Canada’s fertility rate hit its lowest rate in recorded history for a second consecutive year in 2023. The spinoff impacts of this are already being felt – with Canada’s aging workforce joining a swelling retirement-age population and increasing economic pressure to meet this groups’ needs and entitlements.

New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds insight into the reasons behind lagging birth rates. ARI asked 1,300 Canadian adults younger than 50 if they plan to have children, and if not, why? Among this group, one-in-five are definitely (21%) going to have at least one child, while one-in-three (32%) say they may still do so. Within these two groups of potential parents, fully half say that they have delayed having kids longer than they ideally would have wanted. This rises to three-quarters (74%) among 35- to 44-year-olds. The top reasons driving delays are both societal and personal. For many, the search for the right partner has just not borne fruit (40%). For others, however, uncertainty surrounding their finances and the job market (41%) the cost of childcare (33%) and the housing affordability crisis (31%) are all drivers of the decision to wait.

Even among those who are definitely not going to have children (37% of the 1,300 adults surveyed) these worries about childcare and cost are a factor. One-quarter among this group say they decided not to have kids because the spectre of childcare costs was too daunting (25%), while one-in-five (18%) said it was too hard to foresee having proper housing to start a family.

With immigration playing a larger role year over year in sustaining the population – and criticism of immigration policy evidently growing – the historically low birth rate trend divides Canadians. They’re equally likely to feel that the birth rate is (43%) and isn’t (42%) a crisis.

Read it all.

"Half of Canadians who want children have waited longer than they’d like, due largely to cost." –@angusreidorg #cdnpoli #generationalfairness https://t.co/XtH9zRh2nA pic.twitter.com/9BbZg6CFEM

— Generation Squeeze (@GenSqueeze) October 17, 2024

Two scientists at Canada’s high-security infectious disease laboratory – Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng – provided confidential scientific information to China and were fired after a probe concluded she posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security” and it was discovered they engaged in clandestine meetings with Chinese officials, documents tabled in the House of Commons reveal.

Dr. Qiu, who worked at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, was dishonest when confronted with her actions, making “blanket denials” and “half-truths, and personally benefited from the arrangement,” the documents state, noting that she repeatedly lied to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and “refused to admit to any involvement in various PRC [People’s Republic of China] programs.”

The two infectious-disease scientists were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July, 2019, and later had their security clearances revoked. They were fired in January, 2021. Their whereabouts are not known.

Read it all.

Censored documents about Winnipeg scientists reveal threat to Canada’s security. Two scientists at Canada’s high-security infectious disease laboratory – Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng – provided confidential information to China. ⁦ https://t.co/H8VviJnRfx pic.twitter.com/Vk7EAMXjSR

— Bruce Hale (@hale_bruce) March 1, 2024

Wishing all Canadians a peaceful and rejuvenating #Thanksgiving. pic.twitter.com/sR1e6xpU3o

— Governor General of Canada (@GGCanada) October 9, 2023

Zunera Hashmi, a Toronto resident, has been anxiously waiting in line for three years to be assigned a family doctor. When she gets stressed, the 28-year-old marketing professional calls the provincial help line but hears the same message: “Wait just a bit longer.” She emails them occasionally but gets no reply.

Over 2.2 million like Hashmi don’t have a regular family physician in the province of Ontario, according to data from health-care researcher Inspire Primary Health Care, up from 1.8 million two years ago. The shortages are dire in Toronto, Canada’s most populous city and its financial capital. One in five Ontarians, most of them Toronto dwellers, could be without a family doctor in the next three years, according to the Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP), which represents 15,000 family doctors in the region.

“We have a full-blown health-care crisis on our hands,” said Dr. Mekalai Kumanan, president of the OCFP, which is raising an alarm. Canada’s population saw record growth in 2022, spurred in large part by an immigration-friendly policy. Older physicians are retiring but fewer medical students are choosing family medicine. And Toronto’s aging population faces ever-more medical issues.

