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News, Transgenderism

Trump says what few dare about transgenderism madness

A Donald Trump campaign video made almost a year ago resurfaced after he secured his second term as American president. In Canada, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has spoken against transgender “surgeries” on children, and south of the border, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis denounced them more pointedly, labeling them “mutilation.” But neither was anywhere close to as plainspoken as President Trump in this 4-minute presentation. It is remarkable enough to warrant printing in full:

“The left-wing gender insanity being pushed on our children is an act of child abuse, very simple. Here's my plan to stop the chemical, physical, and emotional mutilation of our youth. On day one I will revoke Joe Biden's cruel policies on so-called ‘gender affirming care’ – ridiculous – a process that includes giving kids puberty blockers, mutating their physical appearance, and ultimately performing surgery on minor children. Can you believe this? I will sign a new executive order instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex- and gender-transition at any age. I will then ask Congress to permanently stop federal taxpayer dollars from being used to promote or pay for these procedures, and pass a law prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states. It'll go very quickly. I will declare that any hospital or health care provider that participates in the chemical or physical mutilation of minor youth will no longer meet federal health and safety standards for Medicaid and Medicare, and will be terminated from the program immediately.

“Furthermore, I will support the creation of a private right of action for victims to sue doctors who have unforgivably performed these procedures on minor children. The Department of Justice will investigate Big Pharma and the Big Hospital networks to determine whether they have deliberately covered up horrific long-term side effects of sex transitions in order to get rich at the expense of vulnerable patients – in this case, very vulnerable. We will also investigate whether Big Pharma or others have illegally marketed hormones and puberty blockers, which are in no way licensed or approved for this use. My Department of Education will inform states and school districts that if any teacher or school official suggests to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body, they will be faced with severe consequences, including potential civil rights violations for sex discrimination, and the elimination of federal funding. As part of our new credentialing body for teachers we will promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers, and celebrating rather than erasing the things that make men and women different and unique.

“I will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female and they are assigned at birth. The bill will also make clear the Title IX prohibits men from participating in women's sports, and we will protect the rights of parents from being forced to allow their minor child to assume a gender which is new, and an identity without the parents’ consent. The identity will not be new, and it will not be without parental consent. No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender, a concept that was never heard of in all of human history – nobody's ever heard of this, what's happening today. It was all when the radical left invented it just a few years ago. Under my leadership this madness will end. Thank you very much.”

As thankful as we can be for the President’s courage – can you believe he actually said this? And imagine if he follows through! – Christians mustn’t overlook what he didn’t say, because someone still needs to.

Trump has guts, no doubt, but he took this stand more as a matter of smarts – he understood this is still what most of his country believes. But we know from history that this sort of common-sense conservatism is shifting sand. Traditional marriage was once common sense, and only about a decade back everyone knew that killing our elderly was murder, not medicine. That sense isn’t so common now. In Canada, we have Pierre Poilievre and other conservative leaders heading our own “common sense revolution,” and it too has appeal. But what it doesn’t have is staying power: the conservative common-sense of today is merely the liberal’s position of 10 years back. We’re sliding, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but always in the same downward direction.

The only way to turn it around is to set our feet on something solid, and we know the only unshakeable foundation is God and His Truth. It’s up to the Church, then, to tell a very confused world where they can find traction. Will they join us atop the Rock? We can’t know what the Holy Spirit will do with the Truth we share, but we can be certain that we’ll honor God in the sharing of it.

So, let’s say what no one else dares to: that God made us male and female, and that only He decides our gender. And let’s explain that when we ignore reality as He has made it, then craziness results, like men playing women’s sports, and people cutting off their genitals. Let’s speak what even our most courageous, common-sense politicians are scared to: that it isn’t just crazy when it is done to children; it is abuse too when mentally ill adults are maimed for some doctor’s profit.

We know God’s Truth; our neighbors need to hear it. May God grant us the courage to speak.

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Amazing stories from times past

