Are we on the verge of a spiritual renewal in North America — a renewal that might save our planet? That’s the question that comes to me after reading about the pipeline protest at the Standing Rock Sioux...
[read more]
More bad news in the world of Christian print magazines in Canada: In September, two of the country’s most venerable publications shut down: the Presbyterian Record, after 140 years, and the Western Catholic...
[read more]
One thing about the recent U.S. presidential election: Nobody can say religion didn’t matter. By now the story is very familiar; 81 percent of white evangelical voters supported President-elect Donald...
[read more]
In October, when Donald Trump’s comments about women were reverberating in my mind, I posted an apology to my female friends on Facebook. In it, I expressed my sadness and outrage for how so many had been...
[read more]
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms. Psychology is the study of behavior and the mind. Theology is the study of the nature of God. Povology is — well, just what...
[read more]
Living so close to the United States, it is impossible for Canadians not to be inundated by U.S. news — and often impacted by it, too. As one of our former prime ministers put it, it’s like sleeping with...
[read more]
When it comes to turning points in history, a few come to mind for me: The assassination of John F. Kennedy; the first humans on the Moon; the fall of the Berlin Wall; the invention of the Internet; and 9/11....
[read more]
If you wrote a letter to your denomination or area conference, what would you say? That’s the question Carol Penner asked herself recently. In her case, it was about the Canadian Conference of Mennonite...
[read more]
With the war in Syria entering its sixth year, it’s easy to get lost in the facts and figures: As many as 470,000 dead; 4.6 million refugees who have fled the country; 6.6 million displaced within it; 13.5...
[read more]
What’s the fastest-growing Mennonite church in Winnipeg? St. Margaret’s Anglican. That joke came back to me early this month when I learned that the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada and...
[read more]
In Canada, as in the U.S., lots of people don’t attend church. About 80 percent of Canadians and 60 percent of Americans do something else on Sunday mornings. Why is that? Joel Thiessen, a sociology...
[read more]
“Change is always occurring. But when that change appears more dramatic than usual, it can feel frightening. . . . I think that the Christian church across Canada is experiencing such a time of dramatic...
[read more]
Every 500 years or so, the church has a giant garage sale, getting rid of the stuff it no longer needs. That’s what author Phyllis Tickle said in 2008 in her book The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is...
[read more]
In many ways, Americans and Canadians are so much alike. We watch the same movies and TV, read the same books, watch the same sports, listen to the same music, follow the same celebrities and (mostly) speak...
[read more]
You may have noticed there’s an election going on. Not the U.S. presidential campaign. I’m talking about the Oct. 19 Canadian election. Unlike in the U.S., religion plays a very minor role in Canadian...
[read more]
It was author Graham Green who popularized the idea of the whiskey priest, a flawed member of the clergy who, despite failings, still manages to inspire others in their relationship with God. In his novel The...
[read more]
For Mennonites on the Canadian prairies, the late 19th century is a significant time. That’s when the first wave of Mennonite immigrants came to Manitoba. But they weren’t the only pacifist group to come...
[read more]
Over the past number of months, people in the U.S. have been confronting the issue of racism and violence against African-Americans. Police shootings in places like Baltimore and Ferguson, and now the church...
[read more]
Editors attending the conventions of Canadian Church Press and the U.S.-based Associated Church Press in late April in Toronto heard the latest challenging statistics about religion in Canada and its effect on...
[read more]
One of the fastest growing religious groups in Canada today is the nones. These are people who, when asked if they have a religious preference, say “none.” But there’s another group that is also gaining...
[read more]
