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News. Clues. Kingdom views.

Angela Reitsma BickWASHINGTON, D.C. – Sunni

insurgents are taking over in Iran, the crisis in Ukraine worsens and the war between Israel and Gaza escalates – all this without any con-sensus among Western nations as to how to respond to these conflicts.

For insight into the unrest around the world today, Christian Courier’s Editor spoke with Dr. James W. Skillen, the first executive director and later president of the Center for Public Justice (CPJ), a Christian policy think tank in Washington, D.C.

You have been involved for so many decades trying to raise awareness about principled plur-alism – government-protected religious freedom for all – among Christians in the political sphere. From that vantage point, how would you address a situation like Israel and Palestine today?

The great predicament of Israel and the Middle East is so deeply root-ed in the his-torical prob-lems. When

the Ottoman Empire collapsed, there was no cohesion about how these groups would relate to one another. The UN’s approval of the state of Israel created the potential for nationalism among the Pales-tinians, but the Arab States never agreed how to support a place called Palestine.

Given the ideologies of both

Diplomacy and law-making, not more force, needed in current conflictsAn interview with James W. Skillen

sides, given the deeply rooted prejudices, given the inadequacy of there even being a Palestinian identity except in opposition to Israel, I see no future there unless

things radically change. With everything shifting in the Middle East, not to mention Europe’s increasing distance from Israel’s modes of operation, I think Israel

would have to see itself as an is-land that needs to cooperate with nearby states. Will it stand in the world on the basis of military power? More Jewish people live

Eddy DykstraLEEUWARDEN, the Neth-

erlands – The shooting down of flight MH17 has immersed the Netherlands in deep mourning. Since the airport disaster on Tener-ife in 1977 and the Bijlmer plane disaster of 1992, the Netherlands has never been as shocked as it has been through this event. Where at first there was unbelief and bewil-derment, anger and a demand for justice has taken its place.

King Willem Alexander said in his address to the nation: “We are

The Netherlands: united in grief

elsewhere in the world now than in Israel. For the future welfare of the Jews, how important is a state which is under complete threat? On the other hand, one can’t im-agine them giving that up.

What is the U.S.’s most recent “de-structive delusion about Iraq,” to quote an essay of yours from 2007?

Not only in Iraq but in the area, we are still living with the pieces that fell apart under President Bush. The delusion that by simply knocking off Saddam Hussein, freedom lovers there would rise up and form a democracy and govern themselves happily was of course completely untrue. We didn’t have any plan to govern the place even though we knocked off the government. The need for reconciliation between groups couldn’t be done in a short time.

The efforts after President Obama came in, when he pulled

Continued on page 2

Continued on page 2

A Palestinian woman inspects a severely damaged olive tree near the West Bank city of Nablus.

Flags were at half-mast and windmills stopped in “rouwstand” on a day of national mourning for victims of MH17.

PAGE 2 CHRISTIAN COURIER

News

back yet needed to do something to keep the radical groups from forming a separate government – there’s no adequate way to pick up those pieces. Obama’s in a tremendous dilemma, hoping that the U.S. can stay out but not be overwhelmed with the mess there.

Should we have something invested in the preservation of a place called Iraq?

That’s a longer-term question. Iraq was artificially created; all that goes back to the end of the Ottoman Empire and World War I. I don’t know that we should be thinking of Iraq as a territorial state as the most important thing to preserve. On the other hand, it’s not obvious how it would be deconstructed and reorganized under two or three states, because you still have the same kinds of problem of Sunni and Shia living together. If a Shia state in the south got organized it would be closely aligned with Iran and whether that would be good or not is hard to say.

Historian Daniel Pipes said last year that “Islamism has peaked as a world phenom-enon.” Do current events – in Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Egypt – substantiate or chal-lenge that prediction?

There’s no evidence that radical Islam is in decline. It’s probably not true that a centre of dominance like the one Osama bin Laden held still exists, because [today] these people are spread out and operate small scale operations in different countries. It’s more diffuse; there’s no single centre of the activity. And it’s complicated by many other factors: ethnic, anti-authority, so many differ-ent tribal groups. These radical groups pick on and pick up on other differences.

A cover of a recent Macleans magazine here in Canada showed the back of President Obama’s head with the tagline “America Surrenders.” It’s critical of the hands-off approach you were discussing earlier. Can you tie that into your understanding of civil-religious nationalism as a form of idolatry?

Many of the criticisms of Obama are coming from the more conservative side here, mostly Republicans, who I think still live with the illusion that if the U.S. just stood up and started punching and told the world how to turn, it would do so. It’s an illusion that started with Vietnam. That the U.S. can just use force has proved to be wrong – in Iraq, Afghanistan.

If there’s real war, and the conflict de-pends on one military beating another mil-itary, then the U.S. standing up makes some sense. But as has been proved, the problems in Vietnam, in Iraq and in Syria are not a big military that’s opposing us or our allies. That was President Bush’s mistake – after killing Hussein he thought we achieved victory. The problems actually have to do with govern-ance, with conflicts within countries. And that needs to be handled with diplomacy.

Does that require a paradigm shift away from seeing the United States as “God’s chosen vessel to lead the world to freedom and democracy,” as you wrote in 2009?

Yes, that’s fundamental. We still need to go out and promote democracy – if that looks like trade agreements, that’s one thing. But when it goes in the direction that we feel free to break the law and do the things we’d condemn others for, because we’re promot-ing democracy and it’s part of an American identity, we’ll not only win more enemies but

will not nurture a world we need.

Is there a smaller country that models the kinds of international relations the U.S. needs to adopt?

I’m not thinking of the U.S. getting to a position where it needs to hand over major power to China, Russia, Germany, and say “We’re not going to do anything anymore.” There’s no reason, however, that the U.S. can’t practise the kinds of diplomacy prac-tised by Canada and, for example, Britain, now that its empire is gone.

The arts of diplomacy and negotiation and international law-making need to take precedence, [otherwise] we’re just falling into a vacuum.

One last quote for reflection: “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. [. . .] Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earth-quakes in various places. [. . .] Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death” (Matt. 24).

What is Jesus saying to the churches of the west today?

That passage is prophetically pastoral by saying to Christians, “Don’t imagine that join-ing the right military will bring the Kingdom down to earth on your own.”

The world is in crisis; sin has not yet been

finally defeated; don’t imagine that in the on-going movement of history you’re not going to see wars, rumours of wars, nation rising against nation. In the West, [persecu-tion of Christians] only happens on a small scale; but in other countries, in China, that’s a fulfillment of the passage.

The context of the passage does not then say, “Oh well, not to worry, nothing we can do.” What we can see in Scripture is that we are supposed to do everything possible to love our neighbours, to pursue the good for everyone. We ought to be asking, “How do we act as citizens, politically, to distinguish the good from what is evil? How do we seek justice – just states, just laws?”

We ought to see a modesty in govern-ment; it’s not able to solve all problems. That doesn’t mean that government doesn’t have a role to play, especially in relation to other governments. We really need to be working for the end of nationalism as the spark to war, asking instead, “how can we work together?”

Skillen’s new book, The Good of Politics, was reviewed by Dr. Koyzis in the July 14, 2014 CC and at christiancourier.ca. The book expands on the Kuyper-ian view that “God cre-ated humans for political life.” Angela Reitsma Bick spoke with Skillen from her home

in Newcastle, Ont.

deeply moved by an event that cuts through our soul. It has brought about a deep wound in our society. Let us hold on to each other, open our hearts and care for each other. In greatest distress we depend on inner strength, compassion and inner solidarity.”

He added, “My wife and I empathize with all those who have been affected and who are steeped in mourning. We are with them in our thoughts. That also applies to my mother [Princess Beatrix] and the other members of our family who in these dark days feel an extra strong bond with the country.”

Prime Minister Rutte mentioned in his ad-dress to the people of the Netherlands: “Our first concern is [to] bring back our loved ones. After that, an independent investiga-tion must provide clarity as to how this came about, so that justice can be done.”

The national institute Slachtofferhulp (victim relief) offers practical support to family members and relatives by listening

to personal stories of people. It informs the employers of the victims about insurance and other financial matters. But it also offers help in the process of identifying the remains.

‘Rouwstand’Wednesday, July 23, was announced as

a day of national mourning. This kind of initiative had not been taken since the death of Queen Wilhelmina. Many sports events, like sailing competitions, were canceled or suspended. National and regional radio sta-tions modified their programming. Drivers of commercial trucks placed black tape on their left outside mirror. Large stores, like Albert Heijn, removed their own flags and stopped playing taped music.

At four o’clock in the afternoon one minute of silence was observed. Almost everyone in the Netherlands took part. No landings took place at Schiphol airport, and all taxis came to a halt. The more than 80

windmills in Friesland and all 19 windmills in Kinderdijk were placed in what is called “rouwstand” [mourning mode]. This means that the bottom wing is fastened a little to the right of the windmill to indicate a “pass-ing.” At government buildings the flags flew at half-mast. All in all, it was a very impressive display of empathy.

Around four o’clock the first bodies landed on the airport of Eindhoven. To see the first 40 coffins placed in hearses with mil-itary honours proved to be a very emotional moment for people in this small country. After this ceremony, attended by dignitaries and relatives, the hearses rode in a column to Hilversum where special teams will attempt to identify the remains. Some thousand in-ternational experts will take part in trying to identify the bodies. Along the route from Eindhoven to Hilversum crowds of bystand-ers lined the road to pay their respect. Many applauded as the cortege slowly passed by.

That evening in Amsterdam some thousand people took part in a silent march.

SolidarityThe Raad van Open Kerken in Neder-

land (The Council of Open Churches in the Netherlands) held a special hour of reflec-tion/prayer service in the St. Joris church in Amersfoort. The call was issued by Catholic bishops as well as by Protestant churches in the Netherlands. In addition to the offering of prayers and reflections, a choir sang beautiful hymns. Think of a number of Taize hymns, Psalm 22, Hymnbook songs 1008 and 416, Faure, Schubert (Ars Musica). The Bible text chosen for the occasion was Romans 8:38 and 39. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from

Interview with Skillen continued

United in grief continued

Tom Ziv, an Israeli reserve soldier, holds his baby son Ilay at an Israeli cafe during the 12-hour humanitarian truce.

Awaiting ambulances carrying casualties, Palestinians sit at the entrance to the emergency room of Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Continued on page 3

PAGE 3AugusT 11, 2014

News

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The colours of the globe: Iraq and Ukraine

Toddlers to TeensDenise Dykstra

Christ @ CultureLloyd Rang

My Window SeatMendelt Hoekstra

Principalities& PowersDavid Koyzis

Technically SpeakingDerek Schuurman

Intangible ThingsHeidi Vander Slikke

Country Living

Everyday ChristianCathy Smith

Getting UnstuckArlene Van Hove

Flowers and Thistles

The Public SquareHarry Antonides

From the 11thProvinceMarian Van Til

From the LabRudy Eikelboom

Words fromWild HorsesWarkentins

Patchwork Words Our World TodayBert Hielema

Curt Gesch

Meindert Vander Galien

SU MO TU WE TH FR SA

Melissa Kuipers

the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”In attendance at this service, in addition to family and

relatives, were King Willem Alexander, Queen Maxima and Prime Minister Rutte. Although there was room for 1,000 persons, the stream of people proved so great that a video screen had to be set up outside the cathedral. Special accent was placed on prayer and reflection. The focus was on the underlying solidarity in word and prayer. Of course, all churches in the Neth-erlands focused attention on the victims of the crash. In Gorredijk, Friesland, for example, an emotional service took place in connection with a married couple from that town who perished in the crash.

Here and there one can hear voices calling for retribution, if need be, through NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). But one also hears: “Vladimir Putin, why aren’t you doing anything?” Or: “If you want something done by Putin, then you have to go after what what’s important to him. Use forms of pressure and even deny the World Cup soccer tournament in 2018.”

However, the general opinion is fortunately one of caution and seeking for a diplomatic solution so that the return of the victims’ bodies is guaranteed. Besides, it will be hard to prove who pulled the trig-ger on the BUK missile. Will a bringing to justice of the perpetrators be even possible?

One thing is certain: the scars of this national wound will be visible and painful for years to come. At the same time the Netherlands has shown that it feels itself to be one with the victims and relatives, by uniting in sadness and mourning.

Eddy Dykstra is a retired teacher and composer, singer and musician who lives in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands.

United in grief continued

In my introductory political science courses I typically bring a globe into the classroom at some point. I hold it up to the students

and ask them what all the colours mean on the land surface. If we were in orbit around the earth, would we see these same colours? No, of course not, the students invariably respond. Why not? Because they represent political boundaries cre-ated by human beings and are thus not visible from space. The bound-aries are no less real for not being visible, but even the neat colours parcelled out amongst the world’s nations do not always adequately account for realities on the ground.

The current state system, now covering the globe, is usually traced back to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War. After this point, states were said to be sovereign within their respective territories, immune from interference from adjacent states. Since then the state system has proved to be most at home in Western Europe and those coun-tries formed by overseas settlement from that region. France is France, Britain is Britain, and Spain is Spain. End of discussion.

