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RPTV, Sexuality

RPTV: Jojo Ruba talking about Canada's Conversion Therapy Bill

Welcome to Reformed Perspective, I'm Alexandra Ellison.

Today we're here in the Canadian History Museum, reflecting on Canada's past. We're right now in front of the LGBTQ history section, and it's quite interesting to reflect on how things have changed. Today we're going to be talking about Bill C-4, which was first passed in 2021: the conversion therapy bill.

I had a conversation with JoJo Ruba, a Christian apologist and communications director at Free to Care, reflecting on the history of the conversion therapy bill, and what this means for Christians, churches, and the general public.

JoJo Ruba: Free to Care was a ministry that started about two years ago when conversion therapy legislation and bans were being put in place, particularly here in Alberta where I live; and these bans are so intrusive and badly written, that simple counseling by consenting adults is now criminal. And LGBTQ people no longer have access to that and Christians can no longer provide that support; so Free to Care now, as there's been legislation passed federally, is working to educate and equip churches and pastors and ordinary Christians to continue to support their LGBTQ-identified friends and family, and to continue to share the gospel even in this issue, believing full well that God can do wonderful things for people who are same-sex attracted, like myself.

Alexandra Ellison: Yeah, and you know, going back to 2021, when Bill C-4 – the conversion therapy bill – was passed, could you kind of talk about that for people that maybe haven't heard much about it, or maybe just heard what they saw from the mainstream media?

JoJo Ruba: Yeah, no, the mainstream media didn't cover much of it. It actually started with a man named Kris Wells out here in Alberta.

Kristopher Wells : So today, in 2019, conversion therapy largely takes place underground; you won't be able to walk into a licensed counselor’s office and ask them to engage in this practice, because it would be deemed to be unethical and unprofessional. So we largely see conversion therapy happening underground in faith-based communities, which makes it harder to detect, but also more dangerous, the more underground a practice like this goes.

JoJo Ruba: So the bylaws here in Alberta actually define conversion therapy as any practice, treatment, or service that offers even LGBTQ people simply to help reduce unwanted same-sex sexual behavior; not just attraction, behavior. So we called up about 25 counseling agencies, secular psychologists and psychiatrists, asked them for help with porn addiction. And all of them that did sexual addiction counseling said yes. But when we said it was gay porn addiction, suddenly they didn't want to help anymore. And two counseling agencies even said, we will let you get help, but you can't mention it's gay porn. So which is exactly the point we're making, right?

This isn't a ban on torturing people, which is what the common mindset was, as with why the LGBTQ people were pushing this was because they had said, ‘Many of us have experienced torture, we were forced under, were tricked into getting counseling from these churches. And all they were trying to do is make us not gay.’ And so this narrative that homosexuality is this immutable identity was really at the heart of the debate, Alexandra, and the challenge was for us to actually speak to that mindset, to say as Christians, we actually don't believe sexuality should be your identity; we believe that we are much bigger, much better, more important than who we want to sleep with, or what kind of clothing we want to wear today. And we think God has designed us to find our identity in Christ, which means our priorities or choices are all about following how God designed us and not how we think about ourselves. And that we love people because we and they are made in God's image, not in our own image. That's the big mistake that this legislation is pushing.

And so after the Calgary bylaw was passed, the same organizers, Kris Wells in particular, brought this to the federal level. So what happened was the Liberals called an election, the Bill had to be reintroduced as Bill C-4, it was called C-6 before – and Bill C-4, that's when they actually added that this also, this bill also applies to consenting adults. Before, consenting adults may have been challenged, but it wasn't specific, now it is specific that consenting adults, consenting Canadians can no longer access the counseling that they want if they're simply wanting to reduce same-sex sexual behavior.

So we pointed out at this point, if you're providing marriage counseling, if your pastor is providing a marriage counseling – and of course marriage counseling means that you make a commitment to say, hey, we're not gonna be sleeping around with anyone other than our spouse, right? Of course, I mean, this is 2000 years of Christian teaching and the Jews before that, right? It's not a surprise, we teach that. Well, if that counseling includes, well, you can’t have sex with someone of your own sex, that's technically conversion therapy counseling now, and that's technically criminal, when by the way the results of that, the punishment, is five years in jail for offering that kind of counseling, and three years in jail for simply giving the phone number out of a pastor or Christian counselor, who would help you reduce your same-sex behavior.

 That Bill went through, who because of the Conservatives and Liberals and the rest of the parties coming together said we're not going to debate it, even though it was radically changed by adding consenting adults. And we're going to pass it without any public inputs.

Speaker of the House of Commons : Accordingly, all those opposed to the honourable Member moving the motion, will please say nay. Agreed. The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay. There being no dissenting voice, I declare the motion carries.

JoJo Ruba: All they needed was one MP to say no, we're not going to let that happen; we need it to go through a democratic process. No MP from the Conservative Party; to vote against that, all we needed was one. And so it became law, the end of 2021, beginning of 2022. But here's the problem. The Liberals actually passed legislation that said, the Justice Department has to provide legal analysis for any new criminal legislation that would change the Criminal Code. Well, that analysis never came out until the day this Bill got royal assent and became law. So there's no way the Members of Parliament would have read that legal analysis. And particularly that legal analysis said exactly the same thing we were saying during committee stage: what you're doing is potentially violating the Charter rights of consenting adults to have the conversations that they want to have. And this Kris Wells guy actually compares people like myself, who’s a consenting adult, to drunk drivers who are incapable of making decisions. He actually did a CBC video saying that. So this is the kind of mindset that we're dealing with.