“It’s a perfect storm,” Kumanan said.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Years-long waits to find a primary care doctor are becoming a “full-blown health-care crisis” for Ontario https://t.co/ULpoRCXX9J via @citylab

— Bloomberg (@business) July 10, 2023

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

–Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

In thanksgiving for all those who gave their lives for this country in years past, and for those who continue to serve; KSH.

P.S. The circumstances which led to this remarkable poem are well worth remembering:

It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915 and to the war in general. McCrea had spent seventeen days treating injured men — Canadians, British, French, and Germans in the Ypres salient. McCrae later wrote: “I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days… Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done.” The next day McCrae witnessed the burial of a good friend, Lieut. Alexis Helmer. Later that day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the field dressing station, McCrea composed the poem. A young NCO, delivering mail, watched him write it. When McCrae finished writing, he took his mail from the soldier and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the Sergeant-major. Cyril Allinson was moved by what he read: “The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene.” Colonel McCrae was dissatisfied with the poem, and tossed it away. A fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915. For his contributions as a surgeon, the main street in Wimereaux is named “Rue McCrae”.

On this #MemorialDay, we salute the courageous men and women who selflessly defended our nation. Their legacy lives on in our hearts. Today, we remember, we reflect and we express eternal gratitude.

We #HonorTheFallen. pic.twitter.com/QrlBns9IHP

— U.S. Army (@USArmy) May 29, 2023

The eight teenage girls, some as young as 13, made contact with one another on social media and may have never met before. But last Saturday night they gathered in downtown Toronto and after getting into one altercation wound up surrounding and fatally stabbing a man in an apparent attack over a bottle of liquor, the police said.

The killing, near the main transportation nexus in Canada’s largest city, was the latest and one of the most brazen episodes in the region in which people have been randomly targeted by groups of young attackers.

The 59-year-old victim was yet to be identified by the authorities. He had been staying in homeless shelters since the fall, the police said, and on Saturday night he was outside a shelter in the Financial District when the suspects set their eyes on him.

The suspects — including three 13-year-olds, three 14-year-olds and two 16-year-olds — appeared to have stabbed him after attempting to steal a liquor bottle from him, Sgt. Terry Browne of the Toronto Police Service told the CBC on Wednesday. All have been charged with second-degree murder.

Read it all.

Eight teenage girls, who ranged from 13 to 16 years old, have been charged with murder in the stabbing death of a 59-year-old man in downtown Toronto. Police said the girls connected on social media before meeting up, possibly for the first time. https://t.co/JPs2Vyshci

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) December 22, 2022

The Anglican Church of Canada’s national office is forecast to have a balanced budget this year—but substantial deficits and program cuts are likely in the years to follow, documents prepared for the November meeting of Council of Synod (CoGS) state.

The budget for 2023 is expected to have a modest surplus of $43,000, according to a budget document prepared for CoGS and dated Oct. 27. This includes the projected cost of $791,900 for the meeting of General Synod planned for the summer, as well as a gathering of Sacred Circle planned in the spring. To balance its budget, the church will use just over $1 million in funds that were set aside in previous years to cover these expenses, General Synod treasurer Amal Attia told CoGS. The national church was expected to have a similarly modest surplus in 2022, she said.

Prospects for coming years, however, as revenues are expected to fall, are not as rosy. The Oct. 27 document forecasts a deficit of $495,000 in 2024, $1.45 million in 2025, $460,000 in 2026 and $524,000 in 2027, and a budget narrative predicts cuts at Church House.

“Years 2023 to 2027 in the trend indicate that in the absence of increased revenue, program cuts will likely be necessary,” it states.

Read it all.

.@generalsynod sees deficits, program cuts post-2023 "Years 2023 to 2027 in the trend indicate that in the absence of increased revenue, program cuts will likely be necessary." https://t.co/l1lUf8HRRP

— anglicanjournal (@anglicanjournal) December 12, 2022

How then can we as Christians respond to the matter of physician-assisted death? First, we can call upon reason and the light of nature to affirm absolutely the value of life. Assisted death and suicide is said to be a matter of respect.