Elsewhere, however, the mod-ern state has been less success-ful. The decades leading up to the outbreak of the Great War saw Europe’s statesmen preoccupied with the vexing Eastern Question,

that is, what would become of the territories belonging to the declin-ing Ottoman Empire. As Turkish control over southeast Europe re-ceded, several neighbouring enti-ties, including Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, made conflicting claims to these lands. But Turkey was not alone. Austria-Hungary and Russia too were polyglot empires whose diverse peoples lacked a cohesive sense of national identity and unity.

However, with the collapse of the pre-1914 old order and the dis-memberment of the western co-lonial empires after 1945, it was widely and popularly assumed that the state system had now spread across the globe, presided over by the United Nations Organization. But once again, the reality is more complex than this.

PartitionedFirst, Iraq. Prior to the breakup

of the Ottoman Empire after the

Great War, there had been no such place as Iraq, which was created within arbitrary boundar-ies by France and Britain as they partitioned Turkey’s southern provinces between themselves. Britain established Iraq under a Hashemite monarch, Faisal I, with roots, not in Mesopotamia, but in the Arabian Peninsula. Al-though Britain’s direct control of Iraq ended in 1932, the new state failed to develop a sense of com-mon nationality. Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and As-syrian Christians, along with such smaller groups as Mandaeans, har-boured loyalties outweighing their putative allegiance to something called Iraq. Once Saddam Hus-sein’s strong-arm methods were out of the way, there was little to hold the country together, much as Yugoslavia did not ultimately survive the death of long-time communist ruler, Josip Broz Tito.

Historians may one day record that Iraq lasted for not quite a cen-tury, held together more by the machinations of other more pow-erful states than by the will of its own people to form a nation. The old Eastern Question never went away; it was merely pushed into the second decade of the 21st century.

Now, Ukraine. For more than two decades I’ve been telling my students that Ukraine is a severely divided country with a better-than-even chance of breaking up along the historic boundary that once separated Catherine the Great’s Russia from the old Polish-Lith-uanian commonwealth. As long as it was content to remain a “bor-derland” – which is what Ukraine means – it would muddle along under governments trying might-ily to bridge the chasm between the pro-European west and the pro-Russian east. However, as soon as Kiev attempted to move definitively into one camp or the other, it risked partition. This lat-ter scenario seems now to be un-folding before our eyes. Russia has already annexed Crimea, and the chances of it taking the eastern

oblasts (districts) are increasing by the day.

Like Iraq, Ukraine had never existed as a state before 1991, except for a brief period after the Great War. Its current external boundaries were the by-product of Soviet-era commissars at-tempting to give the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics the semblance of an ethnically-based federal structure. Within its re-cent internationally-recognized borders, Ukraine may not endure even half as long as Iraq.

This autumn I will once again bring my increasingly out-of-date globe into the classroom. But I will advise my students not to take the colours they see as a guide to what they will find if they travel the surface of the real thing. Take your passport, but be prepared for the unexpected, especially if you are heading to the Middle East or Eastern Europe.

David T. Koyzis teaches politics at Redeemer University College and is the author of We

Answer to Another: Authority, Office, and the Image of god

(Pickwick Publications).

Iraqi Shiites of the Mahdi Army militia in a parade in Baghdad on June 21, 2014. Iraqi Shiite tribesmen parading in support of the Mahdi Army.

Thousands of bystanders paid their respects as the bodies were returned home.

PAgE 4 CHRISTIAN COURIER

Editorial

James C. SchaapMy best high school friend decided

he’d go to college 500 miles west in a place he’d never been before – north-west Iowa. We’d played ball together in every high school sport imaginable, double-dated, were good buddies.

His decision had nothing to do with mine, but I too de-cided to head west 500 miles to the same corner of Iowa. I enrolled at Dordt College. My best friend enrolled just down the road at Northwestern College. Not for a moment did either of us consider attending the same school. Not that we hated each the other’s college; I didn’t know a thing about Northwestern except that it wasn’t ours.

Ours meant a great deal in that long-ago era. Denomi-nationalism was huge, bigger than most Canadian CRCs can understand, in part because some CRC folks, like me, have been CRC for five generations, if I tally the immi-grant schaaps who departed Terschelling in 1868 because no church on the island was as orthodox as they were.

The 2014 CRC synod took serious steps to bring together a couple of siblings who, officially at least, haven’t talked much in the last 150 years, since 1857 at least, when the CRC walked away.

Why did we split? Whatever differences once existed are barely worth noting. Both sib-lings are ailing these days, as all denominations are in the era of megachurch. American evangeli-calism is a dynamo, despite its claims that there’s a war on faith in this country. South of the bor-der, largely conservative evan-gelicals create the agendas of CRC churches far more than they did when I was a boy. Members of both denominations invest in politics more passionately than they do in theology; if they invest in theology at all, that investment takes a political bent.

Even where I live, where lots of folks belong to the CRC or the RCA, the old lines are not as distinctly drawn.

Neither of us have the firepower we once had, so we may just as well share armories and sing together. Our worship styles were cut from the same fabric and are even more similar today. We all have the same praise teams.

It makes good sense to partner these days. It really does.

Because so much of the history of the dueling de-nominations is south of the border, some CC readers might well find all of this befuddling. What really is the difference historically?

Packing KuyperLet’s begin here. I was born and reared in a town that,

even in the early 60s, was almost exclusively Dutch-American. In 1947, a whole century after that little burg, Oostburg, was established, proponents of Christian edu-cation built a Christian school.

In the town where I’ve lived for most of the last 40 years, Sioux Center, Iowa, Dutch Calvinist immigrants built a community a half century later. Here, the Christian

school is 109 years old, a half century older than Oostburg’s, even though Oostburg itself is a half-century older.

The story is in the math. Dutch immigrants to northwest Iowa carried something of Abraham Kuyper with them on the trip over; my Wisconsin ancestors did not. Kuyper wasn’t even around when they left Amsterdam or Antwerp. Christian education, a formidable institution, had to be imported.

Christian schools are a legacy of Kuyperian ideas, an attribute of the pillarization that for so long characterized Dutch society.

When immigrants once more left Holland after the Second World War, many packed Kuyper among their most pre-cious possessions. In essence, he came with them.

Imagine, if you can, life without Abraham Kuyper’s influence. Pre-Kuyper, the CRC tended to be cutting edge when it came to piety, but a little fearful of the world around them. We’ve changed.

There’s more to remember. When that boatload of Dutch immigrants came to America in 1848 – to Iowa and west Michigan and Wisconsin – there was already a Dutch Reformed Church in this country, a denomination out east as old as any fellowship in North America.

When, in 1857, the break occurred, historians often maintain that a major reason was somewhat “interper-sonal,” the perception the separatists picked up from those out east that what had happened to them in 1834, the Afs-cheiding in Holland, their split from the state church, was of little consequence. Those old American families with Dutch names didn’t get it and really didn’t care. After all, the Easterners, despite still speaking the Dutch language, had been residents of America for almost 200 years. What did they care?

When the Rev. Albertus C. Van Raalte chose to affili-ate with them, he was being more political than orthodox, according to the dissenters. If his Michigan colony was to prosper, he reasoned, they needed their long-lost American relatives. The dissenters, including my ancestors, said no. What resulted was the CRC, the “affies,” as some folks called us (think of it as a slur).

I’m generalizing here. The history is more complicated and nuanced; but let’s keep it up with a few more danger-ous generalizations.

DenominationalismMost Christian believers are licensed to carry heresy

detectors, even though they use them to uncover differ-ent enemies and ideas. For many years, most of our fights about heresy (and we define ourselves, for better and worse, by our fights) tended to be family feuds.

Because of its long history, the RCA’s fights were and still are more, well, American. Lynn Japinga’s fascinat-ing history of the RCA (Loyalty and Loss: The Reformed Church in America, 1945-1994) make its battles seem less provincial and more “American” than those of the CRC – inerrancy on one hand, for example, and modern-ism on the other. Simply stated, the RCA has much greater diversity and did already when we left. Most of those who study the history of Christianity in this country call the RCA a “mainline” denomination. No one really catego-rizes the CRC in that way.

But denominationalism itself is changing throughout the spectrum of Christian fellowships. No college is ours, these days. Dordt’s percentage of CRC kids dropped beneath 50 percent some years ago already. The absolute necessity of an education in a theological tradition, the strong arm I once felt, is barely a memory. If half of the graduating grade 12 students from CRC churches in North America would go to Calvin, Dordt, Trinity, Redeemer, Kings or Kuyper this fall, every one of those schools would be thrilled. Don’t hold your breath.

The 1857 break between the CRC and the RCA, in the States, happened for theological reasons which, right now earn little more than a footnote: psalm singing, lodge membership, open communion.

The powerful influence of Abraham Kuyper on some of the 1890s immigrants and most of the post-World War II contingent shaped the CRC into an institution that seemed far less like the RCA through the mid 20th century.

But much of that – and most all of this – is, for better or worse, history.

Times have changed. Today, the Academic Dean at Northwestern has a real Kuyperian pedigree; Dordt’s does not. Listen to this: Dordt’s President was, not long ago, runner up for the same job at Northwestern.

Today, we sing the same praise songs and even, some-times, dance together.

something’s gained; something’s lost – but that’s an essay for another day.

The 2014 synod is right. It’s time for reconciliation. James C. Schaap taught literature and writing at Dordt

College in Sioux Center, Iowa, for more than 30 years. He’s the author of many books, including CRC Family Album: the unfinished story of the CRC and Up the Hill, soon to

be published as an e-book through New Rivers Press.

Reconciliation

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Many post-WWII immigrants packed Kuyper among their most precious possessions.

Today, it makes good sense to partner together.

PAgE 5AugusT 11, 2014

Editorial

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Angela Reitsma Bick James Schaap has a

new book called Up the Hill. It’s set in a grave-yard and the narrator’s dead, yet the pages are packed with beauty

and humour. A snippet: “His mother died in her rocking chair on a Saturday after-noon in 1947 while smiling and seem-ingly contented, having just concluded her housecleaning, something she always did with religious devotion. Her house in order, she’d sat down, prepared as she was at that very moment of every week for death or the sabbath, whichever came first.”

The Globe and Mail is currently run-ning a 10-week investigative series on what makes Canadians laugh. So far “The Front Lines of Funny” hasn’t been much of a knee-slapper, but jokes can disappear when you try to define them. (Warning: that hap-pens here in about two minutes.) Canadians are famous for our sense of humour – on stage, on air, in comics, in literature. We have funny musicians, satirical news shows and big-league comedic actors.

Every once in a while I get a cartoon submission from a graphic artist who’s a Christian, and while I wish I could support their livelihood, I rarely even crack a smile at their work. It doesn’t take long to think of Canadians who make me laugh, but I can’t come up with too many Christian comedians or Christian writers who use comedy well. Am I missing something? I decided to do some research.

Turns out there are over 20 types of hu-mour. Christians have, of course, the same diversity of preference you’d find in any group. Do you like gallows humour, irony or self-deprecating jokes? Does slapstick (such as America’s Funniest Home Videos) make you laugh? Do you watch stand-up? Farce (Royal Canadian or otherwise)? Highbrow? We’re not restricted by our re-ligion from enjoying a variety of humour.

When it comes to the comedy Chris-tians produce, on the other hand, examples evaporate. Adding the adjective “Chris-

tian” to “humour” narrowed my online search pretty fast. Every entry was now paired with the word clean, as though that’s another category, reserved for us.

WWJLA?A lot of Christian humour seems to be

anecdotal or situational. If you remember The Bananer (1970 send-up of The Banner), then you’ve seen good satire. In 2007, Faith Alive put out the tongue-in-cheek Reformed Handbook, with chapters such as “What to bring to a church potluck (by region).” I like these attempts to take ourselves less seriously, to have a little fun at our own expense. (Self-deprecating humour.)

In 2008, Collin Hansen published Young, Restless and Reformed: A Journal-ist’s Journey with the New Calvinists, a serious work. Now we have parody in a new book by Ted Kluck and Zach Bartels called Younger, Restlesser, Reformeder. It contains such gems as this Reformed pick-up line: “Baby, is your name Grace? Cause

you sure seem irresistible to me.” It also pokes fun of this question –

Who gets to be called Reformed?“Before we get to specifics, there is the

not-small question of who gets to be called reformed. This is a tough one. If you don’t sprinkle babies, are you really reformed? And without the ‘Reformed,’ you’re just the Young & Restless, which sounds ex-ceedingly worldly. Hmmm.

“An easy out is to continually make the distinction between reformed and Reformed, but do you really want to walk around, saying, ‘I’m lowercase-r re-formed?’ Neither do we.

“At the end of the day, we needed a concrete formula. We needed certainty. We’re not postmodern, after all. So just grab a pencil and paper, and work through this simple equation:

“CW + Ch(Rf) + RCL + CCC + @ – 10(TV) – 20(RW) – ($TBN/10) – (xWB) – 10Em = RQ.”

(see page 14 for how to use the formula to find your RQ, or Reformed Quotient).

Home-grown humourThese days, I find the under-10 crowd

makes me laugh the most. When my husband arrives home, the day’s best one-liners get top billing.

Like when our two-year-old straight-ened his arm, stared at it with horror and cried, “My elbow is gone!” (Juvenile humour. Next up: situational.)

Last Christmas our girls were playing with a nativity set when I overheard this: “Okay, I’ll be Joseph. You’re Mary. Let’s pray for supper. ‘Dear Jesus –’ Wait a min-ute. Are we praying to our own baby?!”

