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Our forever home

Reflections on finding permanence from someone who has lived in 27 homes.

*****

Home is Where the Heart Is.
God Bless Our Home.
Home Sweet Home.

Have you seen or heard these slogans lately? Maybe on a plaque or as an embroidered craft on your grandmother’s wall? Maybe on a hand-painted sign? Or how about this. You’re searching real estate online and a beautiful property is described as “your new forever home!” Recently, I heard a Christian podcaster use that term – forever home – in reference to where she was living. It made me think a little deeper about how we bandy those words about. Perhaps a little carelessly?

God understands

Although the idea of finding the perfect place to live is universally appealing, what should our perspective as Christians be? We’re all going to die one day so the concept of finding a permanent place on this planet is fundamentally flawed. So where is our forever home? As believers we know that “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20).

And yet God understands our earthly desire for home here and now. He promised the Israelites that one day they would enter a land flowing with milk and honey. They would build houses and dwell securely.

Psalm 132:13-14 says, “For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place; ‘This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it’” .

If God desired an earthly dwelling place, then surely, He understands our desire for one. How do we live with our own intense longing and need for an earthly home, knowing that this planet ultimately is not where we will spend eternity? The conundrum set before us is to create loving spaces where we can raise families, practice the art of hospitality, and honor God… all the while remembering the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:19-21.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Did you catch that last part? Sounds a lot like Home is Where the Heart Is, doesn’t it?

My parents did an amazing job of keeping the tension between our earthly and heavenly homes foremost in the hearts and minds of their five children. Whenever we drove home from an afternoon of shopping, a visit to another family, or our annual camping trip, my mother sang an old-fashioned song…

‘Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

But she always followed that up with…

There's a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar.

To an impressionable, often sleepy young child, sitting squished between her older siblings in the backseat, that balance struck home. The yearning for a safe place at the end of a long tiring day became permanently intermingled with the conviction of knowing this world isn’t our final abode.

Citizenship?

Fast forward through the years and I’m in a car again. Over our 40+ years of marriage I’ve moved many times with my husband and have given a lot of thought to this subject. Each time we moved into a new place, I prayed for God’s hand of protection to cover us. Each time we moved out, I learned to hold our earthly possessions lightly, letting go of material things and clinging ever more tightly to heavenly treasures.

My car is parked beside a booth. A uniformed guard perches on a stool inside. “Citizenship?” he asks brusquely.

I’m at the border. Crossing the invisible line between two nations. On my way to visit our daughter who married an American and moved there fifteen years ago. Every time I’m asked that inevitable question, I want to answer “my citizenship is in heaven.” But then I remember that the agent posing the question has the authority to lawfully detain me or send me on my way. I dutifully answer “Canadian.”

How much more can God, who has the ultimate authority, welcome us one glorious day into His everlasting kingdom… or banish us from His presence. Our forever home is not and never can be here on earth. One day, at the brink of eternity, we will all stand before His judgment throne, and our citizenship will either be in heaven or hell. Let’s be diligent to lay up our treasures where they rightfully belong. In our true forever home.

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Interview with an artist

Rachel VanEgmond is exploring God’s general revelation

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

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Politics

Man Up: ARPA leaderboards and the call to courageous action

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

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Internet

How to stay sane in an overstimulated age

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

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News

Faded road lines symbolize faded Christian values

Having a hard time seeing the lines on the road? You aren’t alone. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is lobbying for changes to a rule from the federal government that has resulted in road lines that wear out after just a few months. The edict, which first came from the federal government in 2012, and was updated by the Minister of “Environment and Climate Change” in 2023, pronounced that chemicals in the paint called volatile organic compounds (VOCs) had to be significantly reduced. They made this decision because VOCs contribute to smog. Smog can irritate eyes and throats. But decreasing the VOCs meant that the paints simply don’t work like they used to. “It doesn’t stick as well, it’s not as reflective, and you can only paint in certain temperatures,” explained Tim Tierney, the chair of the city of Ottawa’s Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. And as Clark Somerville, councillor for the Town of Halton Hills explained to the Globe and Mail: “As the road painting is disappearing quicker, we are now spending taxpayers’ dollars to go out and repaint the roads more than what we had to before,” But it isn’t just a matter of money. The current rules “create a dangerous, dangerous situation – not only for drivers, but pedestrians in intersections” noted Tierney. In 2012, the year that the change took effect in Canada, the BC trucking industry saw a spike in complaints about line visibility. ”Drivers reported more difficulty finding roadway centre and edge markings — not a great situation for a loaded semi weighing up to 35,000 kilos,” explained John Ducker, writing for the Victoria Times Colonist. He also noted that the faded lines became the top complaint from motorists in the province. So why is this being covered in Reformed Perspective? Because it is another example of how everything is fundamentally a worldview issue. God entrusted the civil government with the duty of restraining lawlessness and promoting good order (Belgic Confession, Article 36). Keeping lines on the road keeps vehicles on the road and protects human life. But our federal government doesn’t have any objective standards for what constitutes justice and good order. Reducing smog, even in the majority of the country where smog isn’t an issue, trumps safety on the road. In many ways, the faded lines are an apt symbol of the faded Christian norms that this country isn’t interested in reviving, even to our own harm....

