Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey Discussion Group with David Cayley
David Cayley is introduced on this website here. This summer, he consented to meet with a group of us on Zoom, to discuss his new book on Ivan Illich. It is titled, as you can see: Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey. We are delighted. Our meetings are the last Tuesdays of each month at 3:30 […]
The Incomparable David Cayley
WN: Introduction Below is a clickable list of many of David Cayley’s Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) about 50-minute-long podcasts. They were presented between 1980 and 2012, the latter date when he retired. Who is David Cayley? To quote theologian Brad Jersak, Clarion Journal‘s curator: I think he’s truly among Canada’s greatest thinkers. Few who know his […]
David Cayley of CBC Ideas for over 30 years Presents…
WN: Greetings all. About 25 years ago, I wrote to David Cayley in response to a CBC Ideas series broadcast on the program by that name. (CBC is Canada’s public broadcasting network). It was a series of interviews with noted Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie. I wrote to Cayley, expressing my appreciation. That began a friendship […]
Rwanda Dispatches May 18 to July 12, 2018
At 30 years on to this day, April 7, 2024, the Rwanda Genocide broke out, that saw more than 1 million Rwandans murdered. CBC did the interview you see below. 30 years after Rwandan genocide, Roméo Dallaire feels ‘rage’ amid global crises | Watch (msn.com) Roméo Dallaire led the UN’s peacekeeping mission when more than […]
Easter Song and Reflections on the Resurrection
***NOTE: Please check out the footnotes for additional, more detailed commentary. Also, there are poetry and songs in the final footnote; and four additional songs below that.*** Please also see two great sermons, one on Good Friday, the other on Easter Sunday, by my colleague Randy Klassen: both in the context of criminal/restorative justice. Easter […]
Is Violence Master of Us All?: Fight, Flight or Just Peacemaking
WN: The host was the affable lawyer Gerry Palmer, quite well-known in Abbotsford for his work with numerous non-profit organizations, and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business at the University of the Fraser Valley. Is Violence Master of Us All?: Fight, Flight or Just Peacemaking Philosopher’s Café: Legal Grounds Coffee House, Abbotsford, April […]
Jordan Peterson: Sic et Non
WN: Ron has been a longstanding friend–over many decades. I’ve been privileged to work with him on writing projects; read much of his writings; join the Contemplative Order of Sons of the Holy Cross Order co-founded by him; often visit in his home; hike new mountain trails with him–literally and metaphorically; and throughout the Pandemic […]
Love on a human scale: The Gospel according to Ivan Illich – Review by Marcus Peter Rempel
Every now and then a book comes into my life that puts me in a happy dilemma: I want to lend it to all my friends, but I don’t want it to leave my house. Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey is a labour of love by Illich’s long-time friend and co-conspirator, David Cayley. At 552 […]
Interaction With “Neuroscience’s Existential Crisis”
By Grigori Guitchounts October 27, 2021 image above: A rendering of dendrites (red)—a neuron’s branching processes—and protruding spines that receive synaptic information, along with a saturated reconstruction (multicolored cylinder) from a mouse cortex. Courtesy of Lichtman Lab at Harvard University. WN: The article highlighted below got me thinking . . . In my post Easter Song: […]
A Handful of Reasons to Join a Church [despite the exodus] – Sharad Yadav
posted in Clarion Journal for Religion, Peace & Justice by Sharad Yadav WN: I like what I read below! One asks though, how can the church accept me with all my _____? The answer obviously is: because everyone else at church has a variation of that _____ too. During the pandemic, there have been a […]
They Went to Bible College to Deepen Their Faith.
Becca Andrews September 30, 2021 photo above: yelp.com WN: The article highlighted below begins with Megan Wohlers telling her story of abuse, and ends with these understated words from her: And that’s not how Jesus would have acted. I added October 24, 2021 almost an identical story, only from Jerry Falwell’s (Founder) Liberty University. His […]
Pastor Gives Christians Who Claim ‘Religious Exemption’ From Masks And Vaccines An Epic Bible Lesson
Mike Walsh Sep. 23, 2021 photo above: Keith Marshall/Facebook WN: The Pastor below said he had to make private his Facebook page due to the nasty responses directed at him and his family. There is no place for nastiness for or against! For a highly sophisticated discussion about what the Pandemic has called forth in […]
Concerning Life
by David Cayley June 12, 2021 photo above and to the right (clickable): Cover of David Cayley’s new (massive) book on Ivan Illich: a brilliant critic of modernity; polyglot; priest; educator; gadfly; peripatetic nomad; (should be called) Doctor of the Church–though adamantly refused by him; saint–above all friend to an array of those who knew […]
This entire country is haunted
By Alicia Elliott July 12, 2021 photo above: The Mohawk Institute Residential School, referred to by former students as ‘the Mush Hole’ (Photograph by Alex Jacobs-Blum) WN: This statement from the article highlighted below haunts me: These acts were done on behalf of every non-Indigenous family who proudly calls themselves Canadians, because this is what […]
“The Apocalypse Has Begun”:
by David Cayley January 2, 2016 WN: This is a highly instructive essay. There is much on my website about David Cayley’s writings. Please see as well his masterful and massive book on Ivan Illich: Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey. excerpts: Ivan Illich, Christ and Anti-Christ, René Girard This article was written for The Palgrave […]
Haiti’s fate is intertwined with the U.S.
