Not that anyone has expressed a need to hear it, but I feel compelled to share with you some details of my backstory or, as they say in Christian parlance, my testimony. The objective is not to evoke sympathy, envy, or any other emotional reaction. I promise to demonstrate how this directly ties to the existence of this blog and, by extension, the relevance to discerning and grasping how to understand current event.

Through this process, I hope to clarify where my passion for debunking strawmen comes from and prove I myself am not a social construct. Our worldview is shaped by our experiences, biases, and the convergence of these influences determines our beliefs and convictions. These processes determine the prism through which we interpret and respond to our social, cultural, political, and spiritual climate. Everyone should consider and question the basis for their beliefs or they are susceptible to becoming pragmatic, close-minded, defensive, or otherwise subject to deception and impervious to logic. Failure to do so threatens to make us pawns to groupthink and able to be manipulated and exploited by the loudest voices in the culture.

Here is my story.

As a child, I was bullied mercilessly, not only by classmates, but some relatives and closer family members.

My father was largely distant, but I am certain that this was more about my parents being very much guided by traditional roles. On those rare occasions when my mom was not home, I remember that Salisbury Steak TV dinners were the inevitably on the menu. Me and my siblings were signed up for various sports (baseball, hockey, tennis) and piano lessons – none of which I excelled at or requested participate in.

My severe underperformance at school was not merely because of my lack of focus due to the bullying, but also resulted from a major inferiority complex which meant I felt incapable of succeeding academically. The acumen, drive, and natural ability in my older and younger brothers did not help matters. An ancillary factor was a December birthdate that placed me up to a year behind most of my classmates. One of the memories that has remained with me was being summoned to a school meeting with 3 of my teachers and my parents to discuss and ruminate on why I was failing their classes.

During this time, I became very accident prone; a tendency that over time I have become convinced was because I did not value my life. Don’t get me wrong, I was not constantly living under a black cloud, but I did throw myself into escapism through music and TV. I would plan my evenings around the TV Guide and would listen to the radio and record the songs I liked. This didn’t help my grades – especially since doing homework was not a priority for me unless I got roped into a struggle session with my parents to complete it.

I was deeply upset that my mother was not more supportive to me in affirming my growing emotional fragility. Whether she didn’t know how unrelenting it was, how much it affected me, had her hands full managing all 5 of her kids, or was volitionally intent on not playing into my victimized mindset, I ultimately count it a blessing that she did not affirm my brooding state.

During my 14^th summer, I did what I can only conclude was a nudge from God by asking my parents if I could go to a Christian summer camp. I recall regretting my request virtually from the moment the words passed my lips. Not only would this take me away from the crutch of my vices, but it immersed me in the kinds of activities I tried to avoid at home. While my family attended church, the teaching I received was not something that Satan would have deemed to be a threat to his plans. I have since found out that such churches are legion – and I use the word advisedly.

At that camp, I not only found acceptance from counsellors and peers, but I started to grasp a 3-dimensional view of a God that did not dissolve after exiting the Sunday service. After this experience, I found my mind routinely moving in the direction of Jesus and I sensed that he was real and cared for me. While the pattern of my escapist habits and the ostracism of peers continued, I started to develop an improved attitude. I put more effort into school and found that contemporaneously, the instruction became more comprehensible to me. I even started to develop a budding interest in English.

Another year at summer camp greatly boosted my confidence and gave some substance to my budding faith. Based on my immature understanding, I accepted Christ that summer and asked to be baptized at the end of that year – only months after my mother took the plunge. To top off this auspicious set of events, my family moved that Fall to a new city.

I had predetermined that I would not bring my “poor me” mentality with me, knowing that I faced the prospect of a fresh start. While still lacking in confidence, I started to feel less like an outsider, despite not really developing significant friendships – at least not at school.

My fortunes were also heavily boosted by the thriving youth group at our new church. While the teaching from the pulpit was indistinguishable from the nearly pagan pablum served up at my former church, the example of my youth leaders and cohesion in the group was helpful in my newfound faith. Possibly the greatest blessing I received was that my parents opened up our home as essentially a drop in for our youth group. It was here that I finally made some true friends.

On the weekends, young people knew they could come to the Bartletts with no invitation and would stay for as long as they wanted – but not overnight. We played games, discussed theology, and had impromptu dances where my interest in music allowed me to act as DJ. There was no swearing, drinking, or other inappropriate conduct common to groups of teens. Those who did have those propensities in their outside lives either did not come to our home or refrained from such activities while visiting our home. By default, I was in the inner circle.

While nothing to write home about, my marks improved to closer to middle of the pack. My gratitude for Christ grew as I increasingly felt his presence and would sometimes pray.  I never became rebellious, but was also not strong in my spiritual disciplines. I outgrew camp after my first few years due to my late start, but I became a junior counsellor at the camp and became a Big Brother. I volunteered with my mom at a daycare centre for children with mental and physical disabilities.