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Assorted

Fun is something you make

11 tips for family road trips ***** “Bored” is a curse word in our house. Say that word, and my mom is liable to wash your mouth out with soap. Because here’s the thing: boredom is just a socially acceptable word for ingratitude, for being discontent with the things God gives us. Your kids have plenty of toys and activities to occupy themselves, so why are they coming to you looking for something to do? Maybe it’s because we tend to think the toys are the ones doing all the work, the ones keeping kids from getting bored, when in reality, the child is the one bringing the fun. As with everything else, this is a heart issue. This is an attitude that needs changing. And that is all well and good if you are in your home, surrounded by possibilities during a normal day. But let’s say you’re in a situation where you literally have nothing to do, like waiting in the waiting room of the hospital, or driving six long hours to visit relatives, or standing in a long line at the grocery store. How do you teach them to occupy themselves? How do you ban boredom from your family? It is fair to say that my family and I have done a lot of driving. We have always been the one family that is farther away from relatives, from town, from church, and from practically everything, so we have had to learn how to pass the time well! It bears repeating, so I’ll say again that with the tips and suggestions I have for you the key to the success of all remains gratitude. Without gratitude, without recognizing that God has given you the exact moment you are in and equipped you to delight in it, you are waiting for the game to entertain you, which almost always end in boredom. But if you enter everything with gratitude, it’s like sitting with your hands outstretched, just waiting for God to bless you with that present you know you’re getting. And the gift is ten times better when received in thankfulness. With that said, here is a list of things that have helped my siblings and me numerous times. Would you rather? A simple game where one player makes up two scenarios, and each of you say aloud which you would rather do if given the choice. Questions can be as wild or as ridiculous as can be! Encourage the players to explain the pros and cons of each situation, and the hows and whys. I have played this very recently, and my brother gave the following scenario: “Would you rather be on the very top of a skyscraper, or below the earth approximately the same height as the skyscraper?” Personally, I’d choose the skyscraper, because there’s no oxygen the deeper into the dirt you go, but my brother was assuming there would be air. See how many digressions there can be within one topic? Rock, paper, scissors A classic that is highly underrated! Play multiple rounds high speed, and your kids will dissolve into giggles. (Maybe it’s only me...) We have learned a trick to the game from watching YouTuber Mark Rober: You have rock, paper and scissors in a row in your head. Let’s say you start with rock. If you win with rock, you move to right, which would be paper. If you win with paper, you continue with scissors. Now, if you lost with rock, you go to the left, which would mean you would play scissors. If you lose with scissors, you play paper. This is a tested strategy by Mark Rober that, if followed, will help you win a disproportionate percentage of time. But if you want to have plain fun without all the technical junk, just play the game as you normally would. It’s still fun either way. 20 questions Definitely a go-to for us, because each person comes up with the weirdest things to think about! Each person has 20 questions to ask the one who has the topic in their head. If I’m thinking about spiders, well, you have 20 questions to find that out. No cheating! No giving hints! And make your topic as clear as possible. I once picked oblivion as a topic, and my siblings were infuriated because they couldn’t figure it out. It’s literally nothingness! You can’t guess that! (Which is why I chose it.) Make everything a competition I cannot begin to relate how many things my siblings and I turned into a competition! Who can leave their bare hand on the icy car window the longest? Who can hold their water bottle at arm’s length the longest? Who can make the silliest face? Who can hold their breath the longest? And the list goes on! (All of those examples are real competitions that have been hosted in our van on long drives, and all too recently. I participated in them all. In fact, I came up with them. Mad skills, anyone?) Buggy Fingers What an odd name for such a simple game that can be played anywhere, because everybody I know possesses fingers! Many long hospital stays granted us ample opportunity to play Buggy Fingers. You stick your pointer finger out, and this becomes the head and face of “Buggy,” while the rest of the fingers on that hand act as the legs. Now, the original character, made by my father, was named Artie, and Artie would eat everything in sight, but finding it inedible, would spit it out and grunt, “Needs salt.” The future generations of Artie broadened their horizons, and tales were spun surrounding these little misbehaving fingers. Stuffed animal adventures Grab those stuffed animals, because you’ll be needing them here. My older sister and I would place our stuffed animals on the ledge of the windowsill of the car, and pretend they were on a motorcycle. The motorcycle would travel along the scenery that rushed past our windows. Was Kitty Cat about to collide with a barbed wire fence? Well, for pity’s sake, JUMP! Once you were over that obstacle, you might have to navigate through a field of smelly cows, and end up on the other side without getting caught by the farmer. So many stories and exciting adventures are at your fingertips here! Sing hymns My whole family loves to sing around the piano, and in fact our parents are trained musicians, so a love for singing runs deep in our veins. We enjoy bringing our church hymnal, the Cantus Christi, into the car, and singing in harmony to the various hymns selected, especially the 4-part melodies. It is much like caroling, but not in winter. And not to an audience. So feel free to warble your way through a song. We won’t laugh. Count cars Who hasn’t done this, seriously? My brother is an avid vehicle enthusiast, and he and my little sister began counting how many Teslas they would see on any given drive, because we live in the Seattle area, and Teslas seem to be popular there. There were so many Teslas, we soon got tired of counting them, so we have now moved on to cool and unusual cars, as well as vintage vehicles. Make landmarks We have driven across Washington State many, many times, and we have come to recognize familiar landmarks along the way. There’s the lonely tractor that’s always sitting at the base of a hill; there’s the bicycle that is parked by a street sign; there’s the company that Grandpa used to work for years ago, before we were born; there’s the blue bridge with the American flag mounted on it; there’s the train yard, where we count how many trains’ lights are on. I have such happy memories of those drives, and the excitement of searching for the “landmarks.” Make traditions As a child, my older sister and I were forever going to the children’s hospital in Seattle, and those doctor trips were depressing and no fun in and of themselves, but we made the time fun. There are a couple of tunnels you have to drive through on your way to that specific hospital, and my sister and I, as soon as we entered the tunnel, would suck in our breaths and hold them until the car emerged out the other side. Of course, Dad would slow down on purpose and see how purple he could make our faces by the time we finally could draw a breath. Another tradition we had was ducking under tunnels, overhead signs, and traffic signals. To signify this, we would shout “Duck!” To signal that it was clear, we would shout “Peacock!” The point is, make your own fun. With a bit of prodding, and a dreary situation to be placed in, you can come up with a lot of great games and memories that will be treasured for decades, and will hopefully help you survive those long relentless hours with nothing to do. Count it all joy I’ll say again, how much fun your kids have with these will depend largely on the gratitude they bring. They might not like you for reminding them of this, but they should take even boredom as an opportunity for joy, like the Apostle James says in James 1:2; “My brethren, count it all joy, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” God has given you so many gifts; you just have to use them....

