Dr. Mangalwadi provides both a rigorous intellectual and historical account of specific ways the Bible has built our world, but also first-hand knowledge of the contrast between the consequences of a Biblical worldview and a Hindu worldview.

For a comprehensive and helpful work on the topic, please see Dr. Mangalwadi’s book, This Book Changed Everything: The Bible’s Amazing Impact on Our World (2019).

Rev. Chris Cousine is the preaching pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (CREC) in Cochrane, AB. He is married 26 years to his wife Amy, and father of three children and one grandchild. You can find his substack here.

Each year our church sets aside time to address what Scripture teaches about sexuality, marriage, and the created order. We do this not because we are obsessed with controversy but because God’s Word speaks clearly to matters the world persistently seeks to redefine. Biblical Sexuality Sunday is not a response to headlines or trends. It is an act of pastoral responsibility.

We return to this subject year after year because confusion does not resolve itself. Left unattended, it deepens. And when the Church grows silent or uncertain where Scripture is clear, the cost is not merely intellectual—it is pastoral, generational, and covenantal. God’s people are shaped by what they are taught, but also by what is assumed, neglected, or quietly surrendered.

At the same time, it is important to say what this day is not. This is not an opportunity for outrage or fear-mongering. It is not a moment to posture ourselves as morally superior to the world around us. Nor is it a time to reduce biblical sexuality to a list of prohibitions or cultural talking points. Scripture does not begin with “thou shalt not,” and neither should we.

Instead, our aim each year is clarity—clarity rooted in God’s design, clarity that gives coherence to our lives, and clarity that anchors us amid a culture increasingly detached from meaning, order, and fruitfulness. Sexuality, in the Bible, is never isolated from covenant. It is never detached from purpose. And it is never treated as self-defining. It is always given context, direction, and meaning by God Himself.

Rather than beginning with the boundaries of biblical sexuality, I want us to step back and consider its foundation. Rather than starting with what Scripture forbids, I want us to look first at what Scripture commands. In particular, I want us to see how marriage and sexuality fit within God’s original covenant purpose—and how that purpose is not discarded in the gospel, but fulfilled and expanded.

My goal here is to present to you a unifying thesis — namely that the covenant of marriage and the covenant of redemption share the same structure, purpose, and mandate: fruitfulness that fills the earth. I want to show you how marriage is the original covenant form that the gospel later fulfills and expands, and how the erosion of one covenant form inevitably undermines the clarity and coherence of the other.

The fruitful imperative

After declaring that God had made them male and female, we hear in Genesis 1:28 the first command God gives to humanity: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” This command is striking not only for what it says, but for when it is given. Before there is law, before there is sin, before there is shame, prohibition, or discipline, God gives a positive mandate. The first words spoken over human sexuality are not warnings, but a commission. Fruitfulness is not a concession to the fall; it is a blessing rooted in creation itself.

It is important to see that this is not offered as advice or preference. In God’s providence and sovereignty, this is given as covenant mission. God is not merely describing what might happen; He is commanding what must happen. Fruitfulness is the form that obedience takes in the original covenant. This means that sexuality, from the beginning, is oriented toward participation in God’s purposes rather than the fulfillment of private desires.

We should pause, then, to consider what Scripture means by fruitful. The command itself provides the first clue. Fruitfulness is immediately joined to multiplication. This tells us that fruitfulness is not solitary, nor is it self-contained. One cannot be fruitful by oneself, and one cannot be fruitful apart from the complementary union of male and female as God has created them. Fruitfulness is therefore covenantal by definition. It presupposes union, difference, and cooperation under God’s word.

Just as importantly, the mandate of this covenant union is outward-facing rather than inward. Adam and Eve are not commanded to remain where they are, content with what they possess. They are commanded to fill the earth. This tells us that the original vision was never static. Eden was not meant to be a permanent enclosure, but a starting point. Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden, in the presence of God, with everything they needed to carry out the mission entrusted to them.

The sexual union of Adam and Eve was therefore not an end in itself. It was generative. It was meant to produce offspring who would produce offspring who would produce offspring, spreading as they went, carrying God’s order beyond the boundaries of the Garden. The intention was to take what God had given them—life, blessing, holiness, and communion—and to extend it faithfully through time and space. Fruitfulness, from the very beginning, is the means by which God’s good creation is meant to grow, expand, and be filled with His glory.

This reminds us that human sexuality does not begin with restriction or prohibition, but with a God-given vocation ordered toward outward fruitfulness under His covenant authority.

The goal of fruitfulness

If fruitfulness is the imperative—the mission given to Adam and Eve—then the next logical question is: fruitfulness unto what? What is its goal, its shape, and its direction?

When we speak of fruitfulness, the most obvious form it takes is the production of offspring. That much is clear. But Scripture never treats human reproduction as a merely biological process. As our Lord makes clear in the Gospel of John, there are ultimately two kinds of children in the world: those who belong to God and those who belong to the devil (John 8:44). The question, then, is not simply whether the earth is filled with people, but what kind of people it is filled with.

Was it God’s intention merely to populate the earth indiscriminately, regardless of faith, worship, or obedience? Or was the mandate of fruitfulness ordered toward something greater? The answer is evident from the whole testimony of Scripture. Fruitfulness, while it includes the bearing of children, must also include the faithful formation of those children. The mission is not only reproduction, but image propagation.

To be fruitful, then, is not simply to create biological offspring, but to cultivate and transmit the image of God in all that it entails. Godly fruitfulness includes instruction, formation, and faithfulness. This is why the covenant places such emphasis on teaching. In Deuteronomy 6:4–9, Israel is commanded to teach the words of the Lord diligently to their children—to speak of them in the home, along the way, in rising and lying down. The Law of God is not given merely for personal morality, but so that a people might know how to live rightly before Him.

From this faithful instruction flows culture. As children are trained in worship, obedience, and wisdom, a godly culture begins to take shape—one that mirrors the original creation mandate. This brings us back to Genesis 1:28, where fruitfulness is immediately joined to dominion. Adam and Eve are commanded not only to multiply, but to subdue the earth and exercise authority over it. Fruitfulness, therefore, includes the establishment of order. God does not bless chaos. He brings form, structure, and harmony, just as He did in creation itself.

Finally, this fruitfulness is inherently generational. The covenant does not look only to the present moment, but forward through time. When parents teach their children in faith and obedience, they are training them to carry forward the same covenant mission. God’s mandate for fruitfulness is given so that His reign might spread—faithfully, orderly, and enduringly—across generations.

This helps us see that fruitfulness in Scripture is never merely biological and certainly not accidental, but purposeful, ordered, and aimed at the faithful propagation of God’s image through generations.

Christ our covenant

Next, I want you to see that Christ takes the same covenant shape. This is the crux of my thesis.

Scripture consistently refers to Jesus Christ as the Bridegroom and the Church as His bride. There is a tendency, especially in modern preaching, to romanticize this language—to turn it into something primarily emotional or sentimental. But biblically, this is not poetic excess. It is covenantal precision. The marriage imagery applied to Christ and the Church is not borrowed language; it is continuous language. It deliberately reaches back to the first marriage in Genesis and declares its fulfillment.

Let me lay this out clearly.

Adam and Eve were joined together by God Himself. Their union was not self-generated, nor merely contractual; it was a divine act. In the same way, Christ and the Church are joined together by God. Scripture is explicit that salvation is not the result of human initiative, but of God’s sovereign joining—those whom the Father gives to the Son are united to Him by grace. This is covenantal union, not voluntary association.

When God joined Adam and Eve, He declared that the two shall become one flesh. That language is foundational. But the New Testament does not abandon it; it deepens it. Christ and the Church are declared to be one body. The Apostle Paul makes this connection unmistakable when he speaks of believers being members of Christ Himself. The “one flesh” union of marriage was always pointing forward to this greater, corporate reality.

Adam was also established as the covenant head of his marriage. He represented his wife, and through him his household stood or fell. Scripture presents Christ in precisely the same role. Jesus is the covenant head of the Church. Where Adam’s obedience or disobedience determined the fate of those united to him, Christ’s obedience secures life, righteousness, and blessing for all who are united to Him.

The parallel does not stop there. Adam and Eve were commanded to be fruitful. Christ and the Church are likewise called to fruitfulness. The language of bearing fruit fills the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. Union with Christ necessarily results in multiplication—life producing life.

Finally, Adam and Eve were commanded to fill the earth. Christ gives the Church a mission that is unmistakably parallel: to disciple the nations. The Great Commission is not a new idea introduced late in redemptive history. It is best understood as the eschatological expansion of Genesis 1:28. What was first entrusted to a single couple is now carried forward by a redeemed people united to the true and greater Adam.

Christ and the Church, then, are not a departure from the creation mandate. They are its fulfillment. The covenantal union of Adam and Eve finds its fullest expression in the covenantal union of Christ and His Church. But we must be clear about what fulfillment means. Fulfillment does not erase the original mandate; it brings it to maturity. What was planted in the garden as a seed is brought to full harvest in the gospel.

The original command to Adam and Eve—to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth—was never revoked. It was assumed, carried forward, and transformed in Christ. The Church does not set aside Adam and Eve’s mission because Christ has fulfilled it; rather, she takes it up because Christ has fulfilled it. Marriage and family are not rendered obsolete by the gospel; they become the ordinary means by which the Church carries the gospel forward through history.

Christ and the Church are the eschatological and universal form of covenantal union, but Adam and Eve remain the creational form through which that mission advances in time. The Church is not called to abandon fruitfulness, but to practice it rightly—bearing children, forming them in faith, discipling them into obedience, and sending them into the world under Christ’s lordship. In this way, the creation mandate continues, not as a rival to redemption, but as its servant.

The church’s mission

Scripture does not present the Church as a voluntary association or a collection of like-minded individuals. It presents her as a bride. This is covenantal language, not metaphorical sentiment. The Church belongs to a Husband—Jesus Christ—and she has been joined to Him by God for a purpose. That purpose is fruitfulness. The identity of the Church cannot be understood apart from her covenant union with Christ, just as marriage cannot be understood apart from the union of husband and wife.

When this covenantal reality is forgotten, the Church inevitably begins to drift. She loses her sense of direction because she loses her sense of belonging. A bride who forgets that she has a husband will begin to look elsewhere for definition and affirmation. In the same way, when the Church forgets that she is joined to Christ as His bride, her mission becomes confused. The outward orientation of fruitfulness gives way to inward preoccupation.

Scripture consistently presents fruitfulness as something that moves beyond itself. Marriage exists to generate life beyond the couple. In the same way, the Church exists to generate life beyond her own walls. Her calling is not self-construction, but multiplication through faithfulness. When the Church is united to Christ, she bears fruit by extending His life into the world through the making of disciples. This is not an optional program layered onto the Church’s existence; it is the natural expression of covenant union.