His eyes are darker than wine, and his TEETH WHITER THAN MILK – Gen. 49:12

There are a number of references in the Bible to teeth. The word “teeth” is used on a number of occasions: to indicate blessing, as in Genesis 49:12: …teeth whiter than milk; to present power, as in Job 4:10: …the teeth of the young lions are broken; to signal vexation and pain, as in Psalm 112:10: The wicked man… will gnash his teeth and waste away; to betoken physical beauty, as in Song of Solomon 4:2: Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing; and to suggest punishment, as in Jeremiah 31:29-30: In those days they shall say no more, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.’ But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Teeth are an important part of our life. When a tooth aches, we often become dysfunctional. C.S. Lewis once said: "If only this toothache would go away, I could write another chapter on the problem of pain." And the Puritan, Richard Baxter, was quoted as saying: "An aching tooth is better out than in. To lose a rotting member is a gain." More dysfunctional still, a 1970s newspaper reported a man taken to court because he had jumped out of the dentist chair in which he was sitting, and bit his dentist in the hand before slashing him with a can opener which he had in his pocket. There is no doubt that toothache is painful and is an ache common to all of mankind. This is attested to rather vividly by a monument put up in the garden of a twentieth-century Japanese dentist. This particular monument, shaped like a tooth, is dedicated to the 105,000 teeth this man extracted during the course of his rather successful profession in Tokyo and Yokohama. You might say this doctor had influence on his surroundings. That is to say, he had a bit of pull. A toothache is never to be desired and is a brokenness in one's body. Anyone who has suffered from a toothache will, no doubt, agree. There is no pain like a toothache, be it a cavity or an abscess. Origins of dentistry Dentistry was not always a profession. In early times, potions and herbs were concocted for sore mouths. The ancient Chinese recommended a dental powder whose ingredients included the mashed bones of mice. Another remedy for a sore tooth was a powder which had to be snuffed up the left nostril if you were male and up the right nostril if you were female. It would, very likely, not be popular for that reason, today. An eleventh-century copyist of Arabian medical practices, one Abulcasis, wrote that a throbbing tooth could be rocked loose with a pair of forceps. When the tooth was fairly mobile, the patient would be required to place his head between the doctor's knees and a stronger forceps would be used for a final yank. (A rather painful form of headship principle!) Barber-surgeon-dentists? By the end of the twelfth century, Europe had cultivated a profession called barber-surgeon. Men in this profession could cut hair, shave beards, and pull teeth – all this for a nominal fee. They were often skilled in these particular tasks and if you had a toothache, you could count yourself fortunate if one of these barber-surgeons was passing through your village. The surgeon aspect of such a man related more to infected limbs. Infected limbs were cut off with knives, and patients, more often than not, bled to death. To this day, the symbol of a barber is a pole striped with red (for blood), and white (for bandages). Less skillful than barber-surgeons in pulling teeth, were twelfth century tooth-drawers. These men were charlatans who sported pointed caps and wore necklaces made up of black and rotten molars. They boldly advertised on street corners, shamelessly misleading passers-by about how painless the extraction would be. It is chronicled that one patient, very upset with his barber-surgeon, exclaimed: "That was not the tooth I wanted pulled." The man unconcernedly replied: "Steady there. I'm coming to it." Perhaps the patient would have preferred to have been treated during the early fourteenth century during which one John Gaddesden wrote a medical manual with advice for extracting teeth. In it, Gaddesden advocated applying powdered cow's dung or frog's fat to the tooth to make it fall out instantly. In this same manual, he advised that teeth could be made to regrow by rubbing gums with a hare's brains. If, at this point, the twenty-first-century dentist is not rising in your estimation, read on. Can we stop with the bleedings? In the sixteenth century, a Belgian named Andreas Vesalius studied a sufficient number of corpses dug up in cemeteries to conclude that teeth had nerves. Although Vesalius was the most celebrated anatomist and physician in Europe, strange things continued to occur in the treatment of teeth for the next one hundred years. If you were to complain of toothache, your treatment might begin with an “arm-bleeding,” followed by an administration of a laxative. If you somehow still insisted your mouth ached, you were bled in the spine, blisters were raised in the nape of your neck or behind your ears, and plasters applied to your temples. It can be imagined that all this distracted from the pain in the tooth, and that thus, in small measure, an alleviation of sorts was effected. Lead fillings? Hmmm… In the eighteenth century, lead, tin and gold fillings began to be used and in the nineteenth century, artificial teeth were devised, as in: "She has an upper plate." "How do you know that?" "Well, it just came out in the conversation." George Washington, who suffered from bad teeth, had a man by the name of John Greenwood as dentist. This New York practitioner claimed the false teeth he manufactured could not be distinguished from real teeth. President Washington once received this note from him. "I send you enclosed two sets of teeth, one fixed to the old bars in part and the set you sent back from Philadelphia, which when I received was very black, occasioned by your soaking them in port wine or drinking it. Port being sour, takes off all the polish. I advise you to either take them out after drinks and put them in clean water and put in the other set, or to clean them with a brush and some chalk finely scraped." Dentures, in the eighteen hundreds, were also fashioned from natural teeth plundered from cemeteries and battle fields. Everyone seemed to have a new handle on how to make false teeth. Apprentices working for dentists were bound to secrecy. They were forbidden to marry, play cards or dice, and kept from visiting bars or theaters – all of these could lead to loose lips and a selling of information. These apprentices also spent time doing fine work at jewelers and practiced what they had learned on poor clients as early morning duties. Anesthesia, the game-changer In the mid-eighteen hundreds, a dentist by the name of William Morton, became one of the first dental surgeons to use anesthesia. He was a successful practitioner, and a man anxious to help his suffering clientele in a painless way. Giving up part of his large dental practice, he enrolled in the Harvard Medical School, only servicing those with a toothache when he had time. There were students at Harvard in those days who had “ether” parties. They inhaled ether for fun, became very happy and apparently didn't feel pain during this time. Dr. Morton began to experiment and had a patient, one Ebenezer Frost, inhale ether during an extraction. Ebenezer was amazed, upon awakening, to see a huge molar on the table. William Morton proved that ether could be used satisfactorily in dentistry. Reading about this in the newspaper a month after Morton's ether extraction, Boston surgeon Henry Bigelow arranged for a demonstration of ether in an operation at a Massachusetts hospital. At this demonstration, a large tumor was painlessly removed from the neck of a man by the name of Gilbert Abbott. God has surely blessed us in that He has allowed us to invent tools to alleviate suffering. Let us use them wisely and let us be properly thankful. And let us philosophize just a bit. Augustus Toplady (1740-1778), Anglican cleric, hymn writer, and major Calvinist opponent of John Wesley, said: "A man's free will cannot cure him even of the toothache, or a sore finger; and yet he madly thinks it is in its power to cure his soul." Top picture is adapted from a photo by “BakedintheHole,” and used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license....