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Pro-life - Euthanasia

Ontario shows why euthanasia “safeguards” can’t work

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

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News

Saturday Selections – June 7, 2025

Remy on tariffs If Scotland noticed how much more wine they import vs. how much they export, they'd discover they have quite the wine trade deficit with France. And how fair is that? There'd be nothing to do but impose tariffs on those scheming Frenchmen, right? Or we'd realize some countries can produce a good better and/or cheaper than others. And since getting better, cheaper goods is a boon for customers, we'd want our governments to stop using tariffs to protect homegrown uncompetitive producers at the expense of homegrown consumers. Why should the government be picking one over the other? Katy Faust: 4 million US babies victimized by IVF each year This seems like a high-end estimate – no one knows the exact number – but there is every reason to think it is in the millions, considering the more than 400,000 IVF cycles that were performed in 2021. Calling IVF pro-life does not make it so. 5 innovations that changed the world "When I was a child, more than one in four people around the world lived on or less. Today, only about one in twenty live on that little. This is the greatest anti-poverty achievement in world history. "So how did this remarkable transformation come to pass? Was it the fabulous success of the United Nations? The generosity of U.S. foreign aid? The brilliant policies of the International Monetary Fund and The World Bank? Stimulus spending and government redistribution? "No, it was primarily none of those things. Billions of souls have been able to pull themselves out of poverty thanks to five incredible innovations: globalization, free trade, property rights, the rule of law and entrepreneurship." World’s largest and smallest dogs meet – and illustrate biblical truth "Last month, a dog 'playdate' was in the news because the world’s tallest dog and the world’s shortest dog met for the first time." It was quite the contrast, and a good illustration of how all the animal kinds would have fit on the Ark. If a child can have three parents, why not 20? A court has struck down Quebec's two-parent limit, to allow for three. But why just three? If it's simply our desires and wishes that determine what a family is, then why not 5, 10, or 20? By what standard could you deny a "more the merrier" impulse? Only God's Word. Our culture doesn't get that, in large part because the Church doesn't get it either. Christians keep trying to argue for godly ends even as we exclude God from our own public square arguments. What that obscures is the real choice that needs to be made: Christ or chaos. Christian confusion on this point might come from how the chaos has been held at bay for a time even as our culture has long been godless. But even as Canada rejected God, our culture still had a veneer of Christianity – we benefited from the fruit that comes of obeying God in areas like marriage, sexuality, business, and gender. But as that veneer has gotten scrubbed off, the chaos that results from doing it our own way has become easier to see – abortion, men marrying men, children being sterilized with potions that promise impossibilities, and families that are boundless and little more than friend groups now with all the loyalty that entails. It is Christ or chaos. And when the Church starts believing it, we'll start preaching it. Then we can watch and see what the Holy Spirit will do when His Word is being proclaimed! Jimmy Clifton and Haddon – Pinching pennies They might not have many pennies in their future, but these two friends are very happy about their respective brides. A Bobby McFerrin-style joy-filled celebration ...

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Assorted

Our family’s trip to the Ark

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

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News

642 Canadian babies were born alive and left to die

A Canadian pro-life researcher has found that, in the past five years in Canada, 642 babies were born alive after a failed abortion attempt. The data comes from the Canadian Institute for Health Information and doesn’t include statistics from Quebec. When news of live births after abortions first broke over ten years ago, abortion proponents justified it by saying that it simply meant that the fetus exhibited a heartbeat or signs of motion after delivery, even if it had no chance of survival. Although three Conservative MPs called on the RCMP to investigate these deaths in 2013, nothing public has been done. Even sadder, when the statistics are updated each year, it hardly gets noticed. Canada’s Criminal Code defines a human being as “a child that has completely proceeded from the body of its mother in a living state, regardless of whether it has breathed, has independent circulation, or the umbilical cord is severed.” It follows that up with “A person commits homicide when he causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being.” In other words, even Canada’s lax law – which offers no protection for the unborn – does declare that these born babies have been murdered. Regardless of what stage an abortion occurs at, a life has been taken, and over that same 5-year time period somewhere around a half million Canadians were murdered in the womb. But they had no protection under the law. What’s different here is that these 642+ deaths prove that our Criminal Code definition of a human being can be tossed aside if it gets in the way of our choices....

