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Nov 5, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | James Dekker |Angela Reitsma Bick |Roland De Vries |Sylvia Keesmaat
Dear God,Years ago, Paul Simon sang, “These are the days of miracle and wonder.” But that song was filled with terrifying images: soldiers in the desert, a bomb in a baby carriage. That sounds more like mayhem and worry than miracle and wonder. Still, that wise secular theologian and prophet kept repeating “And don’t cry, baby, don’t cry.” Was he crazy? Was he right?
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Nov 1, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Richard J. Mouw |Deani Van Pelt |Jessica Lum |Roland De Vries
S. Franklin Logsdon was a well-known evangelical pastor in the post-World War II years, serving in several large congregations in the United States and Canada. After a brief stint at Chicago’s Moody Memorial Church in the early 1950s, he became a popular itinerant Bible teacher, with a special focus on end-time prophecy. In 1968 Logsdon published Is the U.S.A. in Bible Prophecy?
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Nov 1, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Emily Wierenga |Roland De Vries |Meghan Kort |Rudy Eikelboom
Dear Son,Even as we drive across the midriff of Canada, prairie skin stubbled with dry grass and grain elevators, you and your brother are seated in the back playing Super Smash Bros. I see the smiles on your faces, hear the gentle ribbing and the laughter, and for this moment, I’m grateful for video games. Yet I don’t always feel this way and you often wonder why, and so do I.
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Oct 5, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Roland De Vries |Andrew Stephens-Rennie |Phil Christman |Katie Munnik
In early spring of this year, I traipsed around to various dry cleaners and tailor shops in Montreal, looking for scraps of fabric. When I entered a shop and made my request, the staff invariably look at me oddly: “You want leftover scraps of fabric?!” In most cases they eventually granted my request and I walked happily away with a bag stuffed with their castoffs – leftover fabric from hemmed pants, shortened skirts, or jackets taken in.
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Sep 4, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Roland De Vries |Cathy Smith |Michael Munnik |Brian Bork
A few weeks ago I made a telephone call to a courthouse here in Quebec. It was an important matter, involving questions I rarely have to think about in English, let alone in French. I asked the Clerk whether we could speak in English. This led to a series of questions since, with the recent passage of Bill 96, there are more restrictions on those entitled to receive services in English. She asked:“Are you an Indigenous person? Have you arrived in Quebec within the last six months?
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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 | Meghan Kort |Darren Spyksma |Roland De Vries |Kristen Parker
A new president, a closing Theatre department, a massive influx in international students, and, as of March, the faculty are unionised. A lot has changed in the past five years at Trinity Western University (TWU) in Langley, B.C., Canada’s biggest Christian liberal arts school. On March 10, after covid-related delays, TWU faculty finally received confirmation from the B.C. Labour Board that their unionization vote from October 2021 had been successful.
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Apr 21, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Roland De Vries |Cathy Smith |James Dekker |Bert Groenenberg
A friend recently went on a book-buying spree as an act of protest. A couple of hours after setting out to a used bookstore, she appeared outside my office. Her arms were piled with children’s books by Roald Dahl. She invited me to pick out one that I might like – I went with Matilda. Here it sits on my desk, in all its originally-published glory (1988), from Puffin Books.
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Apr 10, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Rudy Eikelboom |Cathy Smith |Roland De Vries |Angela Reitsma Bick
As we learn more about God’s creation, our commonsense understanding of things sometimes becomes limiting. Quantum physics, for example, is full of descriptions of the subatomic world that seem, on their surface, bizarre. Light can be described as either waves or particles. Good experiments produce evidence that supports both realities. And yet our commonsense view would suggest a thing cannot simultaneously be a particle and a wave.