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News

Married = less likely to be depressed

Want to reduce your chances of being depressed? Get married! Well, maybe not so fast, but a recent study in Nature Human Behaviour did find that married and cohabitating couples are less likely to be depressed. They looked at more than 100,000 participants across the USA, the UK, Mexico, Ireland, Korea, China, and Indonesia, and found that those who did not live with a partner had a higher chance of depression, a finding that researchers suggest might be due to more social support, more access to economic resources, and the positive influence of spouses on each other. As marriage is declining in our society, this study offers a clue into why depression rates have simultaneously been climbing. It’s not surprising that healthy relationships are beneficial for mental health, but the number of Canadians in these close relationships is declining. Data from Cardus’s Canadian Marriage Map show a steady decrease in the percentage of married couples from 1981-2021. While the percentage of common-law relationships has grown during the same period, the overall percentage of people in either married or common-law relationships has declined slightly as well. In particular, the data shows a steady rise in Canadians aged 20-34 who are not married or common-law, demonstrating younger Canadians are less likely to be experiencing the benefits of these close relationships. As Christians, we might be uncomfortable that the Nature Human Behaviour study lumped cohabitating couples in with married couples, but we can still see here that even “marriage-like” relationships demonstrate the great blessings that God built into the institution of marriage. These relationships still point to why God created marriage as a good thing. Just as Adam knew that being alone in the garden was not quite right, many people also experience that doing life alone is difficult. Unfortunately, so many nowadays are hesitant to enter into this commitment, often as a result of the troubled relationships they see around them. Here Christians can take a role in inviting others to witness the radical vulnerability and respect that a God-directed marriage can demonstrate....

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News

Is it job creation if government is doing most of the hiring?

COVID brought with it huge government expenditures, and the end of the crisis didn’t end the growth of government. Over the four years of 2019-2023, there was a steep increase in new government jobs, contrasted with relatively little growth in the private sector. Data compiled by the Fraser Institute reveals that new jobs created by the country’s federal and provincial governments increased by 13 percent, more than three times greater than the 3.6 percent increase in private sector jobs. But it is the contrast between the provinces that is the most striking. Alberta and Nova Scotia, run by conservative governments, both had a greater percentage of growth in the private sector. Compare this with BC, where under the NDP, government jobs grew by 22% compared to just 0.5% for the private sector. In their report “Economic Recovery in Canada before and after COVID,” the Fraser Institute compared the data with five previous recessions and slowdowns and found that “none of those recoveries were nearly as reliant on job creation in the government sector.” Governments have always been interested in growing – 3,000 years ago the Lord warned Israel that the king they were demanding would want all sorts of servants (1 Sam. 8:11-18) – and times of hardship are often used to justify larger government reach. Checks and balances, including elections, are a crucial part of restraining a government. Unfortunately, in recent elections, the public has been rewarding parties who pledge to increase government debt rather than rein it in....

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News

John Rustad, latest conservative leader to promote IVF

During the last month’s provincial election campaign, BC Conservative leader John Rustad promised that, were he elected, he would expand access to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) by funding a second round of treatments. The NDP government had previously pledged to fund one round of IVF, starting in 2025. Rustad’s pledge made him the latest conservative politician to promote IVF. South of the border, less than two months earlier, Republican presidential contender Donald Trump promised to get IVF treatments covered by insurance companies or by the government. Then, in September, US senator, and fellow Republican, Ted Cruz put forward a bill that would penalize any state governments that banned IVF. Why has the political right come out for IVF now? The impetus might be an Alabama Supreme Court decision back in February that initially looked like it might stop IVF. The decision allowed couples to sue an IVF clinic for the “wrongful death” of their frozen embryos who had died in a storage accident. The ruling wasn’t a full acknowledgement of the personhood of these preborn children, because the parents could have killed these same children without consequence. But for the IVF industry, it meant that if they killed these children against parents’ wishes, they could be sued for a wrongful death. And when these frozen children are protected and treated even a little bit like the children that they are, then the IVF industry can't function because killing these children is a standard part of IVF "treatments," with far more embryos killed or frozen than are ever born. So three of the state’s IVF clinics put themselves on pause as they sorted things out. Sadly, “conservative” politicians were among those who came to their rescue, the previously pro-life Ted Cruz among them, proposing legislation that would shield the clinics. With IVF in the news, the formerly pro-life Donald Trump promised to make IVF free. Rustad took the trend north of the border with his own “pro-family” pledge to double the current government’s IVF pledge. If there is a silver lining to the NDP getting back into power in BC, it would be that Rustad won’t be able to implement his pledge, and perhaps Christians can get him to reconsider before he makes it again. As even the Alabama courts’ partial protection of the frozen preborn shows, the IVF industry can only operate when we ignore the humanity of the embryos being created. What's also evident is how badly the Church needs to speak out about the horrors of IVF, if even “pro-lifers” and conservatives don’t understand it is not pro-family to freeze and murder preborn babies. We have reason to hope they might even listen....