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News

Saturday Selections – May 24, 2025

Whiter than snow - Jimmy Clifton and Haddon Some high-energy Christian folk coming at you. Kevin DeYoung on why struggling with difficult doctrines is good for us "One of the reasons that doctrine is in Scripture is to reshape us from an anthropocentric view – a man-centered view of the world that asks, What do I think? How does this make me feel? – to a theocentric view of the world, where God calls the shots and God’s pleasure is ultimate. That is a painful journey for many people, but ultimately it’s good for us and it’s for God’s glory." 4 ways to squash your child's imagination (5-minute read) "In the early 1900s, a classmate described future Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner as 'the laziest boy I ever saw . . . he would do nothing but write and draw.' Albert Einstein was such a daydreamer that his teacher declared he would amount to nothing. Over centuries and across the globe, the wonder of a child’s imagination has clashed with the hard, iron-cold realities of a grown-up world." Is TikTok the ultimate contraception? "Recently, Finnish sociologist Anna Rotkirch published an article in the Berlin Review entitled, 'The TikTok Baby Bust.' In it, she explains how the introduction of the app coincided with a rise in 'anti-natalist values memes,' worsening mental health (especially for girls), and degrading social skills. Specifically, TikTok users became 'more likely to embrace the idea that "I want to do other interesting things in life besides having a child."’” Anal sex linked to incontinence Not the Bee had an article this week about how a woman, Sarah Stock, gave a pretty solid argument against homosexuality to a homosexual, while the two of them debated on camera. What struck me was a 2016 article Not the Bee linked to, to back one of her points – it noted that anal sex among men is linked to more than a doubling in incontinence among men. That might strike you as such a predictable result it almost isn't worth reporting, but it startled the young man who Sarah Stock was debating. What was also notable about the Reuters news service article that reported this finding, was its oh-so-cautious conclusion: "More research is needed to understand how anal sex might lead to incontinence, though it’s possible that the practice contributes to decreased anal sphincter tone that leads to stool leakage in some people, Whitehead said." Just possible? I wonder if Reuters is similarly timid about claims they report concerning global warming, evolution, and gender? Yes, parents are qualified to teach their children There is a certain sense in which we are all homeschoolers, whether you send your child to a Christian school or teach them at home. That's because you are responsible for their education. Teachers are there to help, and a big help they can be, but they didn't make our parental baptismal vows for us. ...