When covenantal fruitfulness is replaced with self-reference, the Church begins to resemble the culture around her. Instead of being oriented outward as light, salt, and leaven, she turns inward. Her language shifts from mission to management, from obedience to self-description. Identity becomes fragmented and qualified, rather than received and unified in Christ. The result is not faithfulness, but confusion.

This confusion inevitably reaches questions of sexuality. A Church that has lost confidence in fruitfulness will struggle to explain why sexuality matters at all. Biblical sexuality only makes sense within a framework that assumes outward life, continuity, and inheritance. When fruit is removed from the picture, sexuality becomes unintelligible—either moralized without meaning or sentimentalized without purpose.

The Church’s mission, therefore, is not innovation or self-definition, but covenantal faithfulness. Joined to Christ, she bears fruit in the world. Detached from that union, she loses not only her mission, but her coherence.

This clarifies that the Church’s identity and mission flow not from cultural currents or self-definition, but from covenantal union with Christ that naturally bears fruit beyond itself.

Faithfulness in an age of confusion

How should we then live? What does all of this mean for us?

If fruitfulness is the first covenant command, if it is ordered toward the propagation of God’s image, if it finds its fulfillment in Christ and the Church, and if the Church herself exists as a fruitful bride joined to her Husband, then the question before us is not abstract. It is profoundly practical. The question is whether we will live as a covenant people, or whether we will quietly exchange covenantal faithfulness for cultural accommodation.

Scripture teaches us that God does His work through ordered relationships. Covenant always has shape. It has direction. It has roles. Adam is not Eve, Eve is not Adam, and Christ is not the Church. Equality of value does not erase distinction of office, and dignity does not negate order. From creation onward, fruitfulness depends upon receiving God’s design rather than reinventing it.

This is why questions of leadership in the Church are not merely administrative or pragmatic. They are symbolic. The Church does not exist simply to function efficiently, but to bear faithful witness. Her structure proclaims something, whether she intends it or not.

The New Testament consistently presents the Church as a bride under the loving headship of Christ. That imagery is not sentimental. It is covenantal. Christ leads, protects, gives Himself, and directs the mission. The Church receives, responds, bears fruit, and extends His life into the world. When that symbolic order is preserved, the gospel is proclaimed not only in words, but in form.

When that order is altered, confusion follows.

In much of the Western Church, the push to place women into governing and teaching authority over men has not arisen from careful attention to covenant symbolism, but from pressure to mirror cultural definitions of equality and leadership. The argument is often framed as justice or inclusion, or as gifting, or as a New Testament freedom, but the deeper issue is theological. The Church begins to say, implicitly, that covenant order is negotiable, that symbol does not matter, and that fruitfulness can be sustained apart from form.

But Scripture does not permit us to treat symbolism as incidental. The relationship between Christ and His Church is the interpretive key for understanding marriage, leadership, and authority. When the Church places herself in a position of headship over herself—when she no longer receives leadership patterned after Christ’s covenantal role—she unintentionally distorts the very image she is called to display.

This is not an indictment of women, nor a denial of their indispensable role in the Church. Scripture affirms that clearly. But neither sincerity nor affection for Christ grants the Church authority to alter what God has established. The question before us is not whether motives are good, but whether the Church is speaking truthfully with her structure. The issue is meaning.

Covenant faithfulness is not measured by sincerity alone, but by submission to God’s design.

When the Church reassigns covenant roles to align with cultural expectations, she does not become more faithful; she becomes less intelligible. The Christ–Church relationship begins to lose its clarity. The distinction between giver and receiver, head and body, initiator and bearer of fruit becomes blurred. And when covenant symbols lose clarity, sexuality soon follows, because sexuality depends upon the same grammar of difference, order, and fruitfulness.

This is why churches that abandon biblical patterns of leadership always move toward confusion in sexual ethics. The slope is not slippery because people are malicious. It is slippery because symbols shape instincts. Once the Church learns to say that form does not matter here, she will eventually say it does not matter elsewhere.

Fruitfulness requires order. Order requires faithfulness. Faithfulness requires humility—the humility to receive rather than redefine.

The call before us, then, is not to outrage or fear, but to trust. To trust that God’s design is not arbitrary. To trust that covenantal forms are gifts, not constraints. To trust that fruitfulness flows from obedience, not innovation.

This applies to marriage. It applies to family. It applies to the Church. And it applies to how we bear witness in a world that has forgotten what fruitfulness is for.

The Church does not exist to echo the culture’s confusion, but to display God’s clarity. She does not exist to reinvent herself in every generation, but to remain faithful to the covenant that gives her life. Joined to Christ, ordered under His headship, she bears fruit—not for herself, but for the life of the world.

And that is the hope set before us. Not retreat. Not capitulation. But covenant faithfulness that trusts God to bring the fruit in His time.

When the Word of God governs the household, it inevitably shapes the life of the nation. Faithful families produce faithful citizens. Ordered worship produces ordered communities. When God’s design for marriage, fruitfulness, and authority is honored, law is clarified, education is grounded in truth, and culture begins to reflect the goodness of creation rather than the confusion of rebellion. But when His Word is ignored, disorder spreads outward—from the home, to the church, to the public square.

A flourishing society does not arise from sentiment, technology, or policy alone. It arises when a people submit themselves to the living Word of God and walk according to His design.

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The Carney Government secured an unelected majority this week. This event demonstrates the collapse of representative government in Canada and the installation of a basic dictatorship. With the borders fully open and Liberal MPs now openly boasting about the “new voting base” foreigners provide, it is unlikely we will see a truly Canadian election anytime soon.

However, there is much to give thanks for and rejoice in. We cannot control the times we live in, but we can walk by faith in them.

This week, we discuss numerous realities to give thanks for and chart a course for practical faithfulness in the days ahead.

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“In sacred Scripture let us hear the voice of Him who is the wisdom and power of God the Father, and let us learn the true knowledge of all things that are.”
— John of Damascus, 675–749 AD

I write the following in the wake of two contradictory and amazing events. The first was the safe return of four astronauts from a ten-day flight to the moon. The second, performed recently by a member of Canadian parliament, was a recommendation to add more letters to the LGBT acronym. As it stands, the alphabet will soon be upgraded to MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+.

And, yes, I had to copy and paste it.

I said that these events were amazing because, although the former far surpasses the latter, both are astonishing in their own right. I noted they are contradictory because they also go together about as well as milk and vinegar. The first requires rationality, consistency, and a willingness to rigorously submit oneself to the constraints of reality. The second requires the suspension of those things, along with demanding the cruel thugs of logic and reason please wait outside until they’re needed.

Thus we begin to see our problem. A chasm yawns like Tartarus between these two worldviews. One moves with the grain of reality; the other against it. One submits itself to the world and its limitations; the other defies it. One sees there is a rational order to the universe; the other sees only an amoral landscape within which to indulge one’s perverted fantasies.

These two positions, in other words, are completely irreconcilable.

In a rational society, this divide would be obvious, but herein lies the issue: we no longer live in a rational society. We think we are rational because we can send men to the moon. But the truth is, many of the same people who laud the voyage of Artemis II will turn around and praise “gender advocate” Leah Gazan for her courage and advocacy. They will gaze in wonder at images from the heavens and then shout slogans that completely undermine the science they claim to adore.

What are we to make of a society such as this? We can only conclude that, despite our platitudes, reason is dead. Truth has perished. There are some who will protest this claim—they may point to any number of technological gizmos as evidence of our collective knowledge. But, as Socrates once said, having a Meta VR headset is not the same thing as possessing wisdom. At the end of the day, we are still engaged in a vain attempt to embrace both sanity and insanity. Such a culture cannot, in any meaningful sense of the word, be considered “rational.”

Instead, we are far closer to those whom C.S. Lewis described in The Screwtape Letters — men who have grown accustomed to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing inside their heads at any time.1 Who regard “true” and “false” to be outmoded and oppressive categories. Even by our own admission we are a “post-truth” society.

What can be done about the present situation? Is there any hope of ever recovering our reason? The answer is yes. The West was rational once and it can become so once again. But the recovery process will have to go deeper than general appeals to “common sense.” Such appeals ring hollow in a world that has lost almost all degree of commonality, and consequently, almost every shred of sense.

We need a new foundation. Or, rather, we need to return to the foundation that propelled the West into becoming a thinking civilization in the first place. We need to return to the word of God.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Already I can hear some unhappy heckler raising his voice from the back of the room. Don’t you know the Bible was written by men? Don’t you know it’s full of mistakes? Why do we need some archaic, superstitious book telling us what to do? To our imaginary interlocutor, I will respond both historically and theologically.

With respect to the historical, let’s begin by stating the obvious. The Bible, regardless of one’s opinion of its credibility, lies at the very root of Western civilization. This is simply a fact of history which, if denied, amounts to an embarrassing proclamation of ignorance. But we must go further than simply acknowledging the Bible’s cursory influence on Western culture. It isn’t merely that the Bible influenced Western thought so much as it created Western thought. That is to say, God’s self-revelation, communicated by His Spirit through the written and incarnate Word, was sole responsible for the West’s understanding of what it means to be rational — what it means to know truth and pursue it.

This point has been made very ably by Indian philosopher and public intellectual, Vishal Mangalwadi. Writing on the subject in his book The Book that Made Your World, he notes that the West, in contrast to other cultures of the ancient and medieval period, became a uniquely “thinking” civilization precisely because of the understanding of truth it derived from the Christian Scriptures:

“If God is Truth, if He can speak to us in rationally understandable words, then human rationality is really significant. The way to know the truth is to cultivate our minds and meditate on God’s Word. These theological assumptions constituted the DNA of what we call Western civilization.”2

As Mangalwadi goes on to argue, the biblical understanding of truth and its relationship to the human intellect was truly unique. Other cultures had books and printing long before the West but failed to make use of them in any profitable way. Why? The reason was religious and philosophical. Eastern views led people to believe that the universe was fundamentally irrational, and that the purpose of life was thus to empty one’s mind rather than cultivate it.3 In the West, men had been taught to view Reality as fundamentally rational, and that the eternal Word had been revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.

The Western mind was therefore awakened by the burning conviction that truth could be known. A thread had emerged between the heavens and the earth; a tether established between the mind of man and the secrets of the universe. And the engine that drove the whole revolution, gunning forward and gaining steam with every passing century, was the fact that God had spoken.

The Bible, more than any other influence, made man a truly rational animal.

The Ultimate Tether to Ultimate Truth

Okay, so what if the Bible helped our ancestors back in the day? I guess I’m glad for that, if that really is the case. But why do we still need it now that we have things like science, good government, and decent morals? I don’t see why we can’t get along fine without it.

Here we come to the theological answer. I have argued that the Bible played a pivotal role in shaping the Western mind; indeed, it created the Western mind. But my aim in bringing this to light has really been to make a further point—namely, that the Bible’s historical usefulness is not an accident but is owing to the fact that the Bible is exactly what it claims to be.

