Several months before I moved to Hamilton, Ontario, I wrote a metrical version of Mary’s Magnificat, which I sang in church shortly thereafter. The Book of Common Prayer prescribes that the Magnificat be sung at evening prayer, which suggests that it need not be limited to the Advent season but should be sung often throughout…
Although I am a native of the United States, it is possible that I was born a British subject through my late father. At the time Dad was born, his native island of Cyprus was a Crown colony of the United Kingdom. Cyprus had been ceded to Britain by the Ottoman sultan in 1878 as…
Americans have done it again. They have brought Donald J. Trump back to the White House after a hotly contested election campaign filled with plot twists worthy of an Agatha Christie novel. Who could have foreseen that President Joe Biden would bow out midstream and yield to his vice president, Kamala Harris? Who would have…
Since I was a child I have been fascinated by those extra books found in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, known to Protestants as the Apocrypha. These include Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, 1 and 2 Maccabees and some additions to the books of Esther and Daniel as found…
It finally came to the park down the street from us. First one tent went up. Then another. And then several tents formed a small makeshift city – the latest in a series of homeless encampments that have gone up in parks and other underutilized spaces in our community. With them come litter, unsanitary conditions,…
This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the division of the island of Cyprus between Turkish Cypriots in the north and Greek Cypriots in the south. The events leading up to this division made nearly all of my paternal relatives refugees in their own country. It also pushed me into the study of political science…
Nine months have passed since that dark day when Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel from its stronghold in Gaza. Since then, we have witnessed much suffering on the part of Palestinian civilians at the hands of the Israeli military. My wife and I regularly watch the PBS Newshour, which has thoroughly covered the…
In North America today there is a certain first-person narrative that frequently grabs the attention of the secular media. The typical storyline runs like this: “I was raised in a Christian home where I was taught not to question the beliefs of my church community. My parents believed in, say, a literal six-day creation, a…
Several years ago, a good friend in North Carolina suggested during a phone conversation that I write a book on citizenship. At the time I was revising my first book, Political Visions and Illusions, whose second edition was released five years ago this month. I decided to take him up on his suggestion, submitting a…
This past weekend we learned that Bob Goudzwaard has departed this life at the age of 90. Goudzwaard was a political economist who was steeped in the Christian tradition, especially in that branch of the faith downstream from Augustine, John Calvin, Abraham Kuyper, and Herman Dooyeweerd. Born and raised in Delft, the Netherlands, he lived through…
Born and raised in Baie Commeau, Québec, a mill town five hours northeast of Quebec City, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney seemed to embody the diversity of Canada in his own person. His parents were Irish Canadians but he grew up speaking both French and English. In his youth he was inspired to work within…
When we are young, we don’t bother to think much about our eventual demise, assuming that a good half century or more stretches before us, if God is willing. During my own youth, I was more likely to worry about what I would fill those future years with so as not to waste the gifts…
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