Nehemiah calls the joy of God our strength (8:10). Laughter is a gift from God, a moment when burdens become a little lighter. The world is full of pain and sadness, but there’s also wit, silliness, mer-riment and real joy. Let’s claim more of that territory.

I’ve probably only scratched the surface of what could be a series as long as the Globe’s – a 10-week investigation called

What is this, a joke? Who said that?See how many comedic Canadians you recognize.

“Men can sense when a wall is com-ing down, and they can’t help the fact that they have to be there to watch it fall, or better yet, help push it over. It has been argued that the fall of the Ber-lin Wall had nothing whatsoever to do with the collapse of communism: it was just a weekend project that got out of con-trol – thousands of German guys satisfy-ing their undeniable urge to fix things up.”

“In sleep things are simpler. No regret over the past. No worry for the future. Only the present. And as bad as a dream gets, at least you get to sleep through it.”

“My aunt is a perfect combination of fatalist and optimist. She fell down and broke her leg, and just laid there going, ‘Am I ever glad that’s over with.’”

“According to a recent news item, William Dember, a professor of psy-chology at the University of Cincinnati, has conducted a study of the impact of the scent of peppermint on people re-quired to do ‘sustained vigilance tasks.’ What did he find? That the mere smell of peppermint increased attentiveness and concentration by 15 percent! The smell of the lily of the valley has the same effect, but that lies beyond the scope of this article. Reformed people are not known for consuming quantities of lilies of the valley.”

(Answers on p.14)

“Between Heaven and Mirth: Exploring What Makes Christians Laugh.”

But it would no doubt be pretty dull. Unless, that is, we could get James

Schaap to write it. Angela Reitsma Bick is Editor of Christian

Courier. Gordon Korman books and the comedy routines of Irwin Barker never fail

to make her laugh.

The latest book from Gut Check Press.

PAgE 6 CHRISTIAN COURIER

News

Grace Ruiter/Calvin.eduGRAND RAPIDS, Michigan

– The Michigan Department of Education put its official stamp of approval on a program that will give Calvin College students the option to major or minor in Chinese language education.

Calvin is one of only a few Christian undergraduate colleges in the U.S. to offer a Chinese language major and will be one of the only academic institutions in Michigan to offer a Chinese education pro-gram. The new program, which came about through a joint effort

between the Chinese and educa-tion departments, will help satisfy a high demand for Chinese teachers in Michigan and beyond.

“[Since I started at Calvin], we’ve seen a tremendous increase in the number of grade and high

Marian Van Til, with files from Christian Post

KHARTOUM, Sudan – At long last, after a year-long ordeal, Chris-tian mother Meriam Ibrahim and her family were allowed to leave Sudan in late July. They flew to Italy, where they were met by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Renzi de-clared a “day of celebration” for Ibrahim, who had initially been sentenced to death for renounc-ing Islam and marrying a Christian Sudanese-American.

“Mission accomplished,” saidLapo Pistelli, Italy’s vice-minister for foreign affairs, who accompa-nied Ibrahim, her husband, Daniel Wani, and their two young children on the flight from Khartoum. BBC News reported that there had been no prior indication of Italy’s in-

volvement in the case.Following an international out-

cry over her sentence and imprison-ment, and over the fact that she was forced to give birth while shackled in prison, Ibrahim was released in June. She was briefly re-arrested while attempting to fly out of sudan with her husband and children. Au-thorities claimed she had attempted to use fake travel documents.

The family had most recently been staying first at the U.S. em-bassy and then at an embassy safe house in Sudan while awaiting the Sudanese government’s permission to fly to America. several persecu-tion watchdog groups had taken up her cause, while American lawmak-ers had called for her and her family to be granted safe passage to the U.S.

Just before her release, New

York City pastor William Devlin re-vealed that he had met with Ibrahim and her family in Khartoum, and offered to pay for their trip to the u.s. and house them indefinitely in his family’s home.

Devlin said at the time, “I, along with another brother in the Lord, were able to go to the Safe House where this persecuted family is cur-rently living in Khartoum and min-ister to them for over an hour. I had the joy of asking Meriam if I could hold little Maya (who was crying at the time) and my eyes welled up with tears as this little girl, born in prison, fell asleep in my arms as I rocked her. At the end our time together, I was able to lay hands on this family and pray for them in the Name of Jesus.”

Ibrahim had refused to deny her Christian faith while in prison, even after being told it could spare her the death penalty. While the Suda-nese court had attempted to prove that she is a Muslim, the mother said that she was raised by her Ethi-opian Orthodox Christian mother and has been a Christian her entire life. Ibrahim’s Muslim relatives in Sudan had filed a lawsuit claim-ing that she belongs to her Muslim father, though he had abandoned the family when she was a child. The lawsuit has since been dropped.

Soon after their arrival in Italy, Ibrahim, Wani and their children met privately with Pope Francis. They were expected to leave for the U.S. a few days later, which had not yet occurred at CC’s press time.

Krista Dam-VandeKuytKITCHENER, Ontario (CRCNA) – Rev. Darren Roorda

was installed as the new Canadian Ministries director of the Christian Reformed Church in North America during the worship service on Sunday, July 20 at Community Christian Reformed Church in Kitchener, Ontario.

Present to welcome him to his new position were Dr. Steven Timmermans, the new executive director of the CRCNA, Rev. John Kapteyn, executive secretary of the Reformed Church in America’s Regional Synod of Canada, and Terry Veldboom and others from the CRC’s Burlington, Ontario, office.

The special service, planned and officiated by Rev. Carel Geleynse of Community CRC, focused on 1 Corinthians 12 in which the Apostle Paul speaks of the church being one body made up of many parts.

Addressing Roorda, Geleynse said, “When you carry out your respective tasks, keep in mind the whole. The church is not a business or a corporate structure but the people, servants serving one another.”

During the installation, Geleynse listed some of the respon-sibilities that would come with this position, tasks that cannot be done in one’s own strength, but which must be done through reliance on God.

After leading the congregation through the installation lit-urgy, Geleynse invited Timmermans, Veldboom, Kapteyn and other officebearers to come forward. They encircled and laid hands on Roorda as Geleynse led a prayer asking for God’s blessing on Roorda’s ministry.

Timmermans, the former president of Trinity Christian Col-lege who was just appointed by synod 2014 to his own position as CRC executive director, brought greetings and congratula-tions on behalf of CRC congregations across North America, saying, “I am delighted and excited that Pastor Darren is now joining in this work.”

Veldboom welcomed Roorda on behalf of the Burlington office and other CRC staff working across Canada. “We are really excited to have Darren come on board,” he said. “We’ve been anticipating the arrival of a new Canadian Ministries director for several years and are pleased you are taking the role.”

Kapteyn said he looks forward to working with Roorda. “Over the past five years, the growing relationship between the denomi-nations has been such a blessing. As we work together, I hope we will see the face of God in us and in our ministry.”

At the close of the service, Roorda expressed his appreciation to Pastor Geleynse and his congregation for their encouragement and all they have meant for his growth in his ministry. Roorda was a senior pastor at Community CRC for several years. Before that, he served as pastor of the Bellevue, Washington CRC.

Roorda, whose position officially began on August 4, is already familiar to many as a former member of the CRC’s board of trustees. In explaining the recent title change from director of Canadian Ministries to Canadian Ministries Direc-tor, Roorda said, “This tells what is most important, not the director but what God is doing in Canada.”

The next issue of Christian Courier will feature an exclusive interview with Rev. Darren Roorda.

Meriam Ibrahim finally allowed to leave Sudan Roorda installed as new Canadian CRC ministries director

Calvin College Chinese language ed program approved

Continued on page 7

Ibrahim disembarks with her daughter Maya in her arms, and Martin, accompanied by Italian deputy Foreign Minister Lapo Pistelli.

Rev. John Kapteyn, Rev. Darren Roorda, Terry Veldboom and Dr. Steven Timmermans (l to r).

KRISTA DAM-VANDEKUYT

Asian Studies at Calvin now includes a Chinese ed degree, which requires a semester in China.

PAGE 7AugusT 11, 2014

News

DURHAM, UK (BRP) – Excavations at a Roman site in County Durham in the north of Britain have revealed what archaeologists have dubbed the “Pompeii of the North.”

The archaeologists on the joint excavation project called the discoveries “spectacular.” Now in its sixth year, the project is a joint ven-ture between archaeologists at Durham County Council, Durham University, the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Nor-thumberland and several American universities.

Uncovered at the Binchester Roman Fort near Bishop, Auckland were some of the most well preserved remnants of an empire dating back some 1800 years, including one of the earliest pieces of evidence for Christi-anity in Roman Britain. The evidence came

in the form of a marked silver ring. The archaeologists also discovered a bath

house with seven-foot high walls which, it was determined, were once covered with brightly covered painted designs. Also dis-covered were the original floor, doorways and window openings.

Principal archaeologist Dr. David Mason said, “These findings are hugely significant as they are virtually intact and present a graphic illustration of life under the Roman Empire. They are so stunning and spectacu-lar that we can claim we have our very own ‘Pompeii of the north’ right on our doorstep.”

Project coordinator Dr. David Petts, lec-turer in archaeology at Durham University, said, “Our excavations have uncovered parts

of one of the best preserved Roman buildings in Britain. The building itself and the wonder-ful array of artifacts we have recovered from Binchester give us an unparalleled opportu-nity to better understand life on the northern frontier in the Roman period.

For example, the altar is a reminder that bath houses were about more than keeping clean and exercising and were actually social centers, a bit like our modern day leisure centres.

Petts continued, “The most unique feature of these remains is the sheer scale of their preservation. It is possible to walk through a series of Roman rooms with walls all above head height; this is pretty exceptional for Ro-man Britain.”

Marian Van Til, with files from TKUEDMONTON – The Kings’ University

College, begun 35 years ago by primarily Christian Reformed Church members, has been granted permission to change its name.

The liberal arts and sciences institution in Edmonton was, and is, quite happy with “The King’s” and its allusion to Christ as King of creation. It was the “university college” part that was the sticking point and that caused confusion. “College” normally means one thing in countries historically part of the Brit-ish Commonwealth and another in the United States. So King’s applied for a name change, requesting that “college” be dropped and the new name be The King’s University.

The change was approved by Premier and Minister of Innovation and Advanced Education Dave Hancock.

“This is a significant milestone in our 35-year history,” said King’s board of governors chair Bill Diepeveen. “We are delighted and thankful that the minister has recognized us for what we are, a full-fledged university with all that means. From humble begin-nings in 1979 with just six professors and a few dozen students, we have grown to a reputable liberal arts and sciences institution

with almost 700 students, more than 4,000 alumni, award-winning professors who con-duct significant research with the support of a variety of external funding and among the highest student satisfaction marks in Canada in independent surveys.” Diepeveen continued: “We are grateful for the Premier’s leadership on this file and his recognition of the key role that independent institutions play in the post-secondary sector.”

King’s president Dr. Melanie Humphreys explained, “This really validates and legiti-mizes what we have already been for some time. It also removes the brand confusion

created by having ‘college’ in our name right after ‘university.’ Further, it puts us on the same stage as the other independent universi-ties across the country. As a community, we couldn’t be more pleased – this will serve our students well.”

The official name change will take some time. The King’s University College was established through a Private Act of the Provincial Legislature. The university there-fore has to petition for amendments through a private bill, but can begin using the new name by registering it as a trade name.

Britain:‘Spectacular’ Roman ruins with evidence of Christianity unearthed

The King’s name change to ‘university’ approved

schools starting Chinese language pro-grams,” said Calvin Chinese profes-sor Larry Herzberg. “Eight area high schools now offer Chinese, and that’s not including the online program of-fered at Grand Rapids Christian High.” And demand for Chinese teachers reaches far beyond the state, as 1,600 public and private K-12 schools across the country now offer Chinese language courses, up from 300 just a decade ago.

“That means that while a decade ago only one percent of all schools in the U.S. offered Chinese, four percent now do. The increase in the number of stu-dents studying Chinese at Calvin mirrors this increase.” One Grand Rapids-area elementary school has even introduced a Chinese immersion program for kinder-garten to third grade students. The school already has about 50 students enrolled at each grade level. Herzberg expects the number of schools offering similar Chinese programs to rise.

The increased interest in Chinese lan-guage education follows China’s emer-gence as a leading economic power. Herzberg hopes the new program will equip Calvin students to not only teach the language, but also help students bet-ter understand China’s culture as it plays an increasingly important role globally. “With China’s new power economically, we need be involved with and understand it better,” he said. “This is the time to have a Chinese education major. The ripple effects will hopefully be signifi-cant in educating American youth about China today. And that starts with being able to communicate with people across the globe. We feel we can equip our students to do that.”

Herzberg played an instrumental role in establishing Calvin’s Chinese program 30 years ago. “When we began the Chi-nese program in the 1980s, I felt lucky to have 15 or 20 students across all levels,” he recalled. “Now we have 75-80 students and 25 majors.”

The new Chinese education major combines the existing general education major with the existing Chinese lan-guage major. In addition to the course work, students in the new major will be required to spend a semester studying in China. Calvin already offers a study abroad program in Beijing for Chinese majors and minors each fall that will satisfy this requirement. The Institute of International Education ranks Calvin College third among baccalaureate in-stitutions across the U.S. for the number of students who participate in a short-term study abroad program.