To state the matter clearly, the Bible made men rational because it is in itself the source and ground of rationality. It is the written expression of the mind of God. It is the window through which we perceive the universe as it truly is. Consequently, it is our ultimate tether to Ultimate Truth; the point of contact between the mind of the creature and the mind of the Creator. Without it, we are left only with our perceptions—shadowy slivers of the world that are subject to misinterpretation, contradiction, and change. This is why modern man’s confidence in ever being able to know anything truly has been so shaken: he has no ground upon which to stand.

With the Bible, however, this problem is resolved. For truth has been revealed by the One supremely qualified to know it, the omniscient and eternal God, in whom all knowledge ultimately resides.

This is why the Bible is necessary for the maintenance of things like “science, good government, and decent morals.” Not simply because the Bible describes these things for us, but because a fixed point of reference is necessary for the existence of knowledge at all. Without some point of contact between our minds and the truly Real, all claims to knowledge simply collapse into a soup of subjectivity. One person claims that socialism is fair, just, and equitable; the other that capitalism is the only good economic system. Another comes along and wonders what “good” could possibly mean, right before the State steps in and responds, “Why, a 40% tax rate, of course.”

This is the chaos of our modern world. At some point there simply needs to be a “Thus sayeth the LORD.”4

Conclusion

The question of which we have been in hot pursuit has been whether or not our culture can ever recover its marbles. Presently, they are scattered abroad like a 12-year-old’s LEGO collection and the prospect of ever getting them back in one place appears relatively grim. Indeed, the situation is grim—impossible, in fact—unless we retrace our steps and get busy repenting.

What this repentance will look like is a whole-hearted embrace of the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of the living God. Not simply as a helpful guide for spiritual matters, but as the authoritative revelation of the Almighty concerning every matter under the sun. From politics to ethics to government to science to epistemology—everything must be measured against this Rock, because there is no other.

And the church must lead the charge. In a world that presently lies under the power of the evil one, she alone remains the “pillar and buttress” of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Jn. 5:19). Once upon a time the church knew this, with the result that human culture was slowly lifted out of darkness and made to walk by the light of divine truth. We have since turned from this light to our ruin and destruction.

But this need not always be the case. Wisdom cries aloud, ever-willing to grant understanding to the humble fools who will heed her call.

“But the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.” (Prov. 2:6–8)

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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. Gen. 1:1-5

Scientists tell us the smallest components of matter in the universe are atoms. If you want to go smaller than atoms (we’re told) you’ll need to deep dive into the weird and wonderful world of quarks, gluons, leptons, and whatever allowed the Delorian to travel back to 1955.

Scientists refer to quarks and their kin as “indivisible” units; that is, they can’t be reduced to anything smaller than themselves. An uncomfortable silence should settle over the room at this point (as often does when quarks come up) which would be a great time for any Christians present to cough slightly. For there is an older, and more fundamental, component to reality than quarks.

We call them words.

Words are sounds (or combinations of characters) that symbolize and communicate meaning. In our day words have fallen out of favour but it’s impossible to overstate their power. Before God spoke there had been darkness; after, there was light. Before the British North America Act of 1867, there had been no nation of Canada; after, there was. Before Winston Churchill unleashed hell at the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, there had been no will to resist a tyrant; after, there was.

How is it that mere sounds and characters carry such weight? Well, at least partly because they aren’t just sounds and characters. They are beakers bubbling with meaning — to help or to harm. They are, in a way, spells, commanding form and agency from that which was previously formless.

Here would also be a good time to insert that although there are similarities between God’s words and ours, they aren’t equal. We can’t speak physical matter into existence nor set the fundamental bounds of its definition. We can’t, for example, command fire to not be hot, the sun to stand still, or the rain to fall upwards. Nevertheless, words remain the most powerful tool in the dominion toolbox. By means of words we woo, wed, work, and worship. By means of words we train our children to love their neighbours, fear God, and build his church. By means of words we subdue the natural world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded us.

Or we would have, had sin not ruined everything. Because of sin, man retains his subcreative abilities, but no longer offers them to God as a sacrifice of praise. He has become a damaged machine — vestiges of the original program remain, but his powers are unpredictable, and frequently destructive. He might name the animals or demand all baby boys be slaughtered. He might curse his wife or announce a benediction. He might write Anna Karenina or 120 Days of Sodom.

Tolkien comments on this terrifying reality in his poem Mythopoeia.

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light through whom is splintered from a single White to many hues, and endlessly combined in living shapes that move from mind to mind. Though all the crannies of the world we filled with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build gods and their houses out of dark and light, and sowed the seed of dragons, ‘twas our right (used or misused). The right has not decayed. We make still by the law in which we’re made.

We cannot escape the power of words. We cannot escape the fact that in the tongue lies all the devastation of a forest fire or a war galley. Words will inevitably flow. The only question is will they drown or nourish? Will they bless the world with truth and light? Or curse it with goblins, dark chapels, and dragon eggs.

The enfeebling agent of poison words

As an illustration of the power of words, consider the following. Recently I made a comment on the absolute state of the Conservative party, which increasingly resembles an Ikea shelving unit left out in the rain for a month. Not long after, some intelligent soul responded with the following:

Treating this as a uniquely Conservative problem misses the point. Modern politics runs on coalition signalling. Public gestures toward different groups are baseline behaviour in a system that requires constant reassurance of belonging — not proof of weakness or capture.

This. This is it.

Whether he intended to or not, this beautiful man summarized the problem that is modern politics better than I ever could have. Modern politics runs on coalition signalling. In other words, the political machine — so long untethered from truth or principle — has become so brittle, it only works if everyone equally commits to a culture of fawning and back-slapping. It doesn’t matter how insane or destructive the words may be. The system requires “constant reassurance of belonging” or it all falls apart, and you with it. Which means the constant lies, flattery, and gaslighting aren’t flaws — they’re the oil that keeps the gears running smoothly.

My commenter might be right that sycophancy isn’t a uniquely conservative behaviour. But he’s dead wrong if he thinks the following language (from a conservative) doesn’t indicate a grievous degree of weakness and capture:

The response will come; wouldn’t it be better to just, you know, not have a fragile political system? Shouldn’t we insist on a system built on truth, sincerity, and accountability?

Lol. And again I say LOL.

Modern politics is no place for such idealism. Modern politics is for adults who understand how the machine runs and have learned to operate within it; who have run the gamut of idealism, to cynicism, to acquiescence, and finally to participation. Modern politics is for people who have come to view courage, honesty, critical-thinking, and moral clarity as downright inhibitive.

If you want to know why Canada is no longer a robust nation, it’s because we no longer have robust institutions. If you want to know why we no longer have robust institutions, it’s because they’ve subsisted on the moral equivalent of strychnine and Jello for the past sixty years. A thing can’t be stronger than its diet. If your institutions — whether a household, or a government, or a church — are fed with poison, they’re not going to be strong.

They’re going to be dead.

I’m not here arguing for a powerful state. I’m arguing for a state that exists for more than the perpetuation of itself. I’m arguing for a state that’s actually able to do its job without sucking the life from its host. And I’m arguing that the state can only do this when it knows what its job is. Without a fixed point, our definitions become whichever way the winds are blowing. We’re left with pragmatism, power dynamics, and coalition signalling.

This is what “modern politics” has become. A feedback loop. A self-reinforcing parasite. A porcelain doll in a hardware store during a magnitude 8.0 earthquake.

In the beginning was light …

It’s interesting to note that in the absence of the Word, words haven’t disappeared. In fact, they’ve multiplied. But because these words are rife with lies, it’s the kind of multiplication that ultimately results in a subtraction. Like multiplying cinder blocks in a rubber life raft.

Decisions are no longer made by directly confronting problems, but via endless “dialogue” and circumlocutory memos. Conflict takes place within an ecosystem of emotional cues, complicated hierarchies, and “sussing out” who will be hurt by what course of action. Right and wrong are determined not by direct appeal to facts, but by signalling the virtue of one’s tribe. The goal is not to arrive at truth but to evade blame while shaming one’s opponents. Evil is no longer identified, it is euphamized. Lies are no longer rebuked, but welcomed as old friends. Blasphemy has become liturgy. Words ought to be a means of life. In our sin and pride, we have enlisted them as agents of death.

The mess that is modern politics should be instructive to Christians.

In the beginning there was nothing. And then God spoke. His words alone were able to take a cataclysm and transform it into an environment of flourishing domesticity. If we want to build resilient churches, households, and institutions, we must return to the blueprints. We must return to the place where dark is made light. We must return to the words of Christ and the word that is Christ.

"The Spirit breathes upon the Word,
And brings the truth to sight;
Precepts and promises afford
A sanctifying light.

A glory gilds the sacred page,
Majestic like the sun:
It gives a light to every age;
It gives but borrows none."

- William Cooper, 1779

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This week, Jeremy and Alex had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Michael Wagner on the subject of Canada’s Christian heritage and identity, along with a number of policies which have actively undermined that identity.

Many Canadians, including Christians, fail to grasp just how pervasive Christianity’s influence has been on Canada’s values, laws, and moral imagination. Even fewer are aware of the particular ways our Christian identity has been undermined through the implementation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was effectively the “progressive depth charge” that would go on to obliterate Christian policies and customs.

We also discussed the issue of Alberta Independence, for which Dr. Wagner is a leading advocate, including the doctrine of the lesser magistrate and the moral validity and responsibility to defend one’s culture.

You can purchase Dr. Wagner’s books here.

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Almost unknown in his own lifetime, A.W. Pink went on to become one of the most influential evangelical authors of the twentieth century. One young pastor, Rev. Robert Harbach, described Pink’s “pastor's heart” and his “warm, heartfelt, and fatherly” demeanor.

Although many of these older authors have since been eclipsed by the sheer volume of contemporary resources, one need only spend a few pages browsing their meditations to realize they are the fountainhead of whatever tributaries we now benefit from.

We have abridged and updated the following from Pink’s original tract, The Godhood of God.

The Godhood of God! What do we mean by this phrase? How sad it is that such a question even needs to be asked today. And yet it does, for our generation is almost completely ignorant of its important truth. What has instead become popular in universities, pulpits, and the press is the dignity, power, and achievements of man. To the modern mind, if God exists at all, He is little more than an abstraction — a being so far removed from the world that He must have little to do with our mundane lives.

Within this theological void, man thinks of himself as a free agent and the sole determiner of his own destiny. Such was the devil’s lie at the beginning—“You will be like God.” (Gen. 3:5).

The question we are faced with is this: what is God like? For the answer, we must turn from human speculation and satanic insinuation to divine revelation.

What is the Godhood of God?

