed that they were really not sure where exactly the kidnapped girls had been taken. It was not until about a month later, on March 21, 2018, that Rebekah was told that Boko Haram had returned the girls they had stolen from the school. But at the hospital where the released girls had been taken for treatment, Rebekah could not find her daughter. Speaking to some of Leah’s classmates, she learned what had happened. Knowing she was a Christian, the terrorists had ordered Leah to recite some Islamic incantations before she would be allowed onto the truck to be taken home. The girl adamantly refused and said: “I will never say these things because I am not a Muslim.” Becoming angry, the captors had threatened Leah that if she wouldn’t denounce Christ, she would remain a prisoner. This threat did not daunt her faith. She steadfastly refused to deny Christ. The other girls watched as Leah was left behind, a prisoner of Boko Haram. They cried and waved to her until they could not see her any longer. When Rebekah heard how her daughter had been left behind, she fainted and was taken to the hospital. Yet there was a joy in her as she recovered from the shock. For years she had led Leah in devotions each morning, instructing her daughter in the Word of God. Her daughter was now bearing the fruit of these devotions – fruit for the Lord. Rebekah consequently said: I am so proud of my Leah because she did not denounce Christ. And because of that, I know God will never forsake her. When she went away to school, I gave her a copy of the Bible so she could have personal devotions even when I am not there. As her mother, I know her to be an obedient daughter, respectful and someone who puts others before herself. Leah surely epitomizes Proverbs 22:6 made flesh. “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” There are, and due to God's grace there always will be, many persevering fathers, mothers and children – many who cause us to remember that: …. since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him Who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:1-3) As of May 11, 2026, Leah continues to be a captive in the hands of cruel Boko Haram. Please pray for her. This article was first published in the July/Aug 2018 issue of the magazine....

Homosexuality, News

Opposing rainbow crosswalk results in human rights trial

Ronald Reagan once shared a quip about the difference between his country and the totalitarian USSR. “Two Soviets… were talking to each other. And one of them asked, ‘What’s the difference between the Soviet Constitution and the United States Constitution?’ And the other one said, ‘That’s easy. The Soviet Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of gathering. The American Constitution guarantees freedom after speech and freedom after gathering.” Here in Canada, we still have freedom of speech, but, it seems, no guarantee of freedom after speech. An Alberta woman is facing a two-week hearing before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for distributing flyers opposing the Town of Westlock’s plan to paint a rainbow crosswalk. Benita Pedersen created the flyers in June of 2023, in an effort to encourage other citizens to reach out to their elected officials and oppose the crosswalk. “Based on my personal experiences in interacting with parents and children, I have learned that the practice of ‘gender affirmation’ harms kids more than it helps,” she explained to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF). “When I composed the flyer, one of my objectives was to warn parents about the potential consequences of children pursuing the pathway of transgenderism.” She added that the way to solve problems is “by having open conversation.” Others disagree, and human rights commissions make it easy to shut down speech they don’t like. In this case, fellow citizen Laurie Hodge took offense and filed a human rights, stating that the flyer discriminated on the basis of gender, gender identity, and gender expression. Hodge has since become a member of the Westlock Town Council. The wheels of “justice” turn slowly. In October of 2025, the Director of the Alberta HRC referred the complaint to the province’s human rights tribunal, finding that there was a sufficient basis to proceed with the hearing. Human rights commissions and tribunals were under the public eye 15 years ago, in light of complaints against high-profile figures like Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, and against Maclean’s magazine. Complaints were made on the basis of hurt feelings. Even if there was no conviction, the process of responding to a complaint – involving tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills and years of hassle – was itself a punishment. The passage of a private member’s bill in 2012 to reform the Canadian Human Rights Act seemed to settle the commissions down. But the recent decision from the BC Human Rights Tribunal to fine school trustee Barry Neufeld $750,000 for speaking against “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI), as well as this case in Alberta, suggest that the sleeping giants are awaking. Let’s not be caught sleeping ourselves. ARPA Canada took a lead in responding to the challenges 15 years ago, and continues to speak out today. We care so deeply about freedom of speech and expression not because our opinions are so important, but because God’s truth is. We love our neighbors, so we want and need to be free to share what God says is best for them and everyone. Find Pedersen's flyer at the end of the human rights complaint shared here....

