http://www.cardus.ca/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed en Copyright 2013 Cardus Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:25:15 -0400 Cardus Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:25:15 -0400 http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/after-meaning-quebecs-religion-problems-are-mere-symptoms?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Several years ago my son was cycling home to his apartment in Outremont when he was approached at a corner by neighbours asking for a somewhat unusual favour. They were devout Jews. It was the Sabbath. They needed him to come to their house and turn off the lights and some electrical appliances. Happy to oblige, he was rewarded for his switch-flipping skills with warm thanks and a basket of food that went straight to a hungry university student's heart. Yet he took something far more lasting from the encounter. "They don't just talk about what they believe," he said. "They live it in every day life." The divide mapped by his two sentences has struck me ever since as an ideal identifier of the hole in the heart of Quebec cultural and political life. From this gap, an unholy amount of maladroitness, embarrassment, foolishness, and misunderstanding emerges. The misunderstanding, I have come to understand, is as much on the part of outsiders looking in on Quebec as it is an internal matter among Quebecers themselves. During the recent furor over the ludicrous attempt to ban Sikh turbans on the province's soccer pitches, for example, much of the commentariat outside Quebec concluded that xenophobia—or something worse—was again rearing its ugly head in la belle province. "Unlike all the other provinces, Quebec is home to many strong nationalists who see their province as culturally besieged by North America's Anglo behemoth. Unfortunately, the obsession with their own minority status causes some Québécois nationalists to fear immigrants as a diluting agent within French culture. From such insecurities, other uglier sentiments often follow," Jonathan Kay wrote in the National Post. Kay's column was a very measured, intelligent, perceptive take on the turban flap. It gained added authority from him being a native Quebecer raised as a member of a minority religious group in the province. Yet even he, I think, mistook symptoms for underlying malaise. What seems, on the surface, to be simply fear of outsiders "diluting" French culture is the more complex response of those who have long ago emptied their lives of truly lived faith and now face others whose faith is the fulfillment of life itself. It is the response of those who cannot stop talking about what they used to believe finding themselves among neighbours who live their vibrant beliefs to the full. Evidence is found in the insistence on making exceptions—within the so-called Charter of Values being threatened by the Parti Quebecois government—for Christian symbols. The Crucifix that hangs in the National Assembly would be allowed to remain in place, for instance. Critics dismiss such loopholism as niggardly at best, bigoted at worst. It's even worse. It's the reduction of a belief that once moved the world to a collection of tchotchkes. It is faith as furniture. It goes beyond the blandness of deism to the genuine dangers of treating icons as decorations, the numinous as nothing more than nostalgia. It is bad enough when meaning is emptied ruthlessly. It is something else again when those responsible for the emptying are forced to abide with those for whom meaning truly means something. Or everything. The life of Christian faith was not just some historic accident or addendum in Quebec. It shaped the very heart of Quebec's culture, politics, and landscapes. The misbegotten visionaries of a generation ago thought they could simply extricate it, root it out, and fill the empty hole with, well, whatever came to hand. It hasn't worked out that way at all. The emptied hole they left behind divides Quebecers from themselves and, now we see, from those who live their faith in the thousand details of their daily lives. Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Several years ago my son was cycling home to his apartment in Outremont when he was approached at a corner by neighbours asking for a somewhat unusual favour. They were devout Jews. It was the Sabbath. They needed him to come to their house and turn off the lights and some electrical appliances. Happy to oblige, he was rewarded for his switch-flipping skills with warm thanks and a basket of food that went straight to a hungry university student's heart. Yet he took something far more lasting from the encounter. "They don't just talk about what they believe," he said. "They live it in every day life." The divide mapped by his two sentences has struck me ever since as an ideal identifier of the hole in the heart of Quebec cultural and political life. From this gap, an unholy amount of maladroitness, embarrassment, foolishness, and misunderstanding emerges. The misunderstanding, I have come to understand, is as much on the part of outsiders looking in on Quebec as it is an internal matter among Quebecers themselves. During the recent furor over the ludicrous attempt to ban Sikh turbans on the province's soccer pitches, for example, much of the commentariat outside Quebec concluded that xenophobia—or something worse—was again rearing its ugly head in la belle province. "Unlike all the other provinces, Quebec is home to many strong nationalists who see their province as culturally besieged by North America's Anglo behemoth. Unfortunately, the obsession with their own minority status causes some Québécois nationalists to fear immigrants as a diluting agent within French culture. From such insecurities, other uglier sentiments often follow," Jonathan Kay wrote in the National Post. Kay's column was a very measured, intelligent, perceptive take on the turban flap. It gained added authority from him being a native Quebecer raised as a member of a minority religious group in the province. Yet even he, I think, mistook symptoms for underlying malaise. What seems, on the surface, to be simply fear of outsiders "diluting" French culture is the more complex response of those who have long ago emptied their lives of truly lived faith and now face others whose faith is the fulfillment of life itself. It is the response of those who cannot stop talking about what they used to believe finding themselves among neighbours who live their vibrant beliefs to the full. Evidence is found in the insistence on making exceptions—within the so-called Charter of Values being threatened by the Parti Quebecois government—for Christian symbols. The Crucifix that hangs in the National Assembly would be allowed to remain in place, for instance. Critics dismiss such loopholism as niggardly at best, bigoted at worst. It's even worse. It's the reduction of a belief that once moved the world to a collection of tchotchkes. It is faith as furniture. It goes beyond the blandness of deism to the genuine dangers of treating icons as decorations, the numinous as nothing more than nostalgia. It is bad enough when meaning is emptied ruthlessly. It is something else again when those responsible for the emptying are forced to abide with those for whom meaning truly means something. Or everything. The life of Christian faith was not just some historic accident or addendum in Quebec. It shaped the very heart of Quebec's culture, politics, and landscapes. The misbegotten visionaries of a generation ago thought they could simply extricate it, root it out, and fill the empty hole with, well, whatever came to hand. It hasn't worked out that way at all. The emptied hole they left behind divides Quebecers from themselves and, now we see, from those who live their faith in the thousand details of their daily lives. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/consumers-of-our-neighbourhood?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed During our first year of marriage, my husband and I lived in the ground floor apartment of a big, old, red-brick house. On either side of us were similar houses split into apartments, and across the street was a high-rise building. We woke up many times to drunken yelling from the college kids making their way home from the bars, or to the blue and red lights of cop cars responding to a call from across the street. We lived there for a year and the only neighbours we met (or really even saw) were the ones living in the other four apartments in the house. A year later we bought our current home four blocks and a world away. It's quieter and cleaner and I have the strong sense that my neighbours are looking out for each other. At Christmas time we have a progressive potluck dinner with the street, with three different homes hosting appetizers, dinner, and dessert. A few weekends ago seven homes had garage sales, bringing us together as we mostly just traded goods with each other. There is a feeling of responsibility for our own homes and for the safety of each other. We are, even inadvertently, seeking shalom on our street. There is a stark difference between these two places that we've lived. There are many factors that lead to this, but I believe one of the strongest aspects is that in our first apartment we and our neighbours were renting. We didn't see that place as a long-term home and didn't hold (legal) responsibility for the building and property of where we lived. We were consumers of our neighbourhood. On our current street, most homes are owner-occupied and there is a desire to maintain and better our surroundings. We are investing it in. It's not about whether one owns or rents a home though, as each person much choose how they will interact with their community. In an exploratory paper on the culture of homelessness and homemaking (later expanded on in their book Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement), Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh suggest that this difference between consuming and investing in our surroundings is growing in our culture as a whole. They see our education system (particularly higher education) as creating a culture of 'homelessness': by being so focused on upward mobility, it "produces career-oriented consumers who have no intimate knowledge of, or sense of commitment to, any place." They pull in the work of environmentalist David Orr who makes the distinction this way: a temporary occupant is a resident, while someone who dwells and invests in their environment is an inhabitant. A resident is a "temporary and rootless occupant," while an inhabitant cannot be separated from their surroundings, "without doing violence to both." When Le Corbusier planned his vertical Radiant City of skyscrapers surrounded by gardens, he was not only planning the built environment, but a social utopia as well. As Jane Jacobs puts it, this involved "liberty from ordinary responsibility . . . where nobody, presumably, was going to have to be his brother's keeper any more. Nobody was going to have to struggle with plans of his own. Nobody was going to be tied down." While the Radiant City never came to be, we do see this social mentality pervading and shaping our culture. When individualism and status dominate our understanding of the good life, investing in our surroundings and caring for our brother is pushed off our radar. But as I am experiencing on our street, and as Eric Jacobsen says in The Space Between, "Individual humans can't have shalom in the fullest sense of that word; only human communities can . . . Seeking shalom, then, necessarily means participating in one or more communities." As we seek the welfare of the city, simply being consumers of our surroundings is not enough. Whether it be in my neighbourhood, work place, church congregation, or family, I hope that my sense of responsibility, participation, and care is such that I could not be separated without leaving a hole in the community and in myself. Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 During our first year of marriage, my husband and I lived in the ground floor apartment of a big, old, red-brick house. On either side of us were similar houses split into apartments, and across the street was a high-rise building. We woke up many times to drunken yelling from the college kids making their way home from the bars, or to the blue and red lights of cop cars responding to a call from across the street. We lived there for a year and the only neighbours we met (or really even saw) were the ones living in the other four apartments in the house. A year later we bought our current home four blocks and a world away. It's quieter and cleaner and I have the strong sense that my neighbours are looking out for each other. At Christmas time we have a progressive potluck dinner with the street, with three different homes hosting appetizers, dinner, and dessert. A few weekends ago seven homes had garage sales, bringing us together as we mostly just traded goods with each other. There is a feeling of responsibility for our own homes and for the safety of each other. We are, even inadvertently, seeking shalom on our street. There is a stark difference between these two places that we've lived. There are many factors that lead to this, but I believe one of the strongest aspects is that in our first apartment we and our neighbours were renting. We didn't see that place as a long-term home and didn't hold (legal) responsibility for the building and property of where we lived. We were consumers of our neighbourhood. On our current street, most homes are owner-occupied and there is a desire to maintain and better our surroundings. We are investing it in. It's not about whether one owns or rents a home though, as each person much choose how they will interact with their community. In an exploratory paper on the culture of homelessness and homemaking (later expanded on in their book Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement), Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh suggest that this difference between consuming and investing in our surroundings is growing in our culture as a whole. They see our education system (particularly higher education) as creating a culture of 'homelessness': by being so focused on upward mobility, it "produces career-oriented consumers who have no intimate knowledge of, or sense of commitment to, any place." They pull in the work of environmentalist David Orr who makes the distinction this way: a temporary occupant is a resident, while someone who dwells and invests in their environment is an inhabitant. A resident is a "temporary and rootless occupant," while an inhabitant cannot be separated from their surroundings, "without doing violence to both." When Le Corbusier planned his vertical Radiant City of skyscrapers surrounded by gardens, he was not only planning the built environment, but a social utopia as well. As Jane Jacobs puts it, this involved "liberty from ordinary responsibility . . . where nobody, presumably, was going to have to be his brother's keeper any more. Nobody was going to have to struggle with plans of his own. Nobody was going to be tied down." While the Radiant City never came to be, we do see this social mentality pervading and shaping our culture. When individualism and status dominate our understanding of the good life, investing in our surroundings and caring for our brother is pushed off our radar. But as I am experiencing on our street, and as Eric Jacobsen says in The Space Between, "Individual humans can't have shalom in the fullest sense of that word; only human communities can . . . Seeking shalom, then, necessarily means participating in one or more communities." As we seek the welfare of the city, simply being consumers of our surroundings is not enough. Whether it be in my neighbourhood, work place, church congregation, or family, I hope that my sense of responsibility, participation, and care is such that I could not be separated without leaving a hole in the community and in myself. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/persistence-underwritten-by-hope?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed This past week I had the privilege of participating in the Neighbours: Policies and Programs unconference put on by the Tamarack Institute in Kitchener, Ontario. One of the key ideas that framed the gathering was the conviction that neighbours are absolutely critical in building great communities and cities. That might seem obvious enough but we often overlook what can sometimes seem like small interactions in the face of the larger abstractions of communities and cities. Amid the many sessions, workshops, and conversations, there are a handful of ideas that stood out for me. One of the profile people at the event was John McKnight. People in the community leadership and community development world know him well, and I won't re-iterate his well-earned and impressive credentials. What I most resonated with as I step back from the event is the way in which John attends to relational language in his talks and comments. We are taught, often implicitly, that being professional means being usefully detached, uninvolved emotionally, calm beacons of rational stability. Sitting two days away from the event, I am struck by the way in which John both rejects that posture while retaining what I see as a much higher order of professionalism—being fully human and fully present. I have a feeling that I will be hearing John's voice in my head for a long time to come, and it was imparted by sitting with him in those discussions rather than just reading what he has written. There is value in being together. Al Etmanski and Jim Diers drove that learning home in multiple ways by sharing stories of what being together meant, being honest about failures and their own ongoing learning. Lynn Randall, Paul Johnson, Paul Born, and other leaders gave us particular instances of local efforts to support growth in our neighbourhoods and cities. Our conversations around these themes were not merely the entertaining of abstractions but were themselves an enacting of how communities get built, even if those conversations were limited by the time constraints of the gathering. Another lasting impression was the idea that in our formal, professional roles, it is possible for our "building" to actually displace and disrupt the local social ecosystem. However ironic it may be, there is little doubt that certain kinds of helping actually undermine the desired end. Saul Alinsky's iron rule was oft quoted— we shouldn't do for another what they are capable of doing for themselves. Many of us in that gathering had formal roles ranging from community development to neighbourhood hubs, to research, policy, and municipal administration. It can be very difficult to contemplate that it is distinctly possible some of our activities are displacing the natural growth and development of our neighbours and neighbourhoods. Institutionally, it is clear we need to foster a more self-reflective capacity regarding the impact of our very presence in local communities. This is very humbling. One other lesson that I will keep turning over in my mind is the role of failure in our endeavours. We don't set out to fail. We don't plan to underachieve. We don't want to miss the marks that we have set (or that others have set for us). We love it when the lines on our project planning charts match our real progress. And we ought to abandon such aspirations. But I was left with a powerful reminder that we must not see set-backs as the last word. It may simply be that project goals will be built on any number of changes to the plan—whether those changes come from our own mistakes, misjudgements, or inadequacies. If in fact community connections in the social ecosystem grow over time, it may well be that persistence, underwritten by hope, is among our most powerful allies. You can attend to that growth but ultimately you can't make it happen. Take comfort, it also means that such growth is not fully dependent on you. Figure out your best angle of contribution and then stick with it. I very much appreciate each exchange, every conversation, and all the comments and ideas that occurred in planning and participating in the Neighbours gathering. I hope others derived similar benefits. For those of you that resonate with these ideas and approaches, there is an October 7-11 event in Edmonton, Alberta called Accelerating Impact that will bring together great thinkers, community leaders, and neighbourhood champions—you can see more about it here. Also, if you are a member of the Twitterati, You can see what others thought about the gathering through #seekingneighbours. Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 This past week I had the privilege of participating in the Neighbours: Policies and Programs unconference put on by the Tamarack Institute in Kitchener, Ontario. One of the key ideas that framed the gathering was the conviction that neighbours are absolutely critical in building great communities and cities. That might seem obvious enough but we often overlook what can sometimes seem like small interactions in the face of the larger abstractions of communities and cities. Amid the many sessions, workshops, and conversations, there are a handful of ideas that stood out for me. One of the profile people at the event was John McKnight. People in the community leadership and community development world know him well, and I won't re-iterate his well-earned and impressive credentials. What I most resonated with as I step back from the event is the way in which John attends to relational language in his talks and comments. We are taught, often implicitly, that being professional means being usefully detached, uninvolved emotionally, calm beacons of rational stability. Sitting two days away from the event, I am struck by the way in which John both rejects that posture while retaining what I see as a much higher order of professionalism—being fully human and fully present. I have a feeling that I will be hearing John's voice in my head for a long time to come, and it was imparted by sitting with him in those discussions rather than just reading what he has written. There is value in being together. Al Etmanski and Jim Diers drove that learning home in multiple ways by sharing stories of what being together meant, being honest about failures and their own ongoing learning. Lynn Randall, Paul Johnson, Paul Born, and other leaders gave us particular instances of local efforts to support growth in our neighbourhoods and cities. Our conversations around these themes were not merely the entertaining of abstractions but were themselves an enacting of how communities get built, even if those conversations were limited by the time constraints of the gathering. Another lasting impression was the idea that in our formal, professional roles, it is possible for our "building" to actually displace and disrupt the local social ecosystem. However ironic it may be, there is little doubt that certain kinds of helping actually undermine the desired end. Saul Alinsky's iron rule was oft quoted— we shouldn't do for another what they are capable of doing for themselves. Many of us in that gathering had formal roles ranging from community development to neighbourhood hubs, to research, policy, and municipal administration. It can be very difficult to contemplate that it is distinctly possible some of our activities are displacing the natural growth and development of our neighbours and neighbourhoods. Institutionally, it is clear we need to foster a more self-reflective capacity regarding the impact of our very presence in local communities. This is very humbling. One other lesson that I will keep turning over in my mind is the role of failure in our endeavours. We don't set out to fail. We don't plan to underachieve. We don't want to miss the marks that we have set (or that others have set for us). We love it when the lines on our project planning charts match our real progress. And we ought to abandon such aspirations. But I was left with a powerful reminder that we must not see set-backs as the last word. It may simply be that project goals will be built on any number of changes to the plan—whether those changes come from our own mistakes, misjudgements, or inadequacies. If in fact community connections in the social ecosystem grow over time, it may well be that persistence, underwritten by hope, is among our most powerful allies. You can attend to that growth but ultimately you can't make it happen. Take comfort, it also means that such growth is not fully dependent on you. Figure out your best angle of contribution and then stick with it. I very much appreciate each exchange, every conversation, and all the comments and ideas that occurred in planning and participating in the Neighbours gathering. I hope others derived similar benefits. For those of you that resonate with these ideas and approaches, there is an October 7-11 event in Edmonton, Alberta called Accelerating Impact that will bring together great thinkers, community leaders, and neighbourhood champions—you can see more about it here. Also, if you are a member of the Twitterati, You can see what others thought about the gathering through #seekingneighbours. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/the-religion-of-the-nones?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Conventional thinking has thought religion to be on the decline over recent decades. A more careful look at the data, however, suggests the story is a bit more complicated than a straightforward decline of religion and increase of secularization. "Polarization" and "restructuring" are the labels used by the pre-eminent Canadian sociologist of religion, Reginald Bibby. He suggests that it is nominal religion that is being squeezed. While there is a faithful core of 30% of the population that attends religious services at least once per month, on the other hand there is a sharply increasing number of those who self-identify as having "no religion." This number, only a few percent in the sixties, has dramatically increased to about 25% of the population. A 2012 report by the British think tank Theos looked more carefully at the belief systems of Britons who self-identified to pollsters as having no religion, which is also at approximately 25% there. The report suggests that "the proportion of people who are consistently non-religious—i.e. who don't believe in God, never attend a place of worship, call themselves non-religious, and don't believe life after death, the soul, angels, etc.—is very low at 9%." Interestingly, the British surveyors found a wide range of beliefs that commonly would be characterized as religious among those who said they had no religion. They concluded that "non-religiosity is a complex phenomenon—perhaps as complex as religiosity."There is no intended polemic within these findings: atheist apologists will no doubt point towards the fact that the British social attitudes survey finds that atheists tend to be, on average, better educated and better off than the population as a whole; religious apologists, by contrast, will draw attention to the fact that a sizeable minority of nonreligious people profess some form of belief in a range of spiritual ideas. Bibby's research suggests that the Canadian "no religion" category is similarly complex.The research tells us that they—along with many "alumni" who tell the pollsters that they have "no religion"—actually show up for services at least once in a while. Large numbers also surface when they want rites of passage carried out—notably, weddings and funerals. Still further, a good number surface when they have specific needs relating to their children or marriages or health. These data have many implications for church leaders. These days, religion is not so much adhered to in light of its truth claims but rather by its utility. There is a consumerist mindset towards religion. Many are quite content living lives that would seem to be filled with contradictions. This also has implications beyond the walls of organized religion. Why would we be surprised that a society which seems contented to live with contradictory opinions regarding what will happen to them after they die are comfortable living with similar contradictions regarding how they should live? Although the debate about faith is often framed in light of a contrast between faith and reason, those who self-identify as having "no religion" are not the embodiment of logical consistency. Cardus' promotion of "2,000 years of Christian social thought" makes clear that forcing a choice between faith and reason, as if they are somehow in contradiction, is a framework we reject. Faith involves reason and indeed, one can defend the Christian faith as a reasonable faith. We believe that those who sometimes speak as if they have reason on their side and reject faith, show by their lives that they really don't believe the non-religious conclusions which they think are reasonable. There is both faith and reason on either side of the religious divide. The challenge isn't about choosing between them but understanding how they work together, in our personal lives but also in our public lives together. Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Conventional thinking has thought religion to be on the decline over recent decades. A more careful look at the data, however, suggests the story is a bit more complicated than a straightforward decline of religion and increase of secularization. "Polarization" and "restructuring" are the labels used by the pre-eminent Canadian sociologist of religion, Reginald Bibby. He suggests that it is nominal religion that is being squeezed. While there is a faithful core of 30% of the population that attends religious services at least once per month, on the other hand there is a sharply increasing number of those who self-identify as having "no religion." This number, only a few percent in the sixties, has dramatically increased to about 25% of the population. A 2012 report by the British think tank Theos looked more carefully at the belief systems of Britons who self-identified to pollsters as having no religion, which is also at approximately 25% there. The report suggests that "the proportion of people who are consistently non-religious—i.e. who don't believe in God, never attend a place of worship, call themselves non-religious, and don't believe life after death, the soul, angels, etc.