But to value a person is to value their existence. A willingness to deliberately end someone’s existence therefore necessarily devalues the person. If people matter, we must not intentionally end them.

Second, our churches can be communities where assisted death is inconceivable because the weak, the aged, the disabled, and the dying are regarded as priceless members of the community. We can be a place where those who suffer enjoy the devoted companionship, love, and support that reminds them of their value and bears them up through pain. This is, after all, what all of us long for.

Third, we can advocate for access to the very best medical and palliative care for those who are suffering or dying. The palliative care movement was started by a Christian physician, Dame Cicely Saunders, and has transformed medical care at the end of life. Yet access to good palliative care in the US, Canada, and the rest of the world is still far too limited.

Read it all.

“Assisted death is no longer seen as a desperate option of last resort but rather as one ‘therapeutic option’ among many … offered to those whose lives are not regarded as worth living.”https://t.co/jqTcFTWzIP

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) October 18, 2022

Krista Carr, executive vice president of Inclusion Canada, is one such Canadian. “Most families of children born with disabilities are told from the start that their child will, in one way or another, not have a good quality of life,” she told the National Post. “Canada cannot begin killing babies when doctors predict there is no hope for them. Predictions are far too often based on discriminatory assumptions about life with a disability.”

Roy’s statement is merely the latest episode in a series of euthanasia horror stories from Canada that are shocking even to dulled Western sensibilities. Canada’s Supreme Court overturned criminal prohibitions on assisted suicide in Carter v. Canada in 2015. Shortly afterward, parliament passed Bill C-14 in 2016, which legalized “medical aid in dying” (or MAiD) for adults with “enduring and intolerable suffering” and a “reasonably foreseeable death.” In 2021, Bill C-7 was passed, which legalized MAiD for those struggling with mental illness. Canada has become an international cautionary tale.

Impoverished people are turning to MAiD out of desperation because they cannot access the resources they need or the treatments they require in Canada’s broken healthcare system. The Toronto Star—the largest and most liberal newspaper in the country—called it “Hunger Games style social Darwinism.” The story detailed how one woman is considering assisted suicide because she cannot find an affordable place to live in her city with wheelchair access. Her tale is becoming a common one.

Sixty-three-year-old Alan Philips, who has lived with chronic pain for almost two decades, recently got approved for assisted suicide after trying for eighteen years to get spinal fusion surgery to relieve his agony. He cannot get the surgery and has been prescribed opioids instead. “I cannot get adequate healthcare,” he said.

Read it all.

Canada will soon offer doctor-assisted suicide to patients who suffer from something which (to quote the law) “cannot be relieved under conditions that you consider acceptable." A nightmarish dispatch from @JVanMaren https://t.co/qevH7bVE3L

— Samuel D. James (@samueld_james) October 19, 2022

Happy Thanksgiving to all those in Canada celebrating today 🦃 📸 pic.twitter.com/32gTrRILD7

— Luke Van Rompaey (@lukevanrompaey) October 10, 2022

Allow me to be the first one to wish you all a HAPPY CANADA DAY! Being in the east we are the first ones to start the celebration early in the morning at North Americas most easterly location. Enjoy your family and friends everyone, and celebrate living in a free country. pic.twitter.com/t42PuELnP4

— Stan Collins (@stan_sdcollins) July 1, 2022

Over 1,000 service members placed flags at more than 250,000 headstones and at the bottom of nearly 7,000 niche rows at Arlington National Cemetery and the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery, as part of Flags-In, on May 26.#USMC #MemorialDay pic.twitter.com/ZUQ9MbGSV3

— U.S. Marines (@USMC) May 30, 2022

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

–Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

In thanksgiving for all those who gave their lives for this country in years past, and for those who continue to serve; KSH.