And Alexandra, just to summarize all of this, it's been a year and a half now, almost two years since the Bill was passed. And not one person has been charged under this law. But what's interesting is during the time of this debate, the people who were pushing for this law said thousands of gay kids were being tortured in church basements as we speak. That's the kind of language they were using, ‘thousands.’ Well, if that's the case, then we should have had at least one person being, you know, rescued from these awful Christians, torturing them in the church basements. But again, torture and kidnapping are already criminal beyond this law. So that hasn't happened. And in fact, the first conversion therapy events in Vancouver and in Ontario for kids already were passed around 2015. So none of these laws or bylaws, both provincially and municipally, and federally, have had any one person convicted, or charged.

So that tells me there's something else going on here in terms of legislation. And what we think it is and we've seen this sadly happen is it actually creates a chill effect among churches and pastors – so that churches are themselves self-censoring. One large church here had their pastor actually tell someone, that if someone, even a member of his own congregation, came to him asking for help dealing with same-sex attraction, he would refuse to help them. And that's the kind of stuff we're sadly seeing, because Christians are not understanding the ramifications of this. If the government can dictate what we believe, and how we practice our beliefs, even within our own members, in terms of how we teach the Bible, what the Bible teaches on sexuality, on this issue – they can do that on any issue. And the secular government coming into the churches, saying we will police you if you start praying for gay people and to help them not act the way they don't want to act themselves as consenting adults. That has to be something we understand is the most egregious religious freedom violation – in fact, human rights violation that is the case right now in Canada, I would argue.

Alexandra Ellison: Yeah, well, I think it's great. Just, you know, thank you for taking the time to go over the history and what has happened. Kind of reflecting on that, as Christians, especially, you know, a large audience who's watching us are Christians, how should we react to this and is there anything that we can do to fight against legislation like this, even though it has already been passed?

JoJo Ruba: Well, any legislation that's passed, of course, is always subject to the will of the democracy. So, as Augustine, I think it was, I think it was one of the one of the Catholic MPs actually told me, culture is always affecting politics. In fact, politics is downstream to culture. Which means if we want to change the law, we want to change the culture first. And part of the conversations that the church has to have is on sexuality and gender identity, being able to give a positive, life-affirming, real-person discussion, where we focus on God's truth and love for humanity. And the fact that because He loves us, He gives us rules on how we ought to behave. Right. So that's part of the conversation training I provided for you. I’m writing a book on that actually, hopefully, you guys here, your audience, I'd love to hear your prayers for this. And if you want to order one next year, hopefully, it'll be done by this time next year. We would love to share that with you. But it's about redeeming conversations. So that's part of the title, where we want to redeem the opportunity, so to have conversations with people.

One of the saddest things, Alexandra, that I saw was the Members of Parliament debating the issue during question period during the debate on the Bill. And you could just see how ignorant so many of these Members of Parliament are not just of the Bill itself, but of Christians in general. So there were several Bloc Québécois MPs, for example, en français, who said we need to re-educate these ignorant, small minority groups of people who are torturing kids, basically, with Bibles. They often reference movies where kids were tortured with Bibles. When I went through my counseling that never happened, the person read the Bible with me, we prayed together. And he helped me understand that sexual attractions are things that I have, it's not things that we are unless we want to make them that way. And I've never acted on or identified as gay, because that's not what I am. And I think it's important to give that kind of messaging to the culture around us, especially to young people. But there's gonna be many times where we will find ourselves sexually attracted to or sexually confused in all kinds of ways. That's okay. But that's part of a fallen world.

The challenge is, what do you do with that? What do you do with those attraction? What do you do with those feelings? Do you take the time to submit them to God and trust that God's design is good? Or do you act out and follow what the culture says you ought to become or do or be, right? So the first step is really we need to get our house in order if we as churches want to deal with this issue publicly. And with this law, we want to make sure our Christian community is actually solid on this issue. And sadly, there are Christian denominations, including Reformed denominations, that have gone completely off their rocker on this issue.

As we reflect on the two years since the passage of Bill C-4, it's essential for Christians to stand firm in their faith and continue to reflect biblical sexuality, even if that means going against what the world has to say.

If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up and share it with family and friends. For Reformed Perspective, I'm Alexandra Ellison in Ottawa.

