My first experience with a mental disorder took place on a Mexico missions trip in Grade Nine. A set of boy-girl twins were on the trip, Adam and Allison*, both of whom I was casual friends with. They had been attending our church for a few years, and their dad was my elementary school band...

Change happens everyday – but sometimes big changes don’t seem to follow a slow and steady philosophy....

It’s becoming a real problem. Every year, thousands of transitioning youth enter the world of university, and begin asking that pesky question that has plagued the thinking person for centuries: Who am...

The fixed-gear bicycle is ruining our culture. Or so says Douglas Haddow, in his recent Adbusters feature story, “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization.”...

We started Mars’ Hill this year with the question, “Called to what purpose?” Like the idea of being called, there are many beliefs in our lives that we assume have answers, but when these beliefs are challenged, the answers turn out to be merely superficial. The reality is...

Lately I’ve noticed the endless volumes of books that lament cultural apathy in my library. Almost all of them are from classes I’ve had to take over the years, and they say much the same thing about the severe lack of passion and imagination in our society, particularly in our...

An editorial in the New York Times titled “Evangelicals a Liberal Can Love”, written by Nicholas D. Kristof, commends conservative Evangelicals for their activism in greater social issues such as AIDS, poverty and climate change. In addition, The Colbert Report reported on the...

The day before Ash Wednesday is Mardi Gras. Coincidence? Hardly. It’s not surprising that prior to the month of religious fasting one decadent festival was the final chance to indulge in as much pleasure as possible: an indication of the fascinating relationship between religion and...

Justifying the concept of missions is a crucial question for Christians hoping to fulfill the call of evangelism. Addressing what missions really does forces us to examine the confusing relationship between salvation and the Western church. The commission that Christians are charged with holds...

Something about the traditional Christmas creates a distinctive seasonal feeling. Yet the holiday memories we treasure are easily hyped and distorted by obsessive shopping and hopeless expectations. We end up putting a barcode on sincere memories by trying to reproduce the same feelings every...

Why is sex used to sell everything from cars to toothpaste? Entire industries thrive off of the idea that “sex sells”, and it is more than true. But why is sexy so physical? Advertisers don’t use well reasoned arguments to sell their product – they use a provocative human body to...

An acquaintance and I were once debating the term “fundamentalism.” The acquaintance maintained that he was a fundamentalist Christian, and I strongly disagreed. I said he would never want to call himself that for Christian fundamentalism is a radically narrow minded sect of Christianity,...

Jolene...

The word kitsch may not be familiar, but we live in a world drowned by its representations. Do garden gnomes and Precious Moments ring a bell? How about festivity inspired sweaters and bobble-heads? Kitsch is considered a clumsy way to reproduce and market higher art forms: judged to have...

Purpose is the reason for which something exists. A higher purpose implies a design which transcends our world, and being called means we are responding to a Designer. “Called to a higher purpose” is Trinity Western University’s motto for this school year. As students, how do we respond...

My time as a student here at Trinity Western University is finally drawing to a close. As I approach this last season of papers and exams, I wonder how I could best use this space to say something important. But, I’m merely a 23-year-old year senior and, to be honest, I’d settle...

It’s Monday morning. Correction, Monday afternoon. The tips of my fingernails are non-existent, my brain is longing for caffeine, and my stomach is reminding me that I have not eaten since last night. My eyes gloss over as I stare at my computer screen, and curse the blinking cursor. It is...

Peter...

One of my favourite musicals is the Disney classic, Newsies. In this film, Jack ‘Cowboy’ Kelly and his band of turn-of-the-century paperboys print a single page that seeks to revolutionize child labour laws....

Guilty pleasures – we all have them, and even more so, we all want to have them. I must admit that while I have many, perhaps the “sinful” indulgence that sits highest on my naughty list is my obsession with the now defunct television show, Sex and the...