Learning from Rwanda
This is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the massacre in Rwanda, a quarter-century since 800,000 people died at the hands of their...
Beware the Politicians Crying, “Hijab! Hijab!”
This past week Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull proposed to lengthen the pathway to citizenship in his country while also...
The Cost of Free Speech on Campus
There is much to fear and loathe in the latest example of militant and violent campus intolerance. At Middlebury College in Vermont,...
Fighting Our Phobias
While the U. S. President continues to wrestle with the American judiciary over whether people wanting to enter the United States can and...
Milo, Maher, and Muck
I have never watched Bill Maher’s show in my life. I’ve seen clips of it, and of him guesting on other people’s shows, and there’s been...
The New Refugees Scare Me Too
[This is another post lightly adapted from one originally written for my blog, “On Second Thought,” offered on the website for “Context...
Neither Severity nor Sentimentality: Responding Well to Terror
The following is another contribution to my weblog, called “On Second Thought,” originally published via Context with Lorna Dueck....
Allah and Yhwh…and Tash and Aslan
Just a little more on this issue of “Which God is which?” As I implied at the end of my previous post, but now will say explicitly: I...
Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?
Prof. Larycia Hawkins of Wheaton College, Illinois, made news when she said she would wear a headscarf (or hijab) through Advent in...
On Forbearance and Listening
My wife once brought me up short, years ago, by suggesting that a man telling women to calm down when they wanted to express their pain...
Grabbing the Microphone Is a Violent Act…
…and therefore should be considered as such when it comes to the ethics of “direct action” in activism. Some of us are discussing the...
The Saguenay Case: Another Vestige of Christendom
The Supreme Court of Canada is due to release its judgment on the Saguenay case. And, alas, once again I find myself opposing friends and...
Why I’m Not Cheering the “Loyola” Supreme Court Decision
The Supreme Court of Canada has now decided, albeit in an almost even split vote, the case of Loyola High School, a private Jesuit school...
Canada’s Cultural Future: A Conference
I look forward to helping kick off a major conference here in Vancouver less than a fortnight from now. “Our Whole Society” doesn’t sound...
News We’d Like to See
Law Society Approves New Religious Law School by Irshad Chan-McCoy, Diversity Editor (TORONTO) (OF COURSE) To the surprise of many...
Holding One’s Nose to Defend Charlie Hebdo
“Secular society” does not mean that nothing is sacred. The common good is sacred. The welfare of society is sacred. And by “sacred” in...
What Is a University for?
According to University Affairs, a Canadian university professor recently worked with a student who asked that he be allowed to withdraw...
The Loathsome Quebec Charter Is Still in Process…
Like a monster from a nightmare, Quebec’s proposed Values Charter lurches forward toward law in that deeply divided province. (So much...
Another Way Terrorists Win
Bernard Drainville, the Parti Québecois cabinet minister responsible for the controversial Values Charter now before the National...
Pushing Back Quebec Secularism
The Parti Québecois unleashed its disgusting Charter in the National Assembly and dared the opposition parties to, well, oppose it,...