2011‑2022, and is preserved here for archival purposes.
Russell Kuykendall says the musical dismissed by some as white bread civics lite brings hip hop attitude to U.S. constitutional history.
The musical Hamilton poses the question of how the American Revolution might have unfolded had the principals been people of colour. All principal roles portraying Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Burr, Lafayette, Laurens and the Schuyler sisters ar...
Retiring this summer after 46 years as editor of the Chesterton Review, Father Ian Boyd tells Peter Stockland why the great Christian journalist has such enduring appeal and importance.
At dinner during an event I attended last weekend, a young journalistic rising star of decidedly Calvinist conviction acknowledged G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy ranks among the most inspiring books he’s read.
The confession draws surprisingly ...
Newly minted Conservative leader Erin O’Toole’s best bet for sussing out his Liberal foes is putting his money down on the newly appointed Finance Minister’s eight-year-old manifesto, Robert Joustra writes.
It’s not often a new Minister of Finance has written a prize-winning economic manifesto. Chrystia Freeland, in her 2012 book Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Globa...
Reviewing Joan Thomas’ historical novel Five Wives, Natalie Morrill wonders what moral calculus contemporary readers can bring to evangelizing engagement with vulnerable populations.
Mincaye Enquedi died April 28 of this year. He was, as near as anyone could say, 85 years old, an elder among the Waorani people of Ecuador.
I first heard about his death on Twitter. ...
Anne Applebaum’s new book eulogizes the global ruin of classical liberalism as an empty table at a dinner party that former friends refuse to attend, reviewer Robert Joustra writes.
“Is friendship possible,” Romanian writer Mihail Sebastian wondered in 1937, “with people who have in common a whole series of alien ideas and feelings – so alien that I have only to walk in the door and they suddenly fall silent for shame and embarrassment...
Calgary’s new public library will unveil a vending machine in the new year that delivers locally written stories and poems at the touch of a button, Mario Toneguzzi reports.
It seems you can get almost anything from a machine these days.
From your favourite coffee to your favourite soda and snacks, vending machines have become a natural part of our fast-paced lifestyle. There’s even a vending machine that dishes out pizz...
John Stackhouse, Jr. pays fond tribute to celebrated pastor, scholar, writer, Bible translator and poet Eugene Peterson, who died Monday of this week.
There are many stories of Eugene Peterson’s powerful, pastoral presence. Perhaps predictably, however, my own favourite story is of his absence.
...
If literature has ability and duty to blend social issues with intimate character, Convivium contributor Josh Nadeau writes, the novels of Robertson Davies reveal those in-between spaces where things are, and are not.
If it's difficult to speak with nuance or clarity when it comes to the place faith occupies in contemporary culture, it's not for a lack of exposure – unless you're stuffed deep into a particular kind of echo chamber, it's a difficult thing to avoid. The sa...
Convivium reviewer Lloyd Mackey finds David Kitz brings a dramatist’s gifts to his novel which re-tells the Passion story in The Soldier Who Killed a King.
In reading The Soldier Who Killed a King: A True Retelling of the Passion, by Ottawa’s David Kitz, I was aware of a certain déjà vu. The reason for that awareness became clear upon noting the bits of legalese on the requisite copyright pag...
John Weston finds a new book on leadership to be a crowning moment in the faithful and sagacious public life of the Reform Party founder
No one has tried harder in leadership to move the dial away from glitz and towards good character than Preston Manning. It’s fitting that he’s sought a crowning moment in his career by writing a scholarly and practical book on pursuing good character in le...
In her continuing series for Convivium seeking to put into daily life the lessons of the Rule of Saint Benedict, writer Breanne Valerie learns from stillness why God is a Person of few words
I recently attended a workshop where the facilitator began with saying something along the lines of “with words people can open your spirit or close your spirit, and if there is anything I say or do today that closes your spirit in any wa...
Convivium’s Hannah Marazzi offers up a hymn to books that refreshes our faith in the life of reading as sustenance of the soul.
I have always loved books and learned early that a sure way to secure long lasting friendship lies in feeding a lifelong addiction to the written word. It’s why I smiled when I peeked around the corner and saw a small stack of books in tucked on the bottom ...
On an evening walk through dark woods with her brother, Celia Farrow explores the prospect that only a real and purposeful Creator could give us the means to find reflections of divine in the imagined.
This Golden Thread submission also appears in Convivium.
The last light...
On an evening walk through dark woods near her Montreal home, Celia Farrow explores the truth that only a real and purposeful Creator could allow us to to see reflections of the divine in the imagined.
