Category Religion

2021 In Review: Hagia Sophia Frescoes

We start our review of 2021 today with the tenth most popular post of the year. It is an enduring favorite since it was first published here in 2015, and in 2020 was the most popular post. Sometimes I can’t figure out why a post becomes popular, but I understand the interest in the Hagia […]

A Matter of Choice

“I am an adult. I get to choose.”  I found that quote when looking through my notes, trying to decide what I would write about today. I don’t remember everything about the conversation. I do remember the context. The speaker was a woman, a political refugee from a Middle Eastern country. Her crime was advocating […]

Seasonal Offering

You know we live in a weird world when people will pay $50 or $100 to hear someone recite a 400-year-old Bible translation set to music. On an unseasonably warm Ottawa night a couple of weeks ago two thousand people paid to attend something you wouldn’t expect to be popular in our post-Christian society: a […]

Reason For The Season

I was struck by this photo when I saw it online. It is a reminder at this time of year there is more to Christmas than a cultural festival featuring an old man in a red suit. The cross isn’t usually seen as a Christmas symbol. Yet it is the ultimate Christmas symbol. The birth of the […]

Thoughts for Saturday

One of the first things I do each Saturday morning is check my email for the weekly opinion piece by Ray Pennings, who is Executive Vice President of the think tank Cardus. Ray always makes me think, sometimes challenging my beliefs. other times expressing my thoughts much more elequently what I have been thinking. Ray’s […]

You Never Know…

Sometimes you are struck by just how small the world can be. I’ve had this photo sitting on my desk for about three months now. I found it when I was going through a box of old paperwork. None of the people in the photo looked familiar. Except me of course. I’m the one with […]

Standing Strong

Time for a flashback, from the days when travel was fun, this time a post from October 2014. It dominates the town of Bayeux still, as it has for almost 1,000 years. It has survived wars and conflicts and remains a testament to the Christian faith of the Norman people who started building it long before […]

Not Your Average Movie

How do you squeeze 60 years of musical history into a documentary that lasts less than two hours? You can’t, but those behind The Jesus Music, which hits theatres today, have made a valiant attempt. It is difficult for me to objectively assess this film. The subject matter is something I know a little about […]

Speaking The Truth?

“They believed they were doing the right thing.” You probably can think of situations where that has been true for others, incidents where the passage of time has proven that it was the wrong thing. Maybe that is true of something you have done yourself. Maybe it was just a little thing. Maybe it was […]

It’s not the bad guys…

… who worry me. It is the good guys. People who are obviously evil don’t last long. Dictators like Hitler or Stalin may have a short run, but in the end they are removed from power. What I fear more are the self-righteous, those sure their cause is just, and apparently unable to understand why […]