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Sexuality

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In a Nutshell

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Practice makes better I had a friend who makes it a point of pride not to open doors for women because. “Women are just as capable of opening doors...
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Gender roles

Different is good! God created male and female

God created males and females to be very different from each other. That’s obvious to us as Christians and to most other clear-thinking people. But to leftwing ideologues who see any recognition of difference as “inequality,” accepting such difference is a form of heresy. For example, many feminists consider any difference between males and females to be the result of “social conditioning” – the two genders are only different, they say, because our “patriarchal” society imposes differing expectations on boys and girls. And once the government and its education system have properly imposed “equality” on society, then the differences between men and women will disappear. Leonard Sax In recent years, that ideological perspective has been thoroughly refuted by scientific studies of the human body. Many of these studies and their implications are summarized by psychologist and medical doctor Leonard Sax in the book Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences. Sax is not coming to this issue from any sort of Christian or social conservative perspective. He is not opposed to homosexual behavior, and as a medical doctor he prescribes birth control to sixteen-year-old girls without their parents’ knowledge. In other words, he is not a believer, or a conservative as such. He is simply frustrated by the harmful effects of leftwing ideology on children. When Sax was trained at university, most professors accepted the ideological view that male and female differences are socially conditioned rather than being natural and intrinsic. He refers to this view as "the dogma of 'social constructionism,' the belief that differences between girls and boys derive exclusively from social expectations with no input from biology." Attention Deficit Disorder? After practicing medicine for a few years, he suddenly saw a huge increase in the number of grade 2 and 3 boys being sent to him with notes from their teachers saying they have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and needed medication. This glut of supposedly ADD boys alerted Sax to the fact that something was wrong. As it turns out, it wasn’t that the boys were ill or needed medication. It turned out that boys have a different sort of learning style than girls, and that the current method of teaching in many schools favors the female learning style. When boys have a hard time paying attention in class they are diagnosed as having ADD and given drugs to cope with that “problem.” But in most cases these boys don’t actually have a problem. They’re just not being taught the way boys need to be taught. As Sax summarizes the situation, “The failure to recognize and respect sex differences in child development has done substantial harm over the past thirty years.” The brains of male and female humans have significant differences, especially during infancy and childhood. These differences affect the way children learn and thus are relevant when considering how they should be educated. Girls draw nouns, boys draw verbs Take the eye, for example. Baby girls are naturally interested in looking at faces while baby boys are more interested in looking at moving objects. According to Sax, “The reason for that difference has to do with sex differences in the anatomy of the eye.” The anatomy of the eye is different for males and females. It is impossible for the differences to be the result of social conditioning. And these differences are significant. Sax says that, "We’re not talking about small differences between the sexes, with lots of overlap. We’re talking about large differences between the sexes, with no overlap at all." Such biological differences between boys and girls are reflected in a number of ways. For example, when boys and girls are given paper and crayons to draw with, the difference reflects itself in the kinds of pictures that result. Boys tend to portray movement and action more than girls. “Psychologist Donna Tuman summarizes the difference this way: girls draw nouns, boys draw verbs.” Toys In feminist ideology, boys and girls play with different kinds of toys because their parents give them the kinds of toys they are expected to play with. Boys get “boy toys” like balls, trains, and cars, while girls get “girl toys” like dolls, and baby carriages. The feminists argue that if the boys were given girl toys, and the girls given boy toys, the children would turn out differently – the boys would express more femininity in their play and the girls would express more masculinity in their play. But the actual research done on children as young as nine-months-old demonstrates that boys naturally gravitate to boy toys and girls to girl toys. Their respective interest in those kinds of toys is natural, not the result of social conditioning. The feminists are wrong again. This is how Sax summarizes the overall situation: "Girls and boys play differently. They learn differently. They fight differently. They see the world differently. They hear differently. When I started graduate school in 1980, most psychologists were insisting that those differences came about because parents raised girls and boys in different ways. Today we know that the truth is the other way around: parents raise girls and boys differently because girls and boys are so different from birth. Girls and boys behave differently because their brains are wired differently." This is a point that bears repeating: “The bottom line is that the brain is just organized differently in females and