Once I finished high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I applied to a course as a recording engineer, hoping to leverage a way to pursue my interest in music. I was utterly unqualified and was summarily turned down. My parents insisted I go to college, so I spent a year in “General Arts and Sciences” to see if I could find anything to do with my life. My interests went in the direction of Psychology and Philosophy this is ultimately where I finally found my niche.

Also, being away from home to go to college helped bolster my confidence and focused my dependence on God. He became far more real as I would turn to him in prayer to address my fears, anxieties, and low self-confidence in my abilities. My former escapist options were no longer available to me, so I was compelled to face academics and independence head on.

Psychology piqued my interest in people. Ultimately it led me to pursue a career in working with children and youth and ultimately counselling individuals and families. God managed to turn my childhood trauma into a blessing due to how it inspired empathy and evoked a drive to help people overcome adversity. A major reason I detest the victim culture is not only because it is often manipulated by some to increase their power, but because the devastation of feeling so disempowered is crippling and can lead to depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and suicide itself. You cannot be in a healthy relationship or be a healthy partner if you are stuck in the victimhood cycle. If I leaned into my justifiable concerns over the derisive and antagonistic treatment I had received, I would have been crippled. The remedy and reason for hope was found in my faith.

I also learned grace and gratitude for my father. I learned that he too was damaged by treatment similar to my own and his critical tendencies were an outworking of that wounding. He was masking feelings of low self-worth and insecurity. I also knew that he tried to provide based on his strengths. Unlike me, he was not able to put his past behind him and learn what it truly meant to trust in Christ in all things.

I discovered that the more I counselled, the more I developed my own style based on biblical principles. Routinely, I worked with parents who wanted the discipline and traits in their children that they were not living. I strove to guide them in nurturing this environment in their homes which turned the focus from changing their children to restructuring the dynamics in the home. It was great to see how parents were able to change their outlook and see the transformative impact on every member of the family despite having no involvement or interest in church. Working at secular agencies, I was circumspect in how I framed my approach, but the framework was mostly derived from scripture.

Over my career, there have been many situations where I was confronted with standing on principle or keeping my employer happy. From early on, God was equipping me to exhibit a confidence I did not feel. Admittedly, there were times where I could be seen to provoke a battle of wills, but never was this purposeful. For example, at one workplace I posted brochures in my cubicle about the physical and psychological harm from abortion. The dogmatic feminism of my boss turned this into a showdown as they were being taken down (as I would later discover, by her), but my intent was to raise awareness in a small way on a vitally important issue. I was proven to be in the right, but the cost for standing on principle was a targeted and coordinated beatdown by a group of administrators whose orchestrated bullying campaign would have been the envy of my younger adversaries. For all intents and purposes, I was forced out of my job.

My commitment to the cause of life came about again by the hand of God. I wanted to get some literature for the teen clients I was working with regarding the genuine physical and emotional harms of uncommitted sex and managed to stumble upon a booklet with a list of services that included the local prolife agency. The E.D. assured me they could help and I also got a tutorial on the issue of abortion. I had no firsthand experience and assumed it was only a Catholic issue or surely my church would have found a moment to speak about the legal slaughter of children. The silence from Protestant churches was either justified or indicted them for apathy. I personally assumed abortion to be killing since it was always to prevent a pregnant woman from giving birth, but I needed to find out if there was some rational nuanced defence I was missing.

I did a deep dive into the issue and discovered that my philosophical nature was fully engaged. I believe that my antipathy toward bullying stemmed from being told lies about myself. I knew that bullying and deceit were possible because of lack of knowledge. Again, the mental rigour I had resisted in my childhood was inverted into a thirst to know what was true. I delved deeply into every proabortion argument I could find and saw them as nothing but self-serving. I even had a lengthy exchange with Joyce Arthur, arguably one of Canada’s preeminent and outspoken advocates of abortion. Her arguments were specious, risible, and relied on mischaracterizing her opponents.

I gained insight into the world of abortion apologetics to discover this was not simply an issue of Catholic orthodoxy. I discovered a world I hadn’t seen of strong Protestant voices who made the intellectual and moral case against abortion and did so potently. I came to see that every argument for abortion either minimized the worth and reality of the unborn or excluded them altogether from consideration. I subsequently joined the Board of Directors of that Prolife agency and, from that connection, became a founding Board member for a maternity home.

This process taught my that entropy had led our culture from its ethical biblical standards and pragmatism had infiltrated, coopted, and captured Canadian society. In addition to seeing how ineffectual and cowardly the church had become, it was clear that the institutional capture extended far beyond those parameters. The deliberate killing of children had become a third rail issue that governments, doctors, schools, and other institutions had accepted without complaint.