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Teachers lead the way in adopting, and sometimes restraining, tech

The Spring issue of Redeemer University’s Resound magazine featured an article about Dr. Katie Day Good, a Christian professor who has been researching the history of how tech gets adopted, and what sort of impact it has. “She found that teachers have often been early adopters of technologies including motion pictures, stereographs, records, illustrated magazines and radio to enliven and increase the effectiveness of their teaching…. Teachers around the world were eager to think about how these technologies could help their students think beyond their borders.” Teachers loved the tech, because it was all about connecting their students to the world around them. But today we’re finding something quite different. As Dr. Good put it in that same article, “Hope beyond the screen”: “What we're discovering as we grow and age with these technologies is that they can also stand in the way of meaningful connection. They can even lead us to feel estranged from our neighbours, from our environment, from God.” AI is only going to make that estrangement worse, with reports already of people turning to these super-powered programs for companionship. So how can we deal with the digital distraction, and the social isolation? There’s no one answer, but Good shared what a couple of groups have chosen to do. “Something I've seen is parents banding together to create landline pods, using landline phones to encourage friendship and independence among their children without having to rely on smartphones.” Then there is “The Luddite Club” she learned about – a group of New York students who have chosen to unplug and connect in tech-free ways. Earlier this year, a Cornell University prof made news for getting her students to type their reports. She brought in bunch of old typewriters, and the students had to shift gears entirely – the lack of a delete key had them thinking through what they were going to type before they typed it. With their phones banned, students weren’t distracted by notifications, but also couldn’t research in an instant, and ending up asking each other for help – their class become a place for conversation rather than head-down, isolated scrolling. There there’s what’s happening at Redeemer itself. This past year, faculty at the Christian college who are involved with its “Core Curriculum” – 10 courses that all students have to take – have “adopted a tech-wise approach, encouraging students to swap laptops and tablets for pen and paper.” They aren’t going full Amish – this is just a select number of courses, and while pen and paper are encouraged, laptops aren’t banned. It’s a small but real effort being made to put restraints on tech usage. Why? Because it just makes sense. As Dr. Jonathan Juilfs, Redeemer’s associate professor of English, explained, “many studies have shown that students retain more information and learn better with traditional note-taking methods.” That’s not a startling revelation, but it is news how some schools are starting to act on what we all already know: our screen usage has gotten out of hand, and that even includes our purportedly “educational” usage too. ...

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Saturday Selections – May 2, 2026

Original Sin rock battle What I absolutely love about these rock/rap battles is that it's no straw man being presented here: Pelagius gets to make his case. And Augustine's response is true, but not at all the "gotcha"-esque "you got owned" moment we see pitched all over the 'Net. Which is what makes this presentation as valuable as it is entertaining. This man tried to disprove God with a box of nails It might have seemed compelling even... at first. But, as Not The Bee put it, this "is what the kids would call a self-own." A fun one worth checking out and sharing. When Christians don’t “get with the times,” they change empires "...Christians would search out and save little girls who were left to die by their pagan families. After a few decades of this life and death dynamic, there was a shortage of women for pagan young men to marry. So many ended up going to church to find wives. Also, because Christian women did not have abortions at the same rates as pagan women, a particularly brutal practice at the time, they also had higher fertility rates. In the end, the explosive growth of Christianity across the empire was all about math. God used the obedience of early Christians to change the world." Why Canada should scrap its plastics ban Jesus condemned the Pharisees for doing things for appearance (see Matt. 23) and warned about practicing "our righteousness before others in order to be seen by them" (Matt. 6:1). That, there, is Canada's plastics ban, implemented to address a problem – plastic trash – that was a problem in Asia, not Canada. And like so many environmental policies, even if you presume the problem the policy was meant to solve really needed government intervention, the actual intervention offered by our government makes things worse: "According to the government, the anticipated reduction in plastic waste—roughly 1.5 million tonnes by 2032—will be outweighed by nearly 3 million tonnes of additional waste from heavier substitutes such as metal, porcelain, glass, wood and aluminum. As a result, the ban would increase total waste overall. (Remember, these are the government’s own projections.)" When can I trust what scientists say? Rob Stadler offers up six criteria to consider, including: repeatability direct observability assumptions disclosed... This is an Intelligent Design presentation, but even in the subsequent articles – When Can I Trust Scientists About Evolution, and On Evolution, Here is What We Can Believe with High Confidence – it's pretty much all material a creationist would love too. A creationist take on climate change (10 min) Is global warming happening? It seems to be. Is it going to be catastrophic, like Greta Thunberg is despairing of? No. Genesis 8:22 says, "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease..." Is it strange to base your evaluation of secular science on a Bible verse? Not at all. God's Word is authoritative. And we constantly have to test the reliability of secular science against what God says, to decipher what could be or isn't true. "Science" says that girls can become boys, and no, that isn't so, and we could always know so because we know God chooses our gender, not us (Gen. 1:26-27). And some of the same people and organizations who are touting climate change were pushing overpopulation hysteria too, which as Christians we could rebut right from the start (Gen. 1:28; 9:1, 9:7, Prov. 17:6, Ps. 127:3-5, Ps. 113:9, etc.), but which the world has only started to realize as of late. ...