The last light of dusk could be seen in an opening in the trees ahead. Two lines of evergreens, whose branches met above our heads, framed the narrow path so that we walked in a tunnel of trees. Rain had made the woods dark, though not menacing, and puddles...
In a new collection of essays by Father Julián Carrón, reviewer Daniel Freeman finds an enriching approach to evangelization, one born of humility and bearing great hope.
“The encounter with the beauty of Christ that shines through the face of a human being can become an arrow that wounds the soul, and so opens our eyes, allowing us to recognize him. This is what each of us is longing for, and our contemporaries with us....
Author Joshua Harris influenced how a generation of young Christians approached relationships. He and filmmaker Jessica Van Der Wyngaard talk to Convivium's Hannah Marazzi about their new documentary on whether Harris was too hasty in bidding dating adieu.
Convivium: Originally published in 2003, I Kissed Dating Goodbye became something of a generational “bible” for young evangelicals. Take us through your decision to publish it.
Joshua Harris:...
For nearly 30 years, Seattle-based Image journal has striven to combine the beauty of art and the mystery of faith without deferring to what founding editor Greg Wolfe calls “any single tribal group in society.” Convivium’s Hannah Marazzi asked him about the motivation and the struggles of such a venture.
Convivium: Founded in 1989, Image began as a work of literary and artistic love, and has endured and indeed flourished across the years to become one of America’s leading literary journals that seeks to bring the intersection of fa...
Surveying the smoke and clangour of current political (dis)engagement, Ottawa writer Ruth Dick echoes the wisdom of her grandfather’s life-long admonition: Listen to everyone.
Think of the dumbfounded look on the face of the guy who runs out to the corner store for a pack of smokes and comes back to find his house in flames.
From family stories passed down to me, I know my grandfather had every good reason to be that guy’...
Convivium Contributor Josh Nadeau reports on the carefully layered nuance of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid’s Tale and makes the case for why readers should give it a closer look.
In 1985, the same year the Titanic was discovered, Steve Jobs quit Apple, and Nintendo unveiled their first game console, Margaret Atwood released what would not just become her most successful novel, but one of the more haunting dystopias of the 20th twent...
In literature and in physical creation, author Carolyn Weber tells Convivium’s Hannah Marazzi, are instants when the bird before our eyes becomes the miracle that God delights in making normal.
Convivium: In 2001 you published Surprised by Oxford, an autobiographical retelling of your journey to faith. How did you decide to publish your story?
Carolyn Weber: I never anticipated writing a memoir in ...
Debate rages on whether it’s possible to engage a militantly secular age, or if retreat is, in Leonard Cohen’s words, “the only engine of survival.” Robert Joustra and Alissa Wilkinson in their book How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith & Politics at the End of the World, find the answer in Daniel, a prophet who profited from an apocalypse by his strategic sense of loyalty.
The Hebrew prophet Daniel is an apocalyptic guy, so of course we’ve adopted him as our patron saint of the Apocalypse. We meet him first in the sack of Jerusalem by the Babylon King Nebuchadnezzar. It turns out he’s a total stud (Daniel 1:4 says he...
John D. O’Brien, S.J. reviews Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option citing its value in igniting conversation, observing also the ways in which Christians might at once be different from and love the world at the very same time.
Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option is valuable for the conversations it has ignited, reviewer John D. O’Brien, S.J. writes. But its premise is flawed history and its pessimism ignores the rich possibilities of Christian faith, he says.
Obser...
Convivium's Doug Sikkema examines the role that story telling plays in his life as a Canadian and a man of faith. And as project lead for The Ross and Davis Mitchell Prize for Faith and Writing, he's looking for Canadian writers and poets to submit unpublished short stories or suites of poetry by June 30. There's $25,000 in prize money to be won.
It’s the year of Canada’s 150th anniversary—our sesquicentennial if you like awful words—and there’s been lots of talk about our Canadianness. Just what is it that makes Canadians Canadians? What are our shared values a...
Sarah Bessey, lay theologian, writer, and blogger is a Canadian whose voice has emerged to lead a generation. Convivium’s Hannah Marazzi interviewed Bessey by correspondence about the changing nature of theology in the public sphere, the importance of literature to a life of faith, and the imagery of the author’s beloved Canadian landscape that finds its way into all of her writing.
Sarah Bessey, lay theologian, writer, and blogger is a Canadian whose voice has emerged to lead a generation. Convivium’s Hannah Marazzi interviewed Bessey by correspondence about the changing nature of theology in the public sphere, the importance of l...