Chinese language ed program continued from page 6

“This removes the brand confusion created,” President Humphreys explains, “by having

‘college’ in our name right after ‘university.’”

Archaeologists have unearthed thousands of ancient Roman artifacts in the centre of London

This ring, evidence for Christianity in Roman Britain, was found just yards from the Thames River.

PAGE 8 CHRISTIAN COURIER

Columns

The months of June and July have been busy for the U.S. government and faith-based institutions. On June 30, the Supreme Court held that a federal law protected Hobby Lobby, a Christian, family-owned busi-ness, saying Hobby Lobby could be exempt from certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In some ways the decision was quite narrow because it interpreted a federal law that can be amended; it did not make a clear statement about what the U.S. Constitution requires.

The Court said that under the statute govern-ment must take the least restrictive approach possible if it is going to restrict religious liberty. With respect to healthcare, the government had a variety of alternatives to achieve its goal of allowing Hobby Lobby to be exempt from part of the ACA. Many of us believe that the Court was signaling the approach it is going to take in future cases when Constitutional, as opposed to statutory, debates come before it.

Earlier in June, in anticipation of a favourable Hobby Lobby decision, a number of other lawsuits by Christian bakers, florists and photographers were put into place. They say that their faith-based businesses should also be exempt from other laws that interfere with their religious beliefs. In particular, they do not want to serve same-sex customers planning weddings.

The coming decade will be filled with litigation as the courts take these cases one by one and decide whether government has used the least restrictive alternative to achieve its interests in these situations.

At the same time that Hobby Lobby was decided, over a hundred faith-based institu-tions, many in the Reformed tradition, signed letters asking President Obama to exempt them from an executive order that requires companies receiving federal contracts to have non-discrimination policies with respect to the LGBT community. On July 21st, Obama ignored those letters and signed the executive order without a full exemption for religious institutions. Lawsuits are already being planned.

The obligations of pluralismMany Reformed Christians were celebratory about Hobby Lobby and perplexed by

President Obama’s decision. To them, American law has always protected the self-identity of faith-based institutions and it simply makes good sense to allow faith-based schools, hospitals and businesses the room they need to live according to their beliefs while they are serving the common good of the community in a variety of ways. This is not how many other Americans see the situation, however: some are reacting with strong anger toward Christians, calling them selfish for asking for exemption from laws that are crafted to protect working women’s health or the employment of LGBT workers.

In my introductory column a year ago I wrote about a Christian view of government that advocated for pluralism of institutions and pluralism of worldview. I said that to the extent possible government should protect a variety of worldviews and allow the people in different institutions to advocate for the policies of those institutions. Within this frame-work, Christian pluralists say that these exemptions are in keeping with the Reformed principle of sphere sovereignty. Different people and organizations in God’s creation have the room to define themselves according to what they believe they are called to.

The trouble is that although I believe in this principle, I also think that it is not persua-sive to many partly because we have been careless in thinking through the obligations of pluralism.

First, sphere sovereignty is not about autonomy for institutions. It includes a conversation about responsibility. People in the Reformed tradition have always criticized those who argue for autonomy and freedom over community, responsibility and connectedness. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard and talk about what faith-based organizations owe the public they serve and the employees they hire. If a Christian baker refuses to serve a gay couple is that the same thing as refusing to serve an African American couple? How do we answer the hard questions related to the freedom to shape institutions according to our beliefs?

Second, if we are going to say that “worldview pluralism” should protect our unpopular decisions we should be the first in line to protect others. I see very little evidence of this in Reformed Christian communities, especially as it relates to public protection of LGBT folks. We should have been calling for legal protection of LGBT families from the very beginning. If our pluralism is mainly for ourselves it is not principled.

Hobby Lobby was an interesting case, but it left us with more questions than answers and more challenges to face. I think the Supreme Court will not look kindly on President Obama’s refusal to fully exempt faith-based institutions from his executive order, but I also think that before our Reformed institutions jump on the bandwagon to sue him, we should ask ourselves some tougher questions.

Julia Stronks (jstronks@whitworth.edu) has practiced law and is the Edward B. Lindaman Chair at Whitworth University in Spokane, Wash.

Kuwait, 2009. On a hot spring afternoon, I discover three Grade Nine boys – Abdullah*, Habib and Hamad – divvying up a small piece of hashish in the high school bathroom. There is no grey area – one of the boys drops the hash right in front of me – so I do what most teachers would: I confiscate the hash and march them off to the principal’s office.

I wish I could claim comfort in doing the right thing, that broken rules demand consequences, that as a mere teacher I have no responsibility

to block the necessary processes. I wish I could say that I can’t anticipate what happens next, that the disciplinary machine will spool up, the school will contact the police, the boys will end up being held for days without charge and two of them will be tortured.

But I can’t. Even as the principal – Bruce – and I discuss next steps, we both know the police will be called, and we both know how visibly and brutally enforced Kuwait’s laws are. In truth, I made the decision the instant I saw the hash: I have to say something or else I’ll be the one held responsible, deported or imprisoned. What might happen to those boys is easily weighed against my family’s happiness and freedom.

Tribal mentalityHamilton, 2014. I write an essay about the drug incident and contact Bruce to fill

out his side of the story. I learn that the investigation eventually revealed that the main suppliers were a pair of Kuwaiti students who, due to their nationality and family status, were never charged. Who, despite being confronted with evidence of their involvement – as well as the lies they told –maintained their innocence throughout and were, in fact, surprised when the lies were repeated to them.

Bruce chuckles and says, “This might sound bad, but no one can lie like a Kuwaiti.” To me, the disclaimer is unnecessary – I’ve encountered this reality again and again. In the Middle East, what we might call lying or dishonesty is a common manifestation of tribal mentality, where providing for and protecting the family is the primary concern.

A cab driver, for instance, who overcharges a passenger might see the transaction as merely another way to take more money home at the end of the day. A student who pays someone to write an essay for her is just being clever and resourceful. A politician who bribes and lies to his constituency is being shrewd in his efforts to elevate his status. Likewise, a citizen who hears the lies yet still votes along tribal lines is just doing his best to protect his own.

Tribal linesMy school and I essentially voted along tribal lines when we ignored our reservations

and brought the Kuwaiti authorities in. We weighed the possible outcomes against the school’s status and our own safety, and sent those boys off to their cold, hard jail cells. And yet even now, knowing about the fear driven into three innocent families, the bare feet beaten by wooden sticks, the trauma of enduring best friends’ screams, I still can’t say that I’d do any differently if again placed in the same situation.

That’s hard knowledge about myself.

I do feel some comfort in knowing that tribalism is universal – we all do whatever it takes to protect our people. As a person of faith, I also lean on the knowledge that we aren’t our own, that we’re called to think of the collective. However, sometimes it feels like our tribal voice often silences the knowledge and understanding we’ve been called towards, too, as though we’re afraid to admit that we’re wrestling with many of the same issues as everyone else.

I’d like to believe that tribalism doesn’t have to be the primary force that raises our voices to the world, but rather discernment and love. We can strive for life even as we speak up for a woman’s right to make reproductive choices. Promote purity and a righteous lifestyle and still stand with those who maintain that gender and sexual identity are not always a matter of choice. Cry the injustice of global warming but still promote the responsible use of our abundant natural resources. Evaluate the pros and cons and risks of stem cell research while rejoicing in its fantastic potential. Acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself but not its systematic abrogation of Palestinian human rights.

Of course, that means admitting and accepting the danger of being wrong in the mo-ment and the years to come. Or right. Or both.

Hard knowledge, indeed.* All names have been changed.

Brent, his wife Rosalee and their first child live in the Westdale neighbourhood of Hamilton, Ont. Visit brentvans.com to find out more about Brent and his writing.

Hobby Lobby, pluralism and faith-based institutions Aligned with my own

Borderless

Brent van Staalduinen

The coming decade will be filled with litigation.

A Palestinian protester runs from tear gas.

PAGE 9AugusT 11, 2014

Reviews

Sonya VanderVeen FeddemaAccording to David Gar-

rison, “most Christians ad-mit to knowing little about Islam or the way God is at work in their world to reach Muslims. Still others sim-ply don’t care.” Thankfully, Garrison has written A Wind in the House of Islam, which is a great way for Christians to begin to confront and remedy ignorance about and apathy toward Muslims.

Garrison takes readers on a historical, narrative-based tour of the House of Islam – “the name Muslims give to an invisible religious empire that stretches from West Africa to

the Indonesian archipelago, encompassing 49 nations and 1.6 billion Muslims” – to discover how god is at work in it.

On that tour, Garrison focuses on what he calls the nine rooms in the House of Islam: the Indo-Malaysia Room, the East Africa Room, the North Africa Room, the Eastern South Asia Room, the Persian Room, the Turkestan Room, the West Africa Room, the Western South Asia Room and the Arab Room. His information is based on a two and a half year study that spanned 250,000 miles and consisted of more than 1,000 interviews with Muslims who became Jesus-followers.

Garrison and those who worked with him had four out-comes in mind when they began the study. First, to accurately

describe movements of Muslims to Christ, movements being defined as “turnings of at least 1,000 baptized believers over the last one or two decades or 100 new church starts over the same timeframe within a given people group or ethnic Muslim community.” Second, to learn how God is at work in the Muslim world so Christians can support that work. Third, to use the study’s findings to encourage Muslims who are coming to Christ with the knowledge that there are other Muslims following the same path. Fourth – and possibly most important for readers – to challenge Christians to love Muslims, instead of fearing or hating them.

For history enthusiasts, A Wind in the House of Islam will not disappoint. It contains a wealth of information about the spread of Islam, wars between Christians and Muslims, and wars between Muslims themselves. As well, it clearly shows that “the Muslim world is far from a monolith.”

For this reader, Garrison’s stories about Muslims who

became Jesus-followers vividly portrayed the cost that these believers pay for their newfound faith and the ongoing daily challenges they face. Stories of rejection, persecution and imprisonment are common. On the other hand, conversion and discipleship sometimes led to radical cultural changes, especially in the way new believers treated others. Garrison relates one particularly moving story about a group of Muslim men who became Christians and attended a retreat. One man asked the teacher, “Should we not be beating our wives?” When confronted by the biblical answer, the men repented. One man stood up and said, “I have made many, many wrong things with my wife, and I have been participating in the kill-ing of women.” One by one, the other men in the group stood up and vowed that they would no longer beat their wives, that they would begin to communicate their whereabouts with their spouses, and that they would begin a journey of respect for their marriage partners. In a culture where women were valued less than domestic animals, that change can only be attributed to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

Though A Wind in the House of Islam is surely an ex-cellent educational tool, that was not Garrison’s intent in writing the book. He hopes that readers will ask themselves, “How can I be a part of what God is doing? What is my role? What can I contribute?”

Muslims don’t just live a world away. They live on our streets and in our neighbourhoods. Garrison’s questions are relevant not only for worldwide missions, but for missions to our nearby Muslim neighbours. How will we answer Garrison’s questions?

Nicholas SchuurmanThis is For Our Sins is a collection of songs that lends

itself to solitude. Aside from receiving help with a few of the musical and vocal arrangements, the album’s tracks were all written, performed, recorded and distributed by multi-instrumentalist Andy Othling, who goes by the stage name Lowercase Noises. It is an album that was for the most part written by one person, alone, and – it is not the sort of thing that lends itself to live performances or party playlists – ought to be enjoyed alone. That theme of isolation can also be found in the story behind the album. Othling was inspired to write these songs after he read the book Lost in the Taiga, which documents the true story of the Lykovs, a family who, fearing that their lives were threatened on account of their beliefs, fled into the wilderness of southern siberia.

As members of an ultra-Orthodox branch of Christian-ity known as the Old Believers, the family was troubled by a growing sense of unease living in communist Russia. And so in 1936, after his brother was shot and killed, Karp Lykov decided that he would leave the world of civiliza-tion along with his wife Akulina, and their two children, Savin and Natalia. The family established a new life in the

Russian wilderness, some 250 kilometers from the near-est settlement. Othling’s intention was to have “each song tell a part of the family’s story.” Listening to the mostly-instrumental songs that make up this album, however, one does not get a full sense of these situations. The quiet combinations of piano, guitar and banjo are incredibly beautiful, but their connection to this history is subtle. To help, he’s recorded a number of videos that explain the events behind each song, and recommends a number of books that have been written on the topic.

For example, “The Famine Years,” a song with a mourn-ful melody driven by a steady beat, points to an extremely difficult time, in which the family struggled to grow, trap, raise or find any substantial amount of food. They were, Othling explains, “reduced to eating leather from their boots.” Akulina would ultimately starve herself to death in order that her children would survive. Her last words are translated to the lyrics that mark the song’s haunting end: “how will you get along without me?” The Lykovs remained completely isolated and undisturbed for decades, until they were discovered in 1978 by a group of Russian geologists. The name of the album’s title track comes from the fam-ily’s response to the sudden and unexpected arrival of these outsiders. They believed that their presence was a form of divine punishment for something they had done wrong. The geologists later reported that when they approached the Lykov settlement, the women were cowered inside one of the cabins, repeating “this is for our sins.” The Lykov’s relationship with these visitors was mixed and difficult. On the one hand, they were desperately in need of new clothing, tools and food, and welcomed the gifts and supplies that were offered. Still, they continued to view society with suspicion.