Contests, Your Turn 2026

I Went to Church

I went to church when I was young, Where psalms and hymns were always sung, Was baptized as a baby there, And often went to God in prayer, I knew some Bible stories well, I thought that I was safe from hell, My heart, I felt, was good enough, To save me when the times got rough, But Jesus Christ I didn't know, The planted seed had yet to grow, From church and God I fell away, I had to leave, I couldn't stay, I felt it all must be a farce, A lie made up, for truth seemed sparse, A cult, a sham, twas make believe, I didn't want to be deceived, For many years I lived in sin, Away from God, my faith was thin, But I could never shake the thought, That there was more than I'd been taught, My endless questions brought despair, I searched for answers everywhere, I had to know just what was real, Based on the truth, not how I feel, But then God opened up my eyes, Turned out the world was full of lies, The truth was always there with me, I just was blind and couldn't see, The Holy Spirit in my soul, He gave new life and made me whole, That's when the Bible came alive, And faith deep down began to thrive, 'Cause what was missing all along, Was Jesus, to whom I belong, I learned that I had been set free, From all my sins and misery, Because of His great sacrifice, Where on the cross He paid the price, I was redeemed, my sins no more, I now had Jesus to live for, I went to church when I was young, Where psalms and hymns were always sung, To that same church I go today, But in a very different way, Twas as a Christian I was raised, For that our God is to be praised, He gave me roots, the seed, it grew, And then He made my heart anew. ***** “This is a poem I wrote about faith and my testimony, a life of redemption, and my spiritual journey.” - Natasha...

