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03 Jan 2018 I belong! True happiness doesn’t come from autonomy

Posted at 10:01h in Blog, Public Theology 0 Comments

By Mark Penninga In his recently-published sketchbook/devotional Just Thinking, Jason Bouwman includes an entry called “Start with ‘Whose?’” Bouwman is working off a popular TED talk by Simon Sinek about inspiring people to action, one that I have showed to the ARPA team a couple of times. Sinek convincingly demonstrates that if we want to get people to do something, we need to start with answering “Why?” It’s well worth watching. But Bouwman argues that Sinek has not gone deep enough. The “Heidelberg Catechism teaches us to start not with ‘Why?’ but with...

15 Dec 2017 What to Wear to a Worm Wedding: Highlights from BC’s SOGI Curriculum

Posted at 13:19h in Blog, Education, Gender and Sexuality 3 Comments

4 Likes

By Tabitha Ewert, Articling Student The schools back in my hometown of Langley, BC, have a re-designed “SOGI” curriculum. For those unfamiliar with the term, SOGI is an acronym for “sexual orientation and gender identity”. While only announced this year, this curriculum has been years in the making. It started out as an anti-bullying campaign, but it teaches an unhealthy view of sexuality and gender. I want to explain and comment on the new curriculum, but before I do that I need to state four premises: Four Premises Education is not neutral. As the Ontario...

08 Dec 2017 Could marijuana decriminalization present an opportunity for better policy?

Posted at 17:49h in Blog, Criminal Justice 0 Comments

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by John Sikkema Parliament is well on its way to legalizing marijuana. Bill C-45, the “Cannabis Act”, has passed in the House of Commons and is now in the Senate. It will likely be law early next year. Our government acknowledges marijuana is harmful, particularly for young people. So it proposes to severely punish selling to a young person, while legalizing a recreational marijuana market. But if pot becomes more pervasive and easily available than it is today – as current investment in massive marijuana grow-ops suggests it will – it isn’t...

28 Nov 2017 Ontario’s highest court: public education is not neutral

Posted at 12:37h in Blog, Education, Legal Cases, Public Theology 0 Comments

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By John Sikkema In an important ruling, a Christian father lost his religious freedom claim against the Hamilton School Board. But it’s not all bad news. The main reason for E.T.’s loss (the father’s name is redacted to his initials) was the breadth of his claim and lack of evidence to support it. He lost on the facts, not the law. E.T. wanted school staff to give him notice whenever “moral relativism”, “environmental worship”, “occultic principles”, “sex education”, or “portrayals of homosexual/bisexual conduct and relationships and/or transgenderism as natural, healthy or acceptable”...

15 Sep 2017 Infographic: Our Government is ignoring these facts about the impacts of pornography

Posted at 11:49h in Bills and Motions, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments

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Earlier this year the Federal Health Committee responded to Motion 47, the motion put forward by MP Arnold Viersen to study the public harms of pornography. Motion 47 was passed last year unanimously in the House of Commons. This motion had a lot of promise, and we were excited about what would result. As we reported earlier this year, the response from the Health Committee was absolutely inadequate, and betrayed a serious lack of concern on the part of the government about the issue of pornography and its impacts on...

18 Aug 2017 Irreconcilable? Indigenous Peoples and Canada at 150

Posted at 14:30h in Blog, Multiculturalism 0 Comments

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by Colin Postma Despite all the talk of reconciliation with Canada’s aboriginal population over the years, all is still not well in the minds of many Canadians. Canada recently celebrated its 150th Birthday. Canadian flags, parades, and fireworks were the staple in every Canadian city, town, and village. In my home town of Ottawa, thousands waited in line for hours in heavy rain just to be a part of the events on Parliament Hill. But many Canadians felt differently. One of my Facebook friends posted a picture of himself wearing a shirt with...

27 Jul 2017 ‘Gender Neutral’ Health Cards and the New Gnosticism

Posted at 17:18h in Blog, Gender and Sexuality, Public Theology 0 Comments

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By John Sikkema Earlier this month, a baby received the first ever British Columbia health card with no “gender designation”. Instead of “M” for male or “F” for female, the baby’s health card says “U”, which various media outlets suggest stands for “undetermined” or “unassigned”. “Undetermined” would be a lie, unless the baby was born wearing pants. “Unassigned” might make sense if it referred to the refusal to assign an “M” or “F” to the child’s health card, but unassigned here connotes that sex is just a label assigned to persons –...

13 Jul 2017 A Cautionary Tale: The Failure of the German Church to Oppose Nazism

Posted at 10:37h in Blog, Public Theology 0 Comments

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By Colin Postma Over the past few months, ARPA staff have been discussing Eric Metaxas’ book “Bonhoeffer – Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,” as part of our weekly staff calls. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor who is remembered for his opposition to the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. He was executed in a concentration camp in April 1945, just days before Hitler committed suicide and the war came to an end. Lutheran Bishop Ludwig Muller, leader of the Reich Church, greets Hitler One of the most striking things about entering...

21 Apr 2017 Haunted by the “hetero-normative” family

Posted at 15:38h in Bills and Motions, Blog, Family 0 Comments

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A behind-the-scenes look at recent changes to family law in Ontario By John Sikkema Oh. I’m a zombie, raised by zombies. That’s what I learned at an Ontario Bar Association (OBA) event earlier this year called “The All Families Are Equal Act: Celebrating and Understanding the Legislative Changes.” The event was a “professional development” seminar – something lawyers must attend from time to time to keep their law license. These things usually have dull names like “Recent Changes in Corporate Tax Law” or “A Primer on Real Estate Litigation”. But this session, the...

13 Apr 2017 Robert Frost and euthanasia: The folly of downward comparisons

Posted at 13:12h in Blog, Euthanasia 1 Comment

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Portrait of Robert Frost by A. Allyn Bishop By André Schutten Have you ever heard a euthanasia advocate argue that to force grandma to live in pain is to treat her worse than a dog? The assumption is that if euthanasia is compassionate for the dog, it’s compassionate for the human: “I put my dog down because of horrible pain, so why can’t we put grandma down too?” The simple answer: “Because grandma is not a dog.” As Barbara Kay eloquently wrote in the National Post a few...

Featured – Side

03 Jan 2018 I belong! True happiness doesn’t come from autonomy

15 Dec 2017 What to Wear to a Worm Wedding: Highlights from BC’s SOGI Curriculum

08 Dec 2017 Could marijuana decriminalization present an opportunity for better policy?

28 Nov 2017 Ontario’s highest court: public education is not neutral

15 Sep 2017 Infographic: Our Government is ignoring these facts about the impacts of pornography

18 Aug 2017 Irreconcilable? Indigenous Peoples and Canada at 150

27 Jul 2017 ‘Gender Neutral’ Health Cards and the New Gnosticism

13 Jul 2017 A Cautionary Tale: The Failure of the German Church to Oppose Nazism

21 Apr 2017 Haunted by the “hetero-normative” family

13 Apr 2017 Robert Frost and euthanasia: The folly of downward comparisons

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