Calling terrorism by name

Black Lives Matter is an organization seeking to defend the rights of African Americans, prompted by the tragic deaths of George Floyd and others at the hands of police in major urban centres. Unfortunately, it has not limited itself to such cases, as Newsweek reports: Black Lives Matter Org Praises Hamas, Sparks Backlash. After the recent horrific terrorist attack on innocent civilians, a Chicago chapter of BLM issued a statement supporting Hamas. Although the statement has since been deleted, controversy continues. Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, responded with outrage:

Mapping the globe

Ever since I was a small boy, I've had a fascination with maps. Read about it here: Mapping the globe. An excerpt:

One of my prized possessions is a 1901 Cram’s Modern Atlas of the World which I purchased at an antique shop in my hometown at age 16. It’s a hefty volume with numerous indices and other helps in addition to the maps of every country in the world. The United States had only 45 states. Canada had seven provinces. To my delight, this atlas boasted a large map of Cyprus, nominally part of the Ottoman Empire but administered by Great Britain. My paternal grandparents would have been quite young in that year.

So what’s the allure? For one thing, I think in terms of maps. Familiarity with maps allows one to navigate the surface of God’s good earth. As I write, we have just returned from visiting family in the Chicago area. I know by heart the roads in the western suburbs and could easily find my way around, despite all the changes that have occurred since my youth. If I navigated by landmarks, I’d be lost in my own homeland.

Read the entire article here.

October newsletter now available

My Global Scholars newsletter for October is now online. Included are articles on Israel and Palestine following Hamas' recent terrorist attack, an online event with a pan-European audience, and historical parallels to the current discussion here in Canada of parental rights in education.

The fight for parents' rights in Canada

First Things has just published my article, titled, The fight for parents' rights in Canada. Here is an excerpt:

Last month the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) published an article with a rather condescending tone: “Where did the term ‘parental rights' come from?” Other media outlets have published similar pieces, all imbued with the notion that parental rights is a foreign concept invented by malcontents who should be trusting their betters in the provincial education bureaucracies. These articles are responding to a recent series of protests throughout Canada, a movement called 1 Million March 4 Children. The protesters are parents concerned about public school board policies that encourage gender transitioning and the use of preferred pronouns. The media have generally portrayed these protests in a negative light, with some going so far as to depict them as disseminating hate.

Sad to say, this attitude is not unusual in Canada, where secularization has largely emptied the historic Protestant churches, including Anglican and Presbyterian congregations and the United Church of Canada.

Read the rest of the article here.

Contributing factors in the Israel-Hamas war

Christian Courier has published my analysis of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in which I isolate three structural factors rendering the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian struggle almost perfectly intractable: Contributing factors in the Israel-Hamas war. Here's an excerpt:

Israel vs Hamas

I had just begun my undergraduate studies at Bethel College (University) in Minnesota when Israel's Arab neighbours launched a surprise attack on the country coinciding with Yom Kippur in the Jewish calendar. This was the fourth major Arab-Israeli war and lasted from 6 to 25 October 1973. Half a century later, Israel is at war again after Hamas' surprise attack on Israel at the weekend. But the current situation is different from what it was fifty years ago. Over the ensuing decades Israel has managed to make peace with several of its neighbours, beginning with Egypt in the Camp David Accords of 1979. In 1994 Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan signed a peace treaty, and even the Palestine Liberation Organization recognized Israel under the Oslo Accords of 1993.

European Fraternity meeting

On friday, 29 September I spoke to a group of young Christians who style themselves a European Fraternity. I had already conversed with a subset of the larger group a few months ago at the invitation of my friend Samuel Vandeputte. This time I was invited by a new friend, Hildebrand Bijleveld, to speak to a somewhat broader group on the topic of Ideologies in Christian Perspective, followed by discussion. The participants in this group were from the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Poland, and Italy.

Whenever I meet with such a group, I wish that I could have been with them in person. Perhaps I'll have that opportunity one day.

A critic's gratitude

Christian Courier has published my article titled, A critic's gratitude. As academics, my wife and I were trained to be critical, but criticism has its limits. An excerpt:

As an academic, I freely admit that people in my profession share a rather unattractive quality: we are terribly critical. Worse, we tend to approach life in general from a critical posture. We get out of bed with criticism. We eat critically. And we retire for the night with criticism haunting our dreams.

How often have I settled down with Nancy to watch a period film, only to become distracted from the plot by what to me is an obvious historical error or anachronism. Of course, I have to mention it on the spot. Even in an exhaustively researched historical monograph, I tend to fixate on the misfires, a skill undoubtedly developed during three decades of marking student papers. Given that Nancy and I are both academics, we easily feed each other’s critical inclinations. Obviously we’re quite the fun couple at cocktail parties.

Read the entire article here.