When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that “God” is more than an empty title; that He is more than a distant spectator looking helplessly at the suffering sin has wrought. When we speak of the Godhood of God we affirm that He is “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev. 19:16); that He is something more than a disappointed, dissatisfied, defeated being filled with noble ambitions but lacking the power to carry them out; that He is something more than one who, having endowed man with the power of choice, is now unable to constrain him to do anything; that He is something more than one who has waged a protracted, but unsuccessful war with the devil.

To speak of the Godhood of God is to say that God is on the throne as present, objective fact and not as a piece of abstract theology. To speak of the Godhood of God is to say that the steering wheel is in His hand. It is to say that He is the Potter and that we are the clay; that He shapes vessels both for honour or dishonour, according to His own sovereign right. To speak of the Godhood of God is to say that He “does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth, and that no one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’” (Dan. 4:35).

To speak of the Godhood of God, in other words, is to give the Creator His rightful place; it is to recognize His divine majesty and bow to His universal scepter.

The Godhood of God stands at the base of divine revelation: “In the beginning God,” (Gen 1:1). On it, all other doctrines must be built, and any doctrine not built upon it will ultimately fail. At the beginning of all true theology lies the truth that God is God. He is absolute and irresistible. Without this, we face a closed door. With it, we have a key that unlocks every mystery.

This is true of creation: exclude an almighty God and nothing is left but blind and illogical materialism. This is true of revelation: the Bible is the solitary miracle of literature. Exclude God from it and you have a miracle with no miracle-worker to produce it. This is true of salvation: salvation is “of the Lord” (John 2:9) — exclude Him from any aspect of salvation and it vanishes. This is true of history, for history is “His-story.” It is the outworking in time of His eternal purpose. Exclude God from history and all of it becomes meaningless and purposeless.

“In the beginning God.” These are not only the first words of Holy Scripture but the first principle of all true philosophy. Instead of beginning with man and attempting to reason back to God, we must begin with God and reason forward to man. It is a failure to do this which leaves unsolved the so-called “riddle of the universe.” Begin with the world and try and reason back to God — what is the result? It is this: that God ends up having little or nothing to do with it. Begin with God and reason forward to the world, however, and you now have a light to shine onto every problem.

Because God is holy, His anger burns against sin. Because God is righteous, His judgment falls on those who rebel against Him. Because God is faithful, the solemn warnings of His Word will be fulfilled. Because God is omnipotent, no problem can master Him, no enemy defeat Him, and no purpose of His can be thwarted.

In the beginning, God. In the center, God. At the end, God.

But as soon as this is insisted upon, men will stand up and tell you what they think about God. They will go on about how God must work consistently with His own character — as though a worm was capable of determining what is or isn’t consistent within the divine nature. People will say, with an air of profound wisdom, that God must deal fairly with His creatures — which is true, of course — but who is able to fully discern divine justice? Or any of God’s attributes?

The truth is that man is utterly incompetent of forming a proper estimate of God’s character and ways. It is because of this that God has given us a revelation of His mind, where He plainly declares that “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa 55:8-9). In view of such a scripture as this, it is only to be expected that much of the Bible will conflict with the sentiments of the godless mind, which is naturally opposed to God” (Rom. 8:7).

A creature’s response

One of the most flagrant sins of this age is irreverence. By irreverence I am not now thinking of open blasphemy. Rather, I have in mind the failure to ascribe the honour which is due to the Almighty. It is the limiting of His power and actions by our degrading conceptions: it is the bringing of the Lord God down to our level.

There are multitudes of those who do not profess to be Christians who deny that God is the omnipotent Creator, and there are multitudes of professing Christians who deny that God is the absolute Sovereign. Men boast of their free will, their power, and their achievements. They forget that their lives are at the sovereign disposal of the Divine Ruler, and they have no more power to thwart His divine counsel than an insect has to resist the foot of an elephant.

Ah, my reader, this is the first great lesson we have to learn: that God is the Creator and we are the creature. That He is the Potter and we are the clay. This is the harvest of all life’s lessons, and when we think we have learned them, we soon discover that we need to re-learn them.

God is God and has the right to dispose of you as He sees fit. It is for Him to say where you will live—whether in riches or poverty, whether in health or in sickness. It is for Him to say how long you will live—whether you shall be cut down in youth, like the flower of the field, or whether you will live to old age. Yes, and it is for Him to say where you will spend eternity.

One of the profoundest mysteries of the Incarnation is that the mighty God descended from highest heaven and took upon Him the nature of the creature and came down here to show us how to wear it. That which differentiated the life of Christ from all other lives was His absolute and joyous submission to the Father’s will. “My food is to do the will of him who sent me” (John 4:34) was the keynote of the thirty-three years that He lived among men.

Have you benefited by the example left us by Father’s beloved? Has divine grace shown you how to wear your creature nature? Not in self-assertion, but in self-renunciation.

Only in the school of Christ can we learn to say, “Not my will, but Yours be done.”

Some applications:

1. Pink states that “one of the most flagrant sins of this age is irreverence.” This claim might strike us as odd or misplaced. Typically when we think of “flagrant sins” our mind goes to various public travesties such as abortion, euthanasia, or the multitude of sexual perversions now normalized in our society. Yet all of these flow from a single, polluted source: a degraded view of God.

   Although secular culture has obviously put its own hellish energy behind the debasement of the divine, it is professing evangelicals that have inflicted the most damage (Rom. 2:24). From goofy day camps to permissive divorce culture, from non-threatening sermons to unforgivable concessions to the state, it is Cchristians who have demonstrated, by their actions, that God is not almighty.

   Canada’s recovery will begin when Canadian Christians repent of their worldliness, pathetic “kingdom-growth” strategies, and the general casualness of our fellowship with the Consuming Fire. Judgement must begin at the household of God.

2. Pink states that “the first great lesson we have to learn is that God is the Creator and we are the creature.” Sadly, it is a lesson proud, rebellious sinners least want to learn. We don’t want to “wear [our] creature nature.” We want to throw off our creature nature and instead robe ourselves in the divine nature. The reason the serpent’s lies were so effective is because they so effectively resonated with the defiance of a fallen nature. Apart from grace, we echo with our pharisee forebears, “We do not want this man [Jesus] to rule over us!” (Luke 19:14). This rage at God manifests in the defacement of His creation — murder and mutilation. We’re like the child who would rather see an object destroyed than rescued from its torments and redeemed to proper usage.

   National recovery will begin as we repent of our rage at the absoluteness of God; at the eternal, immovable principles of his cosmos; at His sovereignty; at our fragility and dependance; at the immutability of His will and the mutability of our own.

   As long as Canada is content to lather itself in delusions of niceness and amiability, nothing will change. The only man that left the temple justified was the one who owned himself a sinner (Luke 18:13). We must acknowledge our defiance for what it is and acknowledge the ruin that has resulted from it. And we must acknowledge that only God can change us.

   At the cusp of building the temple, David finds himself blown away at the fact that the normally miserable and miserly Israelites had suddenly become so generous. Then he remembers:

   “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you. I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity.”

   1 Chron. 29: 14-17

   Our hope for Canada isn’t that we suddenly come to our senses. Our hope for Canada is that God, in wrath, remembers mercy.

3. We only see the “Godness of God” at its clearest when we view it through the lens of His Son: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ,” (2 Cor. 4:6). Pink’s introductory remarks warn us that we will never see God rightly when we view Him as some transcendent abstraction — someone so high and holy that He remains unaffected from the suffering of His creatures.

   This is not the God of the Bible. In the Bible we see a God that so loves the world He made — despite our rejection of Him — that He sent his only precious Son. One who serves, and works, and weeps, and bleeds, and dies, and rises, and ascends. In Christ alone do we see the “Godness of God.” In Christ alone are all of his attributes honed and sharpened to their keenest edge. As we are transformed by seeing this glory, so our stubborn wills are changed.

   Instead of dominating creation, we will instead respond with “joyous submission to the Father’s will.”

- B.I.

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It’s becoming hard to describe Canada as anything else but a tragedy of our own making. Increasingly, we resemble Jerusalem in the latter days of her apostasy — once a beacon of justice and peace, now a centre of idolatry, bloodshed, and universal mockery (Ezekiel 22:1-5). The root of this ruin isn’t solely the fault of any particular party, immigration policy, or economic strategy. Rather, it has come about from our exchanging the supremacy of God for the illusory and impotent supremacy of man.

It is this cosmic treachery that is ultimately responsible for the erosion of our nation. Only as a nation acknowledges the supremacy of God can there exist a shared bank of values from which to base a shared, formal law.

A united nation must have shared basis for law

By “law,” I mean, broadly, the duties and penalties every citizen is responsible for and subject to. Where there are no shared duties or penalties, there can be no nation; there can only be individuals, families, and tribes. It is only the formal, shared commitment to a set of values, enshrined in law, that can unite otherwise disparate persons and groups into what we know as a nation. This should be fairly obvious. If certain groups think it is morally permissible to steal from and/or kill their neighbours, and other groups believe such actions to be unlawful (and thus subject to penalties), these groups cannot, in any meaningful sense, form a nation. To even attempt such a thing would be to render the word “nation” meaningless.

The concept of a nation that includes formal, shared obligations was once a view held by all Canadians. Our introductory letter to new citizens once emphasized this reality: “Your citizenship carries with it the obligation to live in peaceful brotherhood with your fellow-Canadians and to do your part, to the best of your ability, to preserve Canadian ideals and institutions.”1 Citizenship and shared obligations are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other.

If this is the case, a critical question follows: What is the basis of these obligations? The only rational answer is the true and living God. This isn’t to say that all nations presently acknowledge God as the basis for law. It’s to say that all other bases for law are ultimately only assertions, being that they lack an objective grounding.

Note the claim is not that, as Christians, we simply think our way is best — as if we were just one of many special interest groups vying for influence. Rather, it is that the triune God of Scripture is the only justifiable authority to appeal to in establishing laws, and that all other appeals to authority are false, arbitrary and unjustifiable. In sum:

1. A shared and formal commitment to a particular set of laws is a necessary component of any nation.

2. God is the only justifiable source and standard of said laws.

What follows are some necessary biblical principles we must maintain as we consider the nature of a nation, its laws, and its duty to God.

Laws reflects values

A nation’s laws inevitably reflect its values — what things it considers to be good or evil. In the past, Canadian society valued the dignity of the individual. This principle is rooted in the reality that all individuals are created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:27). Thus, we instituted laws which upheld the value of the individual and punished those who sought to deface that value. Murder, for example, is an assault on human dignity and the image of God and ought to be punished accordingly (Gen 9:6).

It is no surprise that as the value of human life has dissipated in our society, so too have the formal laws protecting it — to the point where we now tolerate the murder of innocents on a scale, and with a kind of ghoulish casualness, that would once have been unthinkable. Such laws (or lack thereof) surrounding abortion and MAiD ultimately reflect a society that has lost all value for human life.

