Why John Tory Is Right–and Wrong–about Religious Schools
September 28, 2007
The great province of Ontario, Canada’s richest and most populous, is in the throes of an election. As many Canadians know, one of the hottest issues in that election is the promise of Conservative leader John Tory to consider funding religious elementary and secondary schools in that province.
As a native of Ontario, a product of its public school (and university) system, and one with some interest in questions of church and state, I’ll offer my full support for John Tory—and my full disagreement with him.
First, then, my support. Tory argues that if the government of Ontario ought to support a Roman Catholic separate school system, as it has for a long time, then it should support other religiously-based schools. It makes no sense in 2007 to continue to cater to the preferences of what used to be the largest religious minority in Ontario without offering similar support to others.
Is America/Canada/Britain/[Your country here] Going to Hell?
September 24, 2007
There is a lot of hay to be made–and book royalties, and speaking fees–with the message that one’s country is flying fast toward perdition. “Leading cultural indicators” are deployed to show that this important social something is worse than it used to be, and so is that…and look over here at all these things that are worse also!
Some of this bemoaning of cultural decline can be simple nostalgia. A New Yorker cartoon shows a grandfather, father, and (grand)son walking together down a city street. The grandfather is declaiming loudly, to the others’ discomfiture, “Everything was better when everything was worse!”
But was everything better in the good, or at least not so bad, old days? Is Canada less Christian than it used to be? Or America? Or Britain, Australia, New Zealand, etc., etc.?
Jesus, I’m NOT in Love with You
September 16, 2007
One of the blights upon the hymnological landscape today is the continued presence of what we can fairly call the “love song to Jesus” genre. It’s been around as long as there has been Christian pop music–and even earlier, depending on what you make of sentimental gospel songs in the nineteenth century, eighteenth-century revivalist hymns, and especially a lot of the mystical poetry-cum-lyrics of certain medieval saints.
Today our congregation was asked to sing, “Jesus, I’m in love with you”–a line that shows up, in one permutation or another, in several songs that occur frequently in our worship leaders’ rotation.
Well, I didn’t sing it. It’s wrong, and I try not to sing wrong lyrics.
Everything Up in (Holy) Smoke
September 12, 2007
“I wonder what would happen,” reflects author Mark Alan Powell, “if we collected the offering on Sunday morning, set the plates on the altar, and then tossed in a match, burning up everyone’s money.”
In his book Giving to God: The Bible’s Good News about Living a Generous Life (Eerdmans, 2006), Powell reminds us that most of the sacrifices in the Old Testament were consumed by fire, rather than being used to sustain the priests, or help the poor, or accomplish some other practical purpose. Like the costly perfume that could have been sold to benefit the poor, the giving to God was itself the point.
This has been a hard lesson for me to learn, and I’m still learning it.
Effective Apologetics: Buildings, Guides, and Sandwiches
September 7, 2007
During our recent roadtrip in the northwestern and north-central United States, we made a point of stopping to visit Temple Square in Salt Lake City, the “Vatican” of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). As someone professionally and personally interested in apologetics–the way in which religious groups commend and defend their views to others and to their own number–I was impressed again at how well the Mormons do things in Temple Square.
One of those things is architecture. Non-Mormons cannot visit inside the Temple itself, but walking around it nicely presents Mormonism as what it is: sort of Christian (the European medieval battlements and spires make that connection clear), but not fully Christian (one of my sons remarked on the sustained absence of crosses in and on Mormon buildings).
The famous Mormon Tabernacle is a strikingly innovative building for its time (19th century), with a rounded roof that perhaps reminds the less-lofty-minded of a Jiffy Pop bag on its way to ebullition or perhaps a large UFO, but inside it is a rather conventional, and beautiful, ecclesiastical space of its time.
The Conference Center, however, is simply breathtaking.
