Editor,
The editor, Thom Barker, admitted on January 22/20 that he went into journalism to use it as a personal soapbox through which he could push his views and beliefs onto others (“Propane woes a concern for tiny living decision,” Interior News, Jan. 22, 2020), convinced of course that his perspective was the right way to see things.
He did concede in Jan 1/20 that the longer he is around the less he truly knows and that many things are incomprehensible. It is a good quality to admit a lack of knowledge, but that was demolished when he promptly claimed to know more than Jesus about the unseen world; he stated that demons and angels are just made up (“It’s OK not to know,” Interior News, Jan. 1, 2020).
And while it is honourable that he said on Jan. 8/20 that he wants to keep inherent biases from creeping into his work, everything he is and thinks comes from the bias of his worldview (“Missing MMIWG in year enders an oversight,” Interior News, Jan. 8, 2020). On Feb 26/20 his personal worldview could not fathom how a Christian was able to extend forgiveness because she was a follower of Jesus, so he ascribed it to a psychiatric disorder (“Parents capacity to forgive is beyond me,” Interior News, Feb. 26, 2020).
His editorial positions show that Thom is not a Christian and so he cannot see the world from that point of view. But on June 17/20 Thom pretended to know — he not only truncated one of Jesus’ teachings, letting us think that Jesus liked poverty, he also lifted it out of its context — Jesus was in fact blessing a large segment of the population (“Too much ado about a small patch of asphalt,” Interior News, June 17, 2020).
Actually Thom doesn’t understand Christians, he doesn’t seem to know that the freedoms we enjoy in Canada came out of a Christian worldview and he doesn’t seem to value the contributions of Christian thinking and action to the common good of our community. So how does he, with his view of human beings, answer the question: Why should any of us care about what happens to our neighbour?
It is the Christian worldview that teaches the value of every human being, but this is not because we are equally useful or beautiful or good or entertaining because it is very obvious that people are not. Christians believe that human beings have infinite value not because we are lovable but because Jesus is love. In fact, his love for us is so great that he died for all of us. And then he taught that those who want to wear his name must love others in the same way; showing compassion, telling the truth, and bearing the burdens of others.
It is not easy and we don’t always get it right, but Christians understand that when you look at human beings through the loving eyes of Jesus, you will discover that there are many groups and individual human beings who are marginalized, disenfranchised, bullied, persecuted, excluded, and even killed; and all of them need to have the dignity of their humanity restored to them. And this is never accomplished by setting one group up against another. Therefore all human beings have human rights; the right to life being primary because none of the other rights matter if you are dead.
So yes, Thom, “responding to ‘Black lives matter’ with ‘All lives matter’” is legitimate because the first statement is only partly true, while the second statement is fully true and it would be helpful to our community if you said this from your soapbox.
Sincerely evaluating your worldview.
Betty Bandstra