As the Creator, God alone has the authority and ability to define what good is — and by “good” we mean that which functions according to its created purpose. We read repeatedly in the opening pages of Genesis that God looked at the world He made and said it was “good.” In other words, it was functioning the way it was supposed to. This helps explain why the only thing described as not good in the pre-fall world was that Adam was alone (Gen 2:18). Again, this corroborates the idea that “good” is characterized by that which fulfills its God-given duty.

Adam could not fulfill his responsibilities without a helper, which suggests there is an inherent purpose, and therefore value, to all created reality.

The supremacy of God or the supremacy of man

Our own charter begins with the recognition of God’s supremacy: “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.”² All politics can be boiled down to how we answer the following question: Will God or man be supreme?

If the world was created by God (Genesis 1-2), then God alone is qulified to determine what is true. Thus, our role as creatures isn’t to define reality, but to discover it. It doesn’t matter what letters we have in front of our name or how many of our fellow creatures approve of what we’re doing: we cannot alter or create reality. Any attempt to do so is simply a manifestation of our own vanity — the original source of our corruption.

As only God made and ordered the world, our laws can only be called “good” to the extent that they reflect that original design.

At the suggestion that they abdicate the throne, devotees of the secular humanist religion might revolt. But might I humbly suggest that, as we inhabit a time in history known as “clown world,” we should really start reconsidering the wisdom of letting the lunatics run the asylum. We gave man’s supremacy a chance. But instead of the flourishing land of freedom we were promised, we managed to transform one of the most prosperous and peaceful nations in world history into the nearly-failed State we inhabit today.

The who shapes the how

A society that recognizes the supremacy of God will be characterized by reason, a desire to be guided by objective principles, and an impulse towards persuasion (as opposed to coercion). Only as we recognize the supremacy of God and His word are we able to recognize reality; that is, are we able to see what’s true.

It is these fundamental principles that our House of Commons, as an institution, was built upon.

It is perfectly consistent with our forsaking of God that this same House has now become little more than a marketplace of lies. Where man is supreme, debate, reason, and persuasion become irrelevant. Where man is supreme, we are left only with the futile task of attempting to establish values through law. Consider the stream of recent progressive legislation (environmental agendas, euthanasia, reconciliation initiatives, etc.) — virtually none of it has been established by appeals to reason or objective value. This is because the purpose is no longer to uphold defensible values but to impose otherwise indefensible positions.

It is perfectly consistent for a society that rejects the authority of God to view the law as a means of coercing people into compliance.

The Supremacy of God upholds the rule of law and limits human authority

The defining feature of the Christian West was once the rule of law, which necessarily places limits on human authority. As we have already seen, the charter introduces the supremacy of God as the necessary precondition of the rights and freedoms enshrined into law. These principles are grounded in the reality of God’s absolute authority as divine Law Giver and man’s unique identity as a creature.

It is the assertion of man’s supremacy that has resulted in the various destructive philosophies we see today. Among the worst of these are moral relativism, secularism, and multiculturalism.

Moral relativism is a fraudulent ideology because nobody actually believes morality is relative. Even its fundamental claim that “morality is not objective” is itself an objective moral claim as well as a flaming contradiction. To demand that “You can’t say you’re right” is really to demand that “You can’t say I’m wrong.” Although this ideology often passes for humility, it is actually the opposite. The contemporary iteration of relativism as a so-called “tolerant” philosophy is merely a hypocritical pretext to rule out all absolute truth claims. As everyone should recognize by now, the adoption of moral relativism in education, media, and law has not lead to a more tolerant, peaceful society.

Secularism undermines the values and laws of a nation by denying the only objective basis by which to enforce them. By removing God as the basis for morality, the secularists remove the only authoritative basis by which such a thing can exist. It isn’t that a secular society ceases to make moral claims; it is that it lacks all basis by which to make them.

Multiculturalism undermines nations by assaulting its shared basis of law. If, as has been demonstrated, a nation can only exist while there is shared commitment to a particular set of values, then what we must acknowledge is that the goal of multiculturalism is the destruction of nations. Culture cannot simply be reduced to certain preferences for food or architecture. Rather, culture is the summation of its values, traditions, and laws. For a nation to have a shared culture, it must agree on those shared values which form the basis of its shared laws, which ultimately form its national identity.

Conclusion

I began by noting the tragic trajectory of Canada. But I must be equally clear that the Canada project need not end in ruin. God didn’t create the world for tragedy but for redemption. However, this redemption involves the reordering of all things around the supremacy of the Son (Col 1:18), who rose from the dead to triumph over a world hell-bent on ruling itself.

And He offers life to all who would surrender.

We cannot flourish as individuals, families, and nations while we reject the supremacy of God, seeking instead to “do what is right in our own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Such a path only leads to misery and death, as we are fast finding out. If only we would “humble ourselves, and pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways, then He will hear from heaven and will forgive us our sin and heal our land.’ (2 Chronicles 7:14).

May God call us back to him.

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In recent years, I’ve noticed a marked increase in terms like “insane,” “crazy,” and “ridiculous” to describe our present cultural moment.

Perhaps you’ve witnessed the same phenomenon. Some social gathering is taking place, a lull in the conversation occurs, and a well-meaning fellow (who’s a bit uncomfortable with awkward silence) decides to blurt out the latest tidbit of insanity he happened to see on Instagram that morning. The rest of the group murmurs their agreement, a chorus of grumbling ascending to the heavens like smoke from a garbage fire, and pretty soon everyone is pitching in their own anecdotes and stories. Eventually the dust settles and you all salvage what’s left of your composure, albeit a little dishevelled in spirit and far more disgruntled than you’d like to admit.

Such experiences have become commonplace. The crazy has become too ubiquitous to ignore.

The explanations of the insanity, however, are as varied as Joe Rogan’s podcast guests. Many simply want to lay the blame with “the other guys.” It’s the libs! It’s Trump’s fault! It’s immigration! It’s the boomers! This strategy is quite popular and is employed across the board by conservatives, liberals, and four-year-olds alike. The only problem with it (and it’s just a teeny-weenie one) is that it lacks all traces of depth, thoughtfulness, and explanatory power.

After all, what makes a man think he’s a woman? And what makes a whole culture believe him? What drives a country to murder its seniors instead of caring for them? What compels a culture celebrate sodomy? What makes it destroy its children? These, and a host of other questions, demand an answer—one that goes deeper than blaming any one individual, group, institution, or government.

Presently, our culture seems utterly unable to provide one. Thankfully, the word of God is not so constrained.

Exchanging the truth for a lie

In Romans 1:18–32, the apostle Paul sets forth a blistering rebuke of the Gentile world. Among the many things he notes, one of the most prominent is its moral and sexual insanity:

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves…For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another…And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” (Rom. 1:24, 26–27, 28)

Rebellion leads to judgment, judgment to perversion, and perversion to insanity. As G.K. Chesterton memorably put it: “Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain.”1 Yes, and amen. Both Scripture and experience testify to this fact.

But central to the apostle’s argument is a deeper premise. He’s not simply gesturing feverishly at the irrationality of the world; he’s explaining why such is the case. The reason he gives centres around humanity’s rejection not of God generally, but of His authority as Creator in particular: “...they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (v. 25; cf. vv. 18–20)

There is a fundamental connection between our acknowledgment of the Creator and our own sanity. A necessary link that, once cut, results in the steady descent into madness.

In other words, the recognition that God is our Maker and that we are His creatures isn’t a secondary matter. It’s not a private religious belief that can be tucked away in our hearts alongside our views of doilies or the nephilim. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth” is something far more foundational. It’s the very precondition of order, stability, governance, and rationality itself.

Without this pillar, human societies crumble. Morality becomes subjective, truth becomes relative. And before you know it, Cletus is making a beeline for the women’s bathroom.

So much for common sense.

Unchaining ourselves from the sun

Ironically, one of the people who saw the connection between God and sanity most clearly was the atheist thinker, Friedrich Nietzsche. Tracing out the devastating implications of the “death of God” for the future of human society, he wrote:

“What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?”2

Nietzsche himself remained hardened and recalcitrant toward the Christian faith throughout the course of his life. Nevertheless, he saw the startling, even horrifying, consequences of his worldview. Something that most atheists since him seem unwilling to do.

If God is dead, Nietzsche saw, so is meaning. If God is dead, so is truth. If God is dead, so is any transcendent basis for order, logic, rationality, purpose, morality, reason, and ethics. All that remains for the human race is to face the “infinite nothing.” To steel oneself against the cold indifference of reality and embark on a voyage of self-creation. In this terrifying new world, there is no ultimate right or wrong, up or down—there is only instinct, desire, and power.

This is the world as Nietzsche envisioned it. It is also the world we presently inhabit. A world of drag shows and abortion mills, of sexual chaos and postmodern lunacy. In short, a world in rebellion against its Maker, groping in the fog and confusion of a “debased mind.”

“And God said”

In glorious contrast to the darkness and futility of contemporary thought, the words of Scripture thunder: “And God said…And it was so.”

Here the very framework of reality is erected. Not on purely natural causes, but on the sovereign, almighty, and authoritative Word of God. God’s will, in other words, expressed through His Word, is the foundation stone of all creaturely existence (Rev. 4:11). It is the principle that gives being, order, and coherence to all of creation. As the psalmist says, “...he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps. 33:9).

In practical terms, this means that God, and no other, is the one who sets the bounds and limits of all reality, giving form and shape, purpose and direction to all created things. He fashions each creature “according to its kind” (Gen. 1:11, 12, 21, 24). He determines the changing of times and seasons (v. 14). He sets the great lights in the expanse of the heavens and fills land and sea with all manner of living things (v. 17, 24–28). This world neither moves nor exists upon its own initiative: it leaps in happy obedience to God’s command.

“The LORD, He is God,” is the great confession of all rational beings. It’s the building block upon which the sanity of the world either stands or falls. To kick against it is to inch toward the abyss. It’s to open the door to whatever vile impulses may come spilling out of the fallen human heart. It’s to surrender every creature as a possible object of man’s perverted and capricious will.

But to rejoice in this confession—to happily own that God is our Maker—is to step into warm and sunlit places. For here our whole posture toward reality is altered: no longer do we stand over the world in proud defiance, we receive it as a gift. Nothing is ours, yet everything has been entrusted to us, given by the hand of God to be stewarded for His glory.

On this view, then, nature is not like a piece of clay to be molded as we see fit. Rather, it is, as Bavinck put it, a “revelation of God’s thoughts and virtues…an unfurling of His wisdom and reflection of His glory.”3 Hence, nothing in creation—from maleness to femaleness, from marriage to family, bodies to sex—is up for debate or redefinition. All creatures have received their form and telos from Almighty God. All must serve their intended purpose. The project of the human being isn’t to pervert these purposes, but to discover and steward them according to God’s good design.

