May snippets

Our family recently heard the wonderful jazz guitar music of Michael Maguire, who plays on a seven-string guitar. He's definitely worth listening to. I especially appreciated his renderings of Antonio Carlos Jobim's music.

The next stage in the deconstruction of marriage has come a little sooner than some might have expected, but it cannot be doubted that it's the logical outcome of recent trends: Threesome Marriages. The time may not be long in coming when the Toronto Symphony Orchestra will show up at city hall to apply for a collective marriage licence. Couldn't happen, you say? Don't be too sure.

Some months ago I reviewed Philip Jenkins' Lost History of Christianity for Christian History. Now my friend Paul Marshall has reviewed the same book for the Assyrian International News Agency: The Disappearance of Christianity in Its Homeland. While we're on the subject, Random House has just published the newly translated 1922 first-person account of the Armenian genocide by Grigoris Balakian, Armenian Golgotha, which is reviewed here by Andrew G. Bostom. We should remember to pray for our brothers and sisters in that troubled part of the world.

When I was a young man I experienced something of a second conversion in the form of a renewed awareness of the comprehensive claims of the gospel. This led me towards the Reformed tradition, especially as mediated by Abraham Kuyper and his successors. However, I can well understand that someone reading this inspiring address by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput might be attracted to Rome: New Life in Christ: What it Looks Like, What it Demands. Catholics and protestants alike should read it and take it to heart.

What would it be like to live in a city without vehicles? I'd love to find out for myself. There is at least one place in the western world where this is a lived experience: In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars. Now if only we could do something like this in Hamilton.

Congratulations are due to my sometime co-conspirator Gideon Strauss, who has just been appointed president of the Center for Public Justice in Annapolis, Maryland, succeeding the retiring James W. Skillen. We are happy for the Center but sad for the CLAC and Cardus, where he has made such a profound impact. Strauss will continue to edit Cardus' journal, Comment, after he takes up his duties with the Center in October.