males.” And the organization of the brain is not something that can be conditioned by a “patriarchal” society. Danger and violence Sax discusses a number of other ways that boys and girls differ. One of the most interesting is their reaction to danger. Generally speaking, when a girl is confronted by danger she feels fearful. But in many cases a boy confronted with the same danger will experience a thrill. Boys often seek out dangerous activities for fun. This is less common in girls. Sax notes that, “Studies in the United States and around the world universally find that boys are more likely to engage in physically risky activities.” Boys often get enjoyment from activities that most girls want to avoid. Boys are also less adverse to violence than girls. Much like the situation with danger, “many young boys get a thrill from violent or quasi-violent confrontation. Most young girls don’t.” This fact has educational implications because it affects the kind of literature that will interest most boys: "Boys as young as two years of age, given a choice between violent fairy tales and warm and fuzzy fairy tales, usually choose the violent stories. Girls as young as two years of age consistently choose the warm and fuzzy stories." Discipline and spanking Sax has a long discussion on how girls and boys need different kinds of discipline. In his view, boys tend to need strict authoritarian discipline, which includes spanking. However, he does not believe girls respond positively to spanking and advises parents not to spank girls. This differs from the Christian view since girls are not exempt from spanking in the Bible. However, because he does recommend spanking for boys, he spends some time defending spanking as a legitimate form of discipline. He refutes the argument that spanking leads to child abuse saying, "Parents who love their young son and spank him only occasionally when he does something really outrageous are at no more risk of becoming child abusers than are parents who never spank." He also points out that some countries have outlawed spanking and doing so has not decreased child abuse at all. "Sweden, for example, passed a law in 1979 making it illegal for parents to spank their children. But a Swedish government study conducted in 1995 showed a fourfold increase in child abuse in the years following passage of the law. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the law somehow caused an increase in child abuse. But it certainly provides no support for the theory that outlawing spanking will decrease child abuse." Sax makes another very valuable point. Children have not changed in the last few decades. They still misbehave. How is that misbehavior dealt with? In the “olden days” children were spanked. Now, rather than receiving a spanking, “these kids are instead being put on calming behavior-modifying drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, and Metadate.” Sax points out the hypocrisy of this current state of affairs: “In a bizarre turn of events, it’s become politically incorrect to spank your child, but it’s okay to drug him.” This situation is tied to a larger philosophical change. As Sax describes it, "Fifty years ago, bad behavior was considered a disciplinary problem. If you misbehaved, you needed to be punished. Today bad behavior is more often considered a psychiatric problem. Kids who misbehave are referred to a specialist for a diagnosis – and for treatment, often with medication." Spanking and human nature There is an important aspect to the debate over spanking that Sax understands much better than most people. At the root of this dispute is a difference over human nature. Are humans naturally sinful or naturally good? If children are born sinful, then it stands to reason that force will be needed to direct them into positive behavior patterns. But if children are naturally good rather than sinful, then corporal punishment is never necessary. Other forms of correction are assumed to be superior and preferable. If children are born good, as the currently dominant worldview believes, then bad behavior must be the result of bad parenting, poor nutrition, ADD, violent entertainment, or something like that. Spanking can’t solve any of those problems because they’re not the children’s fault. Instead, the children need some sort of medical treatment to deal with their misbehavior. But as Christians we know that children are born with sinful natures. They are not born good. Thus spanking will always be needed as a form of discipline for children. The current effort to criminalize spanking is a direct attack on the Christian doctrine of original sin. The opponents of spanking do not believe in original sin and therefore reject its implications for child discipline. Instead, they want to impose their preferred methods of child-raising (based on the assumed natural goodness of children) through government coercion. Conclusion Sax summarizes his message this way: "Human nature is gendered to the core. Work with your child’s nature, work with your child’s innate gender-based propensities, rather than trying to reshape them according to the dictates of late-twentieth-century political correctness." Recognizing these gender differences and taking them into account in child-raising and education is best for everyone involved, especially the children themselves. The idea that gender differences are instilled by a patriarchal society, and can be eliminated by imposing an egalitarian society, is simply a feminist ideological fantasy. It has no basis in reality. And the efforts that are taken to enforce this fantasy are harmful to the children who become its victims. God deliberately made males and females to be very different from each other. As the French say, vive la difference! This was first published in the September 2015 issue under the title "Different is good! God created males and females to be very different"....