Three years later, the family was rocked by tragedy when three of the children (Akulina had given birth to two more

children, Dmitry and Agafia, since they moved) died within months of each other, from illness which the family and others have attributed to the contact with these outsiders. For each of these losses, Oth-ling composed a song: “Death of a Quiet Man,” “Death of a Harsh Man,” and “Death of a Godmother.” Several years later, Karp, the family’s fa-

ther, also died. After some time, one of the geologists decided to return and build a cabin a short distance away from the family’s camp. Others would periodically return as well; Russian forestry workers mostly, and a few journalists intrigued by the story of a family who for nearly 50 years were not aware that World War II had taken place.

Aside from these, however, Agafia has been the sole remaining member of the family’s remote settlement since 1988. she continues to live there today. The album’s final song, “The Timekeeper’s Theme,” is written about her.

Fans of neo-classical or minimalist genres will thor-oughly enjoy this album. That said, musically, this album might not be for everyone. In his effort to capture the spirit of this family’s journey, there are points at which Othling’s compositions swell to points of tension and drop to low, dark melodies. If nothing else, the album’s historical inspiration is fascinating, per-haps especially for a follower of Christ working out what it means to be part of this world, and yet apart from it.

The sound of Siberian solitude

Glimpses of God’s work in the Muslim world

A Wind in the House of Islam: How God is Drawing Muslims Around the World to Faith in Jesus Christ by David Garrison (WIgT Resources, 2014)

This is For Our Sins by Lowercase Noises Agafia

Nine rooms in the House of Islam

Nick Schuurman lives in Hamilton, Ontario, and studies at McMaster Divinity College.

Sonya VanderVeen Feddema (sonyavf55@hotmail.com) is a freelance

writer living in St. Catharines, Ont.

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Sonya VanderVeen Feddemain March 2010, Christian Courier interviewed Melani

Pyke, an artist living in crystal Beach, ontario. i recently caught up with her to learn more about where God has led her in her artistic endeavours during the last four years.

The last time I interviewed you for Christian Courier, you were painting the Psalms, one Psalm a day till you completed all 150. What was the outcome of that project?

the feedback from people who have seen the Psalms paintings has been amazing. sometimes a painting will make a certain person cry in remembrance of a loved one who has passed away, or remind someone of a victory over a difficulty they’ve come through. I have exhibited the Psalms paintings at several different places, and in 2012 exhibited all 150 paintings in order at St. James Anglican church in Dundas, ontario, which doubles as an art gal-lery. i have sold almost half of the paintings, and have documented all of them. interested persons can see and read the descriptions about them on my website (melpyke.com).

Have you undertaken any other large-scale projects since then?

I’ve taken on a number of large-scale paintings rather than long-term projects like the 150-day Psalms series. For example, I’ve just completed painting jungle animals, trees and flowers on all of the walls and even part of the ceiling of a double classroom in calvary church located in st. catharines, ontario.

For two decades you’ve been painting portraits, as well as inspirational art during worship services to illustrate the message. Do you feel that you have matured as an artist in that time?

I’m much better at talking about my paintings. I try to write down a paragraph about each one, since people often appreciate help “reading” a painting to know where I’m coming from. The Psalms project helped me with this. since i would present the paintings as a daily blog and email newsletter, i had to learn how to think quickly and clearly.

My speed and technical skill have visibly improved over the last year since I’ve been a freelance artist full-time without a day job on the side. Now I’m confident going into any painting project.

i have a good idea of how much time it will take, which is especially important when i do work for businesses. i can understand and visualize clients’ specific requirements for their paintings, while enhancing them with my own creative ideas that they might not have considered.

A few years ago, I didn’t fully grasp the importance of

the media matching the message. It’s important to connect with people that see my paintings, and to make sure that the art style, colours and so on match the message. For example, if I want to give the viewer a peaceful feeling in a gentle lamb painting, i use calm, smooth, blue strokes in the background and leave out harsh dabs of blood red.

Also, i illustrated Abel’s Song, a juvenile novel written by Dave Leighfield, in which he uses the concept of the Prodigal Son to tell the message of Jesus without making any references to the Bible, God or Jesus himself. As a work of Christian fiction, it is non-threatening for people who don’t know Jesus yet. I’ve been enjoying sharing my artwork at book signing events alongside Dave.

Besides the Bible and your relationship to Jesus, what other media, people or events have influenced your art work?

It’s exciting to paint during a church service or event that blends multiple art forms successfully. i get ideas for my paintings directly from the other art forms, such as song lyrics and dance. i glance at popular media and cur-rent events so i can stay up to date with styles and trends, without being too influenced by their messages which are often contrary to what the Bible teaches.

How would you define your philosophy of art to someone on the street who is unschooled in art?

i strive to notice the little things, respect life, give glory to God, communicate truth and create paintings for your wall that remind you of what you’re really living for. Do you treasure your children? Your salvation? That’s the kind of thing that i want to paint for you. the things that make you want to be a better person.

Do you serve your local community through your artistic abilities?

i teach weekly painting classes (both group and private lessons). i also lead art workshops and camps upon invita-tion. I’ve done some public speaking as well, which gives me a chance to share my story and the meaning behind some of my paintings. I’ve also done live paintings for charity walks/runs, summer festivals and other great local events.

How do you remain fresh and focused on your work?i really love painting out in public spaces, especially in

unexpected places. Children come up with the best com-ments and questions, which keep me grounded and keep a smile on my face. (“is that real mustard?” i was recently asked while painting an illustration on a tim hortons res-taurant window with yellow paint.)

My favorite recent paintings combine art styles that normally don’t go together. For example, I will paint an

abstract background with a highly realistic subject over top. Practising a variety of techniques and subjects keeps it challenging and interesting to me.

Do you meet regularly with other artists to discuss and critique your work?

I’m a member of Niagara Artists’ Centre, South Niagara Artists and Fort Erie Arts council. having small children prevents me from attending their usual evening meetings, but I enjoy meeting artists at group exhibits and art festivals, which are great opportunities to share ideas and give and receive feedback from other professionals. I’ve also painted at Art Battle competitions, where 12 artists are given a canvas and paint and are allotted 20 minutes to create any subject. The winner is decided by audience vote. Though it’s not each artist’s best work, it’s a fun, unique way to experience art and see how other artists work under pressure.

How do you promote your art work, and what kinds of responses have you received?

i have found buyers throughout the united states through Etsy, an online shop for handmade original items which you buy directly from their makers.

Locally, people are most likely to find my work through my public appearances, including painting live at churches, charity events and festivals. People love to see the creation process from start to finish, and I find that a painting means more to them when they’ve seen it take shape and can con-nect it to a certain event or a pastor’s message.

i also have artwork on display at many art galleries, coffee shops and offices.

What are your goals for the future?Lately, I’ve been painting portraits and figurative work.

Although no start date is scheduled yet, in an upcoming painting series i hope to paint 100 Bible characters in 100 days. Each painting will be 100 square inches (10 x10) and each will be offered for sale at $100. Biblically, the number 100 is significant – Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born; Israel’s soldiers usually appeared in groups of 100 men; and in the parable of the lost sheep, the number 100 is a symbol of completeness. I’m hoping that through these paintings people will learn about and be better able to relate to these historic biblical figures. The ancient Middle East seems so far removed from us today, but people went through struggles similar to ours.

Melani Pyke – Communicating biblical truth through art

Sonya VanderVeen Feddema (sonyavf55@hotmail.com) is a free-

lance writer living in St. Catharines, Ont.

This painting of Jesus’ welcoming hands in the sky was com-pleted in about 20 minutes during an Easter Sunday service.

“Bedtime Story,” a portrait of Melanie's two-year-old daughter Harley “reading” a book to herself.

Melani at work.

AuGust 11, 2014

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Rachel BaardaAt the end of every school year, redeemer university

College’s graduating art students are challenged to produce a series of their own creative pieces for public exhibition. i was privileged to interview Phil irish, organizer of this year’s art class and exhibition, and mentor to several of the students. Here are some excerpts of our email conversation.

What role did you play in organizing this exhibit?Each year, graduating art students take a semester to in-

vestigate their own questions, to pursue their own artwork. i organized the course this year – which included several meet-ings as a group, where they could share their work in progress, and i could ensure the momentum of the group. i was also the “mentor” for several of the students, meaning that i would meet with them regularly to offer advice, feedback, and contribute to the deepening of their work. some students had “external mentors” who had expertise in their given area of interest. These external mentors add diversity to the program, contributing new knowledge and perspective.

Are there any particular exhibits that stood out to you, that showcased special talent or that were especially meaningful?”

Each student’s work added something unique to the show, but some projects were particularly strong. Let me mention a few.

Brittany Burdick: Rwanda RememberedBurdick aims to bring awareness to the 20th Anniversary

of the Rwandan Genocide. Recognizing the deep signifi-cance that christianity had in the genocide, she honours the victims in a way that is reminiscent of the imagery of catholic saints. Burdick hopes that these memorials will engage the viewer to remember rwanda and all that has happened there for good and for evil.

it is inspiring to see a student that takes on such a challen-ging theme, timed to the anniversary of the genocide. her pas-sion for the complexities of the African continent, and Rwanda in particular, has shaped her studies at redeemer. A very con-ceptually rigorous student, Burdick always thinks deeply and engaged art history in her work. she went to rwanda as a high school student, and made an exhibition of work about Rwanda then. it has been very enlightening for her to re-approach the subject from a more nuanced, mature position.

Lauren Harvey: How Great Thou ArtHarvey’s work reveals the impact of her repeated visits

to Muskrat Dam, a northern native community. her collage medium, accumulating carefully shaped papers and surfaces in wax, reflects her interest in art therapy. Harvey notes that “the process of placing and removing layers has allowed me to begin to answer the questions of social justice, God’s calling and my own personal faith which have arisen through these trips and through meeting the people of Muskrat Dam.”

this work is very strong, and also comes from a deep place. the collage language she employs relates to her interest in art therapy, and her “collage journals” were developed with Re:Create – an arts program for at-risk youth in hamilton. it is amazing to see redeemer students engaging the wider community like this, and drawing so much from it. her care for that community has shaped her, and the direction and shape of her faith.

Greg Hoekstra: Open Connectionhoekstra treats furniture-making as a sculptural form,

reflecting on interpersonal connection. By hand-crafting a “conversation chair” out of solid oak, he invites more engaged relationships. The chair’s beauty and structure compel two people to sit and talk, no matter how awkward the conversation might be.

This piece is quite remarkable – a real feat of skill, in a culture that is more about ideas and speed. this piece was a hit at the opening, as many people sat in the paired seats, enjoying the sense of relationship. A few engaged couples took the opportunity. strangers did as well.

the seats have the people almost facing each other, and the “arm” of the chair is incised with a motif of two hands holding.

Kari-Anne Kooy: Offeringthese three large oil paintings embody the struggle of

becoming honest with both God and oneself. From a fa-çade of pretend-perfection, the paintings draw the viewer through a painful process of growth, finally experiencing God’s grace and transformative power. With gritty textures, searching forms and flickers of radiant gold leaf, these paintings give form to genuine soul searching.

this work is spectacular and bold. the paintings are beautifully made, with a strong sense of both imagery and material. seeing Kooy set up her studio for work was watching a real artist getting underway – lots of source im-ages pinned to the wall, multiple studies being painted, and then three large paintings that she was willing to wrestle with and change. Dissatisfaction is an important aspect to getting to the meatier material, and she allowed herself to go through those difficult experiences.

What do you think Christians can learn from art, espe-cially the art at the recent exhibition? How is art mean-ingful to the Christian life?

Art is such a gift to our God-shaped humanity. Metaphors awaken us to think for ourselves, and to touch truths that are hard to put into words. Art’s ambiguity opens us up to think and discover, honouring the complexity of the world.

I’m not sure that “learning” is the best frame for under-standing what art does in us. We grow through engaging it, but not entirely – or even principally – with our intel-lect. Art affects our bodies and our emotions, it brings our whole being into play, engaging memories and longings and intimations. Beauty, for example, is not a systematic teacher; yet we grow in its presence.

To see these students developing their creative gifts – taking the intensity of their experiences and distilling them to be shared – is thrilling.

Looking at Burdick's Rwanda pieces, for example, pulls

us into thinking about the individual lives lost in the geno-cide. there is a particularity about the faces that makes those lives real to us in a way that statistics cannot. the emotional quality of Kooy's work comes from every aspect of the com-position, not just the narrative or imagery: the mix of clarity and obscurity; the abstract rhythm of shapes; the use of gold leaf. Viewers might find that, if their imaginations are put into receiving these paintings, they become more fully alive.

We are, after all, made by the stories we live inside. These students, who wrestle with God’s story, can deepen our faith through their creations.

Share a little bit about your recent project in Banff. You’re part of a project entitled “Trashing Mountains.” What was the inspiration for that project, and what do you hope to accomplish with it?

I spent six weeks at The Banff Centre – an amazing cultural complex nestled into the Rocky Mountains. I was researching and painting a new project, joining 13 other visual artists. the working title for my new project is “trashing Mountains.” this project joins together images of timeless beauty (mountain peaks) and images of human velocity and pollution as exemplified by our fossil fuel use. i was able to visit an oil sands mine while i was in Alberta, which was a compelling and complex site. I am developing exhibitions around these ideas which, I hope, will help people to place their own actions within the wider story of God’s creativity and our own world-shaping power.

