I didn’t expect to enjoy Wicked: for Good, the sequel to the original Wicked. I was skeptical about the need for yet another origin story of a misunderstood villain. Both musicals tell the backstory of Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. Wicked is set…
“I can’t be a coward at the pulpit.” These words, coming from Gerlyn Henry’s supervisor on the heels of the January 6th insurrection in 2021, changed Henry’s perspective on ministry. At the time, Henry was working as an assistant priest at a church in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto. New to preaching and unable to…
A few months ago, Eric Almon joined my Bible study group. Almon is a 25-year-old entrepreneur, Canadian Armed Forces reservist and lifelong Toronto resident. As we got to know each other, Almon shared his unique testimony: his father was a non-practising Anglican, his mother came from a New Age Buddhist background and faith wasn’t a…
Across Canada, provincial leaders agree that the nation is facing a crisis of addiction but grapple with how to respond. Last year, Ontario announced that it would invest 303 million over three years to support community-led and delivered mental health programs, including turning nine Consumption and Treatment Services sites into HART Hubs, “delivering expanded recovery…
Based on the childhood experiences of author and illustrator Lita Judge, this poignant, exquisitely illustrated children’s picture book gives young readers a window into housing insecurity and how it impacts families. Old Blue, a dated van, serves as the home of a girl and her sister, their parents, a dog and a cat. Life on…
This year marks Nancy’s and my 30th wedding anniversary. On our honeymoon, we travelled through the mid-Atlantic states, visiting sites associated with our respective family histories. In April and May of this year, we returned to some of these places, especially Baltimore, Annapolis, and St. Mary’s City, the first capital of Maryland in the seventeenth…
This book reads like a novel, with four pastors as the main characters and church meetings as the plotline in the story of one church. Yet this is actually immersive journalism, based on four years of recording details about the real life, internal workings of one congregation. Circle of Hope tells of the rise and…
Congo’s seventeenth Ebola epidemic was declared on May 15, over three months after the first suspected case in Mongbwalu, a few hours from Bunia in northeastern Congo. On February 4, 44-year-old pastor Pastor Paluku Makundi Denis was buried and dozens of people fell sick afterwards. On March 27, three Red Cross volunteers fell sick and…
The proposed new law to combat hatred, Bill C-9, is creating animosity instead of bringing together various groups who could help to address the increase in antisemitism that led to its introduction. Bill C-9, with amendments, has now received a third reading in the House of Commons, by a vote of 186 Yeas and 137…
For most of my adulthood, I convinced myself that road rage was a funny, cute trait of mine. I’m generally composed and congenial but I can transform into a fireball if someone cuts me off, or zips in and out of traffic like it’s a game of pinball. “I just get righteous anger when people…
Historian Keith Sewell (my neighbour and colleague at Dordt University) once argued that the decline in church attendance, especially in England, began with the Billy Graham crusades, which emphasized a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. One could experience this outside the church, making church attendance unnecessary. Many contemporary Christian worship songs reflect this shift as…
From January 23 to 25, several hundred people gathered on Treaty One Territory in Winnipeg to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of Elijah Harper’s Sacred Assembly. In 1995, Elijah Harper, a Red Sucker Lake Cree leader and politician, convened thousands of Indigenous leaders, faith leaders and public figures to share his vision for Canada. He believed…
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