Between the Panels

Living in our modern North American context, the word “ refuge ” isn’t a word we have to think about too terribly often. This is quite unique, historically speaking, as the idea of having a shelter from the dangers of the world is ubiquitous throughout history and culture. You don’t even have to go back far to the nuclear paranoia of the mid to late 20th century and the concept of a fallout shelter being a much more common notion to people’s minds. It’s almost comical to think about the fact that the term “safe space”, a reference to a place where you can be free from ridicule, is about the closest we tend to come in day to day conversation.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to mock the idea of safe spaces. Despite my more conservative doctrinal leanings, I’m not so removed from my millennial nature that I will start tossing around their term “snowflake” to the denigration of my peers. My intent today is quite the contrary, in fact. A need for safety and shelter is universal a...

Those who know me know that Destiny is hands down my favourite video game. I’ve been playing since Destiny 1, and jumped into the second one shortly after its release. I could give you many reasons why it’s my favourite, but right now I’m going to focus on one. In the Destiny games, there are several different varieties of enemies you face. In the first instalment you’re introduced to several of them, but it wasn’t until the later on in the second game that we find our perspective challenged. At different points, we find ourselves having to work together with two of our eldest enemies; the Cabal and the Eliksni . Both of these enemies have taken much from us, and us from them. However when we find ourselves fighting enemies we cannot stop alone, teaming up is our only option. Both the Cabal and Eliksni only came to our world because they were fleeing something else. Fear and misunderstanding are powerful enemies, and they caused us to quickly decide that these beings were enemies as w...

   Many stories have been told about Santa Claus over the years. From the children’s bedtime classic “The Night Before Christmas” and its wholesome presentation of Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick, to the Christmas all-timer twist on the mythology with Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause, to some of the even more twisted modern tales like Fat Man and Violent Night.    Not everyone remembers that Santa Clause is based on a real life figure from the history of the church, Saint Nicholas of Myra . He was an early Greek-descended Bishop, and he was most certainly not the jolly man in red from the Coca-Cola commercials.    Nicholas was alive during the one of the early church’s most significant controversies, the Arian heresy. Arius called into question the deity of Christ, making him out to be a lesser being, a god (lower case “g”), the first being created by God the Father, but not co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. A dangerous, Gospel-undermining view that actu...