This is the soil out of which civilization grows. The closer we live to it, the greater flourishing we experience. The further we move from it, the more we plunge ourselves into misery and confusion.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, our nation is faced with the choice of Nebuchadnezzar. We may either continue in our insanity, chewing grass like the ox and growing more and more beastly by the day, or else lift our eyes to heaven that our reason might return (Dan. 4:33–34).

I, for one, recommend the latter option. God is merciful and may yet restore to us our former majesty and splendour (v. 36). He may yet send counselors and lords to seek us out, that the kingdom be established and still more greatness be added to us (v. 36). This, of course, would be a magnificent display of His undeserved grace and kindness. But it is possible: God is that good.

And we should pray to that end.

“Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.” (Dan. 4:37)

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Show Description:
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The most important pillar of a flourishing nation is God!

Jeremy and Alex open the new series called ‘The Dominion Project’. The goal of this project is to produce a Dominion Declaration, which will be a practical application of the Christian faith to the pursuit of a flourishing nation. The Declaration will, Lord-willing, serve as a flag for Christians to both rally around and fight from. The first and most fundamental doctrine is the doctrine of God, on Whom all things, including nations, depend. This week, we discuss how faith in the True and Living God is necessary to a flourishing nation.

📖 Chapters ⏰
00:00 Introduction
00:29 Opening Scripture: A Deuteronomic Warning
01:21 Podcast Welcome and Banter
02:25 Church Building Hunt
04:05 Nomadic Church and Trust
05:25 Ministry Politics and Gratitude
08:58 Alex's Week and Soup Talk
10:00 Dominion Project Vision
16:04 God and National Flourishing
20:34 Theocracy Is Unavoidable
23:42 Democracy to Authoritarianism
28:13 Who Rules the System
29:43 Theocracy Limits Tyranny
31:13 Christ Rules the Nations
32:04 God as Truth Foundation
35:09 Moral Clarity and Justice
37:05 Canada’s Christian Roots
43:06 Culture Follows Its Gods
45:23 Multiculturalism and Decay
50:17 Identity, Unity, and Revival
55:57 Wrap Up and Reading List

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Not long ago I put out an article commenting on both the brilliance and banality of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent Davos speech. For those whose schedules won’t let them to go back and read it, I basically summarized it as equal parts rhetorically brilliant and epistemologically oblivious.

What do I mean by epistemologically oblivious? By epistemological, I’m referring to that branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. In other words, what distinguishes justified belief from opinion. In other words, how we know what we know. And by oblivious, I mean oblivious — like the young lady at the roundabout yesterday who apparently views “right of way” as more of a nice idea than a legal right. In the same breath as Carney attempts to tell Canadians what Canada is and what it should be, he reaffirms his commitment to pluralism — whose only rule is that you’re not ever allowed to define what something is or what it should be.

But our problem today isn’t just that different people have different answers to the question “How can we know anything?” It’s that most don’t even bother asking the question in the first place. Which means that podcasters, pundits, and politicians can freely spend their days in “nothing except telling or hearing something new,” knowing the majority of their audience will just passively receive it.

At the end of the day, what makes Poilievre’s vision for Canada any better than Carney’s? What makes Bill Gates’ vision for the West any better than Trump’s? Or Elon Musk’s? Or Peppa Pig’s?

Without addressing the epistemological questions, all you have is zeal without knowledge. All you have are a bunch of people hawking their best guesses on how to fix things, with no real reason why we should listen to them beyond how smart they sound, how funny they are, or how many followers they have.

Rehydrating wisdom

One thing that everyone who doesn’t work for the government seems to be able to agree on is that Canada is in a very bad place. Birth rates are declining, 5% of all deaths are due to euthanasia, no one can afford a home, and our most productive province is seriously considering whether to catch the last train for the coast.

When it comes to solutions, answers vary. Perhaps we just need more data, or new trading partners, or lower taxes, or less immigration, or more AI, or more vending bikes stocked with ketamine freeze-pops. Again, the question remains — why one solution over another? Why not all of them at once? Or some of them? Or none of them?

Sooner or later, we’re going to have to admit there is no cure for our nation-wide epistemology problem apart from recovering a fundamental basis for knowledge. There’s no point in arguing about what we should or shouldn’t do if there’s no fixed point to start from — just like there’s no point in trying to hang a picture on the wall if there’s no nail to hang it on.

I mentioned pluralism earlier, but pluralism is really just one of the fruits of secularism, whose goal has always been to delete any point of contact with fundamental knowledge. Or more accurately, to render obscene even the prospect of fundamental knowledge.

Our forebears were not as blind. The authors of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms also seemed be aware of the need for fundamental knowledge. Whatever their intent, they at least identify Canada as a country founded on principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law. How can we know anything? How can we identify a truth from a lie? Because there is a supreme God. There is a singular point of authority. There is a fixed point of morality.

What Canada needs — what will determine whether she recovers her legacy of justice and freedom or becomes a Bolshevik safe space — is to come back into the light.

A Light Shining Ever Brighter

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Genesis 1:1-3

Light is crucial to knowledge. Without it, we stay ignorant.

And yet even within the category of light there are distinctions. Microscopes have a small light underneath the stage to help illuminate specimens. High beams on our vehicles allow us to trace the curvature of a rural road at night. Refrigerator lights tell us exactly what the options are when we pillage its contents at 2AM. But although these lights may be helpful, they are not fundamental. They are secondary; they are imitative; they are, ultimately, a symbol of a much weightier light.

Enter the sun.

The sun provides light, heat, and energy. It affects weather, ocean currents, and photosynthesis, while its massive gravity holds the solar system together. It enables vitamin D production, regulates circadian rhythms, and influences the Earth’s climate and auroras. Without the sun we wouldn’t just be inconvenienced. We’d be dead. Not to mention the immediate peril the Milky Way galaxy would be in.

I bring up this analogy to illustrate why the Canadian recovery conversation needs to go back further than traditional values, democracy, founding fathers, or European ancestry. For whatever light these are, they are lesser lights. They are echoes of some older, brighter truth.

The problem in Canada isn’t that things have gotten a little dim and we need to slightly increase the wattage. The problem in Canada is that the kind of fruit we’re exhibiting suggests a degree of darkness that might best be described as “stygian.” It’s the kind of darkness you find in crypts, catacombs, and certain Hollywood diaries. It’s the kind of darkness only God can interrupt, much like he did at the beginning of creation.

In Genesis, we see the “state of nature” apart from God, which isn’t innocence so much as chaos. When God speaks, he reveals himself as the fundamental point of order — the point at which darkness becomes light, where formlessness becomes form, where inscrutability becomes accessible, and where dust becomes man. In God alone is darkness dispelled, which is why Solomon begins Proverbs where he does, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy one is understanding.”

One of the shabby triumphs of secularism is that people have come to hold the separation of church and state as some kind of sacred dogma — as if a pure state of governance can exist only insofar as it is isolated from divine knowledge. But that was never its intent. Francis Schaeffer notes, “The way the concept is used today is totally reversed from the original intent … To have suggested the state separate from religion and religious influence would have amazed the Founding Fathers.”

To say the safest state of man is isolation from the fundamental point of wisdom is like saying the safest state of a bungee jumper is isolation from his anchor point. No doubt this is what pagans want to be true. It’s easier to force the lock than find the key. It’s easier to affirm man, as an individual or collected into various states or tribes, as the measure of all things. It’s easier to rule than submit — even if it means your empire is just a mountain of burning tires.

These are, of course, all lies. For only in God’s light do we see light.

To argue for some bank of wisdom or knowledge outside of God that will somehow fix Canada is the height of naivete. Any “ism” that doesn’t end with the supremacy of God in Christ will just become another darkening ideology. The sooner we mature in our ability to tune out godless pedagogues, the sooner we can hope for recovery.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. Colossians 2: 8-10

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The tragedy of Tumbler Ridge was not a random event. It was the consequence of a collective promotion and toleration of destructive lies. We should mourn the victims, and take responsibility by repudiating lies wherever they are found.

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It also, for me, marks an age where, statistically speaking, I have about as much life behind me as I hope to have in front of me. Only the Lord knows, and I don’t want to presume. I could breathe my last breath before posting this. But regardless of how long the Lord preserves my life, the fact remains: I have now lived long enough to have some things to reflect upon. I’m not sure if it is a common experience, but I find myself looking back more than ahead these days, and I thought I should articulate some of these reflections, even if only for myself.

Gratitude:

Of course, I have much to be thankful for, although I spend far too little time reflecting on this and offering to God the gratitude He deserves.

I’m not sure how much of it is a natural disposition, but I am more aware than most people of the problems around me and within me. I don’t coast through life with the same ease and indifference that I see in many people. I become concerned with troubles very easily. I think that’s actually a big reason for why I’ve been a part of planting a church, starting a school, starting a business, and leading a ministry. I see a lack or need, and I assume it’s up to me to provide at least a part of the solution. One of the consequences of this mentality, however, is that contentment and gratitude are more elusive than they ought to be.

But an honest assessment of my life would warrant unending thanks to our Lord.

He has blessed me far beyond what I deserve.

Firstly, I am His. I have been rescued from death, and given eternal life. My sins are forgiven. I know the truth, and it has set me free. Nothing else compares.

Further, I married a 1-of-1 woman, who is truly committed to my good, even above her own. She is someone I admire and respect in her own right and, for some reason, she has given herself to helping me. Virtually all of the other blessings and fruit in my life are a direct result of her love and support. She’s the person I most want to be around, and the human source of whatever strength I have to fight evil as best I can. She is an incredible mother to our two children, who fill me with pride and delight. My home is a busy but happy place, and the love is deep.

I have the honour and blessing of pastoring a church that I love and enjoy. I have the blessing of serving alongside elders whom I love and respect. My top-two favourite preachers are also members of my own church, so I am well-fed when I take a break. My family is respected and loved by our congregation. Not many pastors, I have come to realize, can say all of that. I get the blessing of focusing my heart on God’s word each Sunday, and worshiping our Lord through preaching. That’s what I love most in life, and when I feel as though I am living according to God’s will for me; when Jesus Christ is big, and we get to glimpse Him in Spirit and truth, even if only in a mirror, dimly for now.

I often tell Bec, our riches are our relationships. We have loving and loyal friends, of such a calibre that is uncommon in this dark world. Truly, they are worth more than any riches in the world. I haven’t known what it is to be alone, perhaps forever. And that is a rare gift.

Loss:

As I have now lived a little while in this fallen world, I am increasingly marked by a feeling of loss. I don’t spend as much time looking forward in anticipation as I do looking back in sadness.

The first funeral I officiated for our church was my own Dad. I’ve experienced the joy and excitement of my wife’s announcement of pregnancy, and the pain of loss. Twice. I’ve buried my friend. I’ve done more funerals with tiny coffins than I ever feared I would, and seen infants and children take their last breaths. I’ve had close friends who shared many meals around my family table become treacherous. Even the city and nation in which I reside has become nearly unrecognizable to me.