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News, RPTV

RPTV: Hamilton-bus pro-life ad ruling is a technical win, but still a win

TRANSCRIPT Welcome to Reformed Perspective, I'm Alexandra Ellison. Today we are here in Hamilton, Ontario right outside the Provincial Court to cover ARPA's legal battle against the city of Hamilton in a case that has captured the attention of pro-life advocates. The central issue is whether ARPA Hamilton has the right to display a pro-life advertisement on the side of a city bus. In the spring of 2021 ARPA Hamilton attempted to post a pro-life ad on a city bus when MP Cathay Wagantall's bill to ban sex-selective abortion was before Parliament. John Boekee: The work we were doing at the time was advocating for the sex-selective abortion bill. The ad said we're for women's rights, and through pictures, it applied that to women of several different ages. We thought to say that we're for women's rights shouldn't be that controversial. Yet they were able to connect it to abortion, so for that reason, it was rejected. The city's reasoning for rejecting the ad is rooted in their assertion that a pre-born child does not qualify as a human being under the criminal code, and thus is not a person. Using a personal pronoun implied personhood and was thus misleading. John Sikkema: In our case against the City of Hamilton, we had a fairly brief hearing at the Ontario Court in the city of Hamilton. The court decided that Hamilton was not justified in rejecting our ad, so in that sense, the case was a win for ARPA. The court said that the city had not explained to us, in writing, how it limited our freedom of expression, and so the court sent it back. The court said this decision fails – you, the city of Hamilton, need to give reasons on freedom of expression. Now, truth be told, that's not how we wanted to win. We had actually framed the case, not as a freedom of expression case, first of all, but as questioning the city's finding that our ad violates the city's advertising policy. So what we had wanted was for the court to look at that policy and to find that the ad does not violate it and we think we had pretty good arguments for why that was the case. The court didn't hear those arguments and kind of decided it on, again, a bit of a more technical issue. So while it's a technical win, it's not really what we wanted to accomplish with this case because pro-life ads keep getting rejected as being allegedly misleading, and violating advertising policy. So, at this point, we have to decide, do we wait to see what the next decision is from the City of Hamilton and challenge that? Do we possibly appeal the decision of this court even though technically we won? Those are things we'll have to decide as we get the written reasons from the court for its decision, which we don't have yet. John Boekee: When you are frustrated with human judges and human courts, we turn to that, that He is the judge of all the earth, and in the end there will be justice. We are thankful for that, and we can rest in that. But there is also frustration at human judges who give us so little time after so much work had been put in, so that is very frustrating. But we can be thankful that there is still appeal, and there is still a justice system. So trusting that God is the Judge of all the earth, that also gives us the motivation to keep working and to keep going day-to-day to do what He's called us to. And that wraps up our coverage of the ARPA Hamilton case. We'll continue to follow this case closely and bring updates as they unfold. Thank you for joining us today – please feel free to support our work by subscribing to this channel and sharing this video with friends and family. For Reformed Perspective, I'm Alexander Ellison in Hamilton, Ontario....