P.S. The circumstances which led to this remarkable poem are well worth remembering:

It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915 and to the war in general. McCrea had spent seventeen days treating injured men — Canadians, British, French, and Germans in the Ypres salient. McCrae later wrote: “I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days… Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done.” The next day McCrae witnessed the burial of a good friend, Lieut. Alexis Helmer. Later that day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the field dressing station, McCrea composed the poem. A young NCO, delivering mail, watched him write it. When McCrae finished writing, he took his mail from the soldier and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the Sergeant-major. Cyril Allinson was moved by what he read: “The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene.” Colonel McCrae was dissatisfied with the poem, and tossed it away. A fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915. For his contributions as a surgeon, the main street in Wimereaux is named “Rue McCrae”.

Joas Adiprasetya, a pastor and seminary professor in Jakarta, Indonesia, has proposed an alternative to our ubiquitous “servant leadership” paradigm. He calls it philiarchy, the rule of friendship. “I have called you friends,” Jesus says, still dripping wet from the foot washing (John 15:15). This friendship is not one-sided. Jesus needs his friends, just as they need him. The rule of philiarchy means we honor others’ personhood and don’t try to subsume it into our projects, our needs, our selves.

Adiprasetya invited me to speak at his seminary. I invited him to Vancouver to teach our students. This isn’t favoritism to a friend. It’s creative friendship. We wanted our students to learn from each other. Our friends and our friends’ friends were blessed. We trusted what we were going to get precisely because we’d spent time together doing nothing but enjoying one another. He introduced me to durian—a fruit banned on public transit across Asia for its pungency and now banned from the Byassee household as well. I heard him preach in Indonesian with the fervor that I wanted among my students in Vancouver. He studied Jürgen Moltmann’s social trinitarianism. I hate social trinitarianism. I knew I was in love.

Creative friendship is worth the risk. Just ask Jesus, Peter, James, and John. When Jesus commands us to love one another, to befriend as God has done in Christ, it is hard to wriggle off the hook. Creative friendship is a means of salvation, not less promised by Christ than the sacraments or the scriptures or creation itself.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

The Archbishop of Canterbury has apologised for the “terrible crime” of the Anglican Church’s involvement in Canada’s residential schools – and for the Church of England’s “grievous sins” against the Indigenous peoples of Canada.

The Archbishop spent this weekend visiting Indigenous Canadian reserves, meeting with Indigenous leaders and Anglicans, and listening to residential school survivors, as part of a five-day visit to Canada.

Addressing survivors and Indigenous elders in Prince Albert on Sunday, the Archbishop said: “I am so sorry that the Church participated in the attempt – the failed attempt, because you rose above it and conquered it – to dehumanise and abuse those we should have embraced as brothers and sisters.”

He added: “I am more than humbled that you are even willing to attempt to listen to this apology, and to let us walk with you on the long journey of renewal and reconciliation.”

The Archbishop is visiting Canada to repent and atone for the Church of England’s legacy of colonialism and the harm done to Indigenous peoples – and to share in the Anglican Church of Canada’s reconciliation work with Indigenous, Inuit and Métis communities.

Read it all.

The Anglican Church committed grievous sins against the Indigenous, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.

I commit to walking with you on the long journey of renewal and reconciliation for as long as the Lord gives me strength to do so.https://t.co/KiAUOKtT5R

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) May 2, 2022

Earlier I wrote of how dreams have changed my life and through it, even events that have shaped others. The early indigenous explorers that discovered New Zealand were responding to their ‘a dreaming’. Augustine and his mother Monica found themselves united through having had the same dream that they were both, together, in the presence of the Lord, a reality that Augustine explored more fully in his Confessions. The silence of Quakers often led to shared dreams that had some profound social impacts, such as the abandonment of slavery, as they recognized through dreams the universal equality of each person, each made uniquely in the image of God. In a time where we think that Zoom is our only way of being ‘together’, perhaps the Lord has other ways for us to enjoy a communion that our busyness has too long resisted. Martin Luther-King energized a generation and more, by declaring so memorably that “I have a dream”. In our hyper-cognitive times, in which the rational brain is amplified, and cognition celebrated, where is the place of our emotions, even the deep depression expressed by Kierkegaard? In our dreams, our emotional life can find greater freedom of expression.