I’ve seen many things I love disappear, and I carry a sadness with me now that, at this point, I just accept. I’m tired now, and it is the kind of tired sleep doesn’t fix.

Could I be more thankful? Yes. Could I be less anxious? Yes.

But could I unburden myself completely from the pain of loss, the horror of death, and the sorrow I carry each day? No.

That’s a job for our Lord.

My job is to rejoice in the midst of it (cf. 2 Cor 6:10).

Regret:

Now that I’ve lived a little while, it feels at times like I have experienced as much failure as fruit.

One of the pervasive feelings I experience is that of regret. I think of these things at night, when the house is quiet and memories flood my mind. I regret not having more courage as a teenager to stick up for those who were looked down upon and mistreated. I regret not having more love and patience with my dying father. I wonder about the brothers and friends who fell away, and if I could have done more. I think of my failures to love my daughters as I ought, or to enjoy them more fully while I was anxious about many things. I regret ever being irritated and unloving with a woman who has shown me extraordinary love and respect, and of the kind few men experience.

These things come to mind often now.

One of the ways in which I have had to mature is to adopt a realistic view of a fallen world, without succumbing to anger, bitterness, and despair. And how to walk in repentance and faith, not enslaved to past failures. In some ways, I feel like I’m in the middle of that process.

Hope:

I thought about the remedy to my failures and fears and sorrows and regrets. I thought about the hope I need to sustain me for whatever days I have left. I keep circling back to the beautiful words of the Catechism:

“What is your only comfort in life and in death?

That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death— to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.”

This has always been all I’ve had, however much I’ve realized it, and all I’ve ever needed. And it will be enough whether I barely last the day, or am granted decades more.

What would you do with $25,000,000?

Maybe you’d renovate a French château and turn it into a tricked-out summer home. Maybe you’d grab Chopard’s newest 201 carat watch, which also looks like something you’d find in a Caribbean souvenir shop next to a punch bowl filled with shells. Maybe you’d just buy a bag of avocados.

Here’s another question. What would you do with $25,000,000 — of someone else’s money? If you’re a provincial government, I’ll tell you exactly what you’d do. You’d buy a rusted soviet-era submarine, fill it with rocks, then send it into the Atlantic Ocean to run military drills. I know this because it’s what Ontario just did. Except instead of purchasing a literal sinking ship, they’re building a brand new, 25-million-dollar public school.

You might be wondering what my problem is. You might be wondering, in light of the illimitable ways our tax dollars could be squandered, why we shouldn’t take some micron of comfort in the fact that some of it is actually going towards a worthy cause.

Well, it all comes down to definitions. Specifically, your definition of “worthy” . . . and “cause” . . . and “going towards.” That last one especially. In an ostensibly free society, I often find myself wondering why I’m required to pay for services I neither use, nor want, nor want for anyone else. If Jefferson is right, and I have reason to believe he is, then “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

And at this point — if only they were propogating ideas. The hard fact is that many public schools in Ontario no longer resemble education centres so much as they do underground Muay Thai fight clubs, and have been variously described as “alarming,” “distressing,” and finally, “in significant crisis.” Teachers, once hired to teach, are now responsible for the redirection of airborne furniture. One reports:

. . . I spend most of my time just trying to keep everyone, including myself, safe,” she said. “If one of the students gets upset and starts throwing furniture around, I have to do whatever I can to make sure no one gets hurt . . . My hope now is to make it to retirement without being badly injured.

And if you think “making it to retirement without being badly injured” sounds like something a bomb-disposal unit or logging worker might say, you’d be right.

But here we are.

The well is poison

The problems facing public schools are multilayered — like a cold-cut tiramisu — but they share a common condition. It isn’t, fundamentally, a lack of funding. It isn’t, fundamentally, a lack of support staff. It isn’t, fundamentally, that Lil’ Davey thinks 4+4 = Montana. It’s that Canadian institutions are downstream from Canadian households, which are locked in a full-scale, decades-long identity crisis. Households are headwaters. If the stream is contaminated at the source, things ain’t going to improve further down the line.

The sad reality — and I mean that — facing parents and children today is that most of them have no idea where their duties begin or end. Lil’ Davey, never having encountered discipline at home, is a walking keg of Ammonium Nitrate at school. His parents are surprised when they get a call from the principal later that evening. “Davey had a bad day,” he explains. “He threw a desk at Mrs. Finnigan and shattered her collarbone. She’ll never paraglide again.” It can’t be their fault, the parents reason. Davey must have ADD. Davey must need medication. Davey must need a new gaming chair.

That problem is we’ve lost the plot. And we’ve lost the plot because we rejected the story. And without a story, you don’t have characters, or development, or objectives, or resolution. You just have a bunch of people running around, divided up into those who throw chairs and those who run away from chairs.

Francis Schaeffer outlines the trajectory:

The basic problem of the Christians in this country in the last eighty years or so, in regard to society and in regard to government, is that they have seen things in bits and pieces instead of totals. They have very gradually become disturbed over permissiveness, pornography, the public schools, the breakdown of the family, and finally abortion. But they have not seen this as a totality — each thing being a part, a symptom, of a much larger problem. They have failed to see that all of this has come about due to a shift in world view — that is, through a fundamental change in the overall way people think and view the world and life as a whole.

This shift has been away from a world view that was at least vaguely Christian in people’s memory (even if they were not individually Christian) toward something completely different — toward a world view based upon the idea that the final reality is impersonal matter or energy shaped into its present form by impersonal chance. They have not seen that this world view has taken the place of the one that had previously dominated Northern European culture, including the United States, which was at least Christian in memory, even if the individuals were not individually Christian.

When the West abandoned her story (Christ as Creator, Saviour, and King), a false and fragmented one rose to fill its place (Man as Creator, Saviour, and King). The breakdown of society isn’t a flaw in the materialist program. It is the only and inevitable end. Canada’s institutions only remained tolerable insofar as her “Christian memory” endured.

Jesus Christ is the Sun. He is the central Mass which maintains order and harmony in the solar system. One cannot dispense with the Sun without reducing the heavens to incoherent dust.

And yet, that’s what we did.

We rejected the Son. We exchanged the eternal glory of the Creator with the inferior glory of the creature. We exchanged the enduring Word of Christ for the trending word of man. We exchanged his multi-generational epic with our scabby tabloid personal ads. The reason everyone is running around throwing chairs at each other is because that’s what you get when you take away Christ. He is the Story within which every character finds their origin and telos. There is no reality in which one can accept the presuppositions of materialism and still have a coherent society.

Let it go, let it die

When I was a boy, I found a mangled robin under the porch — no doubt the unhappy referee of some local cats’ lacrosse game. As boys will do, I brought it inside and insisted my parents call the vet. But the robin was beyond the reach of medicine. My parents knew, and deep down, I knew, that the appointed consummation for that lil’ guy was a hefty bag and the tailpipe of our Mazda 4-Runner.

So it is with public education.

The state needs to stop administering taxpayer transfusions to a corpse that died sometime during the night. And if the state has become too blind to see it, taxpayers are going to have to start seeing it for them. This isn’t alarmist rhetoric. This isn’t about getting even. It is the next logical step of civil disobedience. At some point we’re going to have to admit that our addiction to paying taxes has become less about what Caesar is owed, and more about what Caesar demands. It isn’t principled. It’s self-protective. And all of us are paying the price.

The other, and most important, part of this is to recover the story within which we find our duty and identity, the first of which is to repent and be reconciled to God (Acts 17:30). God says that even the plowing of the wicked is sin, which tells us that, apart from faith, even outwardly “good” deeds, like farming and education, do not honour God.

Only when we are in a right position towards God can we be in a right position towards others. Only then will husbands love their wives. Only then will wives respect their husbands. Only then will parents take up their responsibility to discipline and instruct their children in the fear of the Lord. Only then will children take up their responsibility to submit to the discipline and instruction of their parents. Only then will teachers and school boards take up their responsibility to partner with parents, not in place of parents.

Who are we going to serve? That’s the twenty-five million dollar question.

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“In the same year, after Easter, King Alfred, with a few men, made a fortress at a place called Athelney, and from it with the thegns of Somerset he struck out relentlessly and tirelessly against the Vikings. Presently, in the seventh week after Easter, he rode to Egbert’s Stone…and there all the inhabitants of Somerset and Wiltshire and all the inhabitants of Hampshire—those who had not sailed overseas for fear of the Vikings—joined up with him.”1

In the year of our Lord’s Incarnation 878, the isle of Britain had almost fallen. Her grassy hills and ancient forests, once the happy resting place of humble Saxon farms, had been swallowed up in fire and shadow.

Norse invaders were the purveyors of this darkness; Oden’s awful insignia their sign of conquest and ruin. Always and everywhere they roved now like wolves: burning, breaking, raping, destroying. Under their feet almost all of Britain was sunk in darkness, and the darkness was black and terrible.

One place, however, had not yet fallen; one place had yet to bend the knee. That place was Egbert’s Stone, and here the men of Wessex found their courage.

Here they answered Alfred’s noble call, and here they gathered for war. Farmers, craftsmen, ordinary folk—not at all the stuff of legend and lore—assembled round the ancient stone and listened as their hearts were stirred by the King from Athelney. From hence they would go on to win a stunning victory at the Battle of Edington, altering the course of history forever and bringing about the birth of the English people.

Egbert’s Stone was thus the place where light was kindled once again. Love and liberty awakened here, slumbering loyalties found their vigour, and fear was trampled down. Britain was saved at Egbert’s Stone—and perhaps through her the world.

None but God can say what might have happened without the courage of these faithful few. But what can be said is wonderfully apparent to all with eyes to see: darkness is not so mighty as it seems; courage, though small, can fell the greatest foes; victory doesn’t always belong to the strongest; and love is a far more ardent force than greed.

Put simply, Egbert’s Stone reminds us that fairytales are more than tales and that unbending courage in the face of overwhelming odds is not a childish ideal but a manful necessity.

Virtue such as this was cherished once, and it was so for good reason: it was cherished because it was true; it was loved because it was noble.

The Egbert’s Stone Podcast

Recovering the virtues that built our civilization begins by first recovering a love for them. This is what the Egbert’s Stone podcast aims to do. By returning to the works of previous generations—the stories and tales that made our world—we hope to rekindle a love for the Western tradition in the hearts of the common man.

We hope to answer the cynicism and despair of the present moment with the joy and wisdom of former times.

We hope to provide stability and rootedness by tethering ourselves in some small way to the ages that preceded us.

Our culture currently regards the past with scorn—we are thankless children. Yet we owe these forgotten fathers and mothers an immeasurable debt: our world was built by their hands.

Egbert’s Stone is thus a podcast about literature and history. It is a podcast dedicated to remembering and enjoying the great stories and events that have shaped our world.