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Culture Clashes

World gone woke

This is an overview of “World Gone Woke,” Episode #75 from Lucas Holtvlüwer and Tyler Vanderwoude’s Real Talk podcast. Real Talk is a bi-weekly podcast of Reformed Perspective featuring great conversations on everything from propaganda to pornography. If you haven’t checked it out, you really should. And you really can, at RealTalkPodcast.ca. ***** What does it mean to be “woke”? What challenges does the “woke” world present to the Church, and especially for the younger members of the body? Real Talk’s Lucas Holtvlüwer recently sat down with Pastor Greg Bylsma to talk about the “world gone woke,” and other challenges for Christians today. Rev. Bylsma developed a passion for evangelism as a teenager already, studying missions at Redeemer College, before becoming a theological student at Mid-America Reformed Seminary. He has served Living Water URC in Brantford, Ontario for the past thirteen years. Being woke sounds good In broad terms, Rev. Bylsma defined woke culture as the idea of becoming awakened to all the prejudices and discriminations that exist in the world, and newly alerted to the effects of these prejudices on the downtrodden. “When you become ‘woke,’ you begin to see all the aggressions and ‘micro aggressions’ (against minority groups, non-traditional sexual identities, or different viewpoints).” And when you are woke, you will dedicate yourself to fighting this oppression, which exists whether or not others around you are woke enough to see it. The woke movement talks about “systemic racism” – prejudice against other beliefs and races that permeates all of our societal and governmental structures. The more woke one is, the more devoted one becomes to tearing down these structures and rebuilding a new world without prejudice or oppression. Holtvlüwer noted that on the surface, this can sound good, and Rev. Bylsma agreed: of course we as Christians want to fight oppression and prejudice, and we must be opposed to all racism. But the devil is in the details: when Satan and the world use what seems to be a righteous cause, to tear down the Judeo-Christian foundations of a society, the result is chaos where “everyone does what is right in his own eyes.” How should we deal with the woke movement in the Church? Rev. Bylsma recommended that Christians be very careful to examine what the underlying meanings are of slogans used by the woke movement: “’Love is love’ is not a statement we can stand behind because of what it has come to mean.” It means that all types of sexual love are acceptable and must be allowed, which of course is in contrast with Biblical teaching. “We can’t fly the gay pride flag, because it symbolizes acceptance of homosexuality as not sinful,” he noted. One of the tools Rev. Bylsma recommended was the “New Reformation Catechism on Human Sexuality” written by Rev. Chris Gordon, which cuts through a lot of the confusion around sexuality and gender, using clear Biblical instruction. At the same time, we want to recognize that all sinners are called to repentance, and people who are living a homosexual lifestyle are sinners that we should want to see saved to renewal in Christ. “We should be welcoming to LGBTQ people, we should want to preach the Gospel to them… But we can’t pretend that sin is OK,” the pastor explained. Bylsma continued, “The Bible differentiates between one who is a sinner who is not a believer, and one who is a believer but continues in sin.” He referenced especially 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul differentiates between the sexually immoral, the greedy, and the swindlers who are of the world, from those continuing in sin who claim to be Christians – those who bear the name of brother. “We are not to associate with those who claim to be Christians who also persist in sin and say that this is OK. We can and should walk away from those who persist in sin and claim to be Christ’s.” Rev. Bylsma also noted that Paul puts sexual immorality on the same plane as greed and swindling – so it’s not the great sin; it’s just like greed, just like swindling. It is a sin like other sins. But Christians who insist that being a practicing homosexual is OK, or that changing genders is acceptable, can’t be treated the same as one who is ignorant of the Bible. “ dealing with someone in your friend group, and they’re claiming to be gay, or a girl claiming to be a boy, and they say they’re a Christian, and there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing… the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 5 that we should have nothing to do with that person.  First, we follow the rule of Matthew 18, but if they refuse to accept admonition, refuse to accept that this is sin, then we no longer have a relationship with that person.” This is different from someone who is questioning their sexuality or questioning their gender. “If they’re wrestling with these things, and they’re a friend, then we continue to talk with them. them towards good advice (a pastor, a parent, a Christian counselor)... Don’t shun them; keep them in your connections. Be a friend! You don’t have to be a Christian counselor. Especially young people should not think they need to be the counselor themselves…” Let’s recognize that we all have areas in which we struggle with sin, especially sexual temptation. We should not excuse our own sinful tendencies. We all need Christ; we all need the same Savior. What’s coming, and how to be prepared Holtvlüwer wondered what might be coming next in terms of the woke movement, and how we can prepare for it. “I don’t know what’s coming,” replied Rev. Bylsma. “But Canada is moving ahead very fast with woke ideology. Faster than Europe for example. Friends from Holland recently said ‘We can’t believe how woke Canada is!’ In the U.S., there is strong pushback against the woke agenda (but that push) is not here in Canada. “We may go into a greater time of persecution, where we can see the Church sanctified and purified. The Church will be tempted to compromise on what is called ‘non-essentials.’ The Church cannot do so, we must hold to God’s Word. If it means being shut down, going to meet underground, worshipping out in the fields, we must do so. We may see the Church split based on her stand for scriptural truth. Businesses may lose work, jobs, income, because they won’t support LGBQT agendas, won’t put the gay flags out. On the other hand, we could see a counter swing as people see what is coming and how far it’s gone (for example drag queens reading to children).” God may give persecution, or a temporary stay – but either way, the Church’s response must be uncompromised allegiance to the gospel, and diligence and vigilance in making Christ known, and calling the nations to follow Him. Real-life relationships Rev. Bylsma is worried that so many people, in particular the young, are heavily influenced by social media and “electronic friends” as opposed to real, in-the-flesh friendships. “The gospel deals with real people, real neighbors; gospel ministry is real people, getting to know your neighbors, speaking to people, hearing where they’re at. This whole Internet world destroys those connections. We need to teach our kids to have real relationships with real people. Away from artificial intelligence, away from virtual relationships, or following remote YouTube teachers.” Holtvlüwer pointed out that many young people who are struggling with sexual identity are also spending time alone, researching things online, spending a lot of time under the influence of non-Christians. Positive, real-life friendships with fellow believers can go a long way in keeping one grounded in the foundations we have been taught at church, school and home. Some conclusions Holtvlüwer and Bylsma touched on other topics as well, including whether or not the Church should withdraw from the world in response to the anti-Christian culture around us. And they also addressed finding joy in suffering for the Name. Ultimately, Rev. Bylsma finds the answers to the woke movement, and to an increasingly hostile world, to be the same as they always have been for Christians: “The answers may be more basic, and more difficult, than we might assume. How do we prepare for what’s coming? Love the Lord, love His Word, love His Church, love the lost. No matter what guise the devil takes, the answers are always Christ. “….How do we get through this? Reflect on 2 Timothy 3: ‘All of scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable, is edifying, to thoroughly equip the man of God for every good work’ – including today! Love the Word of God, study it honestly, take time to be with the Lord, take time to be in prayer, bring your kids to God in prayer, bring your lost neighbors to God in prayer, strive to be faithful in allowing the Spirit to talk to your heart and convict you of where you’re falling into sin. Pray the prayer of David (from Psalm 139): ‘Search me, oh God, and know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’” Byslsma concluded: “Christ is always the Victor, He is always the King, He will never lose a sheep from His hand. Draw near to Him, love Him, love His Word. You don’t have to listen to a thousand podcasts, you don’t have to read a thousand books. Dig into the Scriptures, tackle this honestly, ask questions… Iron will sharpen iron, and the Lord will bless. “ is a scary monster, but Christ has got His foot over (the devil’s) neck, and He’s about to stamp. Remember Romans 16: the Lord will soon crush the devil under your feet. Be humble, prayerful, and courageous, and bold as a lion, because the devil flees when we resist him… Stick to the basics and press on!” ...