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Christian education

Gillespie Academy: a one-year Reformed bootcamp

Whether you’re graduating high school, college, or trade school, the most common question is “What’s next?” For those who are uncertain, let me recommend Gillespie Academy, a one-year, two-semester program in Woodstock, Ontario, as an option to consider. Founded in 2010 by Rev. Brian Murray, Gillespie Academy is named after Presbyterian theologian George Gillespie. It aims to prepare young Christians for future careers, further education, and building homes grounded in God’s Word. While many Christian students have experienced 12 years of biblically-sound schooling, Gillespie builds on these previous teachings and also challenges young Christians to really explore the implications of their faith. Danae Gritter, an alumna from the 2024-2025 class, shares, “Gillespie wasn’t just something I did for a year and moved on; it was a foundation for the way that I think about what I’m learning now in my further post-secondary education.” Running from September to April, the Academy is housed within Grace Presbyterian Church (a congregation of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Canada) in Woodstock, Ontario. Gillespie students attend a four-day week of classes, Tuesday to Friday. Some subjects are in place to help build a strong theological foundation like: ● Old and New Testament Studies ● Introduction to Systematic Theology I & II ● History of Western Thought I & II ● Apologetics ● Christianity in the Modern World Courses in Practical Ethics, Academic Strategies, Oral Communication, and Logic help refine communication skills – essential tools for both professional success and navigating complex worldviews. Students typically handle around 15 hours of homework weekly, balancing rigorous study with practical application. While the program is demanding, it is rewarding. And while Gillespie does not formally organize social activities, it fosters a close-knit student community, with friendships that often extend beyond the classroom. Students are also encouraged to participate in the life of Grace Church, with various opportunities to join church-led activities. The Academy’s success rests on two key pillars. As Rev. Murray emphasizes, the first is "the Lord's blessing," and the second is Gillespie’s commitment to rigorous classroom learning, where students build a strong theological understanding and develop critical thinking skills. With tuition around $4,000 per year, Gillespie offers an affordable Christian education compared to many other institutions, though costs may rise depending on the housing options offered by the Academy. Gillespie decided not to be accredited in order to maintain its commitment to Reformed Christian principles and create its curriculum independently of the government. Traditional accredited schools often focus on preparation for the workforce, but Gillespie stresses a greater goal: knowledge of God. It sees education as an instrument for students to understand God's creation, preparing them to meet the philosophical and practical problems of life, and shaping how they view their responsibility as young Christians. With more than 100 students from three different countries – ranging from ages 17 to 24 – having successfully completed the program, Gillespie’s impact is felt far beyond its doors. Rev. Murray sums up the Academy’s mission: "If we believe that there is a God who made everything and hasn’t left us on our own, but has revealed Himself in His Word and through His Son, the Lord Jesus, then that truth impacts every area of life." To learn more about Gillespie Academy, go to GillespieAcademy.ca. The author is a graduate of the Gillespie Academy....

