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Oct 20, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Kathy Vandergrift |Bob Bruinsma |Rudy Eikelboom |Lloyd Rang
I recall my reaction when my email account was hacked: fear that my friends might send money to a fraudster; frustration with the hassle and loss of time to deal with it; embarrassment that my name was on messages to extort money from anyone on my list; and anger about the intrusion and damage done. At a deeper level, there was a sense of being wronged with no chance of remedy, no way to make it right and no way to hold anyone to account.
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Oct 18, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Cathy Smith |Peter Schuurman |Lloyd Rang |Brian Walsh
All my knotted-up life: a memoirBeth MooreTyndale House Publishers, 2023. After reading All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir, I want Beth Moore to be my new best friend. She’s indefatigable. Hilarious. Vulnerable. I first heard of Moore when she made headlines for being treated crassly by some evangelical leaders, including, notably, John MacArthur.
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Sep 18, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Derek C. Schuurman |Lloyd Rang |Rudy Eikelboom
The book of Genesis opens with the creation account describing a beautiful world of sea, earth, sky, plants, fish, birds and other animals. But tucked away in the midst of this story is a curious verse which seems out of place. The verse is Genesis 2:12, which parenthetically mentions that “The gold of that land is good.” Why is this verse significant enough to be included in the creation account? Gold subsequently appears in many other places in the Bible.
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Aug 11, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Angela Reitsma Bick |Melissa Kuipers |Meghan Kort |Lloyd Rang
I didn’t see the Twin Towers fall. I didn’t even hear about it until September 12, when my mom called our tiny Moscow apartment at 6 a.m. local time with a horrible update: terrorists … planes … the world has changed. Word-of-mouth news. We didn’t own a computer and it would be another decade before smartphones were in everyone’s pockets. That year our main source of news was the radio, which had just two English stations: BBC and the Voice of America.
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Aug 11, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Kathy Vandergrift |Curt Gesch |Angela Reitsma Bick |Lloyd Rang
It is a health hazard to go outside today, a warm June day in Ottawa where I live. Across wide swaths of North America, smoke from wildfires has made air quality warnings as essential as UV ratings and weather forecasts. At a deeper level the threatening smoky haze adds a visceral element to concerns about our environment. Bizarre elements abound in our current context. Fire-fighters are flying from South Africa to Alberta, but I cannot bike to the library or tend to my new pollinator-garden.
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Jun 30, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Harry Stam |Roland De Vries |Lloyd Rang |Femare Okemena
Matthew 25 is one of my favourite Bible passages and I have enjoyed many good sermons that reflected on it. God instructs his people to feed the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison. As we reflect on that passage, we see that God delights in us when we care for those around us and as we show others God’s love. This text has motivated our churches to be active in social justice and in tending for those in our society who need assistance.
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May 15, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Roland De Vries |Lloyd Rang |Cathy Smith |Tom Wolthuis
The relationship between the church and surrounding culture is a complicated one. Many questions arise as we relate to the world. What good can we affirm in the wider culture? What is potentially dehumanizing about our society? Are we entangled with our culture in unhelpful ways? What has our culture gotten right about human flourishing that we have missed? These are complicated questions, and questions we often approach with insufficient care.
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May 10, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Lloyd Rang |Heidi Vander Slikke |Emily Cramer |Curt Gesch
Dear Mom,It’s been so long since we’ve talked. I never had the chance to say goodbye. We all expected you to come home from the hospital the next day. But that changed. Forever. I think of you often. I have a lifetime of good memories. When I got engaged to Jack one of the girls our age from church told me I was getting a sweet deal for a mother-in-law. Funny, she didn’t say anything about my choice of husband! Anyway, she was right. I miss your sense of humour.
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Mar 27, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | David T. Koyzis |Kathy Vandergrift |Emily Wierenga |Lloyd Rang
When I was growing up in suburban Chicago, my siblings and I attended a public elementary school. The school day opened with a series of rituals intended to instill in us a sense of solidarity with our political community. Before beginning our lessons, we would stand with our hand over our hearts and recite the pledge of allegiance to the American flag.
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Mar 14, 2023 | 
thestar.com | Lloyd Rang
In Canadian politics, “saviours” have a lousy track record. When Michael Ignatieff left academia to lead the federal Liberals, he was quickly branded by the Tories as “just visiting.” On the Tory side, golden boy Stockwell Day started his career with a spectacular self-own Jet Ski photo-op, and things just got worse from there. When it comes to party leadership, it seems the higher the perch, the faster the fall.