As I have entered this more sleep-filled season of my life, I sense a greater urgency to attend to my dreaming, not only because there is more opportunity – I sleep a lot more – but because I am discovering a richness of life that I was too busy to engage as fully before. I was always blessed by being raised in Spain as the ‘siesta’ was a daily feature and one I have recovered more fully in later life. But dreams are not only for the old – young men will see visions, says the prophet, Joel. I see dreams as a double consciousness that can intensify our identity as Christians, to take our faith beyond the simple affirmation of catechism and entrust our entire unconsciousness into the loving arms of our Heavenly Father. It is hard to argue with God in a dream! Instead, we can know His gentle guidance and prodding of our stubborn wills.

As we prepared this letter, Chris has pressed me to express my deep desire for you with respect to our dreaming. In response to his well-intentioned pestering, I make this my prayer for you.

Read it all.

Reflections from one of my favourite people in the whole wide world https://t.co/pPqMPKsOIC #theology #canada #wisdom

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 18, 2022

Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) act began to operate in 2016. It is a laboratory for how legalised euthanasia will operate in a largely English-speaking country. And, according to an article in the journal Palliative Care written by five Canadian specialists, it has had a very negative effect upon palliative care.

The authors interviewed 13 doctors and 10 nurses about their impressions. Some of the feedback is unexpected.

First, all of them spoke about an inherent conflict between the provision of palliative care (PC) and eligibility for MAiD. To ensure that their patients remained eligible, they had to withhold medications which would have otherwise removed or alleviated their pain. “Maintaining lucidity and eligibility for assisted death, by avoiding sedative medications, took priority over achieving good symptom control for some patients,” they write. Both the patients and the PC providers found this distressing.

Read it all.

"13 #doctors and 10 #nurses… spoke about an inherent #conflict between the provision of #palliativecare (PC) and eligibility for #MAiD. To ensure that their #patients remained #eligible, they had to withhold [#pain] #medications" https://t.co/xd1X3UHJXU#nursing #medical #VAD

— BioEdge (@bioedge) November 8, 2021

Happy #Thanksgiving to everyone waking up in my beloved Canada 🍁 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/EMiWk7HWNu

— Rickie Josen (@RickieWrites) October 11, 2021

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has won enough seats in this 44th general election to form another minority government — with voters signalling Monday they trust the incumbent to lead Canada through the next phase of the pandemic fight by handing him a third mandate with a strong plurality.

After a 36-day campaign and a $600-million election, the final seat tally doesn’t look very different from the composition of the House of Commons when it was dissolved in early August — prompting even more questions about why a vote was called during a fourth wave of the pandemic in the first place.

As of 2:30 a.m. ET, Liberal candidates were leading or elected in 157 ridings, the exact same number of seats that party won in the 2019 contest.

Read it all.

The CTV decision desk is declaring a Liberal minority government for Canada's 44th parliament. https://t.co/hwvmWpNUaJ pic.twitter.com/Ylj0EBjzFD

— CTV News (@CTVNews) September 21, 2021

The three major party leaders spent their last hours on the campaign trail Sunday stumping in key battlegrounds, making their final pitches to voters in a short and divisive campaign in which no party has managed to swing momentum its way.

Heading into election day, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives are in a dead heat nationally, according to Nanos Research polling released on Sunday.

In an election triggered two years early by Mr. Trudeau and in the midst of a surging fourth wave of the pandemic, voter turnout and the extent of vote splits on the right and left will be key to determining who forms government. In 2019, regional divisions in support allowed the Liberals to win more ridings, even when they had a smaller national vote share than the Conservatives.

Read it all.

