April 7

I like being a Canadian. No, it’s stronger than that. I’m proud to be
Canadian. (No, this is not a beer commercial!)  I am pleased with much
of what our culture stands for in the world. We are often thought of
as an accepting and diverse country, embracing of many different
people groups and beliefs. We are fiscally prudent, we are
peace-makers and peace-keepers, and we’re just generally nice.

We’re not…well, we’re not radical.

In fact, we’re a bit leery about radicals. Especially this week, when
it has come to light that some Canadians participated in the violent
and tragic takeover and hostage incident at a gas plant facility in
Algeria in mid January.  Our collective commitment to avoiding the
extremes seems to have gone into hyper-drive, aided and abetted by
vigorous media speculation about how it could be possible that a
couple of nice Canadian kids from London, Ontario could be
“radicalized” into terrorists.

The upshot of much of the discussion this week seems to be some
careful, politically correct version of “believe whatever you want,
just don’t be too radical about it”. I’m not interested in defending
the actions of the participants in this event, or of any violent
activity. But I do take exception to the assumption that radical
belief, especially radical religious belief, is categorically
problematic.  So this week, I want to spend some time exploring the
question, “Can there be such a thing as good, radical religious
belief?” And just for the record, I do not regard the answer as
forgone.

Bring your mug and your capacity for independent thought to The Frame
(318 Ross) at 10:30 a.m., and let’s see where the question takes us.

Peace,

Tim Plett