David M. K. Sheinin People sometimes do a double take when they learn that longtime Toronto city councilor Joe Mihevc holds a doctorate in theology. “How did you go from theology to politics?” they ask in mock opprobrium for the latter. Mihevc smiles: “It was easy to make the jump.” Though most active in post-1990 Toronto, Mihevc is a holdover… Read more »
By Christo Aivalis A couple weeks ago, historian of the Canadian Christian left Richard Allen passed away at the age of 90. This piece is not meant to be an obituary, nor a reflection of the deep impact he had upon Hamilton, which he represented as an Ontario NDP Member of Provincial Parliament during much of the 1980s and 1990s…. Read more »
Michael Akladios On November 2, Islamist gunmen opened fire on a bus leaving the St. Samuel Coptic Orthodox Monastery in Upper Egypt’s Minya governorate, killing at least seven Coptic Christians and injuring 16 others. The attack is similar to another one that took place in May 2017, when gunmen opened fire on buses transporting Coptic Christians to the same monastery… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/History-Slam-113.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In the world of history, so much of the work we do is based on interpretation. Whenever we walk into a museum, read a book, and visit a historic monument, we are consuming, at least a little, somebody else’s interpretation of what happened. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing,… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Episode-03-Mark-McGowan.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadOn April 22, 2017, Mark McGowan delivered his talk “Uncomfortable Pews: British North America’s Religious Groups Ponder Confederation.” The talk was part of ‘The Other 60s: A Decade that Shaped Canada and the World,” a symposium hosted by the Department of History at the University of Toronto as part of its Canada 150 events…. Read more »
Laurent Carbonneau Quebec and secularism are tightly bound together in the Canadian political imagination. From the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on reasonable accommodation to the Parti Québécois’ abortive 2014 Charter of Values and last year’s Bill 62 (passed into law by a Liberal government), the implementation of a secular vision of Quebec society has been an important political debate over the last… Read more »
By Elliot Hanowski Did the horrors of the Great War cause Canadian soldiers to lose their faith? Or is it true that there were no atheists in the trenches? The war has generally been seen as a powerfully disillusioning experience. Books such as Paul Fussell’s widely influential The Great War and Modern Memory portray the war as the origins of… Read more »
This is the fourth post in a two week series in partnership with Canada Watch on the Confederation Debates By David Koffman From the vantage point of 2016, the Confederation debates in the Province of Canada show remarkable clarity about and commitment to the ideal of religious accommodation and liberty. At the same time, the debaters’ vision of pluralism and their policy… Read more »
By Aitana Guia Too many political leaders are banking on politicizing migration today. Culture has become a fertile battlefield. Food represents familiarity and safety. Eating is a daily activity that connects parents to their children, to their schools, and to their extended families. Social life in Southern Europe revolves around food and food rituals. Donna Gabbacia, a historian of the… Read more »
By Andrew Nurse More often then not, Christianity does not enjoy a positive public image. Canadians may be willing to select Tommy Douglas as the “Greatest Canadian,” but one suspects that this had more to do with medicare than his evangelical background. Interestingly, Christianity’s PR problems have a lot to do with history.
