John G. Stackhouse Jr.'s Blog, page 34

Abortion and the U.S. Election

As so many conservative Christians, including some prominent evangelicals, seem to be fixated on the single question of abortion and eventual Supreme Court appointments they hope will undo Roe v. Wade etc., I thought it might be well to revisit … Continued

Cheap Grace, Again

You don’t need me to tell you why this famous passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s great work, Nachfolge (“Following”–called The Cost of Discipleship in the first English edition), pertains here and now: Is the price that we are paying today with the collapse of the … Continued

The Ghost of Jerry Falwell Haunts the GOP Still

The following post was prompted by the recent Pew poll that found churchgoing white evangelicals (otherwise not defined) as supporting Donald Trump in the same proportion as infrequent churchgoers–and a majority of each were on his side. Often, the two … Continued

Life on the Fifth of July

We Canadians and Americans have just emerged from the holiday weekend celebrating our respective countries’ nativities and histories. Canadians nowadays typically enjoy celebrating Canada by silly comedy pointing out our (generally small) differences from Americans, as here and here. Americans typically … Continued

Canada: Getting Worse—and Better

The name of our national holiday is, not to put too fine a point on it, very Canadian. The first day of July commemorates the July 1, 1867, enactment of the Constitution Act, 1867, at the time called “the British North America … Continued

Tolerance for Diversity Breaks Out at McGill

It’s a “man decides not to bite dog” story. The Montreal Gazette reports this week that the judicial board of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) came to the “inescapable conclusion” that “any motion that specifically targets one nation … Continued

The Conservative Party Moves On–and So Should Everyone Else

The Conservative Party of Canada just voted to remove the traditional definition of marriage (one man + one woman) from its platform and replace it with…nothing in particular. Supporters of this change were quoted over and over as saying the … Continued

“Love Your Enemies”: The 24-Karat Golden Rule for Politicians

[The following is an edited version of the address I delivered at the Prayer Breakfast of the Conservative Party of Canada in Vancouver on 27 May 2016.] Politics is a tough business. So when it comes to discussing rules to … Continued

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 with Lorna Dueck.”] I want to confess two things right up front about the Syrian refugees coming to … Continued

The #1 Sign of a Doomed Relationship

[This is another of my posts in my “On Second Thought” blog for “Context with Lorna Dueck”] On Valentine’s Day we celebrate romantic love—or we mourn its absence from our lives. Some of us, however, live tensely in between: in … Continued