It is, in short, one more attempt to “hold a candle to this dark world”2 and exalt whatever is lovely, commendable, and true (Phil. 4:8).

We hope you listen along with us as we explore the riches of our Christian heritage.

Listen to Episode 1

Recently, the ruling class has again insinuated that loyalty to one’s nation requires absolute obedience to the State, even to the point of armed conflict against friends. This raises the question of whether or not the State and the nation are synonymous, and if loyalty might actually require dissent at times. Join Alex and Jeremy as they discuss the necessity of loyalty, and how it is to be given in a world filled with various relationships.

But as it does, it primes our hearts for the arrival of the King whose light was about to rise on this monstrous world. The King who would speak peace to the nations and whose reign would be from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth.

The ancient Danes had yet to hear of this great King, but His coming was as sure as the dawn. As John said, the true Light was coming into the world—indeed, it was here already. And that Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

You know what bothers me? Of course you do. You’ve been reading this publication for months now. You know what really bothers me? Our national catalogue of “commemorative days.” These include, but are not limited to, Lebanese Heritage Month (November), the National Day of Observance for COVID-19 (March 11), and my personal favorite — British Home Child Day (September 28). For those who don’t celebrate, on British Home Child Day every Commonwealth citizen is required to take in at least one homeless British child and make sure they finish their meat before they eat their pudding.

Recently, and because it’s my duty as a Canadian to treasure each and every one of these days, I noticed that Canada now has TWO separate days on which we’re expected to acknowledge, and presumably act on, Islamophobia. But herein lies a problem. For most commemorative days, it’s enough to burn some incense, sacrifice a cat, or wallow in feces with your neighbor. But what can you, a lowly citizen, do in solidarity against Islamophobia?

Easy. Just say it’s a thing. Say it exists.

See, Islamaphobia is a bit like Peter Pan’s pet fairy, Tinkerbell. If you want her to live, and not die, you have to shout her name. You have to clap loudly. You have to let your friends and relations know she isn’t just made up. If you don’t, she will disintigrate like a malt ball in the washing machine.

So vast is your government’s benevolence that all they require from you is this tiny little lie. Okay, well maybe a few more. Alright, so a lot more. But don’t worry — they’re all just little. Boys can be girls. “Assault style” is a definition. Israel is a terrorist state, Palestine is not. The grass is blue, the sky is green.

The state, via Canada’s Magic Multicultural Calendar, really wants you to believe it cares about diversity when what it actually cares about is making the notion of a single transcendant authority seem ridiculous. With the ultimate end goal of inserting itself as the sole authority (Psalm 2). What they don’t realize, of course, is that Islam doesn’t care about progressive values. It doesn’t care about gender equality week or national day for truth and reconciliation. It isn’t interested in a seat at the table.

It wants the whole table.

In which I state uncomfortable facts

The fact is, there’s no such thing Islamophobia. The term is about as meaningful as neurotoxiphobia or hurricaniphobia.

A phobia is an irrational fear. But there is nothing irrational about fearing/avoiding/rejecting a religion whose entire history consists of violent subjugation. Where you can witness, in real time, entire villages jumping around and cheering while the body of a battered woman lies bleeding out in the back of a jeep. Where you can observe, with your own eyes, what present-day Islamic republics do to those who protest their regimes.

These are not exceptions. They are normative. Where Islam goes, people suffer.

Where is such bad branding supposed to turn? The answer is Canada.

For all those lauding Carney’s recent speech, few seem interested in the man’s supernatural powers of contradiction. On the one hand he wants “to take decisive action to address the horrifying rise in hate and hate-motivated crimes.” On the other hand, he wants to welcome an ideology responsible for more hate crimes than anything else in the modern world — except maybe communism. As totalizing systems, dissent can’t be tolerated within either of them. Once in power, they not only have no problem biting the hand that fed them, but going on to devour the rest of whoever the hand was attached to.

Sadly, Canadian soil, being rich in suicidal empathy, has become a destination wedding for would-be autocrats from all over the world. All they have to do is claim to be a persecuted minority and Canadian officials on both Left and Right will crawl over each other in a desperate bid to appear The Most Compassionate. “Here’s some money! Here’s a phone! Here’s free accommodations! Here’s some guns! Here’s a driver’s license! Here’s a place to build your mosque! Here’s a seat in parliament!”

Honour to whom honour

In Romans 13:7, Paul says to “Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.”

It comes down to honour. If you honour the things that are honourable, and dishonour the things that are dishonourable, your life will be ordered. For example, the fear (reverence, honour) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When you reject the fear of the Lord, you don’t get wisdom. You get lunacy. You start believing stupid, dangerous statements like “Islam is a religion of peace

Our problem is that we don’t know who, or what, to honour. We don’t know the criteria of honour. We don’t even know what honour looks like. We remove statues of objectively great men and replace them with “multidisciplinary artworks.” We hang tranny flags alongside national and provincial ones. We prioritize criminals over victims. We prefer doctrines of demons over “the word of the Lord [which] endures forever.” The same Word which, incidentally, our country was founded on.

All of this will be accused of unloving. But this accusation should hold as much weight as a blind man who tells you he doesn’t like your tablecloth pattern. He can’t see. To love someone is to tell them the truth. It is to give honour where honour is due. It is to withhold honour where it is not due. It is to administer ridicule where it is due. Elijah didn’t bow his head in quiet support while the prophets cut themselves on Mt. Carmel. He asked them when they thought Baal would be done in the bathroom.

There is nothing about Muhammed, or the life of Muhammed, or the various maxims he scribbled on rock and leaves, that is remotely deserving of honour. It is, in fact, worthy of the highest and most explicit ridicule.

And if you don’t think saying such a thing is loving Muslims, I’ve got a calendar to sell you.

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On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech that people are calling “unmissable,” “forceful,” and a “manifesto of free people.”

Carney’s speech was rhetorically brilliant. It was intelligent, pointed, and organized. It manifested a level of awareness we haven’t seen from a Canadian politician in living memory. There were literary allusions, appeals to history, and a stirring call for Canada to liberate itself from a “rules-based international order.” There were glitzy new terms like “value-based realism” and “variable geometry.” There were almost-plausible aphorisms, like “We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.” Weighed against the metrics of pathos, ethos, and logos, it was a flawless specimen.

It was also completely and utterly empty. I mean it. None of it meant absolutely anything. It was an exquisitely decorated, 26-bedroom, multi-story with ocean views, castle in the sky.

Let’s start with Carney’s attempt to proximate Canada as some kind of moral leader on the global stage. Carney stated:

“We aim to be both principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter and respect for human rights.”

You see that? We’re a “principled nation,” committed to “fundamental values.” What principles? What fundamental values? Great questions. Er, um — we don’t have any. A fact Carney makes clear a few sentences later: “Canada is a pluralistic society that works.” Pluralism is, by definition, opposed to the possession of fundamental principles and values; being that it is, in theory, an equal committment to ALL fundamental principles and values.

Never mind that even on the basis of pluralism’s own definition, Carney fails. The claim is made, in geriatric activist-speak, “Our public square is loud, diverse and free.” But remember that time the public square assembled in Ottawa to decry the desecration of Canadian’s basic rights and freedoms? Remember when Carney himself derided the event as an “occupation,” “sedition,” and a form of “anarchy” and endorsed military action against them? Remember that time Carney’s hand-picked Minister of Justice introduced a bill directly attacking the public square? Remember that time when Jason Jacques, interim parliamentary budget officer, was fired for calling the Liberal budget for what it was — “unsustainable,” “shocking” and “stupefying”?

Whatever else pluralism is doing, it certainly isn’t “working.” Canada herself exists as an enduring word and testament to the devastating application of pluralism on the ground. We endorse humans being ripped apart in the womb, advocate for the chemical castration of children, refuse to punish criminals, and proudly boast euthanasia as the 5th leading cause of death in our country.

Carney’s speech seemed to be an attempt to gaslight the world into believing Canada has some kind of established moral basis from which to ethically conduct international business. It does not. Canada, and Carney, don’t have “values.” What we actually have are a bank of Davos-approved jargon that sounds wonderfully innovative on stage and utterly meaningless everywhere else. What we actually have are platitudinal takes on various globally charged conflicts (Ukraine, Venezuela, tarrifs, Greenland and Denmark, Trump, etc.).

None of these takes flow down from principle. They flow from observance of the status quo.

For all his rhetoric on the dangers of compliance, Carney is the living embodiment of the cowardly greengrocer. In the same speech, he boasts that “[Canada] has concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar.” Apparently our “rapid diversification plan” involves partnering with explicit communists and Islamic emirates. Despite Carney’s apparent “respect for human rights,” he is apparently willing to set aside such peccadilloes. This, apparently, is what he means by “acting consistently.”

The US, for all its foibles, is the closest the world has to a moral compass. Relative to the rest of the world, it is fast on its way to becoming the last earthly bastion of law and order. No one who witnessed Charlie Kirk’s national funeral can deny that in America, there still exists the memory of an aroma of life (2 Cor. 2:16). This, I would argue, explains the root of global hostility towards the States. America, with its Bible belt, second amendment, and free speech is a rebuke to the abortive virtues of the WTO, the UN, the COP, the EU, and whatever other supranational acronyms exist in festering collective.

This is why they must be silenced. This is why Carney’s speech resonated so deeply. It resonated with all the rats who don’t want their dark dealings exposed to the light. It resonated because it capitalized on the simmering resent possessed by aggrieved nations all over the world; resent that their own godless systems have turned out as unproductive and inhumane as they have. All that vitriol needs a scapegoat. America is that goat.

Canada is where she is due to years of neglect by elected officials — most recently by Liberals, but going back decades. We refused to extract minerals, we refused to build pipelines, we refused to build oil refineries. We alienated Western Canada. We invited displacement-levels of immigration. We ensnared buildable land in environmental gridlock. We ransacked taxpayers to fund a parasitic national bureaucracy. We arrested pastors and patriots. We condemned graffiti on mosques and looked the other way when dozens of churches were burned to the ground. We did all of that. Our current status, as a rapidly-decaying “middle power,” exists because of our own cowardice and mismanagement.

The truly tragic part of all of this is that there was, in Carney’s speech, a vestige of what Canada could be in the right hands; of what Canada could be on return to actual, transcendant principles. There was a grit, a resolve . . . a kind of malnourished solidarity.

Should Carney’s “new world order” materialize, however, Canada will be just one more vassal state for China to milk.

May God, even in judgement, remember mercy.

“Has a nation changed its gods, even when they are not gods? But My people have changed their greatness for that which does not help them. Be full of wonder at this, O heavens. Shake with fear and waste away,” says the Lord. “For My people have done two sinful things: They have turned away from Me, the well of living waters. And they have cut out of the rock wells for water for themselves. They are broken wells that cannot hold water.”

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