Art as distilled experience: In conversation with Phil Irish

Rachel Baarda grew up in the St. Catharines area, where she wrote her first story for chris-

tian courier when she was 10 years old. She is now social media coordinator for christian

courier, and she welcomes the opportunity to interview members of Hamilton's talented

local community for stories like these.

Teacher and visual artist, Phil Irish (philirish.com).

This experience felt like a culmination to my jour-ney as a fledgling artist. As I come to the end of my career at Redeemer, it is invaluable to have the ability to creatively tackle any subject and medium I choose. Creating an exhibition has given me the tools, know-ledge and, most importantly, connections to continue to flourish creatively now that I am no longer creating a professor-mandated project within a time crunch. Having my first show in such a warm, receptive and supportive environment has surely enabled me to move forward into “artland” with confidence and passion.

At times it was extremely difficult to realize that the beautiful faces smiling up at me were no more. It was heartbreaking to know that the couple beaming on their wedding day didn’t get to grow old together or that the grinning toddler would never grow up; but that is exactly why I was do-ing it. It’s important to me that people remem-ber what happened in Rwanda. There are precious lives behind the statistics. Creating the memorial was my way of honouring the Rwandans who died and those who sur-vived them.

– Brittany BurdickBurdick’s artwork, rwanda remembered.

MELissA KErry PhotoGrAPhy

MELissA KErry PhotoGrAPhy

Graduating Art student Brittany Burdick.

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What IF . . .I had been the one in the baptismal gown?

Surrounded by family, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins who looked like me? Whose lives resembled mine?

Promises made by parents, and a church community to God:to love me, and nurture me,

to bring me up to know him, to love him, and to trust in him.

A blessed life.

What IF . . .You had been me?

Surrounded by poverty, filth, abuse (of me, of substances), and emptiness. Chaos, daily.No promises, no God, no community. No one to trust.No love.

Just life.

What IF . . . I had been you?

The little kid in the freshly laundered clothing? The new lunch pail; the mommy kisses; the ice rink that daddy made for hockey? The nice warm bed, the bedtime story.Promises of love and protection; unspoken and present.

What IF . . . You had been me? Second-hand clothing. Unlaundered. No lunch today; a slobbery, drunken kiss, no ice rink.

No hydro, a bed. No stories to share. No care.No promises.

What IF . . . I were you? I had gone to your school?

Strict, yet kind. Boundaries. Stories of God’s love, for me, my friends. Caring.

The community of believers.

What IF . . . You had gone to my school? The breakfast program.

The volunteer who says, “Jesus loves you.” You wonder, “Jesus who?” You’re tired, you can’t learn. Late nights, discord.

Angry, broken people, filled with despair.

What IF . . . You were me, as a kid. Harsh. Unforgiving. Surviving.

What IF . . . I had been you? Loved. Taught.

Education, work, marriage, children. Surrounded by love and care and community.

Blessed by a life within God’s family. The cycle repeats.

What IF . . . You had been me?

Drop-out. No job. Broken marriage. Broken families. Chaos.

No God. No community. The cycle repeats.

What IF . . . You believed that your life had a purpose?

You believed that God placed you in your family – with a reason, a plan?You believed that my life, too, had a purpose and a plan?

And that you were part of that plan? Do you believe that God placed you where he did so that you could simply enjoy his benefits?Do you believe that God placed me where he did so thatI could live a life of misery, and not discover his plan for me?

Just what IF . . . I was born you, and you were born me?

Ann Adema is involved at Bethel Christian Reformed Church in Acton, Ontario, volunteering with a bereavement program, with Food for Life and as a “community bridge.” She is married and has two adult children.

Ann’s proud parents on baptism day. An involved father. Ann, her mother and pet cat. Ann dressed for the weather. Time spent with cousins.A birthday celebration.

AuGust 11, 2014

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Artful Eye

The Talbot River

You can’t cast twice into the same riveralthough it looks the same as in the photoof that first fishless summerwhere the shimmering rays surround youlike an icon of boyhood as you bend into your reeling

In the darkness we come down to the beachto those renewed waters (where you have caught fish)we in our joy are the fish-like swimmerswhere the hook-shaped moon dangles from heaven & I still long for what is out of reach

D.s. MartinFrom Poiema, Wipf & Stock (2008). Used with permission.

D.S. Martin encourages you to visit his poetry blogs, accessible through his web site: www.dsmartin.ca. He is Series Editor for the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade Books). His latest book is conspiracy of Light: Poems inspired by the Legacy of c.s. Lewis. On Sept. 20, 2014, he’ll be reading at the Moonshine Café in Oakville.

When I started writing this column on parenting and family, I was eight months pregnant with my first baby. Being pretty green in the parenting role, I worried that I’d find enough to write about. Nearly three years have gone by in a blur. they have been the strangest, most radical years of my life. From the moment i first held that purplish bundle in her mint green hospital hat – her face surprisingly unfamiliar – my life has been revolutionized, and this column has been a kind of play-by-play of my re-doing. taking a moment to step back from the insanity, here are a few things I’ve learned.

1. A lot can be accomplished in an hour. i think i have become a bit of a superhero of time management (note that this is not remotely the same as organization – not even a distant cousin of organization; see number 3). Actually, it’s more like I’ve become a superhero at time filling. in an hour, i can start dinner, throw in two loads of laundry, wipe down a bathroom, water the tomatoes, answer e-mails and pick up a thousand toys, all whilst discussing the probability of Snow White’s shoes fitting Cinderella’s feet. My pre-baby self would be shocked at this. I remember a time when i panicked at the idea of having only an hour to get ready for work. An hour. Getting ready for work now consists of wiping yogurt smears off my top and brushing some powder through my unwashed hair. This brings me to the next point.

2. Vanity is a luxury. Looking nice is nice. it feels nice. But when you have to choose between trying on a different pair of pants or comforting your wailing toddler who just doesn’t want you to go, the pants lose every time. And the funny thing is, it doesn’t matter. An error in fashion judg-ment used to cost me a day of self-consciousness. Now I don’t care. And the reason I don’t care is not that I value myself less, it’s that I value myself for different reasons. Maintaining patience, seeing beyond toddler behaviour, savouring moments – these are the things that make me feel good about myself, that give me a sense of accomplishment in a day. i try to take care of myself too, but a mismatched pair of pants is small beans.

3. The brain has a fill line. returning to point 1, as much as i can accomplish a lot of work in an hour, it’s amazing how many important details I can forget. My husband recently confessed that he used to count on me to keep him organized, but since I’ve had the baby. . . . He’s right. I’m totally useless at organization these days. My mind is so full of Clare and her needs, there isn’t room for much else. Dentist appointments? Whatever. They can always be rescheduled. Baby brain is a thing, but I’m not sure what it gets called when the baby is toilet trained and, well, really not a baby anymore. this leads to. . .

4. Working and parenting are terrible bedfellows (in my opinion). teaching is a tricky job, and one of the things i used to have going for me was organization. Even if my lesson planning was less than creative, at least my photocopies were ready and my lecture prepped. And then i be-came a mom (see number 3). Without organization or a few extra hours to work out the bugs in my planning, I have turned into a hurricane of a teacher, always on the move, stuff flying everywhere. i am always one step behind and have become a pro at apologizing; ditto with my parenting role.

5. Perfect joy is watching your child flourish. There’s nothing like it, absolutely nothing. No success I’ve experienced, no moment of beauty, no surge of emotion from my past life comes close to watching my daughter’s glorious, joyful, tender self unfold into the world. I would gladly pay for this privilege with every mismatched pair of pants, embarrassing teaching moment, harried hour of frantic activity. This is God’s best gift, and I love the woman who is rising to meet it and leaving behind all the nonsense that once seemed so important. What a magnificent revolution.

Three year revolution

Heather Wright is a freelance journalist living in Petrolia, Ont. She and her family attend Dresden CRC.

HEATHER WRIGHT

Emily Cramer lives in Barrie, Ont. with her husband and daughter and teaches in the Liberal Arts department at Georgian College. She is inching through For Whom the Bell Tolls and has picked

up Carol Shields’ the republic of Love as leaven to the lump (sandbanksgirl@gmail.com).

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in the last ontario provincial election, the polls were wrong. not just a little bit wrong, either. not since the chicago Tribune famously printed their “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline had the ex-perts been so wrong. instead of winning by a projected landslide, the ontario

Progressive conservatives lost seats and were reduced to a mostly rural rump in the provincial legislature. Even my own riding of Durham – which I joked would elect a fire hydrant to Queen’s Park if you painted it Tory blue – sent its first Liberal member to Toronto since 1943.

But there was one number in all the polling that was, in retrospect, very telling. During the debate – which everyone agreed PC leader Tim Hudak had won – Hudak’s personal likeability went down. in other words, while people thought he’d made solid points, the more they saw of him, and the more they heard his message, the less they liked him.

Part of that was Hudak’s doing. Up close, with no one else around, Hudak can be bright and friendly and relaxed. With an audience, he gives off a creepy, tense, used-car salesman vibe. But the PCs failure in that election wasn’t really about Hudak’s persona – it went deeper than that. its roots go back more than 20 years.

In 1995, the Progressive Conservatives under Mike Harris were elected thanks to the “common sense revolution,” a platform of tax cuts, welfare reforms and a plan to balance the Budget in response to what people saw as the failed poli-cies of the nDP government under Bob rae.

The “CSR” didn’t happen overnight. From 1990 to 1994, harris and Pc strategists like tom Long, David Lindsay and Leslie noble had been crisscrossing the province lis-tening to the grassroots members of the party, looking for common threads of dissatisfaction and disappointment with the rae government. the document came together quickly, but the research and planning behind the csr was years in the making.

One of the people elected as part of that 1995 Harris government was a 27-year old wunderkind from Fort Erie named tim hudak. hudak continued to represent niagara under new leaders Ernie Eves and John Tory before he finally took a crack at party leadership himself in 2009.

In both elections as PC leader, Hudak ran – and lost – on a platform similar to the CSR: lower taxes, reduced govern-ment services and balanced budgets. in the 2014 election, though, the Pcs were particularly bold in their promises to fire 100,000 public employees while cutting taxes which, they claimed, would create one million new jobs.

Both were straight out of the CSR. The mantra “tax cuts create jobs” permeated every Mike harris speech of the 1990s (I should know – I wrote a few of them) and the notion that PCs are elected to “fix government, not be the govern-ment” was also a core belief of the harris conservatives.

Rural dissatisfactionthese ideas, though, were originally developed over

time and in consultation with the core members of the Pc party. The PC Party Mike Harris inherited in 1990 wasn’t a right-wing party like it is today – it had many members who were Bill Davis Tories: moderate fiscal conservatives and social liberals. harris pushed those people out and prodded the rest to accept the message until the Pc Party became a rock-ribbed conservative party in his own image. the Pcs became a necessary foil to the Rae NDP and – whether you agreed with their ideas or not – at least proposed a solution to the recession of the early 1990s.

Hudak’s problem – and the PC party’s problem – is that their political thinking hasn’t evolved since then. Part of the reason for this lies in the ridings Pcs represent. rural ontario has never really recovered from the economic downturn of the early 90s. Small manufacturing has been fleeing to low-wage, low regulation economies like China for years. the competition from larger, well-subsidized u.s. farms in the agrifood sector is immense. Kids are moving out of rural towns and into the big cities. And taxes – particularly municipal taxes – seem rather high for the quality of services provided.

There’s been a lot of dissatisfaction in rural Ontario for decades now – which is understandable – but tax and service cuts won’t magically bring business back to those places. All that would happen is money would no longer be invested anywhere – including Ontario’s cities, which need

billions in infrastructure spending as they grow. Farmers do feed cities, but if cities become less economically competi-tive, all of ontario suffers.

The eternal oppositionModern Conservatism – in Canada and the U.S. – has

fallen into the trap of defining itself by what it opposes. It’s against taxes. Against big government. Against gay marriage. this means that the left is always setting the agenda, and the right is always reacting in opposition. in some cases – as with gay rights – long after the issue has mainstream support and everyone but the most die-hard social conservatives have moved on.

What voters are left with is – in Ontario at least – a party that seems to be filled with angry, oppositional, rural old white guys with nothing positive to say about anything. That’s too bad, because rural Ontario – indeed all of Ontario – needs a vibrant Conservative party with something positive to offer the voters of 2014.

And that’s the problem with the Ontario PC party – it has spent so much time telling voters what it opposes, it no longer knows what it stands for. What the party needs to do is take a long hard look at its core values, and decide how to present those in a positive way. Are they for “families?” What does that mean, in a positive sense? How would a conservative government meaningfully address joblessness in rural ontario caused by a changing global economy?

For starters, it would have to admit that the problem isn’t caused by “tax and spend Liberals,” as they like to complain, but by economic forces outside Ontario. They’d have to take a long, hard, intellectually honest look at the problems facing ontarians, talk to voters and do the legwork they did in 1990 when they developed the CSR. they only way to win back voters is to come up with new, relevant conservative policies that speak to the problems facing Ontarians in 2014 – not going backwards to the glory days of 1995.

It’s going to take a leader with the courage to ask the right questions (pun intended) for the ontario Pc Party to get its mojo back. they need someone young, and charis-matic and smart to bring them back out of the political wil-derness. If it takes the easy way out – and simply chooses a leader spouting a political philosophy voters have rejected for the last decade – the PC party will continue to find itself less and less relevant.