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In a Nutshell

Tidbits – October 2024

How red tape kills wealth Some years back, Hernando de Soto wanted to discover why capitalism worked so well in the West, but didn’t seem to work anywhere else. So de Sota and his research team headed to Lima, Peru to try to open a small one-person business – a garment workshop. They knew that this would involve paperwork, some permits and forms they would have to file with the government before they could open the business’s doors, but the total amount of paperwork was mind-boggling. The team put their efforts together and worked at the registration process six hours a day and it still ended up taking them 289 days to complete! And to add insult to injury, the cost of the process was $1,231, or roughly 30 times the country’s monthly minimum wage. Little wonder then, that there are few Peruvians starting businesses. Even the hardest working, and most industrious souls would find these costs, and this mountain of red tape too much to overcome. The team also investigated what it would take to build a house on state-owned land in Peru (the state owns much of the land): “To obtain legal authorization... took six years and eleven months requiring 207 administrative steps in 52 government offices.... To obtain legal title for that land took 728 steps.” The team found a similar state of affairs in countries such as Egypt, the Philippines and Haiti and Third World countries overall. In the West we can be thankful we don't have quite the level of bureaucratic regulation... though we do have politicians who are intent on having us catch up. If we're wondering why housing has gone up, red tape is certainly a factor. SOURCE: Hernando de Soto’s "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else" and Wayne Grudem’s "Business For the Glory of God" “Be home on time for supper!” In Mike Huckabees's A Simple Government, he shared how Columbia University’s Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) has been researching the differences between teens who eat dinner at home frequently – at least 5 times a week – and those who do so infrequently – 3 times a week or less. They found some remarkable differences: Teens who ate at home infrequently were twice as likely to make use of tobacco and marijuana as those who at home frequently They were 50 percent more likely to use alcohol 50 percent more likely to get Cs or lower at school Elizabeth Planet, CASA vice-president, said, “The emotional and social benefits that come from family dinners are priceless.” A Christian might account for that difference by noting that dinnertime is a good time to do what God tells parents to do in Deut 6:6-7: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deut 6:5-7) Password problems Have you heard the one about the first-time computer user who chose as his password: “TarzanSherlockHolmesHamletCinderellaJeevesToadJulietEmmaGandalfLondon”? His computer told him it had to be at least eight characters long, and include at least one capital. SOURCE: Adapted from a joke in Marvin Olasky’s “Tax Time Coming” April 9, 2011 WORLD Cultural Christians are nothing new In the last couple of years, unbelievers Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, and even infamous atheist Richard Dawkins have declared themselves "cultural Christians." Why? Because they understand that civil society requires the civilizing influence of Christianity. But, unfortunately, that hasn't gotten them to bow the knee to the God of Christianity. As intriguing as this phenomenon has been, it isn't actually anything new. In an old BreakPoint article by Chuck Colson called “The Gospel According to Jesse.” Colson shared another remarkable but incomplete turnaround. “Guenter Lewy of the University of Massachusetts... is the author of the book, Why America Needs Religion. Interestingly, Lewy is neither a Christian nor a theist. He originally set out to write a book with the opposite thesis: Why America DOESN'T need religion. It was to be ‘a defense of secular humanism and ethical relativism.’ But when Lewy researched the data, he reversed himself 180 degrees. Lewy discovered that Christianity has historically been a strong support for human dignity.... Lewy found that Christians exhibit measurably lower rates of marital conflict, divorce, prejudice, out-of-wedlock births, juvenile delinquency, adult crime, and other ‘indicators of moral failure and social ills.’ Though remaining a nonbeliever, Lewy concluded that Christianity is vital to creating a healthy, humane society. Lewy's research points to one reason why Christians are motivated to seek reform in the public arena: Objective evidence shows that living by biblical principles makes people happier and healthier.” Lyric of the month Jamies Soles is well known among conservative Reformed churches in Canada, but for those that don’t know of him, below are the lyrics of a song based on Luke 7:11-18 from one of his children’s albums “Fun and Prophets” which is available (along with more info) on the artist’s website SolMusic.ca. Gates of Nain My husband died, and now my son I'm all alone though the crowds have come I walk by this bier to a field of stones in my soul I know that death, it awaits us all.... I can't catch my breath from this dizzy fall All that I've hoped for Is lying still and cold in this crowd Crying aloud for the pain Weeping through the gates of Nain Through my tears I see the crowd has grown A Man approaches with compassion shown He says, "Do not weep." And our march of death and time stands still Nothing could prepare me for this What could have prepared me for this.... He spoke to my son, my dead son, my only son And He told him to arise, and he did! My boy sat up and then began to speak This man named Jesus gave him back to me The crowd was filled with awe, and they glorified God "A great prophet has arisen among us! A great prophet has arisen among us!" A great prophet indeed has arisen for me And given me life again In the gates of Nain Are you wearing anything ten years or older? Angela Reitsma Bick, the editor of Christian Courier, once wrote about how friends were surprised to learn that they weren’t wearing anything that was as much as ten years old. The surprise was probably prompted by the realization that thirty years ago the situation would have been quite different. Kids’ clothing, in particular, was treated differently a generation ago, with patches (and patches upon patches) being far more common. Darning socks was more common, and the resoling of shoes too. Whenever one generation decides to do something differently than the previous, it is worth a moment’s reflection - if you aren’t wearing anything from a decade ago, why might that be? Is it a result of living in a throw-away culture? Are clothes simply not made to last like they once were? Are we better off, to the point that we don’t need to wear worn-out clothes? Or have we become financially irresponsible, spending money on clothes when that money could be put to better use? Might it be because clothes have become less expensive to replace than they once were? Or might it mean we are overly concerned with keeping up with the latest fashions? Prayer the way it was… and could be? In the 1940s, in the Netherlands, most men worked six days a week at physically-taxing jobs. So, come Sunday, it could be quite a struggle for these men to keep attentive through the church service, especially when it came time to pray, and eyes were shut and heads were bowed. And to make it harder still, the prayers were quite often fifteen minutes long. In his wartime biography The Way It Was, author Sid Baron notes that to help these men stay attentive it was the practice then to allow the option of standing during prayer. So throughout the church, as most bowed their head to pray, many farmers and laborers would rise. This practice is no longer common anywhere in Reformed churches, most likely because ministers no longer tax their congregation’s attention with fifteen minute prayers, and because far fewer members do heavy physical labor. Still, might it be a practice worth reviving for the most sleep-deprived among us, mothers and fathers of newborns? “The free market is a bathroom scale” “The free market is simply a measurement. The free market tells us what people are willing to pay for a given thing at a given moment. That’s all the free market does. The free market is a bathroom scale. We may not like what we see when we step on the bathroom scale, but we can’t pass a law making ourselves weigh 165. Liberals and leftists think we can.” – P.J O’Rourke Those not so ‘orrible Americans While speaking ill of Americans is a favorite pastime for many, there is a lot to love about them. One example – Americans are generous. In fact, the average American gives nearly four as much of his income, by percentage, as the average Canadian. And yet, that amounts to donating just 2 percent of their income (compared to 0.54% for Canadians). Christians who give a tithe of just ten percent of their income can, therefore, have almost 20 times the financial charitable impact of other Canadians, and quite a bit more than Americans too. SOURCE: Fraser Institute’s “Generosity in Canada and the United States: The 2020 Generosity Index” When two sinners become one I once had the pleasure of hanging out with a young couple who had never yet argued. Of course, if a newly married couple is expecting only bliss, it will be quite a shock when they go from this like-minded state to what might seem like a series of recurring arguments. If a couple has gone from always agreeing, to always arguing, what should they do? Well, it might help to know that many couples go through tough times, especially early on. When non-Christians go through these lows, divorce is an option some investigate – why stay married when you are both miserable? But an American study from a while back shows the benefits that migth come if they stick it out. “ouples… were asked to rate their marriage on a scale of one to seven, with one being very unhappy and seven being very happy. Those who rated their marriages a ‘one’ had incredible turnarounds just five years later – if they stayed together. In fact, 77 percent of those giving their marriage a very unhappy ‘one’ rated their marriage as a ‘seven’ after five years. Was there some breakthrough therapy involved? No. In fact, many did relatively little – they just ‘stuck it out’ and things got better.” “Two becoming one” (Gen. 2:24) is a difficult task for a couple of sinners to do, so it is inevitable that any marriage will go through some tough stretches. That’s why Christians can be so very grateful to God that, except in exceptional circumstances, He has taken the option of divorce from us. SOURCE: “Is There Hope for My Marriage?” by Amy Desai, J.D. as found on www.focusonthefamily.com way back on Dec. 11, 2010 Joke of the month Lady, to her doctor: “My husband, a marriage counselor, often refuses to accompany me to parties and get-togethers. He says that so many people spoil his evening by asking him for advice. Does this happen to you too?” Doctor: All of the time! But it doesn’t bother me anymore. Lady: What do you do? Doctor: “I have a wonderful remedy. When someone begins to tell me his ailments I stop him with one word: ‘Undress.’” SOURCE: Bob Phillips’ "The Return of the Good Clean Jokes"...