Election day has arrived. Canadians will decide which parties govern Parliament in an election that’s been stranger than any other thanks to COVID-19 restrictions.🗳️

Here's everything you need to know to vote today.⬇️#Elxn44 #cdnpoli https://t.co/F868V98ncl

— The Globe and Mail (@globeandmail) September 20, 2021

It was a bittersweet celebration in Watson over the weekend as the St. Bride’s Anglican Church was deconsecrated.

The final mass was said by Bishop of the Saskatoon Diocese, Chris Harper, Rev. Matteo Carboni, and Archdeacon Alex Parsons on Sept. 12 with members of the Watson and Humboldt congregations in attendance.

Carboni resided over the Watson parish before Sunday’s secularization service and those congregants will now be welcome to attend mass at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Humboldt where Carboni also resides.

While the service was a mixture said Harper of celebration and sorrow, with only four members of the congregation celebrating service at the church, Carboni said they were putting in a lot of time and energy into maintaining the parish.

Margaret Henderson, one of the few members of the Watson church, said it was getting hard to justify the resources being spent on four people.

Read it all.

(Northeast Now) Last service said at Watson’s Anglican church, congregation to join nearby parish in Humboldt https://t.co/f63y2gl2DP #parishministry #anglican #canada #religion #anglicanchurchofcanada

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) September 14, 2021

Two teenage women who were barely known to anyone other than the most devout tennis fans before this U.S. Open will vie for the singles championship on Saturday in what has to be the most improbable matchup for a Grand Slam final since the modern era of tennis began more than 50 years ago.

On a Thursday night that would have been shocking had Emma Raducanu of Britain and Leylah Fernandez of Canada not been pulling rabbits out of their hats for the better part of two weeks, the two teenage sensations once again knocked off seasoned pros who exist in a different stratosphere in the world rankings.

First, Fernandez outlasted the second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, in three sets, 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-4, in a nervy, error-filled match that saw both players let go of chances to put the battle away long before Sabalenka finished herself off with one last flurry of double faults. It was Fernandez’s fourth consecutive three-set win over one of the top 20 players in the world.

Then Raducanu took the stage at Arthur Ashe Stadium and did what she has been doing for more than a week — blitzing players far more accomplished and making them play their worst matches of the tournament. Raducanu ambushed the 17th-seeded Maria Sakkari of Greece, 6-1, 6-4.

Read it all.

Emma Raducanu v. Leyla Fernandez in the U.S. Open Final

"… the most improbable matchup for a Grand Slam final since the modern era of tennis began more than 50 years ago."

Make no mistake, these young women are the two best players in the tournament.https://t.co/YhLvuQ6ELE

— Steve Holcombe (@Steve_Holcombe) September 10, 2021

A Coptic Orthodox church in British Columbia was destroyed in a fire on Monday, July 19, just days after an attempted arson attack damaged the church’s door.

Local police said they were alerted to a fire at St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in Surrey around 3:17 a.m. on Monday. By the time the fire was extinguished, the building was almost entirely demolished and only a single wall was left standing. No one was reported injured in the fire.

“While today is a day of sadness, we will not be deterred and we will rebuild,” said Bishop Mina of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Mississauga, Vancouver and Western Canada in a statement on Monday. “Our church will always be open for all and continue to be a beacon of light and hope for all in our community.”

Archbishop Angaelos, the Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London, stated Monday on Twitter that he was “saddened” by news of the fire.

Read it all.

As many as one billion seashore animals along the Salish Sea may have died as a result of the heat wave in British Columbia.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia say the heat caused a mass die-off of creatures like sea snails and sea stars, as well as mollusks like clams and mussels.

Chris Harley, a professor with UBC’s Department of Zoology, said large quantities of dead sea life were spotted at beaches across Metro Vancouver.

Read it all.