By Ishaan Tharoor with Claire Parker Email photo above: A man speaks on the phone next to a mural in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami on July 8. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) WN: Haiti is a made-in-France-and-America tragedy . . . Please see Egberto Willies on this: My wife Esther and I visited there in 1991, […]
Restorative Justice: Peacemaking Not Warmaking; Transformative Justice: Penal Abolitionism Not Prison Reform
by Wayne Northey for The Kenarchy Journal, Volume 2. image above: cccu.org PLEASE NOTE: Below are excerpts of my paper for the above-noted Journal. At the very end of this post, one may click on the highlighted text, and read the full article in PDF. And of course one may also read it on the […]
Houses of hate:
Dangerous, racist and falling apart. By nearly every metric, the nation’s penal system is not just failing, it’s making things worse. By Justin Ling February 28, 2021 photo above: Medium security range at Stony Mountain Institution in Stony Mountain, Manitoba (Correctional Services Canada/Flickr) WN: The article highlighted does not sugar-coat the reality: Canadian prisons (and […]
The Prognosis
October 2020 | Pandemic By David Cayley WN: There are recent posts and others here, that inform you about David Cayley. Cayley is a powerful prophet crying, perhaps in the wilderness. . . excerpts: [su_dropcap size=”5″]I[/su_dropcap]t is striking how often historical events arrive with their meanings plainly legible. When Napoleon clattered by Hegel’s window in […]
Pandemic Revelations
December 4, 2020 WN: I recently posted an article about David Cayley. There have been a few others. So I will not repeat what I have shared earlier. Except: he is arguably one of the most informed thinkers in Canada–and across multiple disciplines. I’ll highlight the second reflection that Cayley did on his website. That […]
Select Bibliography of Key Restorative Justice Works
Select Bibliography of Key Restorative Justice Works Compiled by Wayne Northey WN: Today, I updated a bibliography, especially weighted towards theological and generally academic works, that I have appreciated. Compilation of this list began decades ago. I think most are still discoverable, the links current. It is copied below, and there is a link to […]
René Girard’s Theories Still Explain the Violence All Around Us
WN: This is the CBC headline for airing the David Cayley five-part series on violence and its origins, the last three of which air this and next week (March 10, 11 and 17, 2016), by David Cayley. Please click on: René Girard and Violence
Lament For a Nation: Then and Now
Lament For a Nation: Then and Now, Ron Dart, New York: American Anglican Press, 2015; 38 pp. This is a great pointer to George Grant‘s fervour in his High/Red Tory vision of Canada. David Cayley did a three-part series on Grant, entitled The Moving Image of Eternity. An excerpt from the book review: The more I […]
Politics and Religion in the Thought of Ivan Illich
WN: This paper is on David Cayley’s website here. You may read about David Cayley here. David has broadcast and written about Ivan Illich numerous times. He is currently (2015) working on yet another book on him. (Update: published in 2021 and clickable.) An excerpt: One could say a lot more about the segregation of […]
The Criminal Justice System and “Criminal” Justice
image above: hub.wsu.edu WN: This is a true story in which in 2000 we intervened on behalf of a friend, with names changed or removed. The first part was a letter sent to two police officers; the second part an attached reflection. They never responded. They were also never heard from again in relation to […]
The Myth of Religious Violence and Migrations of the Holy
The Myth of Religious Violence and Migrations of the Holy My thanks to Oxford University Press for a review copy of the first book, and to Eerdmans for a review copy of the second. I learned of the first publication and that reviewed below in following through on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “After Atheism” Ideas […]
Holding Forth . . .
. . . or fifth . . . or sixth . . . Below is a smattering of sermons preached and presentations made over the years. Langley Mennonite Fellowship (our home Church) began a series called, God: Then & Now; Always & Eternal. The classic image used is Trinity (Троицa, romanized: Troitsa) by 15th-century […]
Book Reviews List
SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. A Farewell To Mars: An Evangelical Pastor’s Journey Toward the Gospel of Peace –Brian Zahnd Against The Death Penalty: Christian and Secular Arguments Against Capital Punishment –Gardner C. Hanks A Gentler God: Breaking Free of the Almighty in the Company of the Human Jesus […]
René Girard and Violence
WN: The paper below was (re)written just for my own joy in 1997, with subsequent rewrites. A version was prepared for a Fraser Valley BC “Christ and Violence” conference in 1998. It almost got me fired before hired! One of the interviewers for my (new) position as Executive Director of M2/W2 Association had taken exception […]
Restorative Justice
NOTE: Some of what follows is excerpted from Chapter One of Justice That Transforms: Volume 1 WN: From a Canadian vantage point, Dr. Herman Bianchi, a Dutch criminologist, is one of the three “grandfathers” (if one must use that term) chronologically of Restorative Justice, together with Mark Yantzi and Dave Worth, the first and longstanding […]
An American Kingdom
By Stephanie McCrummen July 11, 2021 photo above: Mercy Culture Church in Fort Worth. (Dylan Hollingsworth for The Washington Post) WN: Oh dear! Oh dear! As my good Jesuit-trained friend Gerry Ayotte says, drawing on Tradition back to the Fathers and Mothers of the Church, God speaks loudest in the silence. In the fully choreographed […]