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News

Saturday Selections – Oct. 26, 2024

The key to happiness Jewish commentator Dennis Prager makes the case that gratitude is the key to happiness. He makes a good case, but as Christians, why would we think that would be? Prager goes a little stoic - expect nothing, and you will never be disappointed. But I suspect it is more a matter of seeing the world as it actually is. Everything good we get is truly undeserved, and a matter of God's grace. So when we respond in gratitude, we are responding as we have been designed to do. That is, in fact, getting very close to our purpose, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. See no Creator? Evolution blinds scientists from searching for function in supposed “vestigial” organs "Vestigial organs" are presented as evidence of our evolutionary past – these are organs we don't use now, but which are said to have served a function back in one of our earlier evolved states. The human "yolk sac" is one of these. But like other supposed vestigial organs (and our supposed "junk DNA"), that scientists didn't know its function doesn't mean it didn't have a function. Turns out this yolk sac is very important to fetal development. This is another example of how evolution hampers science. It's because they don't understand Man as "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Ps. 139:14), that evolutionists weren't motivated to go look for the purpose of this organ. In their ignorance, they presumed it was only an evolutionary dead-end. The remarkable Katharina von Bora, wife of Luther God used a couple to spark His Reformation... How not to be a grumpy old woman "My ninety-eight-year-old mother recently passed away after living with me for three years. When I spoke at her memorial service, I said, “You could not do what I did for an easier person. She was grateful, cheerful, and never complained.” Watching her made me wonder what sort of old person I will be. Churches hold parenting retreats, marriage conferences, and seminars on managing finances, but have you ever heard of a church that offered a seminar on how to grow old?" Lessons from the USSR on sexual morality The communists blew up the family, and they paid a price. Should Christians celebrate Halloween? 3 points to consider... (5 min) "You’re in a conversation and someone says, 'Christians shouldn’t celebrate Halloween. It’s a pagan holiday that glorifies evil.' What would you say?" ...

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Education

Podcasts to get you educated, not schooled

Only universities give degrees, but you can get an education even while you’re driving, jogging, or mowing the lawn ***** About forty years ago, when I was taking my Bachelor of Education degree at the University of Alberta, I got schooled, but not all that educated. I was schooled in both senses of the word – both getting some training in how to teach, and just plain made to feel like a fool. GETTING SCHOOLED AT A SECULAR U My “Educational Foundations” professor was, I found out, a lapsed Catholic, and proselytizing atheist. I’d met atheists before – kids in my neighborhood as I grew up – but never one who was educated and articulate and eager to use class time to pitch his anti-Christian worldview. My instructor seemed pretty confident about his atheism, and that left me shook. And it got me studying how to better understand the Christian worldview and be able to defend it. This self-study is really where my education started. My actual education degree never did set me up well to make year plans (the first thing a teacher needs to start organizing the courses they teach), but the very secular university’s library thankfully included several books on worldview and apologetics. I started my defense of my faith in two different libraries – the university’s, and also my dad’s much better stocked basement bookshelves (better in quality, if not in quantity). In short, while university did not educate me well, it did provoke me (and even equip me, to some degree) to educate myself. Could that happen now? It seems doubtful. I wonder whether the university library would still stock books as useful as the ones I took out to learn more about the Christian worldview. As well, how many (even lapsed) Catholics or Christians of any kind are still teaching in secular universities? Even if you wanted to build up your faith in university, you would still face the monumental challenge of trying to absorb solid Christian teaching while (as I had to do at some points) reading (and taking notes on!?) fifty pages a night from the secular textbooks mandated for the courses you were taking. GETTING AN AUDIO EDUCATION So, how now shall we learn? If you don’t need or want post-secondary education, or you’re finished yours, and (like all of us), your time is limited, and (like many of us), you’re “not a reader” (!?) then what? How can you get not schooled, but educated? One answer has been promoted by Jordan Peterson, who believes that this generation could be the best educated in history, because we have access to the internet, and through it, to podcasts and videos from the best thinkers of our day. One way to see the potential advantages of Peterson’s suggestion is to compare this method of self-education with one from a hundred years ago. The Everyman’s Library book collection started in 1906 to promote the reading of classic literature. One obvious advantage of internet education over Everyman’s Library is cost. The cheapest volume I could find from Everyman’s had a price of £10.99 or roughly $20 Canadian. Meanwhile podcasts and YouTube videos are free (although there is always more material behind a subscription paywall!). The second advantage of education online is the time involved. Although I can always find time to read a book (brushing your teeth, during breakfast…), reading generally demands exclusive attention, while “talking head” videos and podcasts can be heard while you are otherwise active (of course, not while juggling or other involved activities). It is worth noting that audio books have the same advantage. The final advantage of internet learning over the Everyman’s Library is the sheer volume of material on the internet. Of course, that can be pretty overwhelming; hence the list of great places to listen below. DISTRACTION VS. EDUCATION A couple words of caution are warranted. First, the internet can be a dangerous place to spend your time, even when you are getting educated. It’s easy to go down rabbit trails, because everything connects to everything else. The very fact that book learning involves more commitment in time and money tends to promote greater care in the selection of authors and their work. As we often hear about grocery shopping, stick to your list. Browsing the internet may not be as expensive as browsing the supermarket, but it is potentially at least as great a waste of time. Secondly, let me offer a word about “outrage porn.” Podcasts and video creators make money on getting more clicks and longer time on their platforms from their audience, and one sure way to do that is to stoke our anger…. but God warns us against both anger and worry about things that we have no power to change. James exhorts us to be “slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20), while Christ, who is Himself “gentle and lowly” (unlike many podcasters), asks, “which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matt. 11:29, 6:27). A good rule of thumb is to focus on podcasts or YouTube channels that bring an appreciation of God’s glory in creation and redemption into your life, that make you more effective in your service to God and your neighbor, or that equip you to be salt and light in a society that desperately needs both, and needs even more the Christ that they deny. 6 TO START WITH With all that said, here are half a dozen great bets for your internet time. Click on the headings below for links to their respective websites. 1. Real Talk Let’s begin with what might already be near and dear to RP readers: Real Talk, which you can also find on our own Reformed Perspective app. The two hosts have settled into a great rhythm, with over 100 episodes behind them. When the podcast started in July 2020, both Lucas Holtvlüwer and Tyler Vanderwoude appeared together to interview guests with extensive practical experience in such areas as Christian education and the missional church, with feedback every second episode. As time went on, each became more confident to host certain episodes solo, and the feedback episodes are now called “Real Talk Roundup” and feature other RP personalities, best book lists, and other highlights, with recent topics of real relevance, like “Death and Dying” and “Parenting and Pornography.” You can find them on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, and www.RealTalkPodcast.ca. 2. Two Stewards For more Canadian content, check out the Two Stewards. As the homepage says, they explore “money, economics, real estate investing and more from a Christian worldview.” Although the podcast opens with the warning that Mark Krikke and Brent Vanderwoude are not giving professional financial advice, the listening enjoyment they do provide is packed with plenty of insight. For example, they rightly saw the latest hostility to giving your children an inheritance as motivated by covetousness, and contradicting the Biblical commendation for “ good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children” (Prov. 13:22). Wisdom backed up by God’s Word combined with good-natured banter between the two stewards (and with their guests) makes this podcast both entertaining and thought-provoking. Find them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. 3. The Briefing… and more While Albert Mohler, a Southern Baptist, has experienced his share of controversy, his website has a wealth of listenable resources: •    The Briefing – Mohler’s take on the day •    Thinking in Public – roughly hour-long interviews with noted Christian and/or conservative writers •    Speaking and Teaching – shorter takes on a variety of Christian and current topics •    and clips from his “Ask Anything” tours. These can all be found on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and AlbertMohler.com. 4. Ligonier From a solidly Reformed (and generally paedobaptist) perspective, Ligonier Ministries has even more resources than Mohler, some of them current, and many more in archives: seven different podcasts of varying frequencies, at least 545 sermons from the late R.C. Sproul, daily videos on doctrinal issues, and more than 100 teaching series from multiple teachers (with multiple videos in each series) all of which are available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Ligonier Ministries also has a YouTube channel that includes enlightening and sometimes entertaining clips of question-and-answer sessions from Ligonier Ministries conferences, with answers from such well-known writers and speakers as Stephen Nichols and Sinclair Ferguson. 5. Breakpoint this Week Another solidly Christian organization, Breakpoint Ministries gives you several ways to get educated while listening, including the daily Breakpoint Podcast and a podcast called Breakpoint This Week – with a focus on applying Christian worldview to current events and trends. A recent daily podcast applied the Biblical command to “bear one another’s burdens” to the stress of intensive parenting, while the September 13 weekly podcast discussed, among other topics, abortion distortions in the presidential debate and the younger generation’s view of 9/11. Breakpoint This Week can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 6. Created to Reign The Cornwall Alliance has a solidly Christian perspective on economic and environmental stewardship, as is evidenced in their multitude of current articles. That worldview is evident in their podcast too, hosted by Dr. E. Calvin Beisner and Dr. David Legates, and titled Created to Reign. Two recent episodes of Created to Reign explained why free markets are generally not only more effective in helping the poor, but more just. Find it on Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Podcasts....