WATCH: Researchers say the heat caused a mass die-off of creatures like sea snails, sea stars, clams and mussels. https://t.co/GTOCvWKdFG

— Global BC (@GlobalBC) July 7, 2021

The Evangelical Statement of Faith

We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the infallible, authoritative Word of God.
We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today's pick: Nicolas Poussin: Seven sacraments: baptism https://t.co/dKwHGSTotG pic.twitter.com/Uph40nJAwi

— Art and the Bible (@artbible) June 13, 2021

He warned against defining God purely through abstract definitions — the usual listing of His attributes, e.g. omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving, etc. He was concerned that if this was the primary way we understood God, we risk making God an exhibit in a museum, and the attributes His labels. But God is no static abstraction. He is alive and acts in history. I thank my Pentecostal and charismatic friends for reminding me of God’s presence and power, but the lesson was first drilled into my heart by a German theologian in a Canadian seminary.

A number of implications arise from this understanding of God as a God who acts. One is that we get to know what kind of God He is by His actions. Talking about Jesus, Dr Bockmuehl said Jesus is from above but we know Him from below. In other words, Christ is part of the Trinity, He is from above, but it is His activity in history, His teachings and His actions, that let us know who He is and, therefore, who God is. The supreme act of revelation is of course His death on the Cross and His resurrection. And Israel was always exhorted to remember the Passover and God’s deliverance through the Red Sea. To take God seriously is to take His actions in history seriously.

I am very worried about some of the modern worship music. They either don’t take history seriously, focusing only on the singer’s subjective feelings about God, or they focus only on the personal histories of the composers; what God did in their lives. They are essentially ahistorical and deprive us of the bigger and more accurate picture of God revealed in salvation history and church history. They end up reductionistic and with a much smaller God.

And if our picture of God is smaller and essentially ahistorical, we end up with a weakened faith, not fully confident in what He will do in the present. If Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, we know what kind of God He is and what He will do by meditating on what He has done in the past. So if we are praying for healing, for example, we know we are praying to a God who hears, who is concerned, who cares and who comes down to deliver. We know the verbs. Knowing He is that kind of God means we pray with confidence both in His deliverance and in how and when He delivers.

Read it all.

Soo-Inn Tan–Klaus Bockmuehl and the God of Verbs https://t.co/mb2eUuTtBF #theology #canada #christology #scripture #churchhistory @regentcollege pic.twitter.com/JKlmIYI6fS

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 13, 2021

Alumni, faculty, and staff of Wycliffe College were saddened today to learn of the death of Professor Emeritus Dr Richard N. Longenecker. Dr. Longenecker—who made his home in Brantford, ON—died Monday, June 7, 2021. Predeceased by his wife Fran (2016), he was in his 91st year.

Richard Longenecker taught at Wycliffe College for 22 years (1972–1994) and was our Ramsay Armitage Professor of New Testament. He was instrumental in enhancing the academic credibility of the College so that it became a destination for evangelical students seeking to study at the doctoral level. Moreover, his status as an American Baptist layman opened the doors of the College to students beyond the Anglican Church. Professor Alan Hayes writes, “His appointment represents the turning-point for Wycliffe in enlarging its mission from the narrow focus of training people for the Anglican ministry to a more ecumenical and diverse vision for evangelical theological scholarship. He designed a new program (the Master of Religion degree) for students preparing for a diversity of lay and ordained ministries in the wider Church, including advanced research.” Dr Longenecker was also an Associate Alumnus of the College and received Wycliffe’s Doctor of Divinity degree in 1996. We thank God for his life and ministry, and, with many who called him friend and mentor, we pray for his family as they grieve his death.

Read it all.

Saddened to hear of the passing of Prof Richard Longenecker (1930-2021), with whom I was blessed to study at @Wycliffe_UofT . An erudite and careful scholar, a kind and generous person, and a faithful interpreter of Scripture. He will be missed. https://t.co/aEow5bATT3 pic.twitter.com/msOFAGLztO

— Dan Smith (@htimsnad_01) June 8, 2021

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the discovery in British Columbia is the realization that these children were not dignified by the preservation of their names. They were more than casualties of a malign social experiment, they were at one time members of families, each one a beloved child, and child of God. And they had names. As painful as it may be now to hear them, hear them we must. We must spare no effort in helping to discover these precious relics in the wreckage we have created. And when we pray, “those whom we have forgotten, do thou, O Lord, remember,” let us do so shamefully and in the hope that God has recorded for them a new name, shared only by the departed and God alone (Revelation 2.17).

