John G. Stackhouse Jr.'s Blog, page 24

The Shadow Side of Sport

It’s NHL playoff time. The Winnipeg Jets, for whom we cheered when we lived there in the 90’s, have gotten a new lease on life and are making the Rest of Canada (outside the GTA) roar. Go, Jets, go! My … Continued

Let’s First Get a Few Things Straight

Understandably, the early Christian church was persecuted by the ancient Romans for practicing incest and cannibalism. At least, that’s what someone might have thought Christians were doing if he or she had only bits and pieces of Christian lore to … Continued

Are Christians in Exile? Not Yet

The end of the school year nears. The disastrous decision by the Prime Minister to attach the Canada Summer Jobs program to his personal values—over a coast-to-coast and left-to-right chorus of disagreement—remains in place. (Let’s not kid ourselves that this … Continued

What We Can Learn from Easter 2018

write this on Good Friday 2018, but I could have written something like it on any day, any year. For the more some things change, it seems, the more they stay the same. Good Friday 2018 comes after news story … Continued

Deciding on College? Why It’s Harder to Do than Ever

It’s that time of year again. Students are receiving acceptance/denial letters, making last-minute visits to campuses, weighing up financial aid offers, poring over websites, and talking endlessly to advice-givers. Here is some help from the American side of things. And … Continued

Holy Week Posts 2018

In case you’d like some material for further reflection this Lent and Eastertide: On Tenebrae: here On Providence, including the Garden of Gethsemane: here On Good Friday and Atonement: here and here On the revelatory strangeness of the Cross: here On Easter Sunday and … Continued

Canadian Christians’ Trumpian Moment

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” Karl Marx thus ruminated on the great, and greatly destructive, Napoléon Bonaparte being succeeded … Continued

Who Is Ready?

Last week I preached at the funeral of Evelyn Bodner, 19-year-old daughter of good friends in Moncton, New Brunswick. With the family’s approval, I off this transcript of that message. I was completely unprepared when Crandall University colleague Prof. Keith … Continued

Why Didn’t God Make You More Beautiful?

Perhaps you are one of the blessed few who are entirely content with their appearance. Perhaps you never stand in front of the mirror, as I did this morning, wondering as you take in the image before you, “Why didn’t … Continued

Was Billy Graham “the Last Nonpartisan Evangelical”?

(RNS) — In the wake of Billy Graham’s death, several major media outlets ran columns suggesting that the evangelist was the “last nonpartisan evangelical,”comparing him favorably with his decidedly partisan son Franklin. Graham père, it was affirmed, got along with every … Continued