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Internet

Stop swiping, start serving

Romans 13:13 in the age of online escapism ***** I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that in the past few weeks, you have probably not gotten rip-roaring drunk nor participated in a debauched drinking party. You have probably not given yourself over to rampant sexual immorality or a life obsessed with sensuality. At least, I hope not. I raise these particular issues because Paul raises them in his letter to the Romans. As he helps the Christians in Rome understand how the gospel is meant to work itself out in life, he lists three pairs of sins that are unfitting for Christians. “Let us walk properly as in the daytime,” he says, “not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy” (Rom. 13:13). It seems to me that if he went to the trouble of listing such sins, we should go to the trouble of considering them – and not only as vague representative sins that other people may be tempted to commit, but as actual sins that may be present in your life and mine, whether subtly or explicitly. Using rather than loving It is my understanding that what binds these sins together is that they are a failure to love. After all, Paul makes clear that the great implication of the gospel he has outlined in the opening chapters of Romans is love! Your duty, your calling, your responsibility, your privilege is to love others as a display of God’s love for you. And each of these sins represents a failure to do so. And so you can’t love others when your life is marked by drunkenness or partying. And what stands behind these sins is a desire for escapism. It could be bingeing on alcohol or on Netflix, on video games, or on social media – whatever causes you to lose control of your time and devote too much of it to pursuits that are ultimately vain and distracting. If you are utterly devoted to addictive substances or addictive entertainment, that will necessarily diminish your willingness and ability to love others. You also can’t love others when you’re given over to sexual immorality and sensuality. By definition, when you commit sexual immorality you are using other people instead of loving them. You become captivated by that sin so that your focus in life becomes satisfying yourself instead of blessing others. Quarrelsome much? And then you can’t love others when you are quarrelsome or jealous. That’s because you are failing to love others with your words and attitude. I think I’ve met more quarrelsome people in Reformed churches than anywhere else in the world. Quarrelsome people usually think they are wise or discerning or otherwise gifted by God, but more often they are prideful and rebellious. They get pleasure from an argument, they gain satisfaction from playing devil’s advocate. And often at the root of it is jealousy – they are jealous of what other people are or what other people have. If that’s you, you need to consider that being quarrelsome is not some minor peccadillo, but a major transgression that is listed alongside drunkenness and adultery. You need to put such sins to death and direct your passion, your time, and your intensity to loving other people and devoting yourself to their good. Wasted potential I recently found myself pondering this: How many men could be serving as elders in any given church, except that they have sold themselves out to sexual immorality? Or how many men and women could be serving as deacons in any given church (if that church opens the office of deacon to women), except that they’ve devoted vast amounts of time to hobbies or games that just don’t matter that much? Or how many church members could be leading important ministries, except that they spend hours on social media thinking that some daft controversy on Twitter in any way impacts the real world? And all the while there are people right before them who need to be loved and cared for and shepherded. The local church desperately needs qualified elders, committed deacons, and faithful ministry leaders, but so many have disqualified themselves. What does it say about you if you know more about the controversies in the wider church than the needs in your local church? Hear it from me: the real troubles of the real people in your real church have nothing to do with what happens on Twitter or YouTube. The more time you spend clicking and scrolling and swiping, the less you’ve got to give to the people you have covenanted with, the people you can actually impact, the people who need to be loved. Your church needs people who are experts in love, not experts in controversy and celebrity. Put away whatever is captivating you when you should be captivated by Christ. Stop swiping and start serving! Indulgent sins, sexual sins, social sins – all these are a failure to love. If you’re in bondage to any of these sins, plead with God for his help in putting it to death. But don’t stop there. Consider how as you labor to diminish the power of that sin in your life, you will at the same time increase love in your life. Consider how you can replace self-indulgence with expressing love to others, self-centeredness with a life of blessing and serving others. For this is why God made you, why he called you, and why he saved you – so you could live a life of doing good to others for the glory of his name. This first appeared on Challies.com and is reprinted here with the author’s permission....