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Apologetics 101

Forewarned is forearmed: Seeing through 5 common logical fallacies

“I have no other but a woman’s reason; I think him so, because I think him so. That’s Shakespeare poking fun at the irrationality of a female character in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It’s the lack of logic that makes this a bit funny. But that sort of illogic is found just as often among men. How many times have you heard a man pontificate and yet really say no more than “I feel that is what the Bible teaches. I don’t really know why, but that’s what I believe.” In other words, “I think it’s so, because I think it’s so.” Now when it concerns the Bible, that sort of illogic isn’t even a bit funny! Fun with fallacies Illogical thinking and logical fallacies came with sin. The two illustrations above are both examples of a fallacy called Circular Reasoning. A classic Peanuts cartoon that you might remember had the following dialogue: First Panel Lucy: “You don’t believe me, do you? Well it’s a scientific fact that girls are smarter than boys.” Linus wisely say nothing Second Panel Lucy: “And do you know who discovered it?” Again Linus maintains his detachment and says nothing. Third Panel Lucy: “Woman scientists!” Linus loses the argument and his composure. In this circular argument Lucy asserts girls are smarter than boys because scientists have proven it. We know these scientists are right because they are girls, and girls are smarter! Obviously the comic strip is humorous because of the logical fallacy. So we don’t have to be one hundred per cent logical all the time – we can have some fun with illogic. Nor must we always draw the same conclusion from the same scenario. I married a beautiful woman. Now, forty years later, she has a few grey hairs and maybe even a wrinkle or two. To me she is more beautiful than ever. You may think that’s illogical, but that’s because you don’t see her the way I do. I have a son who is convinced Coca Cola has more flavor than Pepsi, but in a blind taste test he always picks Pepsi as the best. That has never changed his conviction, because, as he puts it, “the Coke sample must have been stale.” I shake my head at his pig-headedness – but his delusion is not of material significance. Nevertheless, logical fallacies came with sin, and it is important to recognize them when they are used to mislead or misrepresent. Ad Hominem In the book The Fallacy Detective readers are taught to recognize various techniques used commonly to mislead or misdirect an argument. One of these has a fancy Latin name, Ad Hominem, which means literally “to the person.” In practice it is a personal attack, questioning the motives or the reputation of the opponent, instead of disproving his position. Already in the Garden of Eden we see this technique used successfully. God told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would surely die. Satan denied this, and claimed that God had a hidden motive to lie to Adam and Eve – Satan attacked God’s character: “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good evil.” An absolute lie, but in Eve’s eyes God’s credibility has been undermined and she falls for Satan’s whole scenario. In politics we see this technique used so often that the term “smear campaign” has become part of our vocabulary Red Herring Another frequently used tactic is the Red Herring, an irrelevant point brought in to divert the attention from the real problem or matter at hand. A red herring is a dead fish, an over-ripe dead fish, which a trainer uses to test tracking dogs. The dog is to follow the moose trail, or whatever you’re tracking, and not be diverted by the scent of the red herring that has been dragged across the primary trail. Now reflect on the behavior of Moses when the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. God has for him an assignment that Moses does not want. Does he say so? Oh no! “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh…?” “What if they do not believe me or listen to me…?” “I have never been eloquent… I am slow of speech.” Finally, after God has armed him with an assortment of signs and miracles to overcome all his so-called objections, Moses reveals the real problem – he just does not want to go: “O LORD, please send someone else to do it.” That’s what it was all about! The objections were just red herrings! As kids we have all use this tactic in its most elementary form. Mom asks “How come your boots have water in them again?” The reply invariably is something like “Oh mom, you ought to see Johnny’s. His boots were filled right to the top.” Genetic Fallacy The Genetic Fallacy is another personal attack fallacy. Yet it does not attack the person, but