—is very low at 9%." Interestingly, the British surveyors found a wide range of beliefs that commonly would be characterized as religious among those who said they had no religion. They concluded that "non-religiosity is a complex phenomenon—perhaps as complex as religiosity."There is no intended polemic within these findings: atheist apologists will no doubt point towards the fact that the British social attitudes survey finds that atheists tend to be, on average, better educated and better off than the population as a whole; religious apologists, by contrast, will draw attention to the fact that a sizeable minority of nonreligious people profess some form of belief in a range of spiritual ideas. Bibby's research suggests that the Canadian "no religion" category is similarly complex.The research tells us that they—along with many "alumni" who tell the pollsters that they have "no religion"—actually show up for services at least once in a while. Large numbers also surface when they want rites of passage carried out—notably, weddings and funerals. Still further, a good number surface when they have specific needs relating to their children or marriages or health. These data have many implications for church leaders. These days, religion is not so much adhered to in light of its truth claims but rather by its utility. There is a consumerist mindset towards religion. Many are quite content living lives that would seem to be filled with contradictions. This also has implications beyond the walls of organized religion. Why would we be surprised that a society which seems contented to live with contradictory opinions regarding what will happen to them after they die are comfortable living with similar contradictions regarding how they should live? Although the debate about faith is often framed in light of a contrast between faith and reason, those who self-identify as having "no religion" are not the embodiment of logical consistency. Cardus' promotion of "2,000 years of Christian social thought" makes clear that forcing a choice between faith and reason, as if they are somehow in contradiction, is a framework we reject. Faith involves reason and indeed, one can defend the Christian faith as a reasonable faith. We believe that those who sometimes speak as if they have reason on their side and reject faith, show by their lives that they really don't believe the non-religious conclusions which they think are reasonable. There is both faith and reason on either side of the religious divide. The challenge isn't about choosing between them but understanding how they work together, in our personal lives but also in our public lives together. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/surrendering-to-terror?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed The first curiosity of the phone-record surveillance uproar now crescendoing in the anglosphere is the underlying logic that the best way to defend freedom is to have less of it. The second curiosity is the way politicians and bureaucrats splutter with indignation about the revelation of such surveillance on the grounds that the State's entitlement to secrecy is inviolable while citizen privacy rights are entirely dispensable. The most compelling curiosity of all, however, is the generalized response of shock, awe, and outrage at the discovery that American, Canadian, and British governments have been systematically spying on our cell phone calls. Have none of those now hopping up and down about this purportedly novel infamy been through an airport in the last 30 years? You cannot board a puddle jumper aircraft anywhere in Canada, the U.S., or the U.K. without some officious long nose rooting in your bag and demanding to know what you thought you were doing trying to sneak a prohibited tube of shaving cream on board. When we accepted such hostile intrusions as necessary tradeoffs between security of the person and collective safety, did we really think they would end with snooping about in our creams and lotions? Did we truly imagine, when State apparatuses began inspecting our private bits with X-ray machines and metal detectors and full body pat-downs, that they would stint at peering into the data bits generated by our smartphones? In the immortal words of that icon of individualist irascibility, Daffy Duck: "Don't be so naïve, buster." One need not kneel nightly and whisper paranoid prayers to a life-sized statue of Ayn Rand to recognize that in the war on terror, we surrendered to something more terrifying than terrorists. We gave ourselves up to our own rapacious security State. And now we're frightened because Sauron's eye has been attracted by the metadata generated each time we use an iPhone to call Auntie Griselda and ask about her sciatica? The justification offered by President Barack Obama and his Pinocchio-nosed pals for the interception of millions upon millions of citizen phone calls is, of course, utter poppycock. According to Mr. Obama's apologia, only raw information about the calls—date, time, place, duration etc.—was collected. No actual voices were heard in the State's ubiquitous violations of personal privacy. We are asked to equate this with a police cruiser being parked on the side of a freeway at rush hour watching an undifferentiated mass of vehicles go past, and taking action only when there is an evident and obvious threat to highway safety. Yet security experts say access to a mere four data points from any cell call—or, it would seem, any Internet interaction—gives all that needs to be known about caller and respondent. It's the equivalent of an officer in the police cruiser being able to see not just your license plate number but also your driver's license, health care card, and the waistband of your underpants. Horrifying? In a waistband of your underpants way, yes. Surprising? Only if you are the sort who is always caught completely off guard when a duck quacks. We are a people whose concept of freedom has, in an eerie parallel of our understanding of religious faith, become a mere presupposition. As we presuppose that the religious faith we adhere to is whatever we decide it should be, so we presuppose that we are free and therefore everything we do becomes, by definition, the expression and the safeguard of our nebulous notions of freedom. Even, curiously enough, giving it up. When that nice long-nosed security guard paws through our personal belongings and demands we account for various items so that we may be permitted to catch the flight from Mudville to Maroontown, well, that's just the price we freely pay to live in a gloriously free society under the watchful benevolent eye of the all-protecting, and of course inherently self-limiting, State. Cue the duck. Tue, 11 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 The first curiosity of the phone-record surveillance uproar now crescendoing in the anglosphere is the underlying logic that the best way to defend freedom is to have less of it. The second curiosity is the way politicians and bureaucrats splutter with indignation about the revelation of such surveillance on the grounds that the State's entitlement to secrecy is inviolable while citizen privacy rights are entirely dispensable. The most compelling curiosity of all, however, is the generalized response of shock, awe, and outrage at the discovery that American, Canadian, and British governments have been systematically spying on our cell phone calls. Have none of those now hopping up and down about this purportedly novel infamy been through an airport in the last 30 years? You cannot board a puddle jumper aircraft anywhere in Canada, the U.S., or the U.K. without some officious long nose rooting in your bag and demanding to know what you thought you were doing trying to sneak a prohibited tube of shaving cream on board. When we accepted such hostile intrusions as necessary tradeoffs between security of the person and collective safety, did we really think they would end with snooping about in our creams and lotions? Did we truly imagine, when State apparatuses began inspecting our private bits with X-ray machines and metal detectors and full body pat-downs, that they would stint at peering into the data bits generated by our smartphones? In the immortal words of that icon of individualist irascibility, Daffy Duck: "Don't be so naïve, buster." One need not kneel nightly and whisper paranoid prayers to a life-sized statue of Ayn Rand to recognize that in the war on terror, we surrendered to something more terrifying than terrorists. We gave ourselves up to our own rapacious security State. And now we're frightened because Sauron's eye has been attracted by the metadata generated each time we use an iPhone to call Auntie Griselda and ask about her sciatica? The justification offered by President Barack Obama and his Pinocchio-nosed pals for the interception of millions upon millions of citizen phone calls is, of course, utter poppycock. According to Mr. Obama's apologia, only raw information about the calls—date, time, place, duration etc.—was collected. No actual voices were heard in the State's ubiquitous violations of personal privacy. We are asked to equate this with a police cruiser being parked on the side of a freeway at rush hour watching an undifferentiated mass of vehicles go past, and taking action only when there is an evident and obvious threat to highway safety. Yet security experts say access to a mere four data points from any cell call—or, it would seem, any Internet interaction—gives all that needs to be known about caller and respondent. It's the equivalent of an officer in the police cruiser being able to see not just your license plate number but also your driver's license, health care card, and the waistband of your underpants. Horrifying? In a waistband of your underpants way, yes. Surprising? Only if you are the sort who is always caught completely off guard when a duck quacks. We are a people whose concept of freedom has, in an eerie parallel of our understanding of religious faith, become a mere presupposition. As we presuppose that the religious faith we adhere to is whatever we decide it should be, so we presuppose that we are free and therefore everything we do becomes, by definition, the expression and the safeguard of our nebulous notions of freedom. Even, curiously enough, giving it up. When that nice long-nosed security guard paws through our personal belongings and demands we account for various items so that we may be permitted to catch the flight from Mudville to Maroontown, well, that's just the price we freely pay to live in a gloriously free society under the watchful benevolent eye of the all-protecting, and of course inherently self-limiting, State. Cue the duck. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/the-sound-of-silence?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed St. Peter's Church in East Sussex England sells a CD called The Sound of Silence, which is not (to my disappointment) a choral arrangement of the Simon and Garfunkel hit. The half hour recording is, literally, silence. There's no choral rendition of "Me and Julio," no sermons, not anything but the sounds of a 12th-century church. The traffic goes by occasionally and every once in a while there are footsteps on the old oak floorboards. Other than that—nothing. The CD sold out. People clamoured to buy a CD of something they must not be able to find in their everyday lives. Silence. Could it be that the sound of "nothing" is so hard to get in our lives that we resort to paying to have it manufactured for us? We live in a noisy world. Even now as I write this, the clicking of the computer keys is echoing around the empty room, joined at intervals by the sound of traffic, the dog in the backyard, and the melodic musical styling of One Direction wafting from my cousin's room across the hall. What is it about silence that makes us crave little pieces of it? Too much silence is lonely, not enough is maddening. Silence can be comfortable with an old friend, or awkward after a terrible joke. The silence that we like is the silence that we control. When we turn off the TV, turn off the phone, and quiet the kids, we are comfortable in that silence because we have created it. We don't like silence when we think there should be sound. Kids should be making at least some noise, the phone should be ringing with that job offer, and the sky should be opening up Old Testament style with a message from God. The silence that we don't control is the silence that makes us nervous and worried. It's hard for us, for me, because it points a blaring neon sign to the things in life we can't control. We want the ability to go over and eject the CD and return to our noise-filled life. I have found that I need times of quiet to help me focus and centre on what's important. Perhaps even more importantly, in the silence I can acknowledge that I'm, in fact, not in control of everything. I can acknowledge the existence of powers greater than my own abilities. By releasing my grip on my environment I am able to work through what is truth for me and, sometimes, to hear what I need to hear. Silence is when I might discover who I am, if only I am able to give up some control. There is a lot to hear from silence—all we need to do is listen. Silence is golden, and definitely worth the cost of a CD (plus shipping and handling). Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 St. Peter's Church in East Sussex England sells a CD called The Sound of Silence, which is not (to my disappointment) a choral arrangement of the Simon and Garfunkel hit. The half hour recording is, literally, silence. There's no choral rendition of "Me and Julio," no sermons, not anything but the sounds of a 12th-century church. The traffic goes by occasionally and every once in a while there are footsteps on the old oak floorboards. Other than that—nothing. The CD sold out. People clamoured to buy a CD of something they must not be able to find in their everyday lives. Silence. Could it be that the sound of "nothing" is so hard to get in our lives that we resort to paying to have it manufactured for us? We live in a noisy world. Even now as I write this, the clicking of the computer keys is echoing around the empty room, joined at intervals by the sound of traffic, the dog in the backyard, and the melodic musical styling of One Direction wafting from my cousin's room across the hall. What is it about silence that makes us crave little pieces of it? Too much silence is lonely, not enough is maddening. Silence can be comfortable with an old friend, or awkward after a terrible joke. The silence that we like is the silence that we control. When we turn off the TV, turn off the phone, and quiet the kids, we are comfortable in that silence because we have created it. We don't like silence when we think there should be sound. Kids should be making at least some noise, the phone should be ringing with that job offer, and the sky should be opening up Old Testament style with a message from God. The silence that we don't control is the silence that makes us nervous and worried. It's hard for us, for me, because it points a blaring neon sign to the things in life we can't control. We want the ability to go over and eject the CD and return to our noise-filled life. I have found that I need times of quiet to help me focus and centre on what's important. Perhaps even more importantly, in the silence I can acknowledge that I'm, in fact, not in control of everything. I can acknowledge the existence of powers greater than my own abilities. By releasing my grip on my environment I am able to work through what is truth for me and, sometimes, to hear what I need to hear. Silence is when I might discover who I am, if only I am able to give up some control. There is a lot to hear from silence—all we need to do is listen. Silence is golden, and definitely worth the cost of a CD (plus shipping and handling). http://sandbox.cardus.ca/columns/3990/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Brian Dijkema's letter to The Record in response to June 6 article "Tory MPP urges aid for bill". Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Brian Dijkema's letter to The Record in response to June 6 article "Tory MPP urges aid for bill". http://sandbox.cardus.ca/organization/news/181/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed The project, titled the Cardus Initiative, evaluates academic achievements, cultural engagement and spiritual development of adults aged 23 to 39. It compares religious, primarily Catholic and Protestant, to non-religious schools from both the publicly and privately funded sectors. Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 The project, titled the Cardus Initiative, evaluates academic achievements, cultural engagement and spiritual development of adults aged 23 to 39. It compares religious, primarily Catholic and Protestant, to non-religious schools from both the publicly and privately funded sectors. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/habits-of-heart-and-mind?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Can ethics be taught? While Ray Pennings' blog last month had mainly to do with ethical economics, his headline question begs broader consideration. Self-regulation, said Pennings, is foundational to ethics—a deep-seated inner moral compass. But as to how that self-direction is achieved, we are told more about what won't work than on what will. "Following the rules" is not enough to build trust, as Mark Carney argued. Neither is an ethics course or two enough to build moral character. So, if rules and classrooms are not sufficient to develop good citizens of social, cultural, and economic virtue, to whom or to what do we turn? And just what is this inner moral compass, these virtues that are foundational to the social fabric of the civic life that Pennings calls for? In his 2010 book After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, theologian N.T. Wright offers answers to both questions. The four character strengths identified by the ancients—courage, restraint, cool judgment, and determination—are the "hinges upon which the great door to human fulfillment and flourishing would swing" (p. 34). These moral strengths are central to happiness, according to Aristotle, and are goals in themselves. But according to Jesus, Paul, and other early Christians, there is a larger and richer vision for what it means to "live a fulfilled, genuinely human life" (p. 64), for "taking in the whole world, and [placing] humans not as lonely individuals developing their own moral status but as glad citizens of God's coming kingdom" (p. 36). The virtues for citizens of this kingdom include some that were foreign to the Aristotelian proposal: humility, love, forgiveness, mercy, faith, generosity, patience. These and other Christian virtues are about "the whole of life...[about] being a genuine, image-bearing, God-reflecting human being...[which] works out in a million ways, not least in a passion for justice and an eagerness to create and celebrate beauty" (p. 71). Even better: when you aim for the Christian goal, you get Aristotle's scheme thrown in as well, Wright claims. "Aristotle dreamed of a world where humans would learn the virtues so they might exercise leadership within the political order of the ancient Greek city. Paul speaks of a world where humans will be put in charge of the whole creation...[where] humans are called, in and through Jesus Christ, to become what they were always made to be" (p. 89). More than happiness will be achieved, Wright reminds us—blessedness is the result. Aim, then, for the full breadth of the Christian virtues, and you will necessarily embody the classical virtues Pennings argues are foundational to our economic well-being and civic happiness. As an educator, how do I develop these habits of heart and mind that anticipate life in the new world here, now? How do I guide our children to desiring to live magnanimously, beyond pursuing goals of personal fulfillment and happiness? My favoured educational philosopher, Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) offers a few suggestions: deliver ideas in literary packaging; train habits; and develop relationships. Mason used story as one of her central pedagogical tools, with its vital stimulation of the emotions, to enable children to enter into the actions, lives, and choices of characters, whether real or imagined, situated throughout history. Second, developing good habits so that the mind automatically thinks along the lines necessary for good living was of primary concern to Mason. Without this training children are left to their own devices and whims which could then lead them—through their own weak wills and reasonings—to unfruitful and unhealthy paths. And third, children must be guided to develop relationships with all of life. In developing sustained experiential relationships with plants, birds, animals, seasons, landforms, and weather, children develop affection for creation. In developing relationships with characters, actors, agents, artists, composers, authors, scientists, and others from various places and times, through works of art, literature, and drama, children experience virtue and character in action for themselves and by themselves. Knowledge, understanding, and practice of virtue and character develop in and through these varied relationships. So, can character be taught? Indirectly and systematically, it is possible. Exploring the application of Mason's pedagogical proposals in our twenty-first century educational settings is an enticing project, one with implications for civic and social flourishing now, and abundant blessing for all of the new world life to come. Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Can ethics be taught? While Ray Pennings' blog last month had mainly to do with ethical economics, his headline question begs broader consideration. Self-regulation, said Pennings, is foundational to ethics—a deep-seated inner moral compass. But as to how that self-direction is achieved, we are told more about what won't work than on what will. "Following the rules" is not enough to build trust, as Mark Carney argued. Neither is an ethics course or two enough to build moral character. So, if rules and classrooms are not sufficient to develop good citizens of social, cultural, and economic virtue, to whom or to what do we turn? And just what is this inner moral compass, these virtues that are foundational to the social fabric of the civic life that Pennings calls for? In his 2010 book After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, theologian N.T. Wright offers answers to both questions. The four character strengths identified by the ancients—courage, restraint, cool judgment, and determination—are the "hinges upon which the great door to human fulfillment and flourishing would swing" (p. 34). These moral strengths are central to happiness, according to Aristotle, and are goals in themselves. But according to Jesus, Paul, and other early Christians, there is a larger and richer vision for what it means to "live a fulfilled, genuinely human life" (p. 64), for "taking in the whole world, and [placing] humans not as lonely individuals developing their own moral status but as glad citizens of God's coming kingdom" (p. 36). The virtues for citizens of this kingdom include some that were foreign to the Aristotelian proposal: humility, love, forgiveness, mercy, faith, generosity, patience. These and other Christian virtues are about "the whole of life...[about] being a genuine, image-bearing, God-reflecting human being...[which] works out in a million ways, not least in a passion for justice and an eagerness to create and celebrate beauty" (p. 71). Even better: when you aim for the Christian goal, you get Aristotle's scheme thrown in as well, Wright claims. "Aristotle dreamed of a world where humans would learn the virtues so they might exercise leadership within the political order of the ancient Greek city. Paul speaks of a world where humans will be put in charge of the whole creation...[where] humans are called, in and through Jesus Christ, to become what they were always made to be" (p. 89). More than happiness will be achieved, Wright reminds us—blessedness is the result. Aim, then, for the full breadth of the Christian virtues, and you will necessarily embody the classical virtues Pennings argues are foundational to our economic well-being and civic happiness. As an educator, how do I develop these habits of heart and mind that anticipate life in the new world here, now? How do I guide our children to desiring to live magnanimously, beyond pursuing goals of personal fulfillment and happiness? My favoured educational philosopher, Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) offers a few suggestions: deliver ideas in literary packaging; train habits; and develop relationships. Mason used story as one of her central pedagogical tools, with its vital stimulation of the emotions, to enable children to enter into the actions, lives, and choices of characters, whether real or imagined, situated throughout history. Second, developing good habits so that the mind automatically thinks along the lines necessary for good living was of primary concern to Mason. Without this training children are left to their own devices and whims which could then lead them—through their own weak wills and reasonings—to unfruitful and unhealthy paths. And third, children must be guided to develop relationships with all of life. In developing sustained experiential relationships with plants, birds, animals, seasons, landforms, and weather, children develop affection for creation. In developing relationships with characters, actors, agents, artists, composers, authors, scientists, and others from various places and times, through works of art, literature, and drama, children experience virtue and character in action for themselves and by themselves. Knowledge, understanding, and practice of virtue and character develop in and through these varied relationships. So, can character be taught? Indirectly and systematically, it is possible. Exploring the application of Mason's pedagogical proposals in our twenty-first century educational settings is an enticing project, one with implications for civic and social flourishing now, and abundant blessing for all of the new world life to come. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/where-are-the-atheist-churches?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed In Maclean's, Colby Cosh asks: "What if the 'organized' bit in 'organized religion' is actually the useful half?" Cosh's article was inspired by a University of Saskatchewan paper which found, among other things, that:plugging in the religious-identity variable instead of the attendance variable, there is no benefit left. Doing religion is linked with a lower risk of depression; being religious isn't. This echoes a finding made by Baetz's team in 2006, when they found that "worship frequency" was negatively associated with a range of psychiatric problems—depression, mania, panic disorder, social phobia—but spiritual identity was positively associated with most of them. In other words, it's not enough to say you're religious, or even actually believe in religion A or B. You must do religion. This isn't surprising news to anyone familiar with Cardus. We've been talking about the importance of "church" (as opposed to mere spirituality) for quite some time. Search for "church" on the Cardus website and you'll get over a thousand matches. But that's not really the interesting part of Cosh's article. He notes that "the apparent psychic benefits from going to church don't seem to inhere in the beliefs or attitudes inculcated there—but the model also factors out purely social effects of churchgoing." He then wonders what would happen if you "make a bunch of atheists turn up in person someplace every seven days, to perform various non-believing rituals and maybe have some coffee, and contrast those who stick closely to the regimen with equally assiduous church attendees." It's a great question, and I'd love to see the results. But I wonder, why is it that we would have to "make" the atheists do this? Why is there not a sample of atheists who do this type of thing on a regular basis which we can measure; why no atheist church? Cosh notes that Alain de Botton has been advocating for the "uses of religion" for some time and has even written a book about it. This isn't a new idea. The godless republicans of the French revolution tried that way back in the 1790s with their Temple of Reason. Why not study attendees at the godless temples? Are there any? It's a good question. My hunch is that the answer to that question actually sheds light on the relationship between belief, practice, and community. Perhaps the benefits of religion can't quite be reduced to getting together to perform rituals and drink coffee. After all, there are plenty of places where atheists (and agnostics, and religious folk) get together to perform rituals and drink coffee. The baseball stadium, the House of Commons, political party conventions—you name it. Are there benefits from these as well? How do they compare to getting together to worship a god? Again, it's an open question—perhaps there are great benefits of getting together to cheer on the Jays or Justin Trudeau. But it seems to me that the motivations for getting together in the particular way that religious people do, matter, and it seems to be unique, and it might have more to do with, you know, God. Thu, 06 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 In Maclean's, Colby Cosh asks: "What if the 'organized' bit in 'organized religion' is actually the useful half?" Cosh's article was inspired by a University of Saskatchewan paper which found, among other things, that:plugging in the religious-identity variable instead of the attendance variable, there is no benefit left. Doing religion is linked with a lower risk of depression; being religious isn't. This echoes a finding made by Baetz's team in 2006, when they found that "worship frequency" was negatively associated with a range of psychiatric problems—depression, mania, panic disorder, social phobia—but spiritual identity was positively associated with most of them. In other words, it's not enough to say you're religious, or even actually believe in religion A or B. You must do religion. This isn't surprising news to anyone familiar with Cardus. We've been talking about the importance of "church" (as opposed to mere spirituality) for quite some time. Search for "church" on the Cardus website and you'll get over a thousand matches. But that's not really the interesting part of Cosh's article. He notes that "the apparent psychic benefits from going to church don't seem to inhere in the beliefs or attitudes inculcated there—but the model also factors out purely social effects of churchgoing." He then wonders what would happen if you "make a bunch of atheists turn up in person someplace every seven days, to perform various non-believing rituals and maybe have some coffee, and contrast those who stick closely to the regimen with equally assiduous church attendees." It's a great question, and I'd love to see the results. But I wonder, why is it that we would have to "make" the atheists do this? Why is there not a sample of atheists who do this type of thing on a regular basis which we can measure; why no atheist church? Cosh notes that Alain de Botton has been advocating for the "uses of religion" for some time and has even written a book about it. This isn't a new idea. The godless republicans of the French revolution tried that way back in the 1790s with their Temple of Reason. Why not study attendees at the godless temples? Are there any? It's a good question. My hunch is that the answer to that question actually sheds light on the relationship between belief, practice, and community. Perhaps the benefits of religion can't quite be reduced to getting together to perform rituals and drink coffee. After all, there are plenty of places where atheists (and agnostics, and religious folk) get together to perform rituals and drink coffee. The baseball stadium, the House of Commons, political party conventions—you name it. Are there benefits from these as well? How do they compare to getting together to worship a god? Again, it's an open question—perhaps there are great benefits of getting together to cheer on the Jays or Justin Trudeau. But it seems to me that the motivations for getting together in the particular way that religious people do, matter, and it seems to be unique, and it might have more to do with, you know, God. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/where-is-the-video?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed There is a very short question that has deeply serious long-term implications for Canada's democratic life. It is this: where is the video? The slightly longer version of the question, perhaps necessary for those who have been away building the moon colony for the past month, is this: where is the video that the Toronto Star reported allegedly shows Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack. In either its short or long form, the only answer to date—i.e. we don't have a clue—is unacceptable. For Canada's largest newspaper in its culturally dominant centre to print such a devastating allegation of criminality and irresponsibility about the city's mayor was, given the sorry state of contemporary journalism, borderline understandable. Perhaps the Star genuinely believed it was able to stand its story up by producing the goods and proving its case. That hasn't happened. There have been all kinds of sidebar stories generated as a result of the initial accusation, of course, and lots of frenzy as the one-eyed hounds of pack journalism bayed after their prey. But, to date, there is no video. No validation. Nothing. Instead, the claim that Hogtown has a crack-smoking mayor who consorts with drug-dealing criminals has drifted from erupting scandal into an unsubstantiated assault on a public official's reputation, his character, and, ultimately, his personal and family life. And it is something much worse still. It is arsenic to democratic life. It is not toxic just because it might be defamatory of Rob Ford as an individual. It is poisonous precisely because we need to know, unequivocally, whether it is true. We must have no doubt about whether or not the most powerful civic politician in the country is willing to addle his brains with a powerfully addictive illegal drug. More crucially for the long term, we must know with something approaching certainty that Canada's corporate old growth media outlets remain reliably above and beyond the mere re-purposing of bloodthirsty insinuation and gossip. We have the boundless muck of the web for that. We don't need more vectors for that kind of deadly anti-democratic venom. After all the noise and nothingness of the past weeks, the Star has a responsibility to acknowledge on its front page that it cannot answer the short question above. It must admit it does not know where the video is. It must further own the ignominy by admitting that its most senior editors should have held the story until the mystery video was in their possession. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. The combination of industrial-strength journalistic arrogance and fear of a massive defamation suit from Mayor Ford makes it virtually impossible. So more of the trust, more of the charity, more of the justice that is the sine qua non of democracy will be allowed to go up in smoke. Of that, there can be no question. Wed, 05 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 There is a very short question that has deeply serious long-term implications for Canada's democratic life. It is this: where is the video? The slightly longer version of the question, perhaps necessary for those who have been away building the moon colony for the past month, is this: where is the video that the Toronto Star reported allegedly shows Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack. In either its short or long form, the only answer to date—i.e. we don't have a clue—is unacceptable. For Canada's largest newspaper in its culturally dominant centre to print such a devastating allegation of criminality and irresponsibility about the city's mayor was, given the sorry state of contemporary journalism, borderline understandable. Perhaps the Star genuinely believed it was able to stand its story up by producing the goods and proving its case. That hasn't happened. There have been all kinds of sidebar stories generated as a result of the initial accusation, of course, and lots of frenzy as the one-eyed hounds of pack journalism bayed after their prey. But, to date, there is no video. No validation. Nothing. Instead, the claim that Hogtown has a crack-smoking mayor who consorts with drug-dealing criminals has drifted from erupting scandal into an unsubstantiated assault on a public official's reputation, his character, and, ultimately, his personal and family life. And it is something much worse still. It is arsenic to democratic life. It is not toxic just because it might be defamatory of Rob Ford as an individual. It is poisonous precisely because we need to know, unequivocally, whether it is true. We must have no doubt about whether or not the most powerful civic politician in the country is willing to addle his brains with a powerfully addictive illegal drug. More crucially for the long term, we must know with something approaching certainty that Canada's corporate old growth media outlets remain reliably above and beyond the mere re-purposing of bloodthirsty insinuation and gossip. We have the boundless muck of the web for that. We don't need more vectors for that kind of deadly anti-democratic venom. After all the noise and nothingness of the past weeks, the Star has a responsibility to acknowledge on its front page that it cannot answer the short question above. It must admit it does not know where the video is. It must further own the ignominy by admitting that its most senior editors should have held the story until the mystery video was in their possession. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. The combination of industrial-strength journalistic arrogance and fear of a massive defamation suit from Mayor Ford makes it virtually impossible. So more of the trust, more of the charity, more of the justice that is the sine qua non of democracy will be allowed to go up in smoke. Of that, there can be no question. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/sensible-common-sense?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed The phrase "common sense" has become ubiquitous in our culture.  This phrase implies that whatever is the most widely-held belief is the most correct.  In many cases, common-held knowledge is correct, but in Canada I believe our politicians have often based policies on uninformed "common nonsense". We have a federal government that is frequently at odds with experts in policy decisions: replacing a mandatory census with a voluntary one at the objection of statisticians; putting more petty criminals in jail to the chagrin of criminologists; reducing the GST even though economists say it is bad policy; and investing less in research, resulting in an exodus of PHDs to the U.S. in an increasingly knowledge-based economy. To be fair, there are cases where the government puts forth an evidence-based policy, such as the federal government's aboriginal property ownership plans. But this seems to be less and less the case. However, I do not put the majority of the blame for a dearth of evidence-based policies on the government. Politicians are experts in finding out what people want and making it happen—it's their job. They do not always focus on what evidence suggests is best for the country because the public doesn't always support these recommendations. The public needs to stop blaming bad policies on the government and start taking some of the blame ourselves for the "common sense" ideas and solutions we support. So what can be done to promote evidence-based policies? The public has to take initiative and inform ourselves; it is a citizen's responsibility to be engaged in the issues that shape our society. But experts also need to make research and data more accessible to the general public. Research is often locked behind paywalls for only the academic elite to peruse; and if the average person is able to access academic research they will have to wade through the jargon. Education, especially post-secondary programs, needs to be flexible to accommodate a diverse student base. Growth in the open data movement should be encouraged to allow more information to trickle through social media and other outlets and into the minds of the public. Our knowledge economy is rich in ideas but these ideas need to be made more available to the public. The institutions that make up our social architecture also have a large role to play. Cooperation between institutions is vital for evidence-based policy to take root. If the populace, and its institutions, challenge some of their own long-held assumptions because of new evidence, and move away from strict ideologies, evidence-based policy may get somewhere. This, of course, does not mean we need to abandon our personal beliefs, worldviews and moral principles. But we do have to humble ourselves and realize we do not have all the answers. As Christians, we have a responsibility to seek out knowledge and understanding.  We live in a society with many uncharted landscapes and, while relying on God for direction and wisdom, we need to work together to seek answers and promote policies based on reliable information, evidence, and experience. For evidence-based policy to move forward there needs to be a constant feedback loop. Policy researchers need to recognize the power of the public in influencing policy and clearly inform us accordingly. And when pressuring our politicians to enact policies, we must seek out information and research, question our assumptions, and carefully consider the best option. No matter who you blame for bad policy, we can all agree that we need to be doing what actually works to make our society a better place. That sounds like common sense to me. Tue, 04 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 The phrase "common sense" has become ubiquitous in our culture.  This phrase implies that whatever is the most widely-held belief is the most correct.  In many cases, common-held knowledge is correct, but in Canada I believe our politicians have often based policies on uninformed "common nonsense". We have a federal government that is frequently at odds with experts in policy decisions: replacing a mandatory census with a voluntary one at the objection of statisticians; putting more petty criminals in jail to the chagrin of criminologists; reducing the GST even though economists say it is bad policy; and investing less in research, resulting in an exodus of PHDs to the U.S. in an increasingly knowledge-based economy. To be fair, there are cases where the government puts forth an evidence-based policy, such as the federal government's aboriginal property ownership plans. But this seems to be less and less the case. However, I do not put the majority of the blame for a dearth of evidence-based policies on the government. Politicians are experts in finding out what people want and making it happen—it's their job. They do not always focus on what evidence suggests is best for the country because the public doesn't always support these recommendations. The public needs to stop blaming bad policies on the government and start taking some of the blame ourselves for the "common sense" ideas and solutions we support. So what can be done to promote evidence-based policies? The public has to take initiative and inform ourselves; it is a citizen's responsibility to be engaged in the issues that shape our society. But experts also need to make research and data more accessible to the general public. Research is often locked behind paywalls for only the academic elite to peruse; and if the average person is able to access academic research they will have to wade through the jargon. Education, especially post-secondary programs, needs to be flexible to accommodate a diverse student base. Growth in the open data movement should be encouraged to allow more information to trickle through social media and other outlets and into the minds of the public. Our knowledge economy is rich in ideas but these ideas need to be made more available to the public. The institutions that make up our social architecture also have a large role to play. Cooperation between institutions is vital for evidence-based policy to take root. If the populace, and its institutions, challenge some of their own long-held assumptions because of new evidence, and move away from strict ideologies, evidence-based policy may get somewhere. This, of course, does not mean we need to abandon our personal beliefs, worldviews and moral principles. But we do have to humble ourselves and realize we do not have all the answers. As Christians, we have a responsibility to seek out knowledge and understanding.  We live in a society with many uncharted landscapes and, while relying on God for direction and wisdom, we need to work together to seek answers and promote policies based on reliable information, evidence, and experience. For evidence-based policy to move forward there needs to be a constant feedback loop. Policy researchers need to recognize the power of the public in influencing policy and clearly inform us accordingly. And when pressuring our politicians to enact policies, we must seek out information and research, question our assumptions, and carefully consider the best option. No matter who you blame for bad policy, we can all agree that we need to be doing what actually works to make our society a better place. That sounds like common sense to me. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/06/taking-a-bow?