Contests, Interview with an artist, Your Turn 2026

In its time

Let’s start off with an introduction to one of my closest friends. My Opa was one of my best pals since I was born. We had a special bond, the kind that forms through years of smiles, inside jokes, laughter, and stories. We understood each other. I had already asked him to be my escort for my high school graduation when I was only fourteen. The first painting I gave as a gift to Oma and Opa. My Opa loved the Lord with his whole heart and it shone through in his life, the way he was always building up and encouraging others. He had a deep love for beauty, from a small half-crushed flower, to a glorious sunset reflecting on the ocean. One way he was especially encouraging in my life was with my paintings. I remember a time several years ago when he and Oma, on a visit to our home twelve hours away, were shopping with us. Opa noticed me eyeing an acrylic paint set and he came over, picked it up, brought it to the till, and paid for it. Just like that. I was delighted. It was one of the first acrylic paint sets that I ever owned. I insisted on paying him back, but he said all I owed him was an ice-cream cone. And so, the next time we visited Langley, the two of us went on an ice-cream date to McDonald’s. And if I remember correctly, the money for that ice cream never came out of my wallet. And as the next few years went by, I discovered a love for painting. I was pretty bad at it at first, but it brought me a lot of joy. Whenever I had a difficult or tiring day at school I would plug in some headphones and start mixing colors and slapping paint onto the canvas. I slowly (and I mean very slowly) improved a little bit. Opa and Oma would always admire my new artwork whenever they came for a visit. Opa started putting it in my head that I should sell my paintings. I had begun selling a few at art auction donations, and to friends, but the idea of seeing if I could get accepted into a place like “Out of Hand” (a local artisan store) daunted me. However, I tried. I brought some samples in to Out of Hand in the fall of 2024. Unfortunately, I was emailed that they didn’t have enough space and I could use some more practice. I was told to try again in a year. The painting of the photo I took in Morro Bay the day before Opa died. Given to my mom for Mother’s Day. This, of course, was rather discouraging. I found it harder to pick up a brush and keep painting. I told Opa about it and, like always, he kept encouraging me to continue. He was so enthusiastic about my art. He loved beauty. It was like he could see something in it that I couldn’t. Or maybe it was because he loved me and wanted the best for me in everything I did. One day it came to me that I should paint something for him. He always loved the local scenery that I painted. So, I found a picture on the internet of some nice mountains, pine trees and wildflowers, grabbed a piece of plywood – canvases are expensive you know :) – and got painting. I sent it along with someone who was travelling down to their town. My Oma and Opa immediately phoned me when it arrived. They just loved it, and again Opa encouraged me to sell my artwork. During a stay in November, Opa told me he wanted to buy two paintings from me, for $100 each. He picked out a smaller snowscape one I had done earlier. He said that for the other one I could choose what to paint. A cheque arrived in the mail for $400, along with a loving card. $400! That was $200 each! Opa and Oma were not well off but they were very generous. February came around. My cousin and I were able to stay with Oma and Opa for a night on our way back from a conference. I told Opa about a big painting I sold at the youth art show. He was very happy for me. I wasn’t able to fit his first painting in my suitcase and had not yet started the second one, for I had to finish a different painting first. Looking back, I wish I started that second painting immediately. If only I had known. My family visited again in March on our way to California. I brought the snowscape painting and he was thrilled. I had decided that for the second one I would paint a photo I took on our trip at California. I knew Opa loved the ocean dearly. The first painting he bought for $200 that he got to own for about a week. On March 24, 2025 I took a photo of the waves and rocky cliffs at Morro Bay. I would begin the painting once I got home. The next day, March 25, 2025 was the worst day of my life. We received a phone call while driving to our campsite that Opa, my loving, wonderful, perfectly healthy Opa, had just died suddenly of a heart attack. No! How could this be? Who would cook shrimp, my favorite food, for me on our visits? Who would tell me countless childhood stories now? Who would remind me over and over how I was the spitting image of my Oma? Who would say my name the way no one else could, with a delightful twinkle in his eye? Who would walk me down the aisle on my graduation? I was brokenhearted. This is the lowest point of the story, and if I am being honest, it’s probably also where I started growing the most. I had to decide to get back up on my feet and paint again. My head told me never again but my heart knew I must. And so, by God’s strength, I began to paint that picture of Morro Bay. Opa’s last painting. Part of me wanted it to be perfect, and the other part thought “Who cares anyways, since he will never see it”. Needless to say, I did finish it. I still owed Oma a $200 painting, but I didn’t really want to give this one up. I gave it to my mom for Mother’s Day instead. She knew it was meant to be for Opa, but that I wanted her to have it since her dad was very special to her, and she shared the memory of the beautiful ocean at Morro Bay. The last $200 painting given to Oma that Opa never got to see. Sometime later I asked Oma what she wanted for the last painting. She told me that she and Opa “had a talk” and they decided they would like the view from our dock, since they often walked down there together and loved that view. I painted it and brought it to Langley on our next visit. I told her I had the last painting, but she said she wasn’t ready and hurried away. I wasn’t really ready either, but we both recovered ourselves and I showed it to her. We cried together and then put it in Opa’s study with the other two. The last painting, though he never got to see it, was complete. This world is broken. There is so much darkness and suffering. Yet we have hope. Opa has taught me that we can still rejoice in the Lord, and enjoy the beauty He has given us in this world. You see, death is not the end. Just imagine the beauty my Opa, and all those loved ones who have been taken to our Lord, are experiencing. Sunsets, baby birds, and mountains, to name a few, are just a tiny foretaste of the beauty to come. In my paintings I try to depict the beauty of God’s creation. There is something about natural beauty that reminds us that one day everything will be restored. Sin and ugliness won’t last. “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Eccl. 3:11). So, take a step outside. Breathe in the fresh air. Are the trials you face too heavy to carry? Watch an eagle soar in the sky. Does the grief feel like it is crushing your soul? Consider the lilies of the field. Is anxiety constantly fighting for your heart, a battle you just can’t seem to win? Gaze at the stars. He will make everything beautiful in its time. Your mess is His canvas. Trust Him. The One who created all of that beauty just by speaking. The God who creates life out of death. Who brings the light of dawn after the darkest night. The one who carefully formed and fashioned you, and loves you, His masterpiece, more than you will ever know. Behold our God. ***** “Originally, this story was part of my autobiography for a school project. My teacher encouraged me to share it when I was ready, because he felt it could bless others. When I saw this contest, I thought it would be a good way to share it, and use it to inspire others. It is also a chance for me to share the wonderful legacy of my Opa. I was a bit hesitant to share it at first, as it is pretty personal, but I was encouraged by a few different people to put it out there. After all, I'm sure many people can relate to it in some way, and be reminded that they are not alone in their grieving.” - Miriam...

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Homosexuality, News

Opposing rainbow crosswalk results in human rights trial

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RP’s "Log out and look up" screen-fast challenge is July 13-22

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Federal spending increases under Carney

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Saturday Selections – May 2, 2026

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