HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, October 8, 2024 – Why is that people whose heritage is God, when they turn from God, become worse than the heathens around them? What drives them not only to wallow in the spiritual ditch but to purposely crawl into the pit below it and to drag others down with them? When the children of Israel had filled up the full measure of their sin and everything in Jerusalem was being destroyed – including Solomon’s temple – God placed the small remnant of believers into the hands of the destroyers for safe keeping. He couldn’t even trust his own people to look after his own people anymore. They had become completely unsalvageable.

This pattern repeats over and over in the Bible, just as it does in unrecorded history at street level. My hometown of Halifax used to be a conservative “Christian” city with a church on every corner and all stores and businesses firmly shut on Sundays. Throughout the weekdays, the main downtown thoroughfare was alive with shoppers streaming in and out of bakeries, butchers, hardware stores, record stores, clothing stores, stationery stores, toy stores, cinemas, and department stores. The only places serving alcohol were licensed restaurants, and those had heavy government-imposed restrictions on them regarding serving hours and terms of service for alcoholic beverages: You couldn’t order a drink unless you also ordered a full sit-down meal. The bars were few and far between and relegated to the side-streets and alleyways in the sleazy part of town down by the harbour, where only the drunkards and the sailors on shore leave (and the scantily clad ladies who entertained them) dared to venture after dark. Loitering and vagrancy were illegal, as was littering. This is the Halifax I grew up in.

Fast-forward to today, and more than half the shopfronts along the garbage-strewn main thoroughfare are covered in faded “For Lease” signs. Of the few businesses still doing business, most are bars that are closed during the day. The street’s primary retail offerings are a sex store and a witch paraphernalia supply store, open seven days a week. The panhandlers outnumber the shoppers, while the homeless sleeping on the sidewalk outnumber the panhandlers. The charge of vagrancy was declared unconstitutional in the 1990s and struck from the lawbooks. Loitering in public places is also now allowed.

The churches are still here, though, at least the ones that haven’t been turned into condos yet. You can spot them by the rainbow flags draped over the entrances and windows. But unlike in the “old days”, when churches were open to the public 24/7, the doors are now locked and bolted except during services, and even then they’re guarded by watchful men in dark suits. I’ve gotten the stink-eye from those men more than once for being a “stranger” amidst the sparse and frail congregations.

What happened to change the Halifax of my childhood into the Halifax of my adulthood? The same thing that happened to all cities and towns in former Christendom over the past two or three generations, which is the same thing that happened to all cities and towns in the former promised land millennia ago. Turning away from God and the consequences that follow always look the same, regardless of the time or place.

I can only wonder when our Babylonian moment will finally come, because come it will. When we’ve filled up the full measure of our sin in what Jesus called the fulfilling of the times of the gentiles, total destruction can be the only reward. Like the vast majority of the children of Israel, the vast majority of the children of Christendom are stiff-necked and unsalvageable. They will never turn back to God.

And of our many heathen enemies around us, which will God appoint to harbour the tiny remnant of remaining believers? Which of our enemies will God have us submit to so that we can live to fight another day? Jeremiah willingly went with the Chaldeans. Daniel willingly went with the Babylonians. Paul willingly went with the Romans. Will we be directed to go with the atheist Chinese? Or maybe the Sikhs? Or the Muslims?

As a born-again believer, I feel I have more in common with my heathen enemies than with my own people. Is this how Elijah felt around Ahab and Jezebel? Or how Jeremiah felt around the false prophets? Or how Jesus felt when he dined with the Pharisees? I am a stranger in my own land and perceived as a stranger even in Christian churches. To use modern parlance, I am “othered” wherever I go. I fit in nowhere and am welcome nowhere. I am eyed suspiciously and questioned, and as soon as my back is turned, I am whispered about.

A born-again believer is a strange and terrible thing in today’s Canada.

But at least dogs and small children like me.