Towards a World Without AIDS
“I hear there are drugs that can help me live. Can you help?” The woman was thin, her face drawn. We sat in a small […]
Viewpoint
Being Present
The theme for this year’s Renewal Fellowship annual general meeting was Practical Renewal. What do you do and how do you keep your faith active and alive?
Donald Trump and Other Madness Evangelicals Fall For
While I love the passion and biblical focus that some Evangelicals place on moral and spiritual purity in the Christian life I can’t help but be discontent after 10+ years of Evangelical metamorphosis with basing my existence as a Christian on simplistic and rigid markers of spiritual growth.
The View from the Mountain Top
Earlier in this new century it was still argued that climate change may or may not be happening. Neither a scientist nor a Christian church member can any longer say such a thing responsibly.
PSALT: ‘Concerned with the Vast Shift’
A group named PSALT—short for Presbyterians Standing for Apostolic Love and Truth—has sent letters to all sessions and presbyteries within the Presbyterian Church in Canada, […]
The View from the Ages
Here’s a Christian assumption that shapes life: the world, and everything in it, is created. The ecosphere comes into being from outside itself.
The View from Space
There will be a few thousand ways in which we see our world differently, but let me focus on a big one.
‘We Need to Stay Awake’
La Loche, Saskatchewan is located about 600 km northwest of Saskatoon where I have lived for the last 12 years. Before the tragic shooting that […]
Joyful and Heartbreaking
This was the third time in four days that Canadian troops had gathered to say goodbye to friends in arms. This piece of tarmac in Kandahar is holy ground, as chaplains from Canada and allied countries have said many prayers, and comforted many more soldiers.
The Power to Move the Soul
When the federal election campaign started, months ago, I posted a photo on Facebook of Justin Trudeau in a scrum after an event at the University of Toronto. I helped organize the event, and I’m standing just behind him, with a slightly quizzical, slightly proud look. I liked the guy. But I was still sizing him up. As were Canadians.
Planning Goodbyes
In ages past, everyone knew what to expect at a funeral. But those once-familiar practices have begun to change.
Leveling the Field
The Pension and Benefits Board serves the Presbyterian Church family by managing the pensions of ministers, members of the diaconate and staff of various church […]
Culture Clash
As a lay missionary working with Anishinabe people on Manitoba’s Keeseekowenin and Rolling River reserves in the 1970s, I, like other missionaries at the time, was given lessons in how to learn any language and cross-cultural communications.
Encounters with God
General Assembly is about the business of the church and that business seems dry to many. This year, along with the much anticipated and expected […]
Wrestle in Equal Measure
How should Christians view same-gender partnerships? And is it possible for Presbyterians to come to a common mind on these matters?
Freedom From Hatred
We have all been shocked by the attacks in Paris on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and on shoppers in a Jewish grocery. They are […]
Faith Through Life
We started in an era when churches were many-membered, full of developing youth and rich in community. We are the PYPS of yesteryear.
The Putin Problem
The late-July cover story in the Economist, “A web of lies,” focused partly on the responses by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and the Russian media […]
A Struggle for Power
The events in Ukraine as they have unfolded have captured frontpage headlines in most of the Western media. And although I do not follow the […]
Critical Thinking
In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt described the Nazi bureaucrat as all too ordinary, as “terribly and terrifying normal.”