For the past week or so, my students and I have been discussing the “humans as lovers” philosophical anthropology (using James K.A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom as our guide). The class has focused mainly on how cultures develop and change, … Continue reading →

In the decades to come, taxes in most developed countries will go up and services will go down. This is the hard logic of years of overspending, coupled with economic recession and crippling personal and corporate debt. So far the … Continue reading →

In four days streets across the continent will be covered with little people, running around in the great communal and sugar-fuelled pantomime that we call Hallowe’en. Kids who would otherwise be brushing their teeth and preparing for bed will instead … Continue reading →

Lawrence Martin’s recent Globe and Mail column talked about the change of the Canadian brand under the Conservative government, labelling it a voter-approved changed “from a country of Ken Dryden values to one closer to those of Don Cherry.” I’ll … Continue reading →

Two citations provide a wonderful historical frame for the Occupy Wall Street movement, now well into its second month. 1) “The conditions which surround us best justify our co-operation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the … Continue reading →

I (understandably) spend a great deal of time in the New York subways. The truth about subways is that you stop hearing the announcements after a while. I moved here a month before the bombings in the London Tube in … Continue reading →

It seems a bit narcisstic to offer correction and commentary on something I’ve written, but a surprising number of people would probably find it cathartic to know I’ve given further corrective thought to my post of last week. Perhaps, if … Continue reading →

The New York Times published an article this week opining on the evangelical rejection of reason. The article, written by Karl Giberson and Randall Stephens, covers much of the ground previously covered by Mark Noll in The Scandal of the … Continue reading →

Anita Perry’s outburst last week that her husband, an outspoken evangelical running for the Republican Presidential nomination, was being “brutalized” by his political opponents “because of his faith” is a bit difficult to make sense of. Governor Perry is reported … Continue reading →

She was waiting at the corner of Sanguinet as my wife and I drove along Ontario early on a Sunday morning in downtown Montreal. We had the green light but she, pushing a stroller and with a toddler by the … Continue reading →