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Classical music aficionados will recognize the name Gustavo Dudamel, the 28-year-old director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic who has become the craze of the symphony orchestra scene around the world. The May 18th print edition of the Economist carried an insert with a nine-page feature on Mr. Dudamel, documenting the "unbelievable fast track rollercoaster" that has been his career while unbundling the enthusiasm that he holds for everything from his music to his family to his reading. One of Dudamel's signature moves is to bypass the customary conductor's bow in response to audience applause, and instead leap off of the podium and embed himself within the orchestra. He will put his arm around a couple of the performers and initiate a communal bow to acknowledge the appreciation. I find his explanation for this approach to be insightful and it provides a lesson useful to all leaders: "The conductor is just a person who is part of the team. Imagine I was just 'conducting' here, now; you would receive nothing. You'd think I was just some crazy guy waving my arms around. The thing is, you need the orchestra. You need them much more than they need you." I don't know Dudamel well enough to comment whether this is the genuine humble leadership the words suggest or whether it is part of the brand. After all, acknowledging those around you in the context of receiving adulation is part of the culturally appropriate way of responding. I don't doubt that most of those receiving awards at award ceremonies are appreciative of those around them but neither am I convinced that the litanies of names that are squeezed into the two minute acknowledgement speeches are all included due to heart-felt thankfulness. It has become part of the ritual response to an audience's appreciation. When I read this article in the Economist, I was on my way home following a Cardus board meeting. Dudamel's approach prompted reflection as these meetings are times when the Cardus leadership team provides an accounting of our previous activities. We've had a good run of late, and the colour-coded reports we provide semi-annually to our directors on a variety of metrics speaks to work done well and an organization with the long term in mind. Those of us in leadership positions have been privileged to hear nice words acknowledging our hard work. As one of those who serves as part of Cardus' leadership, I would like to believe that we do our best to ensure that those who really make the Cardus symphony perform are appropriately acknowledged and appreciated. Our website lists all of our staff. We do our best in the masthead of our publications to include those who contribute in ways not captured in by-lines. But it is the nature of almost every form of work, from symphony conducting to other types of organizational leadership, that we default to personifying the performance of the organization through the identity of the profile leader. It is a challenge for those of us privileged to be in leadership positions to think of how to authentically acknowledge the important contributions of our orchestras. Not only is it the right thing to do, but failure to do so can also run the risk of sometimes being exposed as the "crazy guy waving [his] arms around" without really knowing how to make the music associated with our names. So to those reading this and who are appreciative of the work Cardus does, please follow the link to the staff and senior fellows pages and do know that it is all of these people, along with the board of directors and the community of donors and encouragers, through their own unique contributions, that make the work of Cardus possible. Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Classical music aficionados will recognize the name Gustavo Dudamel, the 28-year-old director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic who has become the craze of the symphony orchestra scene around the world. The May 18th print edition of the Economist carried an insert with a nine-page feature on Mr. Dudamel, documenting the "unbelievable fast track rollercoaster" that has been his career while unbundling the enthusiasm that he holds for everything from his music to his family to his reading. One of Dudamel's signature moves is to bypass the customary conductor's bow in response to audience applause, and instead leap off of the podium and embed himself within the orchestra. He will put his arm around a couple of the performers and initiate a communal bow to acknowledge the appreciation. I find his explanation for this approach to be insightful and it provides a lesson useful to all leaders: "The conductor is just a person who is part of the team. Imagine I was just 'conducting' here, now; you would receive nothing. You'd think I was just some crazy guy waving my arms around. The thing is, you need the orchestra. You need them much more than they need you." I don't know Dudamel well enough to comment whether this is the genuine humble leadership the words suggest or whether it is part of the brand. After all, acknowledging those around you in the context of receiving adulation is part of the culturally appropriate way of responding. I don't doubt that most of those receiving awards at award ceremonies are appreciative of those around them but neither am I convinced that the litanies of names that are squeezed into the two minute acknowledgement speeches are all included due to heart-felt thankfulness. It has become part of the ritual response to an audience's appreciation. When I read this article in the Economist, I was on my way home following a Cardus board meeting. Dudamel's approach prompted reflection as these meetings are times when the Cardus leadership team provides an accounting of our previous activities. We've had a good run of late, and the colour-coded reports we provide semi-annually to our directors on a variety of metrics speaks to work done well and an organization with the long term in mind. Those of us in leadership positions have been privileged to hear nice words acknowledging our hard work. As one of those who serves as part of Cardus' leadership, I would like to believe that we do our best to ensure that those who really make the Cardus symphony perform are appropriately acknowledged and appreciated. Our website lists all of our staff. We do our best in the masthead of our publications to include those who contribute in ways not captured in by-lines. But it is the nature of almost every form of work, from symphony conducting to other types of organizational leadership, that we default to personifying the performance of the organization through the identity of the profile leader. It is a challenge for those of us privileged to be in leadership positions to think of how to authentically acknowledge the important contributions of our orchestras. Not only is it the right thing to do, but failure to do so can also run the risk of sometimes being exposed as the "crazy guy waving [his] arms around" without really knowing how to make the music associated with our names. So to those reading this and who are appreciative of the work Cardus does, please follow the link to the staff and senior fellows pages and do know that it is all of these people, along with the board of directors and the community of donors and encouragers, through their own unique contributions, that make the work of Cardus possible. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/cultural-ptsd?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Zeitgeist? Academic terms are not normally thrown around the set of NBC's Today Show. More commonly it is the source for fluff pieces, pseudo-news, and celebrity interviews. But recently with great earnestness host Matt Lauer asked Zachary Quinto, "What is it about our zeitgeist that so many of the blockbuster films are apocalyptic in nature?" Zachary was on the show to promote his film, Star Trek Into Darkness, where he plays the character of Spock. Zeitgeist is a German word meaning "spirit of the age or time," and is often attributed to the philosopher Georg Hegel. Sadly, Spock had no meaningful response to Lauer's query. Why is it that the stories we are celebrating and investing millions of dollars in have a reoccurring theme of collapse, destruction, and world ending apocalypse? Is this where war fatigue, terror attacks, hurricanes, and tornados have left us? Consider the evidence. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World: "An asteroid named 'Matilda' is on a collision course toward Earth and in three weeks the world will come to an absolute end. What would you do if your life and the world were doomed?" Star Trek Into Darkness: "When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis." Iron Man 3: "When Tony Stark's world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution." Mandarin states, "I'm gonna offer you the choice: do you want an empty life, or a meaningful death?" Oblivion: "A veteran assigned to extract Earth's remaining resources begins to question what he knows about his mission and himself." Jack Harper states, "Sixty years ago, Earth was attacked. We won the war, but they destroyed half the planet. Everyone's been evacuated. Nothing human remains. We're here for drone repair. We're the 'mop-up crew.'" After Earth: "One thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humanity's escape from Earth, Nova Prime has become mankind's new home." World War Z: "United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to decimate humanity itself." These are iconic films representing some of our most celebrated actors: Steve Carell, Chris Pine, Robert Downey, Jr., Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Brad Pitt, and Ethan Hawke. Collectively these films will reach millions of viewers and gross huge numbers at the box office. So Lauer's question is an important one. The apocalyptic zeitgeist is not a measure of overheated eschatological expectations but a symptom of the myth of progress placed under strain. It is the loss of innocence metastasizing into a cultural condition. We are assured in Scripture that if we live long enough our worldviews, idols, and faith will be tested (Matthew 7:24-27). The waters will rise, the winds will blow, and our foundations will be shaken. This is as certain as the sunrise. It's a promise woven into the fabric of reality. Sooner or later one's life will be tested relationally, financially, or physically. And what is true individually is also true collectively. Our culture is being tested and the cracks are beginning to show. Our cultural foundations either line up with reality or they do not. And ours is increasingly a culture without foundation—highly susceptible to every wind and wave. Insecurity is writ large into the modern psyche. And the recurring images of Sandy Hook; Seaside, New Jersey; the Boston marathon bombing; and Moore, Oklahoma serve to amplify these feelings. Safety and security elude us. These cinematic apocalyptic sagas are secular versions of the anticipation of Christ's return. Whereas Christ's return brings hope, these twisted stories only bring a nagging unease that flirts with despair. This is an apocalypse without a Saviour or Judge. This is a second coming without Christ. In 1996 Rolling Stone reporter Will Dana stated, "We used to think the center couldn't hold," referring to Yeat's poem, "The Second Coming." "All of a sudden," he continued, "there doesn't seem to be a center at all." We live in a "centreless" world. Such is the cultural experience of living in a world stipulated without any reference to the transcendent. The late University of Pennsylvania sociologist Philip Rieff stated, "Every culture that tries to establish its social order without reference to a sacred order must be called an anti-culture." An anti-culture is a culture of breaking down rather than building up. It is one of incremental decay and collapse. It is not a sustainable reality. This is what Nietzsche anticipated in 1882, in his book, The Gay Science, when he wrote, "Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?" Nietzsche anticipated that with the decline of Christianity it will seem for a time as if all things had become weightless or without center. Nietzsche continues, "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives—who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?" These apocalyptic cinematic narratives are the sacred games and the festivals of atonement we have invented to explain a secular second coming to ourselves. The psychic result is profound cultural insecurity that walks the line between fear and fatalism. These are cultural horror films, where the victim is not the blonde co-ed, but civilization. These are the fruit of cultural PTSD. Global destruction is displayed with high-octane computer-generated imagery, as the act of demolition is more visually stunning than the slow, patient, and difficult task of culture creation. Like pregnancy, culture making is a prolonged process and its work largely hidden from view. Its termination is quick, graphic, and telegenic as portrayed in the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. For Rieff, Auschwitz is a symbol of the deathwork culture. The practice of abortion is one of the most profound illustrations of what has become an everyday deathwork. Its acceptance and the antinatalism that it fosters leads to a Chinese baby being cut from a sewage pipe. These apocalyptic films show almost no hope for the rebuilding of community. At their best, they depict a gifted individual triumph Phoenix-like from the ashes to save a team or family member. For the renewal of society is outside the purview of the collective imagination. Genocide is recompensed by saving the heroic individual, which is the thesis of the upcoming film The Purge. We have lost hope—at least in our cinematic narratives—that society can be rebuilt on a human scale. But this truncated imagination has further psychic neuroses. Our cultural PTSD further represses already neglected religious concerns. It amps up the grasping at anything that promises pseudo-security. Religious concerns in this context are choked by the "worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth" (Matthew 13:22). It fosters the opposite experience of what Jesus commands in Matthew 6:25, ". . . do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on." Oswald Chambers' reminds us, "Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief . . . Worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives." It is not the Devil that chokes out the things of faith, but rather the mundane "cares of this world." This is where unbelief begins. We do not need for our world to end, only to have our imaginations shaped by a symbolic cosmic threat for which there is no recognized spiritual solace. A drowning man will grasp at straws, when it is faith alone that enables one to walk on water. In the end, our cultural zeitgeist is a public mirroring of our hearts. Our culture and hearts are troubled. There is a cure for this dis-ease. Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?" Jesus too offers us a choice: A meaningful life and an even more meaningful death. Fri, 31 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Zeitgeist? Academic terms are not normally thrown around the set of NBC's Today Show. More commonly it is the source for fluff pieces, pseudo-news, and celebrity interviews. But recently with great earnestness host Matt Lauer asked Zachary Quinto, "What is it about our zeitgeist that so many of the blockbuster films are apocalyptic in nature?" Zachary was on the show to promote his film, Star Trek Into Darkness, where he plays the character of Spock. Zeitgeist is a German word meaning "spirit of the age or time," and is often attributed to the philosopher Georg Hegel. Sadly, Spock had no meaningful response to Lauer's query. Why is it that the stories we are celebrating and investing millions of dollars in have a reoccurring theme of collapse, destruction, and world ending apocalypse? Is this where war fatigue, terror attacks, hurricanes, and tornados have left us? Consider the evidence. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World: "An asteroid named 'Matilda' is on a collision course toward Earth and in three weeks the world will come to an absolute end. What would you do if your life and the world were doomed?" Star Trek Into Darkness: "When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis." Iron Man 3: "When Tony Stark's world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution." Mandarin states, "I'm gonna offer you the choice: do you want an empty life, or a meaningful death?" Oblivion: "A veteran assigned to extract Earth's remaining resources begins to question what he knows about his mission and himself." Jack Harper states, "Sixty years ago, Earth was attacked. We won the war, but they destroyed half the planet. Everyone's been evacuated. Nothing human remains. We're here for drone repair. We're the 'mop-up crew.'" After Earth: "One thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humanity's escape from Earth, Nova Prime has become mankind's new home." World War Z: "United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to decimate humanity itself." These are iconic films representing some of our most celebrated actors: Steve Carell, Chris Pine, Robert Downey, Jr., Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Brad Pitt, and Ethan Hawke. Collectively these films will reach millions of viewers and gross huge numbers at the box office. So Lauer's question is an important one. The apocalyptic zeitgeist is not a measure of overheated eschatological expectations but a symptom of the myth of progress placed under strain. It is the loss of innocence metastasizing into a cultural condition. We are assured in Scripture that if we live long enough our worldviews, idols, and faith will be tested (Matthew 7:24-27). The waters will rise, the winds will blow, and our foundations will be shaken. This is as certain as the sunrise. It's a promise woven into the fabric of reality. Sooner or later one's life will be tested relationally, financially, or physically. And what is true individually is also true collectively. Our culture is being tested and the cracks are beginning to show. Our cultural foundations either line up with reality or they do not. And ours is increasingly a culture without foundation—highly susceptible to every wind and wave. Insecurity is writ large into the modern psyche. And the recurring images of Sandy Hook; Seaside, New Jersey; the Boston marathon bombing; and Moore, Oklahoma serve to amplify these feelings. Safety and security elude us. These cinematic apocalyptic sagas are secular versions of the anticipation of Christ's return. Whereas Christ's return brings hope, these twisted stories only bring a nagging unease that flirts with despair. This is an apocalypse without a Saviour or Judge. This is a second coming without Christ. In 1996 Rolling Stone reporter Will Dana stated, "We used to think the center couldn't hold," referring to Yeat's poem, "The Second Coming." "All of a sudden," he continued, "there doesn't seem to be a center at all." We live in a "centreless" world. Such is the cultural experience of living in a world stipulated without any reference to the transcendent. The late University of Pennsylvania sociologist Philip Rieff stated, "Every culture that tries to establish its social order without reference to a sacred order must be called an anti-culture." An anti-culture is a culture of breaking down rather than building up. It is one of incremental decay and collapse. It is not a sustainable reality. This is what Nietzsche anticipated in 1882, in his book, The Gay Science, when he wrote, "Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?" Nietzsche anticipated that with the decline of Christianity it will seem for a time as if all things had become weightless or without center. Nietzsche continues, "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives—who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?" These apocalyptic cinematic narratives are the sacred games and the festivals of atonement we have invented to explain a secular second coming to ourselves. The psychic result is profound cultural insecurity that walks the line between fear and fatalism. These are cultural horror films, where the victim is not the blonde co-ed, but civilization. These are the fruit of cultural PTSD. Global destruction is displayed with high-octane computer-generated imagery, as the act of demolition is more visually stunning than the slow, patient, and difficult task of culture creation. Like pregnancy, culture making is a prolonged process and its work largely hidden from view. Its termination is quick, graphic, and telegenic as portrayed in the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. For Rieff, Auschwitz is a symbol of the deathwork culture. The practice of abortion is one of the most profound illustrations of what has become an everyday deathwork. Its acceptance and the antinatalism that it fosters leads to a Chinese baby being cut from a sewage pipe. These apocalyptic films show almost no hope for the rebuilding of community. At their best, they depict a gifted individual triumph Phoenix-like from the ashes to save a team or family member. For the renewal of society is outside the purview of the collective imagination. Genocide is recompensed by saving the heroic individual, which is the thesis of the upcoming film The Purge. We have lost hope—at least in our cinematic narratives—that society can be rebuilt on a human scale. But this truncated imagination has further psychic neuroses. Our cultural PTSD further represses already neglected religious concerns. It amps up the grasping at anything that promises pseudo-security. Religious concerns in this context are choked by the "worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth" (Matthew 13:22). It fosters the opposite experience of what Jesus commands in Matthew 6:25, ". . . do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on." Oswald Chambers' reminds us, "Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief . . . Worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives." It is not the Devil that chokes out the things of faith, but rather the mundane "cares of this world." This is where unbelief begins. We do not need for our world to end, only to have our imaginations shaped by a symbolic cosmic threat for which there is no recognized spiritual solace. A drowning man will grasp at straws, when it is faith alone that enables one to walk on water. In the end, our cultural zeitgeist is a public mirroring of our hearts. Our culture and hearts are troubled. There is a cure for this dis-ease. Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?" Jesus too offers us a choice: A meaningful life and an even more meaningful death. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/theres-a-life-at-the-heart-of-the-matter?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Editor's Note: In yesterday's blog about bridging differences, Peter Stockland wrote, "we have the means to speak our particularities honestly, openly and authentically, shorn of euphemisms. We must take advantage of that." In that spirit, we present this editorial by Andrea Mrozek, executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada and the founder of ProWomanProLife.org. Originally published in the Ottawa Citizen May 29, 2013. Reprinted by permission of the author. There's some irony in the passing away of Dr. Henry Morgentaler. Regrettably, Morgentaler, whose name will forever be connected with opening Canada up to abortion on demand, cannot be celebrated. Making abortion mainstream is something few can celebrate. Instead, some will celebrate the word "choice." This neutral term is now a universal euphemism for abortion. People will freely say, "I'm pro-choice." Yet the term holds in it another irony: That for so many women, abortion was only an answer in the absence of real choice. The father left, there's no money, I can't tell my parents, I can't cope, we'll never be able to make it work, and so on. Abortion is the "choice" in that critical moment in a woman's life when hope went on holiday. This is Morgentaler's legacy: The death of a child, renamed a choice, and without limit in Canada. He deserves neither all the credit nor all the blame, of course. When the Supreme Court of Canada heard the now infamous Morgentaler case in 1988, their intention was not to bestow abortion as an unfettered right. Instead, the court went so far as to acknowledge a legitimate public interest in restricting abortion, and then threw the question back to Parliament—which has been holding the ball ever since. As a result, we have no law at all and abortion is used in ways it was never intended. About one-quarter of pregnancies in Canada end in abortion. Initially, for its advocates, abortion was a measure of last resort. Though statistics are sorely lacking, in Canada we turn a blind eye to more than 100,000 abortions annually. The genuinely tough cases, don't make up more than two or three per cent. Though abortion is rare in the third trimester, there is in fact no law against abortion at any time, for any reason. Doctors and bio-ethicists acknowledge cases of abortion for cleft palate, for Down syndrome and for other reasons that can only be diagnosed late term. Abortion is also used to eradicate one gender: Women. While this unique form of barbarism is late to Canada, we do have firm evidence it is happening here. And in other countries it's just a matter of counting the millions of missing girls. Perhaps the richer irony is that in face of this injustice, Morgentaler's supporters maintain abortion as central to women's rights. How can surgically circumventing women's natural reproductive cycles advance the cause of women's rights? How does this advance the lasting well-being and dignity of women? Sex can result in pregnancy. If carrying a pregnancy to term is a "choice," it reduces our responsibility to help mothers who face difficult circumstances. Certainly, it's all the more difficult to justify any number of programs to help mothers if they didn't have to have children in the first place. A community can now abdicate responsibility from caring for children by declaring them to be "not my problem," but rather, "her choice." Under choice rhetoric, whether children are punishments or gifts to be welcomed or resented, depends entirely on the woman. So total is the woman's right to decide that the other party to the pregnancy—the man—gets only the choice to walk away. Small wonder then that so many do. Vicky Green is a social worker living in Ottawa, who has had three abortions, the last one done by Henry Morgentaler. Vicky told me of how she cried in front of him and said "I don't want to do this to my baby." To which Morgentaler replied it wasn't one and she'd have more. It's too convenient to simply ignore the life at the heart of the matter. Ultimately, the choice is whether to keep a child, or not. There's a life who, granted, is growing within the woman, but has a heartbeat. That heartbeat was something Morgentaler chose not to hear. It's a dance to celebrate Morgentaler for introducing choice, without referring to the choice itself. A bit like celebrating Steve Jobs, without ever once mentioning an Apple computer. And it's ironic, because for so many women, the abortion clinic is at the end of a road on which all other choices have faded from view. Thu, 30 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Editor's Note: In yesterday's blog about bridging differences, Peter Stockland wrote, "we have the means to speak our particularities honestly, openly and authentically, shorn of euphemisms. We must take advantage of that." In that spirit, we present this editorial by Andrea Mrozek, executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada and the founder of ProWomanProLife.org. Originally published in the Ottawa Citizen May 29, 2013. Reprinted by permission of the author. There's some irony in the passing away of Dr. Henry Morgentaler. Regrettably, Morgentaler, whose name will forever be connected with opening Canada up to abortion on demand, cannot be celebrated. Making abortion mainstream is something few can celebrate. Instead, some will celebrate the word "choice." This neutral term is now a universal euphemism for abortion. People will freely say, "I'm pro-choice." Yet the term holds in it another irony: That for so many women, abortion was only an answer in the absence of real choice. The father left, there's no money, I can't tell my parents, I can't cope, we'll never be able to make it work, and so on. Abortion is the "choice" in that critical moment in a woman's life when hope went on holiday. This is Morgentaler's legacy: The death of a child, renamed a choice, and without limit in Canada. He deserves neither all the credit nor all the blame, of course. When the Supreme Court of Canada heard the now infamous Morgentaler case in 1988, their intention was not to bestow abortion as an unfettered right. Instead, the court went so far as to acknowledge a legitimate public interest in restricting abortion, and then threw the question back to Parliament—which has been holding the ball ever since. As a result, we have no law at all and abortion is used in ways it was never intended. About one-quarter of pregnancies in Canada end in abortion. Initially, for its advocates, abortion was a measure of last resort. Though statistics are sorely lacking, in Canada we turn a blind eye to more than 100,000 abortions annually. The genuinely tough cases, don't make up more than two or three per cent. Though abortion is rare in the third trimester, there is in fact no law against abortion at any time, for any reason. Doctors and bio-ethicists acknowledge cases of abortion for cleft palate, for Down syndrome and for other reasons that can only be diagnosed late term. Abortion is also used to eradicate one gender: Women. While this unique form of barbarism is late to Canada, we do have firm evidence it is happening here. And in other countries it's just a matter of counting the millions of missing girls. Perhaps the richer irony is that in face of this injustice, Morgentaler's supporters maintain abortion as central to women's rights. How can surgically circumventing women's natural reproductive cycles advance the cause of women's rights? How does this advance the lasting well-being and dignity of women? Sex can result in pregnancy. If carrying a pregnancy to term is a "choice," it reduces our responsibility to help mothers who face difficult circumstances. Certainly, it's all the more difficult to justify any number of programs to help mothers if they didn't have to have children in the first place. A community can now abdicate responsibility from caring for children by declaring them to be "not my problem," but rather, "her choice." Under choice rhetoric, whether children are punishments or gifts to be welcomed or resented, depends entirely on the woman. So total is the woman's right to decide that the other party to the pregnancy—the man—gets only the choice to walk away. Small wonder then that so many do. Vicky Green is a social worker living in Ottawa, who has had three abortions, the last one done by Henry Morgentaler. Vicky told me of how she cried in front of him and said "I don't want to do this to my baby." To which Morgentaler replied it wasn't one and she'd have more. It's too convenient to simply ignore the life at the heart of the matter. Ultimately, the choice is whether to keep a child, or not. There's a life who, granted, is growing within the woman, but has a heartbeat. That heartbeat was something Morgentaler chose not to hear. It's a dance to celebrate Morgentaler for introducing choice, without referring to the choice itself. A bit like celebrating Steve Jobs, without ever once mentioning an Apple computer. And it's ironic, because for so many women, the abortion clinic is at the end of a road on which all other choices have faded from view. http://sandbox.cardus.ca/organization/news/180/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr is right: Closed tendering “limits full, competitive bidding.” Thu, 30 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr is right: Closed tendering “limits full, competitive bidding.” http://sandbox.cardus.ca/organization/news/179/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Canadian think tank Cardus has partnered with the University of Notre Dame to research how parental choice of religious school influences long-term student, family and community life. Wed, 29 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Canadian think tank Cardus has partnered with the University of Notre Dame to research how parental choice of religious school influences long-term student, family and community life. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/vocabulary-of-difference?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed A witty fellow sent me an e-mail at the start of this week's Bridging the Secular Divide conference pointing out the paradox of it being held in Montreal. Like their London antecedents, of course, Montreal bridges are now far more famous for falling down than they are for conjugating across chasms. Was the city of collapsing 25-tonne concrete slabs really the charmed place to lay the foundation for unifying conversation between Canada's myriad of religious faiths and the often-adversarial secular society in which they must exist? As it turned out, it was. Thanks for that goes primarily to McGill University and the conference organizing committee not only for bringing in first-rate speakers but also for the seemingly seamless inclusiveness of the participant list. But Montreal's notoriety for having things cave inconveniently in might have also inadvertently contributed significantly, and in the very paradoxical way cited by my clever correspondent. Tectonic tentativeness, after all, creates a tremendous tendency for people to walk around on tiptoes, figuratively if not literally, and that is what many seemed to spend at least parts of the conference doing. In doing so, they brought to the surface a much deeper challenge facing Canada's multitudinous faith communities. Before we can bridge our divide with those among us who are stoutly secularist, we must connect ourselves to a vocabulary of difference that is honest, open, and authentic. Honest, open, and authentic are, we all know, frequently used euphemisms for nasty, bigoted, and hostile. That's the problem. But the solution is not to ward off such falsehoods with an excess of politeness that masquerades as pluralism when it is really a form of paralysis. I am not—and I want to be absolutely clear about this—saying that is what happened at the Bridging the Secular Divide conference. I am saying only that the overall tenor of the event was such that the risk became plain. There was much frank talk over the course of the two days. There were repeated invocations of the admonition that religions must make peace among themselves before they can make peace in the world. There was evidence presented during several panels that genuine progress has been made, at least in Canada, on that front. Indeed, listening to that happy progress being charted took me back to my own childhood and my mother, face sepia with nostalgic light, voice a-lilting, teaching me the song of her youth, learned among young ruffians lined up and down the street curbs of a summer evening in a remote northern Ontario town, as they taunted the children of God on the other side:"Catholics, Catholics ring that bell. "Send those Protestants straight to Hell." From the "potlicker" side, of course, the chorus would echo fulsomely in kind, duly amended for denominational preference. Occasionally a stone would whizz. Infrequently, there was a reenactment of the Children of the Somme going over the top. We don't want to go back there. God willing, we never will. But because of the very peace that reigns—I discount as threatening to that peace the tiny minority of screw-loose violent fanatics running around defaming the name of Islam—we have the means to speak our particularities honestly, openly and authentically, shorn of euphemisms. We must take advantage of that. For it would be a Montreal-scale source of embarrassment if, by walking on tiptoes around our differences, we brought about the collapse of all the sound bridges we've succeeded in building so far. Wed, 29 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 A witty fellow sent me an e-mail at the start of this week's Bridging the Secular Divide conference pointing out the paradox of it being held in Montreal. Like their London antecedents, of course, Montreal bridges are now far more famous for falling down than they are for conjugating across chasms. Was the city of collapsing 25-tonne concrete slabs really the charmed place to lay the foundation for unifying conversation between Canada's myriad of religious faiths and the often-adversarial secular society in which they must exist? As it turned out, it was. Thanks for that goes primarily to McGill University and the conference organizing committee not only for bringing in first-rate speakers but also for the seemingly seamless inclusiveness of the participant list. But Montreal's notoriety for having things cave inconveniently in might have also inadvertently contributed significantly, and in the very paradoxical way cited by my clever correspondent. Tectonic tentativeness, after all, creates a tremendous tendency for people to walk around on tiptoes, figuratively if not literally, and that is what many seemed to spend at least parts of the conference doing. In doing so, they brought to the surface a much deeper challenge facing Canada's multitudinous faith communities. Before we can bridge our divide with those among us who are stoutly secularist, we must connect ourselves to a vocabulary of difference that is honest, open, and authentic. Honest, open, and authentic are, we all know, frequently used euphemisms for nasty, bigoted, and hostile. That's the problem. But the solution is not to ward off such falsehoods with an excess of politeness that masquerades as pluralism when it is really a form of paralysis. I am not—and I want to be absolutely clear about this—saying that is what happened at the Bridging the Secular Divide conference. I am saying only that the overall tenor of the event was such that the risk became plain. There was much frank talk over the course of the two days. There were repeated invocations of the admonition that religions must make peace among themselves before they can make peace in the world. There was evidence presented during several panels that genuine progress has been made, at least in Canada, on that front. Indeed, listening to that happy progress being charted took me back to my own childhood and my mother, face sepia with nostalgic light, voice a-lilting, teaching me the song of her youth, learned among young ruffians lined up and down the street curbs of a summer evening in a remote northern Ontario town, as they taunted the children of God on the other side:"Catholics, Catholics ring that bell. "Send those Protestants straight to Hell." From the "potlicker" side, of course, the chorus would echo fulsomely in kind, duly amended for denominational preference. Occasionally a stone would whizz. Infrequently, there was a reenactment of the Children of the Somme going over the top. We don't want to go back there. God willing, we never will. But because of the very peace that reigns—I discount as threatening to that peace the tiny minority of screw-loose violent fanatics running around defaming the name of Islam—we have the means to speak our particularities honestly, openly and authentically, shorn of euphemisms. We must take advantage of that. For it would be a Montreal-scale source of embarrassment if, by walking on tiptoes around our differences, we brought about the collapse of all the sound bridges we've succeeded in building so far. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/bright-days-ahead-for-faith-based-universities?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed It's a traditional path, rich and straightforward. Our university education is about us: our positioning, our prospects, our increased earning power. But if we set our gaze a little further, to measure broader social outcomes—is the traditional university still the best path? Perhaps not, and you'll be surprised which schools may now have the inside track on market share and influence. Dr. Emöke J. E. Szathmáry, President Emeritus of the University of Manitoba, yesterday suggested that faith-based universities are well-positioned in the institutional landscape. Addressing an audience that included many of the presidents of Canada's faith-based post-secondary institutions, Dr. Szathmáry argued that the "return on investment" of post-secondary education is too narrowly measured at many schools. Individual outcomes can never comprise the full reward. Instead, the social values of having skilled professionals able to serve others; an educated electorate; and citizens and volunteers who are committed to their communities are among the benefits some institutions overlook. Dr. Szathmáry made a three-part argument as to why faith-based universities are well-positioned to increase in influence. Since the sixties, a secularization thesis suggested that as society modernized, religion would proportionately decline. Widely accepted for decades, this thesis has fallen on hard times—even over the past decade, the original proponents of that thesis have changed their opinions. There is a longing on the part of young people today to talk about the big questions of life and, ironically, the modern secular university is a place where such conversations are difficult to have. A generation of academics has emerged which has a narrow expertise and is uncomfortable engaging existential questions in a meaningful way. Szathmáry recommended CBC Radio's "The Myth of the Secular" series about a growing hunger for discussions on life and death and meaning. The secular university is handcuffed in dealing with these questions—lacking access to a religious vocabulary, they are like a mathematics professor who has never studied arithmetic. Secondly, faith-based universities serve more than just those students who are looking for an education that recognizes their deep-felt questions. They also, by virtue of smaller size, often offer stronger mentorship and relationships between faculty and students than those in large universities. Her final argument was a challenge to the faith-based university sector to be more robust in asserting their place in the Canadian mosaic. If society claims to be open and pluralistic, then there needs to be a correlative acceptance of various perspectives, including religious ones. Acknowledging that "secular education is not value-free; it often can be anti-religious," she urged the leaders of the faith-based university sector to assert their rightful place in the Canadian post-secondary landscape. "Your traditions are part of the Canadian whole," she said, challenging her audience not to acquiesce to marginalization. Szathmáry's question was "Why Bother with Christian Higher Education?" and her answer was direct. It matters, not only for those who are able to benefit directly by enrolling in such institutions, but also because it is uniquely positioned to answer a market need which mainstream academia is hard-pressed to fill. The history of higher education in Canada has faith roots, and despite the current claims of secularism that would separate faith and education, education in the absence of faith does not reflect the reality and diversity of contemporary Canadian society. Tue, 28 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 It's a traditional path, rich and straightforward. Our university education is about us: our positioning, our prospects, our increased earning power. But if we set our gaze a little further, to measure broader social outcomes—is the traditional university still the best path? Perhaps not, and you'll be surprised which schools may now have the inside track on market share and influence. Dr. Emöke J. E. Szathmáry, President Emeritus of the University of Manitoba, yesterday suggested that faith-based universities are well-positioned in the institutional landscape. Addressing an audience that included many of the presidents of Canada's faith-based post-secondary institutions, Dr. Szathmáry argued that the "return on investment" of post-secondary education is too narrowly measured at many schools. Individual outcomes can never comprise the full reward. Instead, the social values of having skilled professionals able to serve others; an educated electorate; and citizens and volunteers who are committed to their communities are among the benefits some institutions overlook. Dr. Szathmáry made a three-part argument as to why faith-based universities are well-positioned to increase in influence. Since the sixties, a secularization thesis suggested that as society modernized, religion would proportionately decline. Widely accepted for decades, this thesis has fallen on hard times—even over the past decade, the original proponents of that thesis have changed their opinions. There is a longing on the part of young people today to talk about the big questions of life and, ironically, the modern secular university is a place where such conversations are difficult to have. A generation of academics has emerged which has a narrow expertise and is uncomfortable engaging existential questions in a meaningful way. Szathmáry recommended CBC Radio's "The Myth of the Secular" series about a growing hunger for discussions on life and death and meaning. The secular university is handcuffed in dealing with these questions—lacking access to a religious vocabulary, they are like a mathematics professor who has never studied arithmetic. Secondly, faith-based universities serve more than just those students who are looking for an education that recognizes their deep-felt questions. They also, by virtue of smaller size, often offer stronger mentorship and relationships between faculty and students than those in large universities. Her final argument was a challenge to the faith-based university sector to be more robust in asserting their place in the Canadian mosaic. If society claims to be open and pluralistic, then there needs to be a correlative acceptance of various perspectives, including religious ones. Acknowledging that "secular education is not value-free; it often can be anti-religious," she urged the leaders of the faith-based university sector to assert their rightful place in the Canadian post-secondary landscape. "Your traditions are part of the Canadian whole," she said, challenging her audience not to acquiesce to marginalization. Szathmáry's question was "Why Bother with Christian Higher Education?" and her answer was direct. It matters, not only for those who are able to benefit directly by enrolling in such institutions, but also because it is uniquely positioned to answer a market need which mainstream academia is hard-pressed to fill. The history of higher education in Canada has faith roots, and despite the current claims of secularism that would separate faith and education, education in the absence of faith does not reflect the reality and diversity of contemporary Canadian society. http://sandbox.cardus.ca/organization/news/178/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Banks must regain the public’s trust in order to ensure economic recovery, said outgoing Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney in one of his last public addresses recently. Fri, 24 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Banks must regain the public’s trust in order to ensure economic recovery, said outgoing Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney in one of his last public addresses recently.