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News

Saturday Selections – Nov. 11, 2023

How to help your kids establish Bible reading habits Dr. David Murray with help for parents in setting their family priorities... Your job is not your family "Calling a business, civic organization, or even school a 'family' may be well-intended but comes with unintended consequences that do an injustice to the necessary commitments that should be made to our actual families." Angels from on high – a Remembrance Day story In this WWII true story, the late W.H. Bredenhof recounts how God used some unusual angels to save him and his companion. Thinking smartly about global warming (15-min read) Bjorn Lomborg is willing "to concede that global warming is real, to some large extent manmade, and a serious problem" (a point I would not so readily concede) but still thinks our current attempts at climate management are more hysteria than help. Lomborg is not Christian, but where his worldview aligns with God's is in how he views human worth: if a proposal might supposedly help the planet in the future, but hurts people now, then he knows better than to tread on the poor. On John McCrae, the author of "In Flanders Fields" A look at the man behind the most famous Remembrance Day poem. The case against micromanagement God gave us government because people aren't saints. But governments are made up of people, so we shouldn't expect them to be saints either. And as this video shows, even when the folks in charge do act with the "best of intentions," that still doesn't guarantee the results. ...

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Drama, Movie Reviews

The Great Dictator

Drama / War / Black and White 1940 / 125 minutes Rating: 8/10 Long before Hitler adopted it, Charlie Chaplin made the "toothbrush mustache" famou...
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Book Reviews, Graphic novels

I survived the Nazi invasion, 1944 (8 books)

by Lauren Tarshis art by Alvaro Sarraseca 2021 / 158 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift Max and Zena are two Polish Jewish children who, at the time ...
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News

Saturday Selections - Nov. 4, 2023

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

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

The most popular girlfriends are AI

Satan’s efforts to corrupt God’s design for marriage and sex has evolved yet again, spurred on by the advance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI technology now allows people to create their own virtual girlfriend. For a fee, you can design not just their looks, but also their personality, and then have a “relationship” with them. “Create a girlfriend who is judgement-free! Who lets you hang out with your buddies without drama! Who laughs at all your jokes!” reported British freelance writer Freya India in her article “We Can’t Compete with AI Girlfriends.” According to a recent Breakpoint article, “since 2008, the share of men under 30 reporting no sex at all has nearly tripled.”  With more young men being single and lonely, the appeal of these apps is no surprise. Their popularity has already led some “real” social media influencers to adapt the technology for their own profit. India gave the example of Caryn Margorie, a young woman who has a large following on the social media platform Snapchat, who worked with an AI company to make an AI version of herself. She charges users $1 a minute to chat with this AI self. She is bragging about the thousands of boyfriends that she has and reportedly makes over $100,000 in a single week. This is the latest step in a trend towards increasing isolation and individualism, made popular for years already through the internet. Instead of embracing the joys and challenges of living with the families and neighbors that God has given us, it is easier to retreat to communities of like-minded people online. And with AI, these are not even real people any more but technology that has been made to figure out exactly what we want and like. It is a retreat into our own selves. The first human, Adam, started his life alone. But God said “it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). As with so many other steps being taken by mankind today, AI girlfriends is a choice to ignore God’s good design for humanity. Although it may satisfy desires for a time, it will never fill empty hearts and souls. As our world quickly changes, the church can be a beacon of light and hope simply by living the “ordinary” calling God has given us. Getting married, and having children, is becoming extraordinary. Thankfully, it is also the means through which Christ grows His covenant community. And no technology will ever be able to stop this....

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Christian education, News

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

The gym at Smithville’s John Calvin Christian School (JCCS) is almost always filled with the delightful sounds of kids having fun. Once a month, however, the voices heard come from a particularly younger set. Through the initiative of the JCCS promotions committee, an Early Years morning for moms of preschool-age children has been running for over a year now. The idea was that often in the preschool years, parents and children never have the opportunity to actually visit the school. This means that when their children eventually do start kindergarten, it can be quite overwhelming and unfamiliar for them. The preschool years are also a time when parents might feel disconnected from the larger community and the school and when it comes time to be making decisions about pre-tuition etc., they have no feelings of personal connection to the school. In an effort to close that gap, the Early Years morning initiative was born, and it has turned out to provide so much more than an introduction to the school. Once a month (on random days of the week so that the same class does not miss Phys Ed) the gym is set up into stations. Gym mats are laid out and at each station are different types of toys, like Thomas the Train sets, Paw Patrol figurines and trucks, a kitchen with dress-up clothes, and a craft and coloring table. All moms, dads and grandparents with preschool-age children are invited to attend, including those who already have older children in school. For the first hour and a half the children play at all the different stations, meeting their future peers and burning off some energy. The parents or grandparents stay close by and chat with others while enjoying the coffee and baking provided. A toonie donation per child covers the cost of some of the expenses that occur (new toys, snacks and craft items). When playtime is finished the toys are put back in buckets and set against the stage wall for Grade 6 to come and clean up later (thanks Grade 6!). The children enjoy a snack while all the mats are pulled together. Then it's time for circle time and boy, is that energetic! The children have a fun story read to them and sing songs – the animal freeze dance song is a crowd favorite. If the weather allows, everyone heads outside to the playground after circle time to enjoy the sunshine; and if the weather is cold or rainy, parents are invited to bring a clean bike or trike and the kids have some fun riding around in the gym. The morning has been well received by all and is such a blessing for the community. Parents have reported that they love seeing their children interact with other kids. Kindergarten students have told their teacher with confidence that they know exactly where the gym is, as well as all the toys (and that very loud recess bell is not quite as scary anymore!). Relationships have been made as moms from different churches (we have five feeder churches at JCCS) enjoy conversation and fellowship. The Early Years mornings have created an opportunity to bring together the communion of saints and develop a love for our school, and what a blessing that is!...

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Media bias

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

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

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News

Saturday Selections – Oct. 28, 2023

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

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News, Pro-life - Abortion

Pro-life flag proposal gets town talking about worldviews
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Politics, RPTV

RPTV: MP Arnold Viersen on the legal fight against pornography
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Parenting

