Wyatt Graham

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Funded Childcare Promises Freedom but it will Bind us to Industry

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Canada wants both spouses to work in order to increase GDP since our economy requires continual growth. This also creates a third job because one spouse leaves the home and hires a nanny / day care to watch the kids.

At one point, the spouse who left the home (usually the wife) will realize: I am leaving the home to work outside the home because caring for my children is not adequate work; while at the same I am employing someone to watch my kids.

This realization should lead to the following conclusion: our society exploits the idea of freedom to work away from home in order to grow GDP and deny the biological urge to care for our children. At the same time, it creates jobs of non-parent caretakers of kids, lauding the goodness of this career.

If caring for other people’s kids is good, why not ours?

[Read more…] about Funded Childcare Promises Freedom but it will Bind us to Industry

Judith Butler and Gender Performance

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In a 1988 article, gender theorist Judith Butler argued that performative acts in society constitute gender. What she meant was this. Society defines gender norms, and men and women act and dress according to those norms. But these norms have no deep structure. They are stylized performances of gender. Male and femaleness have no essential gender. “Gender is what is put on,” she argues (1988: 531). 

Butler affirms and builds on Simone de Beauvoir’s claim that “one is not born, but, rather becomes a woman” (1988: 519). Beauvoir means that the idea of af being a “woman” is not a natural given but something shaped by society.  [Read more…] about Judith Butler and Gender Performance

Christian Piety can no Longer Avoid Politics

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Of late, I have begun to realize that Christian piety (at least in Canada) can no longer avoid political implications.

Here are five reasons why I believe this, which in turn explain what I mean by political implications. The church’s mission is worship, but her worship of God and her good works will encounter a world that does not think those works are always so “good.” [Read more…] about Christian Piety can no Longer Avoid Politics

When Christian Nationalism went Wrong — Ansbacher Ratschlag

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I explained my theological reasons for rejecting Stephen Wolfe’s “The Case for Christian Nationalism” in my review. Here, I want to point to similar arguments made by Christian nationalists in the last century, which did not stand the test of time.

These principles are: God wills that a people order itself according to natural relations of family, people, and race and thereby exclude others; that the church’s obligation to the natural order remains the same but positive law or changing societal norms can change the shape of how the church integrates into a specific place and time; and that a völkisch society is a necessary, natural good. [Read more…] about When Christian Nationalism went Wrong — Ansbacher Ratschlag

Does Government only Restrain Evil or also Commend the good? the Question MAID Forces

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Canada will assist the mentally ill by terminating their life, starting in March of 2023. This assistance euphemistically takes the name, medical assistance in dying (MAID). MAID is euthanasia. It terminates life. The mentally ill in March 2023 and those impoverished due to disability can now choose to receive a sponsored death from the state.     [Read more…] about Does Government only Restrain Evil or also Commend the good? the Question MAID Forces

Should We mock Those We Disagree with?

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Recently, I saw a Christian Journalist by the name of Megan Basham write, “I make no apologies for mocking people who claim the name of Christ but have pronouns in their bio.” 

Basham later reinforced her view by invoking Jesus’s words in Matthew 23 and Luke 13 and saying: “These are Jesus’ words for some of his neighbors. The only-gentle, only-soft Christ is a myth, perpetrated to allow wolves to come into church and lead some to Hell by preaching a Jesus who did not harshly confront the sin of those who were brazenly rewriting God’s law.” 

Jesus indeed calls the pharisees white-washed tombs and Herod a fox. And more besides. It is worth reflecting on what Scripture says about mocking to understand if Jesus here models a normative rhetorical technique to mock people who, in Basham’s language, “claim the name of Christ but have pronouns in their bio.” And by extension, to mock people for other similar claims.   [Read more…] about Should We mock Those We Disagree with?