How Conservatives can get their groove back – A Liberal view

Lloyd Rang is communications director at the Faculty of Medicine at the U of Toronto and a member of Rehoboth

Christian Reformed Church in Bowmanville, Ontario.

What is this, a joke? from page 5

The equation explainedCW + Ch(Rf) + RCL + CCC + @ – 10(TV) – 20(RW) – ($TBN/10) – (xWB) – 10Em = RQ

number of crossway/Zondervan books in your collection; plus number of children; times number of children named after reformed personalities; plus number of reformed conference badges/lanyards (T4G, Desiring God, Next, Gospel Coalition); plus number of confessions, catechisms and creeds you subscribe to; plus number of hours weekly spent on challies.com, Deyoung’s blog, or any other Gospel Coalition blog; minus 10 if you have cable; minus 20 if you un-ironically have a Rick Warren or Joel Osteen book on your shelf; minus number of dollars pledged to TBN (divided by 10); minus number of times you’ve been watchblogged; minus number of years spent in your emergent phase (times 10); equals your Reformed Quotient.

Who said that?How many of these comedic Canadians did you know?

1. stuart Maclean in The Vinyl Café. 2. Jonathan Goldstein in I’ll Seize the Day Tomorrow.3. irwin Barker in That’s My Time. 4. Bert Witvoet in “Peppermint Christianity: Firsthand experience with a Dutch tradition,” Christian Courier, 1991.

The more Zondervan books you own, the higher your RQ.

Hudak’s platform was built along similar lines as Harris’ 1995 “Common Sense Revolution.”

Toddlers to TeensDenise Dykstra

Christ @ CultureLloyd Rang

My Window SeatMendelt Hoekstra

Principalities& PowersDavid Koyzis

Technically SpeakingDerek Schuurman

Intangible ThingsHeidi Vander Slikke

Country Living

Everyday ChristianCathy Smith

Getting UnstuckArlene Van Hove

Flowers and Thistles

The Public SquareHarry Antonides

From the 11thProvinceMarian Van Til

From the LabRudy Eikelboom

Words fromWild HorsesWarkentins

Patchwork Words Our World TodayBert Hielema

Curt Gesch

Meindert Vander Galien

SU MO TU WE TH FR SA

Melissa Kuipers

AuGust 11, 2014 PAGE 15

Columns

This month marks the 25th wedding anniversary of my wife, Carina, and me. A little over 25 years ago, a young engineering student met a fine arts major, and my life has never been the same.

We met while we were first-year university students; I was studying engineering at the University of Waterloo and Carina was studying fine arts at the new campus of Redeemer College. We met through a mutual friend, an engineering student I got to know at Waterloo. He introduced

me to carina while we were visiting redeemer, and we got to know each other better while attending a college hockey game later that evening. i can still recall meeting carina for the first time: at the intersection of three hallways at Redeemer – a spot I now walk by every day on my way up to my office.

I wasn’t certain what Carina thought about our meeting, but a long-time friend of mine who attended Redeemer had inside information for me: he had heard from one of Carina’s roommates that she liked me. After hearing this, i had the courage to give her a call. i asked her on an outing with some other students from the University of Waterloo Christian Reformed fellowship group. We traveled to Blyth to take part in a barn dance, a setting more familiar to my wife (who grew up on a dairy farm) than to myself, a boy who had grown up in the suburbs of toronto. After that weekend we began to see each other regularly.

Eventually the time came to meet Carina’s family. She invited me to her family farm one Easter weekend. I was anxious about meeting her parents and family; what would these farm-ers think of this city boy she was bringing home? i entered her parental home and made my first mistake: I proceeded to sit in the most comfortable chair at the kitchen table. Carina’s father’s first words to me were a request to get out of his chair. Nevertheless, trips to her family farm in Peterborough became frequent, and i quickly grew to feel at home with her family.

Left and rightAfter several years of dating we got

engaged (in a gravel pit down the road from her family farm – it was more ro-mantic than it sounds). We married at the age of 21, young by today’s standards, and while we were both still university students. our wedding took place on a perfect summer day on August 19, 1989. the wedding pictures depict us and all our friends in the vintage fashions of the 1980s (thankfully, I was not sporting a mullet). We started out our married lives in a modest one-bedroom apartment at the University of Waterloo. We both con-tinued our studies and somehow managed to keep financially afloat. Carina eventu-ally became a christian school teacher, earning her teaching degree as one of the pioneering students in Redeemer’s new christian education program.

Engineers tend to be “left-brained” and more logical, whereas artists tend to be more “right-brained” and creative. As an engineer paired with a fine arts major we seemed to complement each other well. i spent many weekends visit-ing carina and her friends at redeemer in those early years, a campus that had a very different feel than Waterloo. The culture at this liberal-arts college was very different than an engineering school, and i enjoyed the difference. this was the beginning of a long personal connection to redeemer college (perhaps my eventual tenure working as a professor at redeemer was motivated in part by the warm memories i had developed during those years).

In time we were entrusted with four children. It’s strange how life sometimes moves in circles – our two oldest children are now attending Redeemer, living on the same campus near the same places where we first met and where I now work. I have always appreciated a Redeemer education – how it can bring computers and the arts together in a liberal arts education. But i am also grateful for how it brought technology and the arts together in another way – in the life of a particular engineer and a fine arts major 25 years ago.

25 years of technol-ogy and the arts

Derek Schuurman is professor of computer science at Redeemer University College. He and his wife, Carina, will be married 25 years this August.

Toddlers to TeensDenise Dykstra

Christ @ CultureLloyd Rang

My Window SeatMendelt Hoekstra

Principalities& PowersDavid Koyzis

Technically SpeakingDerek Schuurman

Intangible ThingsHeidi Vander Slikke

Country Living

Everyday ChristianCathy Smith

Getting UnstuckArlene Van Hove

Flowers and Thistles

The Public SquareHarry Antonides

From the 11thProvinceMarian Van Til

From the LabRudy Eikelboom

Words fromWild HorsesWarkentins

Patchwork Words Our World TodayBert Hielema

Curt Gesch

Meindert Vander Galien

SU MO TU WE TH FR SA

Melissa Kuipers

WAYNE RIDLEY

It doesn’t make sense that, in Ontario, you can’t sell ungraded eggs at farmers’ markets, but you can sell home-baked pies, bread, cookies and other good-ies – which you might

have baked using ungraded farm-fresh eggs. Depending on the area, a health unit inspector might check your baked goods at a farmers’ market, but the only penalty will be the suggestion that home-bakers take a safe Food training course.

the health units (there are 36 Public health units in ontario) provide training in Food safety at no cost. they encourage food service workers and interested residents to attend. Participants are required to success-fully complete an exam in order to receive a five-year Food safety certificate. the training includes information about legisla-tion, food-borne illnesses and how to store, prepare and serve food that is safe to eat. It’s not mandatory to take the course. those $12 home-made pies look good at the farmers’ markets i visit, but i never buy them.

ten years ago, when i was in the restau-rant business, my kitchen staff and i took the safe Food handling training course in our first year of operation. We volunteered. if you like to bake or cook, take the course. You’ll learn a lot. Here’s why:

Americans break a lot of rules when it comes to cooking chicken, according to a recent study by the university of california at Davis. Davis is located in the agriculturally rich yolo county across the river from sacra-mento. About 65 percent of the cooks didn’t wash their hands with soap and water before and after handling raw chicken and turkey.

If Americans are sloppy, it’s a safe bet to say Canadians aren’t much better. Do you practice safe food hygiene? Do you use the same tongs you turned the burger patties over with to put them on a clean plate? Was it a clean plate? not one with red juices all over it?

The basicsWash hands, work surfaces, cutting

boards and utensils thoroughly with soap and hot water immediately after they have been in contact with raw meat or poultry, including frozen and fresh products. hands should be washed before handling food and between handling different food items.

Wash cutting boards between preparing different cuts of raw meat or poultry. use one

cutting board for fresh produce and a sepa-rate one for raw meat, poultry and seafood.

Do not rinse raw poultry in your sink – the water will not remove bacteria. in fact, it can spread raw juices around your sink, onto your countertops or onto ready-to-eat foods. Bacteria in raw meat and poultry can only be killed when cooked to a safe internal temperature.

While most consumers are very aware of food safety issues, including salmonella, and the risk of foodborne illness, many people do not follow recommended food safety practices in preparing their own meals at home, according to this study.

it analyzed video footage taken of 120 participants preparing a self-selected chick-en dish and salad in their home kitchens. The participants were experienced in chick-en preparation, with 85 percent serving chicken dishes in their home weekly, and 84 percent reporting being knowledgeable about food safety; 48 percent indicated they had received formal food safety training.

cross contamination was of specific concern to researchers:• Most participants (65 percent) did not

wash their hands before starting meal prepa-ration and 38 percent did not wash their hands after touching raw chicken.• Only 10 percent of participants washed

their hands for the recommended duration of 20 seconds and about one-third of the wash-ing occasions used water only, without soap.• Nearly 50 percent of participants were

observed washing their chicken in the sink prior to preparation, a practice that is not recommended as it leads to spreading bac-teria over multiple surfaces in the kitchen. • Forty percent of participants undercooked

their chicken, regardless of preparation method and only 29 percent knew the cor-rect USDA recommended temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.• Most participants determined “fully

cooked” based on appearance, not with the use of a cooking thermometer.

Just think, these folks knew a video cam-era was filming their every move. Would it have been worse if no one was watching? Based on the study’s findings, a coalition of agriculture and food safety partners is launching an educational campaign to increase consumer knowledge about safe food preparation practices in the home.

Food safety 101

Meindert van der Galien is a Renfrew-area (eastern Ont.) farmer

and agricultural columnist.

Toddlers to TeensDenise Dykstra

Christ @ CultureLloyd Rang

My Window SeatMendelt Hoekstra

Principalities& PowersDavid Koyzis

Technically SpeakingDerek Schuurman

Intangible ThingsHeidi Vander Slikke

Country Living

Everyday ChristianCathy Smith

Getting UnstuckArlene Van Hove

Flowers and Thistles

The Public SquareHarry Antonides

From the 11thProvinceMarian Van Til

From the LabRudy Eikelboom

Words fromWild HorsesWarkentins

Patchwork Words Our World TodayBert Hielema

Curt Gesch

Meindert Vander Galien

SU MO TU WE TH FR SA

Melissa Kuipers

A happy day in 1989.

PAGE 16

News

christiAn couriEr

Serving God in secular Czech Republic:The Comenius Institute of Prague Adrian and Wendy Helleman

Why should we, as canadians, care about christian academics in the czech republic? or, to put it differently, how might we encourage a tiny handful of evangelical christian leaders trying to make headway in one of the most secular-ized countries of modern Europe? this was the question addressed by tom Johnson when he arrived in the czech republic more than 17 years ago. tom was sent to Prague to represent and implement the vi-sion of the organization now called Global scholars (formerly the international institute for christian studies) of which christian studies international (csi) is the Canadian affiliate.

As such, Tom affirmed as a basic principle:

To change a nation, teach its leaders; To teach its leaders, influence its

universities; To influence its universities, teach in its

classrooms. he started by teaching at czech uni-

versities, including the prestigious and well-established charles university. But together with colleague richard smith, Johnson went further, and founded the comenius institute as a venue to encour-age and help czech scholars. this institute is named after the well-known Jan Amos Komensky, or comenius (1592-1670), a czech educator and pastor who is con-sidered the father of modern education in the czech republic and beyond, especial-ly in Europe.

the comenius institute has as its pri-mary focus to develop godly christian leaders in the tradition of Jan comenius. Johnson explains that the institute seeks to foster scholars “who are convinced of the truth and importance of the biblical message, who attempt to live honestly be-fore God, who are theologically balanced and well-developed, who can appropriate

the best of historic christian thought to thoughtfully evaluate modern and post-modern trends, [and] who are active in church, society and education for the glory of God.”

No older generation of ChristiansWe learned of the critical importance

of the comenius institute on a visit to Prague at the end of March, when we met tom Johnson and several leading czech christian scholars whose work has been nurtured through this institute. Although few in number, their influence is growing, and is certainly out of proportion to the community they represent.

to begin with, the evangelical christian community in the czech republic, con-sisting mainly of Lutheran, czech Brethren and Baptist congregations, is very small, representing less than one percent of the population. Leadership for these groups is correspondingly small, provided for by about 40 pastors and teachers in all. Moreover, most of them are young, in their 30s or 40s. the older generation of christian leaders is almost entirely ab-sent. this is largely due to the impact of communist ideology during the decades when czechoslovakia was absorbed by the ussr.

the legacy of communism helps to ex-plain why the czech republic is so highly secularized. its small Protestant christian community suffers from a pervasive nega-tive attitude to christianity. czechs are often skeptical, if not downright suspi-cious and cynical about the christian faith. But such an attitude can be traced back further to the post-reformation era and the thirty Years War (1618-48), when the predominantly Protestant population of czechoslovakia was almost completely exterminated. the czech Protestant reli-gious hegemony was replaced by roman catholicism under the Austro-hungarian regime.

the rise of czech nationalism in the late 19th century did contribute to a revival of the Protestant churches. And in the 1990s, after the fall of communism, those strug-gling communities which survived were encouraged by the work of (American) missionaries. thus the 90s witnessed a blossoming of churches, certainly at first. Although most evangelical churches have maintained their membership, and are growing slightly, membership for the more "mainline" christian groups has de-clined since that time. so the proportion of the population which professes adherence to christianity remains very small.