Preparing to inherit the earth

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

Saturday Selections – Oct. 21, 2023

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

Mister Invincible: local hero

by Pascal Jousselin 96 pages / 2020 Rating: Good/Great/GIFT My dad wasn't a fan of superhero comics because he figured that Superman and Batman were too much like God-substitutes. And when you consider how many DC and Marvel characters are gods (Thor, Hercules, Loki, Odin, Eros) or are super-powered beings able to fight toe-to-toe with gods (Hulk, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, etc. and etc.), he might have been on to something. But Mister Invincible is not that kind of superhero. His superpower isn't laser beam eyes or invulnerability: he's just the only comic book character to realize he's in a comic book!  As Gene Luen Yang explained it in his own New York Times review: "He can poke his head past the borders of his current panel to see into the future or the past. He can pass objects and even himself from one panel to another, moving through time and space." This is such a brilliantly original work that there's nothing else to compare it with. And that originality makes it a hard one to properly describe. But I'm going to give it my best go. In the opening one-page comic strip, we see Mister Invincible, in the top row of panels, look down and notice that further on down (in his future) a lady and her little boy are being robbed. So, he jumps down a row to land on one of the clueless villains. Then, to take down the second bad guy he relies on an intervention from future him, from further on down the page. Future Mister Invincible is looking up (to his past) and shoots the robber's gun right out of his hand.... using the bad guy's own gun, which future Mister Invincible picked up from the ground because, as we just saw in the past, the bad guy dropped it. You might have to read that last paragraph a couple of times before it'll start making some sense. That's true to the comic, which also requires repeated readings to follow. Normally, that kind of confusion would make a comic annoying. But what's different here is that it all really makes sense – it's like a puzzle most kids will be able to decipher, but one that no one gets at their first go. Still don't quite get it? Let me show, rather than tell, sharing an excerpt of a couple of rows from one adventure. I've handed this comic to just about everyone who's walked into our house this last week, and for anyone under 20, it's stopped them in their tracks. They've sat down and just started reading and rereading. I think a lot of adults will enjoy it too – anyone who appreciates a good logic puzzle. Cautions There are some minor language concerns with the bad guy calling his minions "morons," "maggots," and "toilet monkeys," and a bratty kid calling one of the villains a "fat loser big butt." Not a lot of that, but there is some. Also, one of the villains reforms her ways from caring only about money to caring about the planet, and that care is shown with her, in just one panel, marching with environmentalists singing, "We've only got one planet." True enough, but that sentiment is often used to justify policies that prioritize the planet over the people (particularly the poor) living on it. Those two concerns are minor when the comics' intended audience is considered. The little kids who'd titter at the juvenile insults probably wouldn't be interested in Mister Invincible because its puzzling nature would be a bit above them. The only other concern is a practical one. I think this is such an imaginative work it should be in every school library but, unfortunately, there is a foldout page that might not stand up well to library usage. Maybe librarians can reinforce that page ahead of time. Conclusion The French original is called Imbattable or "unbeatable" which is a better descriptor than "Mister Invincible." It's not that you can't hurt him - he's not invincible. It's just that with his creative comic-crossing abilities, you can't beat him. And I don't know whether you can beat this comic. It is utterly creative and so much fun to read again and again. I'd recommend it for ages 10 to 110....

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News

5 years of legal marijuana is wreaking havoc on children and adults

In 2018, Canada’s federal government legalized the recreational use of cannabis. Two of the three goals that they used to justify this abrupt change were to improve public health, and to reduce access by children. This October, the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) released a study, looking at the impact that legalized cannabis has had, pointing to a dismal failure in accomplishing either of these goals. Kids are getting harmed more often The CMAJ study found that, in addition to an increased number of Canadians using cannabis, there has been a startling number of hospitalizations resulting from cannabis use. This includes a large increase in the number of poisonings for young children, who consumed edible forms of cannabis. CBC has reported that prior to legalization, there was an average of 2 hospitalizations per month for children under the age of 10 in Ontario, Alberta, and BC. That spiked to nearly 15 hospitalizations a month through 2020 and 2021, which is far higher than the 2.1 average for Quebec, where cannabis edibles are not legal. Adult episodes are up too One study looked at the connection between cannabis and hospitalizations for adults in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and BC, and found that there were a staggering 105,000 hospitalizations reported between 2015 and 2021, one third of which were for people aged 15 to 24. They broke the data up into three groups: pre-legalization, post-legalization with store restrictions, and post-legalization with commercialization. Although the rate of hospitalizations didn’t change much when cannabis was legal but tightly controlled, it increased in the third stage, with commercialization. Other studies found a 20 percent increase in emergency department visits among youth in Ontario and Alberta, and increased emergency department visits due to cannabis-induced psychosis, and a doubling of “acute episodes of pregnancy care in which cannabis was present.” The impact can be long-term, with cannabis users having a significantly increased risk of developing schizophrenia within three years. Love laws, just not God’s laws With all this data contradicting the intended goals of the legislation, one would expect the federal government to admit a need to reconsider its course. But that isn’t likely, unless this research is widely circulated and Canadians are willing to speak up to their elected representatives. There is a glaring contradiction between our secular government’s concern for health when it came to the COVID virus, and how it is responding to the many immoral activities and choices that come with their own devastating health consequences. With COVID, our leaders were willing to undermine fundamental freedoms to minimize hospitalizations. Not so with marijuana use. There are also health impacts from other sins like pornography, no-fault divorce, abortion (hurt happens not only to the child, but to the mother too), sex outside of heterosexual marriage, and, of course, euthanasia. When health could come as a result of obeying God’s commandments (which are good for our heart, soul, mind, and body – Ps. 119), our government isn’t all that interested in exploring what laws could help....

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Pro-life - Abortion, RPTV

RPTV: Katrina Marshall on being a pro-life advocate

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

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Book Reviews, Economics, Teen fiction

The Hyperinflation Devastation

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

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