History

A Time to Contemplate

David Kettle

Between 2014 and 2018, Canada will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the First World War. Some will quite rightly ask: Why should we as a nation or we as Presbyterians celebrate this war?

Exploring Grace Alone

Peter Bush

Basic training is grueling, with sleep deprivation and drill sergeants yelling at recruits, constantly reminding them that they will flunk out. It is a harsh, graceless environment.

The Cost of Discipleship

Anita Mack

It was on the night of my mother’s 16th birthday, May 10, 1940, that the small kingdom of the Netherlands was invaded by neighbouring German troops. So instead of happy birthday greetings by family members, my mother was glumly told that morning: “It’s war.”

Chaplains at War

Stephen Hayes

I have recently been doing some research at the Canadian War Museum. It is obvious that if we Canadian Presbyterians do not tell our own stories it is unlikely anyone else will. It is in that spirit that I offer short stories of two of our Second World War chaplains.

Articulating Faith

Arthur Van Seters

Back in the early 1970s William Stringfellow, a tenacious lawyer and lay theologian, contended that what the church most needed was the spiritual gift of discernment. That is, one should exercise the gift of spiritual insight that truly engages the particular times in which you are living. Now, in the listing of spiritual gifts by the apostle Paul, discernment is not explicitly mentioned. But Stringfellow, speaking at a Presbyterian College convocation in Montreal, made a compelling case. The social upheaval of the 60s, the long drawn out Cold War and profound questions raised by the Vietnam War were among the growing challenges to face those who would soon enter ordained ministry. For him the witness of Scripture to the Gospel of Christ compelled discernment of the times as a spiritual discipline.

Presby-assyrians

Jennifer Higgs

The story of a small town and congregation in rural Saskatchewan begins halfway around the world and more than 100 years ago, when settlers from Persia came to North Battleford to build their future on Canadian soil. They fled from religious persecution and formed a Presbyterian community that continues to influence worshippers today.

A Good Thing

Gloria Wasacase

I worked at Cecelia Jeffery Residential School in November 1959 as a counsellor. I was assigned to the senior girls (ages 12-17); there were about 25-30 in the group. We were located on the second-floor dormitory and the junior girls were on the third floor. This was the same arrangement for the boys' side of the school.