Family Day Potpourri

When Family Day was Once Per Week - Today is a statutory holiday in several Canadian provinces, known as Family Day in Alberta and Ontario. It has been celebrated in Alberta since 1990 while Ontario introduced it in 2008. It is hard to argue with the value of highlighting the importance of family, and I plan to enjoy the day by taking in a WHL Hockey game together with my son. It does merit observation, however, that the need for setting aside a day to spend with family coincides with a decline in our society's respect for a common day of rest. For me, the setting aside of one day per week for rest and worship comes from an understanding of the continued relevance of the fourth commandment. I recognize that these views are not generally shared, either in society as a whole, or even in most of evangelical Protestantism. However, given that we now have a once-a-year holiday designed to give public sanction to the importance of family, it seems appropriate to ask whether society was not better off when there was a once-per-week rather than a few times per year occasion in which the commercial activities of daily life were suspended?

Forthcoming - Hunter's To Change the World - My Cardus Senior Fellow colleague John Seel sent a note that James Hunter's influential new book, To Change the World, is being launched at the New Canaan Society Annual Retreat at The Homestead on March 5-7 . Hunter is giving the keynote address on Friday evening on the central theme of the book, "faithful presence."

This book will change the conversation about cultural engagement and provide much needed academic grounding to well meaning, but too often unreflective activism. Hunter writes, "I contend that the dominant ways of thinking about culture and cultural change are flawed, for they are based upon both specious social science and problematic theology. In brief, the model upon which various strategies are based not only does not work, but it cannot work." All who are involved in the cultural renewal conversation will need to seriously engage this argument. Published by Oxford University Press, To Change the World will be released in April.

Having had the opportunity on several occasions to engage Hunter and his arguments, I am looking forward to the important book and the discussion on cultural change strategies that it will prompt. Hunter is proposing a paradigm of "faithful presence" which (according to the promo blurb) "is an expression of a desire to honor the creator of all goodness, beauty, and truth. Well reasoned and thought provoking, Hunter's corrective argument for authentic Christian engagement with the world is refreshing, persuasive, and inspiring." More on this to come, I am sure.

Olympics - Our house like most others in Canada is not escaping Olympic fever. The Friday night opening ceremonies had impressive moments but did not keep me from nodding off to sleep. Having to learn the scoring scheme of women's moguls during the broadcast of the finals hardly qualifies me to make an intelligent comment, but the Women's finals on Saturday evening in which Jennifer Heil won silver while American Hannah Kearney won gold did have some riveting drama and a real show of athleticism. (As someone born with bad knees, however, even watching that event causes pain cringes through my system - it cannot be good for anyone's knees, can it?) This morning, the replays of Alex Bilodeau celebrating his gold medal with his brother who suffers from cerebral palsy did put a very human touch on Canada's first gold medal on home soil. For me, however, one of those in the Olympics whom I admire is Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili who responded with grace in acknowledging the Canadian sympathy and care shown in connection with the death of the Georgian luger on Friday, but also stood firm against those who tried to exonerate course organizers for the dangerous course and put the blame on the athlete for his own death. Saakashvili's comments do put sports into perspective. "One thing I know for sure is that no sports mistake is supposed to lead to a death. No sports mistake is supposed to be fatal.” Enjoying these Olympics while maintaining a perspective that puts them into their proper place is something that we all will have to work at over the next few weeks.