Heidelberg in Czechin Prague, the beautiful capital of the

czech republic, tom Johnson introduced us first to Peter Cimala, who has recently taken on the challenges of directing the comenius institute. Peter is a gifted pro-

fessor and expositor of the new testament, and as such he teaches at the Evangelical theological seminary. But to be able to make ends meet, he is also a pastor. Like many evangelical leaders he needs several jobs in order to survive.

not long ago Peter celebrated the pub-lication of the heidelberg catechism in translation from the original medieval German into the czech language.

cimala’s role at the comenius institute brings him in contact with many students who are struggling to find a connection be-tween their faith and the studies pursued at the university. Drawing on his own uni-versity experience, Peter has discovered a special talent for encouraging and men-toring university students in various fields.

Johnson introduced us next to Jan habl, a professor of education at the university in usti, a few hours by train from Prague. Like cimala, habl holds a second half-time position as pastor. But as an academ-ic habl is becoming well-known through-out the republic for his work on the 17th century czech educator after whom the institute is named, Jan comenius; indeed, habl has published widely on the life and work of comenius. Although the czech people take a certain pride in the inter-national reputation of comenius, as an early proponent of universal education and the education of women, most do not real-ize that comenius was also christian. so habl has taken it upon himself to publicize the work of this outstanding christian edu-cator and scholar for the czech academic world, and retrieve the christian basis of his thought.

VisionariesAs we have mentioned above, czech

professors typically work in two or three positions. For czech students, university tuition is free or nominal, and the profes-sors receive very low salaries. Perhaps this goes back to the monastic model for education, where the monks were sup-ported by the work of the monastery, or by rich patrons. Perhaps the czechs think that for scholars the work becomes its own reward, and they do not need much in the way of salary. But most professors find that they cannot make ends meet, and turn to a second job to support their families. this in turn makes it almost impossible to find the necessary time for research and writing.

in a highly secularized context our Lord has raised up a handful of dynamic talent-ed scholars and leaders for the christian community. they are people of vision for their time and social needs. there is at present also a window of spiritual open-ness, an opportunity on which they can make good, given time and resources. With our help, we pray they can make a difference for God’s kingdom in Europe, and especially in the czech republic.

Adrian and Wendy Helleman served with Christian Studies International for

many years in Russia, Nigeria, Tanzania and the Gambia, and are still associated with this work. Recently they were asked to help raise awareness and support for

the Comenius Institute in Prague, Czech Republic. They can be contacted at adrian.

helleman@gmail.com.

At Prague's central square.

Pavel Hosak with Adrian.

Near Charles bridge.

Tom Johnson and Adrian examined newly arrived publication on Christian Ethics.

Jan Habl in conversation with Johnson and Adrian.

AuGust 11, 2014

Classifieds

PAGE 17

With thanksgiving to our heavenly father for his many blessings, the family of

Herman & nellie Berg (nee Joosse)will celebrate their 65th Wedding Anniversary

August 26, 2014.

September 16, 1937 July 18, 2014Naaldwijk, Holland Huntsville, Ontario

Corry Eygenraamdear wife of Simon Eygenraam for 55 years

Mother of 4 children10 grandchildren

2 great-grandchildren

Mourned by 4 brothers & 2 sisters

She is now safe in the arms of Jesus.

A celebration of her life was held July 26, 2014 at St. Andrew's

Presbyterian Church, Huntsville, Ontario

Donations in her memory to Covenant House, Toronto would be appreciated

Correspondence:Simon Eygenraam

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25th Anniversary

Maranatha CRC of Bowmanville, Ontario, will celebrate 50 years

of God's faithfulness on September 13 & 14, 2014.

Former members and friends are invited to join us for a special program and worship service.

For details contact the office at 905.623.2192;

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invites applications for the positions of Director, HR Employee Services & Senior Development Officer

Applicants should email their application materials and include a statement that articulates their faith perspective and its relation to the mission of Redeemer University College.

For complete details on the positions, visit www.redeemer.ca/employment.

Direct applications to:HR@redeemer.ca

Submission deadline is September 30, 2014

Only applicants selected for an interview will be contacted.

ObituariesAnniversary

Engelum, Friesland Brampton, OntarioFeb. 26, 1926 July 2, 2014

Tjaltje "Shirley" Beintema (nee Wassenaar)gone home to glory

Lovingly remembered by her children:Teena & Peter Post, Brampton, ONGilbert Beintema & Carol Schultz, Chatsworth, ONGrace & Carl Snip, Orillia, ONJake & Deb Beintema, St. Mary's, ONSandra Beintema, Toronto, ONWilma Beintema, Richmond Hill, ONClarence & Maureen Beintema, Kitchener, ONand her 13 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren

Sister of Jacobus & Jacoba Wassenaar, Andries & Oeke Wassenaar, and Jan & Dirkje Wassenaar, Beetgumermolen, Friesland.

Predeceased by her husband Johannes "Joe" Bein-tema, son Pieter "Pete" Beintema, husband John Yzerman, son-in-law David Palmer, daughter-in-law Wendy Taylor-Beintema, and four siblings.

A memorial service was held at Holland Christian Homes, Brampton, Ont. on July 5, 2014. Interred Greenwood Cemetery, Orangeville, Ont.

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

Psalms 73:26

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PAGE 18

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AuGust 11, 2014

Column

PAGE 19

Nick Loenenthe Bible is inexhaustible because God is in-

exhaustible. i have listened to 3,000+ sermons, but it is always new. “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” While i have been enriched by diverse preachers and different types of preach-ing, some sermons stand out; they are memorable. Why is that? What makes them so? it is a question i can only answer for myself.

some 20 years ago, a political convention brought me to toronto. sunday morning at the con-vention was wrap-up time. My friend, the late Mel smith said, “Let them wrap-up. come, let us wor-ship God.” so we did. i have forgotten the preach-er’s name but not the sermon and text: “in the begin-ning, God. . . .” it had three elements indispensible to making a sermon memorable.

First, sermons are a form of com-munication and must meet the rules of effective communica-tion. there should be one, single message. that toronto sermon’s only message was: “God is present in all places, people and events.” A message shared is a message diluted. the Bible is full of valuable, even urgent messages, but no sermon should carry more than one. When every word, every sentence is focused on that one message, the mes-sage sticks.

it brings to mind my philosophy professor of long ago. his instructions for writing papers were intimidating: (1) on top of the page write your topic in the form of a question; (2) write the paper; (3) check each sentence, ensure it contributes to answering the question; (4) strike out any that do not help answer the question. if you won’t, i will; (5) if there are no sentences left, start over.

humourless, tough, a little crude? Yes, but this method makes the point, unmistakably. churchill, perhaps the greatest communicator of the last century, frequently apologized for a long speech, saying, “i had no time to write a short speech.” Distilling a topic into one single message is hard work. Memorable sermons are crafted into one thought looked at from different points of view. no redundancies, no asides, the message is seared into the mind.

When God is revealedsecondly, a great sermon is authentic. the

preacher speaks from the heart. the language is dir-

ect, pure, no holy words, language dressed up for church in religious finery laced with piety, delivered with professional slickness. no! Dress-up, profes-sional slickness, insincerity and talking about God do not go together. churchill opened a famed war-time radio address with, “the news from France is bad.” six, short, one-syllable words, a simple de-clarative sentence but how arresting, how honest, how authentic, how unlike the spin that feeds our cynicism daily.

the Bible is God’s self-revelation. its content is laid before us that we might believe. We cannot talk convincingly about believing in God unless we believe ourselves. chaucer’s parson of Canterbury Tales fame “. . . lived himself the golden rule he taught.”

third, and most importantly, to me memorable sermons aim to bring us into the pres-

ence of God, to show us who God is. it is true, the gospel changes lives and Jesus himself said, “if

you love me, keep my command-ments.” And James warns that faith without deeds is dead. Yes, but faith is kindled, lives are changed when hearers encounter the living God, not because a minister tells people they must change their ways.

sermons that stand out do not aim to make people more charitable, more christ-like, more forgiving, better wit-nesses, greater activists for social jus-

tice, less wedded to consumerism and the false gods of the world. no! sermons should

not aim to improve people. Preaching is word proc-lamation and the word is God’s self-revelation. Biblical sermons aim to reveal God. When God is revealed, telling people what they must do is mostly unnecessary.

that toronto sermon of long ago was not about people at all, it was about God. it placed all human experience within the context of God who is always and everywhere in control. By showing them the God of the scriptures the preacher transported the hearers into the presence of God. An encounter with the living God: that is what memorable sermons do. it is the power of God unto sal-vation. “remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you . . . imitate their faith.”

Nick Loenen lives in Richmond, B.C.

What makes a sermon memorable?

One can still flybut not flee fromidiots with idealswho think theyhave to defend a land, a border, a godat the expense of alla child that plays on the beacha woman on the way to worka man on the way homea family on a trip to a landthey have talked about so long

It’s not a mistakebut a new wordideatesidiots with idealsideals in the heads of idiots

With a determined lookthat makes you laughthey look into the cameraweapons ready at handand wordsthat cost livesand lives

By Jacques Kloters(translated from the Dutch)

Ideates

Amanda ThorsteinssonJuBA, south sudan – “Morning music.” that’s

what aid workers here in Juba, south sudan call the gunfire you can sometimes hear in the early morning hours.

When i hear it, i can just turn on my iPod and block it out with music, secure in the knowledge that in a few days I will hop on an airplane and fly home to canada.

But for millions of south sudanese, blocking out the war with an iPod isn’t an option.

For them, the war that has been going on be-tween government and rebel forces has completely disrupted their lives. About a million people have fled their homes to escape the fighting. About four million people are in danger of hunger.

Down near the compound where i am stay-ing with Jim cornelius, Executive Director of canadian Foodgrains Bank, there used to be a thriving neighbourhood. It was filled with people who led ordinary lives. it was a group of people who lived, worked, sent their children to school.

But now those homes are abandoned. it’s a small ghost town.

the people who used to live there are now only a few miles away. When fighting came to the city of Juba, they rushed to a nearby united nations compound for protection.

Across south sudan, many people are in simi-lar situations.

they are living wherever they can. some of them have gone into the bush, surviving on roots and berries. Some have been able to flee to rela-

tives and friends in other parts of the country, rely-ing on their generosity to survive. Some have fled to neighbouring countries.

For many, food is in short supply. the food that is available is too expensive for many people to afford.

i went with Jim to the local market in Juba to-day. We talked to women selling onions and to-matoes, and to traders – men with bags of rice and large trucks of food and other goods.

Almost all the food being sold came from out-side of south sudan. the only local food being sold in the market that was actually grown in the country was peanuts.

tomorrow, Jim and i are going up to visit a pro-ject site run by Foodgrains Bank member ADrA canada. People there are receiving food rations to keep them alive until they can go home. it will be the first time that we can talk to people who are receiving food assistance.

i want to hear what they have to say. i know that food from the Foodgrains Bank won’t bring an end to the conflict, but at least we can help in some way.

And at the end of this visit, Jim and i will go home. We pray that the conflict in this country will end, and that people in South Sudan who fled for their lives will also be able to go home soon, too.

Canadian Foodgrains Bank Executive Director Jim Cornelius and Communications Officer Amanda

Thorsteinsson are in South Sudan, visiting Foodgrains Bank projects and partners who are responding to the

needs of people affected by civil war in that country.

From VISION… …to REALITY

A C h r i s t i a n S e n i o r s L i f e s t y l e C o m m u n i t y

Our vision of a Christian retirement community within York Region is now becoming a reality. Construction is anticipated to start soon and an excellent choice of suites is still available. We expect suites will sell out once the building process commences.

We eagerly look forward to our Spring 2016 anticipated occupancy.

To become part of our exciting new community, contact us at 905 591-3491 or visit our website.

See how you too, can become part of ‘The Meadows’.

York Region Christian Senior Homes Inc. 15600 Leslie Street, Aurora, Ontario L4G 7C4

www.themeadowsofaurora.cominfo@themeadowsofaurora.com 905 591-3491

PAGE 20

News

christiAn couriEr From VISION… …to REALITY

A C h r i s t i a n S e n i o r s L i f e s t y l e C o m m u n i t y

Our vision of a Christian retirement community within York Region is now becoming a reality. Construction is anticipated to start soon and an excellent choice of suites is still available. We expect suites will sell out once the building process commences.

We eagerly look forward to our Spring 2016 anticipated occupancy.

To become part of our exciting new community, contact us at 905 591-3491 or visit our website.

See how you too, can become part of ‘The Meadows’.

York Region Christian Senior Homes Inc. 15600 Leslie Street, Aurora, Ontario L4G 7C4

www.themeadowsofaurora.cominfo@themeadowsofaurora.com 905 591-3491

Sound of gunfire is 'morning music' in South Sudan

Read moRe at

MyRedeemer.ca/Paul

Redeemer’s academic program has allowed me to explore both Music and Biology – the passions that God has gifted me.

Paul Naphtali, Mississauga, ON

a Christian University in Hamilton, ontario

This fall, Paul will begin graduate studies in Pharmacology at the University of Toronto