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Thursday, April 10, 2008
Man the barricades! YWAM is coming!
Kevin Potvin, the editor of the free newspaper The Republic of East Vancouver, does warn his readers, in the slogan on his paper's website, that his is a "completely biased news source." So, I should not have been surprised to see this article in the latest issue, raising an alarm that the Christian missionary group Youth With A Mission (YWAM) was hoping to get permission from the city of Vancouver to rezone what was a private hospital in East Vancouver. The former hospital has been vacant for a long time, and YWAM hopes to get permission to use it as a local operations center and occasionally bring in small groups of young adults for training.
I'll admit my own bias--I have friends in YWAM. Nevertheless, I was puzzled when I read Mr. Potvin's catalogue of various "scary" conservative YWAM positions and statements, as I know that some of my YWAM friends do things that everyone would see as a non-threatening influence in the community, such as helping with my church's weekly distribution of warm food to the poor. Yet, judging by what he wrote, I doubt that Mr. Potvin would be reassured to learn (as he would have had he done any interviews for the story) that my friends, in many ways, are probably very much like his readers in the neighborhood centered on Vancouver's leftist and quirky Commercial Drive.
I'm also puzzled by Mr. Potvin's observation that "...someone should at least speak for the loss to rental housing stock this permit [to rezone the hospital] seeks..." After all, if he fears that potentially conservative youngsters will be brought in and trained by YWAM, and then sent out to influence his neighborhood on their way to mission fields around the world, what is to prevent 10-20 Shotgun readers from moving into the former hospital as condo tenants and permanently infecting the neighborhood with their politically or socially conservative views? Unless, of course, you used it as social housing and then, in order to "protect The Drive", had a committee of dour-faced landlords ask would-be conservative renters those "Are you now, or have you ever been..?" types of questions that the left has historically enjoyed having to answer.
I would ask, however, that Mr. Potvin, following his paper's motto that it "...supports no party, advocates for no cause, represents no group, serves no master, and considers problems with no preconceived notions...", use the same standards to assail all forms of religious "extremism" that could possibly threaten his neighborhood. Just as he did in November 2002, when he bravely published an editorial assailing the small group of Islamic extremists who turned their back on peaceful efforts to help humanity on September 11, 2001:
....I have a terrible confession to make. When I saw the first tower cascade down into that enormous plume of dust and paper, there was a little voice inside me that said, "Yeah!" When the second tower came down the same way, that little voice said, "Beautiful!" When the visage of the Pentagon appeared on the TV with a gaping and smoking hole in its side, that little voice had nearly taken me over, and I felt an urge to pump my fist in the air.
This is a revolting confession, I know. But it's what happened....
Oh well.
I can nevertheless appeal to Mr. Potvin's better nature as a journalist...just as I hope that an active Youth With A Mission center in his neighborhood--which would incidentally help the poor and troubled as it evangelized--would appeal to his better nature as a human being.
Posted by Rick Hiebert on April 10, 2008 in Religion | Permalink
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Comments
Yeah, right. The same old, same old in Canada.
Let thousands of militant Muslim Jihadists into Canada as immigrants--who can bring their extended family members whose health benefits, including dental, are covered by the Canadian taxpayer (when a lot of us are only on partial benefits for which we pay through the nose)--but have a fit when a Christian group, YWAM, wants to buy a building in Vancouver as a training centre...like, they're going to go on some kind of rampage which will be damaging to Canadians.
WHAT IS OUR PROBLEM? Or, WHAT IS MR. POTVIN'S PROBLEM?
For a start, he's a moonbat. To top it off, he seems to have a hate-on for the U.S. and "conservative" and "Christian" values.
After an earthquake in Central America a number of years ago, a YWAM team, which happened to be in the country I was living in at the time, rolled up their sleeves and pitched in to help with the relief efforts. They were a group of young people who were lively, lovely, full of energy, and eager to help the stricken population.
When do we get our priorities straight in Sad Canada? Anti-Christian propaganda in Canada since Trudeau, and propagated by his apparatchiks in the Librano Party, aided and abetted by the Dippers, the Block Heads, and the MSM, has pretty much ensured that groups like YWAM will be seen as "the enemy," rather than those who actually pose a threat to our democratic freedoms and Western way of life.
Kyrie Eleison.
Posted by: batb | 2008-04-11 4:19:21 PM
Don't see anything here that's any more threatening than having a mosque in the neighbourhood. As a matter of fact, it may improve the neighbourhood.
You got a problem with Christians?
Posted by: atric | 2008-04-11 4:21:30 PM
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