One of my press gallery colleagues asked me, earlier this week, if I knew whether Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien is religious. My colleague said a radio reporter had made that assertion. Further, the reporter contended, O’Brien’s faith had sustained him in the wake of his current situation. The mayor was charged criminally in connection with allegedly trying to […]
News briefs
Veteran Christian leader Bob Birch passed away December 4, only three weeks before his 100th birthday. He died peacefully in Burnaby Hospital of natural causes, leaving wife Margaret and three sons. Pastor Bob, as he was affectionately called, was a key church figure in Vancouver during the ’70s as the leader of St. Margaret’s, a church […]
Charities hope to help Iraqi Christians
Ottawa — Christians are being “wiped out” in Iraq, and Canadian Catholics need to respond to this crisis the way they did to the Vietnamese boat people 30 years ago. That was the view of some Catholic charity representatives who attended a November 29 workshop on the Iraq refugee catastrophe. The Iraq war has created […]
Faith unscathed by Lumberworld fire
When their landmark enterprise burned down 15 months ago, a career of dealing fairly and going the extra mile with both customers and competitors stood Lumberworld owners Dave Flaig and Clive Piercy in good stead. So did their faith. Customers not only remained loyal when Lumberworld reopened for business; but contractors who’d been shopping at the Victoria, BC store […]
The State of the Canadian Church — Part I: A Nation of Believers?
Church attendance in Canada is declining rapidly. Atheism is rising. Christian moral values are being replaced by secular ones. Canada is no longer a Christian nation, and Canadian Christians will soon be a persecuted minority. These are among some of the understandings — and, in some cases, misunderstandings — prevalent among Canadians.
Giving voice to Darfur’s young
The Images bear all the hallmarks of typical children’s art: bold use of colours; carefree disregard for perspective; crude but charming likenesses of buildings, animals and people. But some of the people are bleeding; others are shooting them. Welcome to the world of Darfur’s children. These images are part of an exhibition titled ‘The World […]
OttawaWatch: Ethics at issue
The Supreme Court of Canada reserved judgment, this week, on an appeal by septuagenarian Vancouver broadcaster Rafe Mair against a BC appeal court finding that he had defamed a socially-conservative political activist. The case has been proceeding upwards in the courts since 1999, when Mair told his then CKNW audience: “I really hate to give Kari Simpson any more […]
Youth workers converge for major gathering
Nearly one thousand youth workers from across Canada gathered for the first ever Canadian Youth Workers Conference (CYWC) last weekend. The event, hosted at the Wall Centre hotel, was set against the backdrop of two Vancouver landmarks: First Baptist and St. Andrew’s Wesley United Church, and it was kicked off with an enthusiastic rendition of ‘O Canada,’ […]
Conservative Anglicans to establish new Canadian denomination
The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) has followed through on its plans to set up an alternative Anglican structure for conservatives “who find themselves unable to stay in the Anglican Church of Canada but want to stay connected to the Anglican communion.” At its conference last week in Burlington, Ontario, the ANiC made a formal […]
News Briefs: November 29, 2007
Support for Saudi rape victim Toronto-based One Free World International has joined Human Rights Watch (HRW) in condemning a Saudi Arabian court ruling. The organizations are coming to the defense of a young Muslim woman who has been sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in prison after being gang-raped last year by seven men. […]