Read it all.

Principal Stephen Andrews shares his thoughts on the recent tragic discovery of the remains of the 215 children. https://t.co/4doKqrOMYr pic.twitter.com/0gGiN6QJg9

— Wycliffe College (@Wycliffe_UofT) June 1, 2021

Brent himself stands as perhaps the ultimate example of these successful clerical migrants to the United States. Born in Newcastle, Ontario, in April 1862, Brent’s father was an Anglican
clergyman and a first-generation immigrant from England, his mother a descendant of Loyalist refugees from New York.20 Although the infusion of immigrants from Canada was smaller than the stream from Great Britain around the turn of the twentieth century, it was still considerable, as around 450,000 Canadians entered the United States in the quarter century prior to the First World War.21 While Anglicans represented a smaller proportion of the Canadian population, comprising around 15 per cent of all Canadians in 1914 as opposed to two-thirds of all Britons,22 there was already a well-established tradition of Anglican clergymen moving across the porous border between Canada and the United States in search of employment,23 a situation that brought Brent to the State of New York in 1886 while still in deacon’s orders. As Alexander C. Zabriskie emphasised in his concise biography of 1947, Brent’s move to St. Paul’s Church, Buffalo, was entirely pragmatic: with no opportunities available in the diocese of Toronto, ‘it was circumstance rather than conscience or preference that sent [Brent] there. He had not the least intention of remaining permanently under the American flag; rather he looked forward to returning to a Canadian country parish within a few years.’24 In fact, it took a further appointment, as associate rector of St. Stephen’s Mission in the slums of Boston, to persuade Brent to take out his naturalisation papers in 1891, and even then he
appears to have maintained dual citizenship.25 In the event, his years in Boston served to reinforce Brent’s links with Great Britain, for there he developed a formative relationship with the Society of St. John the Evangelist, or Cowley Fathers, a connection that would take him to England on his very first overseas trip in November 1891.26

Read it all (numbers are to footnotes in the original).

Inaugural Michael Ramsey lecture, tomorrow 18:30. Centre Director Prof Mike Snape discusses Charles Henry Brent: https://t.co/yEeh3Nl4eb pic.twitter.com/69TpIRFtJj

— DurhamMRCAS (@DurhamMRCAS) June 13, 2017

Heavenly Father, whose Son did pray that we all might be one: deliver us, we beseech thee, from arrogance and prejudice, and give us wisdom and forbearance, that, following thy servant Charles Henry Brent, we may be united in one family with all who confess the Name of thy Son Jesus Christ: who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Ohio https://t.co/qoIdzyymho: Charles Henry Brent https://t.co/VkDzqms9WK pic.twitter.com/BLMrjGjxXo

— J. Perot (@JeffreyPerot) March 27, 2021

From there:

The global crisis of forced displacement is growing every year. At the same time, Western Christians’ sympathy toward refugees is increasingly overshadowed by concerns about personal and national security, economics, and culture. We urgently need a perspective that understands both Scripture and current political realities and that can be applied at the levels of the church, the nation, and the globe.

In Refuge Reimagined, Mark R. Glanville and Luke Glanville offer a new approach to compassion for displaced people: a biblical ethic of kinship. God’s people, they argue, are consistently called to extend kinship—a mutual responsibility and solidarity—to those who are marginalized and without a home. Drawing on their respective expertise in Old Testament studies and international relations, the two brothers engage a range of disciplines to demonstrate how this ethic is consistently conveyed throughout the Bible and can be practically embodied today.

New Release: 'Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics' by @markrglanville and @luke_glanville.

Order now: https://t.co/47vZ3D2pSy #RefugeReimagined pic.twitter.com/c89XTY1acL

— IVP Academic (@ivpacademic) February 16, 2021