attacks the argument for where it came from: it condemns the argument because of where it began, how it began, or who began it. For example, a couple of years ago I read an excellent article on biblical headship. It was good solid scriptural material. Yet it was criticized by a few because it had been written by a bachelor. On one occasion Moses too received that sort of criticism. Two Hebrew men were fighting and Moses asked the one in the wrong “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” The man avoided the question by criticizing the source: “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” A few years ago I listened to author Scott Klusendorf speak eloquently against abortion. Said one woman in the audience: “What do you know about this? You are not a woman.” She found it necessary to attack the person who brought the message because she was unable to undermine the message itself. Faulty Appeal to Authority One fallacy that is of particular importance to us as Christians is the Faulty Appeal to Authority. In our debates and discussions we, as Christians, properly appeal to the authority of the Word of God. Similarly, we use quotes from The Heidelberg Catechism, The Canons of Dort or The Apostles’ Creed, again quite properly because they have an authority derived from their faithfulness to the Scriptures. Likewise, we quote Synod decisions as authoritative because, as stated in Article 31 of the Church Order, “whatever may be agreed upon by a majority vote shall be considered binding (i.e. authoritative), unless it be proved to be in conflict with the Word of God.” All of these are examples of a proper appeal to authority. A faulty appeal to authority, for example, is demonstrated by the Pharisees when they appealed to the traditions of men as authoritative. In Mark 7 we read of one such tradition: goods that could have been used to support needy parents could be withheld from them by pledging the goods to the temple service. Such a pledge did not have to specify a date of fulfillment. Thus the unfaithful son continued to profit from the property withheld from his parents. It was all quite legal according to the tradition of the elders as taught by the Pharisees. Christ warned them that their teachings were a faulty appeal to these traditions as authoritative, because these traditions were in conflict with God’s Word. He said to them “…Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ …but you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘whatever help you might have received from me is a gift devoted to God’, then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down…” In everyday discussions we have all run into the same difficulty. “We’ve always done it that way” is sometimes the final determination, no matter what the pros or cons of the considerations. More frequently a faulty appeal to authority is an appeal to someone who has no special expertise in the area being discussed. Simply put, if you want to quote someone on the best way to treat an enlarged prostate, quote an urologist, not a young auto young mechanic who has neither studied nor experienced the problem. Yet that sort of thing happens all the time. Movie stars tell us about the benefits of particular toothpaste, hockey players hype the nutrition value of a popular cereal, or bishops are interviewed about military strategy or economic plans. The Either-Or Fallacy In this short essay we only have room to tackle one more bit of illogical thinking – the Either-Or fallacy (in their book, The Fallacy Detective, the authors tackle about two dozen different fallacies). When someone asserts that we must choose between two things, when in fact we have more than two alternatives, he is using this fallacy. You’ve heard or used it, I’m sure: “If I do the chores I won’t be able to finish my homework and the teacher will fail me.” One of the options, failing, is so absurd or unthinkable that we are being manipulated to choose the other option. This fallacy is obvious to any experienced mother. She realizes that there is another possibility: Don’t procrastinate, and you’ll be able to do both. Conclusion So what’s the point of all this? Every day we are faced with questionable logic in our secular newspapers and even in our Christian publications. Often we accept their conclusions intuitively, because our own reasoning skills are very poor. Learning to recognize the most common logical fallacies will enable us to listen and to read more critically and analytically. Forewarned is forearmed! This was originally published in the July/August 2004 issue under the title “Forewarned is forearmed: how to recognize the most common logical fallacies.”...

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