Around Town: Mary as refugee, Fire and Brimstone, Merry Christmas! . . .

New Hope Community Services has welcomed more than 800 refugees since 2004, offering them community and housing at their 13-unit apartment building in Surrey. 

Their recent email to supporters linked the stories of their new arrivals to that of Mary and Joseph with their newborn son:

The Christmas story is filled with hope and restoration as we reflect on how Jesus was born in the most beautiful but unconventional way. But Mary and Joseph are not the only ones who have journeyed long distances through unknown territories and tumultuous circumstances to seek refuge. 

The parallels of this Bethlehem story with that of many of our current residents is incredible. One of our new moms traveled through 10 countries, across multiple continents, through difficult jungle terrain while pregnant before finding shelter in Canada. Another walked across the border at 39 weeks pregnant after waiting in hiding for their final visa approval. A Canadian settlement worker demanded a bed for her so she wouldn’t have to give birth on their office floor!

While these birth stories all carry varying levels of uncertainty and fear, these miracle babies have brought their families a sense of hope knowing that their lives in Canada will be filled with joy and restoration.

These long journeys filled with wandering and waiting are experienced by all of our residents.

Go here to learn more about New Hope and here to donate.

More about Mary

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems that more people are directing our attention to Mary this year. Here are a couple of examples that have particularly caught my eye:

• Matthew Milliner’s four-part series on Mary for Comment magazine. Two are posted (Everybody’s Mother, After Zen, Mary), with two more to come. Though he teaches at Wheaton College and has lectured at Regent College (both evangelical schools), much of the content will be a revelation to many Protestant readers. One quote:

Does the love of Mary compete with the love of Jesus? It can – it even has, I admit it – but it need not. Love is no zero-sum game, as if our doling some percentage points to the Virgin will detract from the remaining percentage devoted to the Christ.

Love is not a prepaid cell-phone plan that penalizes excess. Instead, the love that abounds to Mary rebounds to her son and back again.

In the same way, the more I love my children, the more I love my wife; the more I love my colleagues, the more I love my students; the more I love Orthodox, Catholic, Pentecostal or Reformed Christianity, the more I love my own Anglican tradition; the more I love Venice, Thessaloniki or Cairo, the more I love my hometown; the more I love the verdant thrush of summer, the more I love how winter sunsets redden snow-capped rooftops; the more I love my enemies, the more I can love myself. That’s how love works this side of hell.

But hell’s envious economy has shaped us. “You’re really into Mary,” a friend once said to me with concern – concern that my interest in the Virgin was no passing fancy but was developing into a lifelong pursuit. It seemed he was intimating I should move on to other subjects, especially seeing that I teach at a Protestant institution.

I had met such puzzlement before, but this was friendly fire from a fellow believer (who you can thank or blame for this four-part series). But indeed, it is precisely because I am aware of the view of the classical Reformers that I can’t just move on. As Catholics never tire of reminding Protestants, Luther, Calvin, and even Bullinger and Zwingli all had a deep respect and honour for the Virgin Mary inherited from the tradition they were critiquing.

Catholics, however, don’t as frequently point out that this also means Protestants need not convert to Catholicism but can continue to love Mary where they are today.

• Two pieces in Christianity Today:
  • Malcolm Guite: The Suspense of Mary’s Yes: “How a courageous response echoes through eternity.”
  • Amy Orr-Ewing, interviewed by Taylor Turkington: Mary was More than a Mother: “Treating her as a static figure obscures a lifetime of gospel witness.”

Fire and Brimstone

John Mackie profiled a rather over the top character in a Province article late last month. His ‘This Week in History, 1949’ began:

G.D. O’Brien never attained the stature of fellow evangelists Billy Graham or Aimee Semple McPherson.

But in 1949-50, he was a big deal in Vancouver, renting out the Odeon-Hastings theatre on Sunday nights for five months of fire and brimstone “bible lectures.”

The Seventh-day Adventist took out big ads in The Vancouver Sun and Province each week, and they didn’t pull any punches.

“THE END OF THE WORLD,” trumpeted the ad for the Nov. 20, 1949 lecture. “CAN STALIN WIN WHERE HITLER FAILED?” asked the ad on Nov. 13.

O’Brien ads featured headlines that were spelled out in all capital letters and messages with exclamation points.

On Nov. 26, for example, the main headline was “365,000 DAYS IN THE THIRD HEAVEN,” followed by the message “When the Devil Takes His Wife on a Vacation! The Twelve Greatest Coming Developments! Greatest Time Prophet in the Bible!” . . .

Christmas Day fell on a Sunday in 1949, and O’Brien gave a relatively tame lecture on “Which Is the Lord’s Day – Saturday or Sunday?”

But he was back to fire and brimstone in January, when he asked “WHO IS THE ANTI-CHRIST?” on Jan. 8, 1950, “THE FATAL MISTAKE THAT WILL SEND MILLIONS TO HELL” Jan. 14, and “THE MARK OF THE BEAST” Feb. 4.

His last lecture was April 22, “THE FATAL WORD THAT WILL JAM HELL TO THE GATES.”

Go here for the full article.

Charles S. Price

Just over 100 years ago another evangelist came to town. Vancouver As It Was profiled him:

For three weeks in May 1923, Rev. Charles S. Price (1887 – 1947) held daily (and often twice daily) evangelistic meetings and faith healing services in Vancouver. Price had been in Victoria for several days in April 1923 before coming to Vancouver.

According to one source, one-sixth of Victoria’s population went to hear Price speak at Willows Arena at Oak Bay. Price held meetings in Victoria’s Chinatown, too, and many Chinese-Canadians went forward at his altar calls.

In Vancouver, the Price meetings were held at the Denman Arena, which could seat up to 10,000. Frank Patrick, owner of the Arena had this to say about the Price crowd: “[T]he evangelistic party addressed over a quarter of a million people in the space of three weeks. On more than one occasion, I could feel the very building tremble with the singing of the multitude who were unable to wait for the opening hymn.”

Ministers of Vancouver were more divided than had been the ministers in Victoria on the work of Charles Price and his claim to anoint people with miraculous physical healing.

A number of Chinese pastors from Victoria came to Vancouver to lend moral support to Price in light of the less-than-overwhelming support of the Vancouver ministerial.

Go here for the full article.

Merry Christmas!

This is my last weekly update for 2023, I will now wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. In the meantime, do check out some of the many Christmas events listed below. They all look good. There are also job listings on the site. I will keep both Events and Jobs current throughout the holiday season.