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News

Stats Canada: birth rate now at just 1.26 children per woman

Statistics Canada is reporting that the country’s birth rate has dropped to among the lowest in the world, at just 1.26 children per woman, and British Columbia leads the downward trend with a birth rate of just 1 child per woman. To put these numbers in context, for a country’s population to remain stable – neither growing nor shrinking – each woman needs to have, on average, 2 children – one to replace her, and one to replace her spouse. The real number is even a smidge higher at 2.1, to account for children that don’t make it to adulthood. But outside of Nunavut, at 2.48 children, no province or territory is even at replacement level. Saskatchewan is next best, at 1.63 children. So how might this impact Canada’s population over the coming decades? For simplicity’s sake, we’ll drill into this using a sample population of just 100, with 50 men and 50 women. If each of these women averages 1.26 children, then in one generation we’re down to a population of 63. Let’s round that up to 64, or 32 men and 32 women. If those 32 women then average 1.26 children each, we’re down to a population of just 40. In just two generations we’ve seen the population drop by 60%. Applied to Canada’s current population of 40 million, that would see us drop all the way down to 16 million in two generations. So why is Canada’s population still growing, and growing fast? We’re up by more than a million over just the last few years! This is due to an influx of immigrants – more than a million over the last few years. The growth isn’t coming internally. Massive immigration is one short-term means of forestalling population collapse, but it isn’t a long-term answer, because birth rates are falling all over the world. And if the population decreases everywhere, there won’t be immigrants knocking on our door. What’s the solution? Everyone seems to be looking to the government, but to this point, no program in any country has done much to slow the decline. The case could be made that the government isn’t the answer, but it is part of the problem – every childcare program meant to make having children easier needs to be paid for with higher taxes, and higher taxes make it that much harder to get by for one-income families where a mom wants to stay at home. So what is the answer? Our culture needs to turn to God, not government. Do we sometimes find that a hard message to share? Well, thankfully, God is making it easier for us, by “platforming” us via the size of our families. It used to be you'd need to have 6 children or more to stand out, but now just 4 will give you an opportunity to let your light shine as people ask why so many? We can glorify our God, and help our country, just by speaking to the blessings He has given us in our children. This chart is adapted from Stats Canada’s “Fertility indicators, provinces and territories: Interactive dashboard” posted to StatsCan.gc.ca on Sept. 25, 2024. Used with permission. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product....

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News

Saturday Selection – Oct 12, 2024

Click on the titles for the linked articles... Public school vs. home school The Babylon Bee, helping us tell the difference... Noise cancellation: a remarkable design solution in biology Here are some biological features that require precise design (and which therefore evidence a precise Designer) that you've probably never thought of before: "Snakes should be immune to their own poison. Electric eels should not shock themselves. And protection from self-generated noise requires a preplanned noise cancellation system." Kevin DeYoung on making better arguments The key here is to argue the facts of the matter – the what rather than the why. You might think you know why your opponent is taking their stand, but if they haven't stated it, then don't pretend you are a mind-reader. Address the argument they have made, rather than the secret motivations they may or may not have. The four gifts children need from their fathers It's not complicated. It does take effort. Here's an article every father would benefit from reading. The four gifts are: Presence Other mentors Wisdom Blessing 3 painfully obvious suggestions to reduce your child's screen time "A major concern of paediatricians today is excessive screen time in children. Here are three (painfully obvious) suggestions for avoiding and reducing screen time. Unfortunately, these are increasingly becoming viewed as unnecessary or unreasonable by some parents: Read a lot of books Talk to your kids about normal life every day Don’t use digital devices as the default activity..." Anne Wilson - Sunday Sermons Catchy song, with a curious video about a helpful man who stops to help a stranded woman... but first takes time to teach a kid how to hit a baseball. Guess he knew she wasn't done singing yet. ...

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