I should take a moment to let you that I started out believing the premise that “liberalism” was virtuous and the repository of compassion. They were presumed to be the arbiters and respecters in furthering the rights and freedoms of all. I believed their talking points about being on the side of angels; despite most of them derisively denying the existence of these celestial beings. I became convinced that if I was born several years earlier, I would have been a hippy and protested for human rights. As I was to discover, I was half right.

My deep dive into the abortion issue revealed another side to the left and the assumptions derived from that worldview. That said, I was underwhelmed by the church that were presumed to be authorities and representatives of true Christianity. Consequently, my commitment to seeking truth and to live not by lies caused my focus to become fixed on whether the teachings of scripture were indeed true, or just a noble lie. Even though Christ had become real to me, I needed to know what I had really taken on faith and whether this “fantasy” comported with reality. Despite the benefits I found by trusting in the God I was praying to, I preferred to know the truth even over false hope.

Once again, I was struck by the robust scholarship in support of biblical teaching and flaccid and self-serving nature of counterarguments. Debates exposed the fact that the atheists were applying the Joyce Arthur approach by misrepresenting scripture and the arguments and character of their opponents. Worse yet, they applied standards only explained by the Creator God of the Old Testament and the human incarnation in Christ to defend their position (i.e., objective truth, morality, laws of nature and science, logic and sentience, order from chaos…).

They assumed existence coming about by chance and that this uncreated life can follow an unguided path to an “evolved” state that can neither be explained nor even the standard for determining what constitutes evolution. They would venerate Darwin when it suited their purposes and distance themselves when the implications of his racist conclusions became uncomfortable. Of necessity, they pointed to the simplest self-replicating lifeforms (i.e., amoebas) to gain a credible foothold to posit a possible manifestation of self-replicating life arising from nothing and used this specious claim to insist time and chance could lead to profoundly complex procreation requiring binary and complementary reproductive systems with no explanation of how this is remotely possible.

Alternatively, I saw how prophesies and historical events that had significance that could not be grasped until thousands of years after the death of the authors were buoyed by events and archeological discoveries long into the future. Furthermore, the prophesies were fulfilled in ways that religious leaders of the day didn’t recognise. We see that the moral teachings in scripture when applied are far superior to the “enlightened” attempts 2,000 to improve upon them.  Add to this the fact that Jesus has persisted to our present day as the most revered and beloved man to ever exist with a ministry that lasted a mere 3 years. Christianity ballooned from the ashes of Christ’s death into the most potent source for good in the world. So much more could be said, but I can’t distill all that convinced me of the veracity of the Christian faith in a few thousand-word summary of my life.

From here, my thirst for knowledge expanded to every social and cultural issue. The pattern persisted where I saw a wilful misrepresentation of a subject and those espousing Christian values tethered to a favourable mythology of their own position. I saw false premises going unchallenged, a concerted effort to rewrite history, indoctrinate, censor, and torture language to attempt to ennoble and impose an anti-Christian philosophy. I knew that institutions that were not outright corrupted were compromised. I also found that those most willing to deal in facts rather than bullying others into acceding to their self-congratulatory moral preenings were to be found among those bearing the most fruit and staying true to their faith convictions.

This is my attempt to bring you up to date on what has brought me to my current state. My devotion to Christ, truth, and moral principles comes from trial and error, personal course adjustments, and a dedication to the welfare of others. My propensity to logic may not appeal to those who are powered by emotion, but I know how emotion can hijack reason and make us susceptible to fall for lies and those who seek to deceive. Consistently, my approach is to present coherent arguments and I find that any rebukes come from attacks fueled by emotion instead of substance. God designed me to seek truth which is perfectly embodied in my Saviour.

Looking back, I know that God’s hand was guiding my life through, not in spite of, my times of trial and adversity. Because of my experiences, I became passionate in the pursuit of truth which led me to Christ. Due to the sacrifice of my Saviour, I learned not that I am a victim, but a man mired under the weight of my own sin. Through my inadequacy, I have learned to trust in Christ to accomplish in my life what I could never do on my own. Because of his promises, I know that I am never alone and I carry the hope of eternity in a home prepared for me. I have not yet even mentioned the ways I was profoundly blessed through 31 years of marriage to a wonderful woman and 3 adult children – the other source of my greatest joy this side of heaven.

To me, Romans 8 offers the greatest inspiration to me while reminding me of the cost of following Christ. It guarantees the believer that nothing will separate us from the love of Christ while enumerating a sobering list of what profound persecution may be expected. The true significance of that promise has become increasingly imminent and relevant in light of our present circumstances. Seeing the reality of the dark times we are in; I am more convinced than ever that my faith will be tested even if I don’t know the specifics. I willingly serve a God who sacrificed far more than I ever will and I would never trade the safety of darkness for the cost of living in the light of truth.

I don’t know what effect my meager efforts will have, but I know that what I do is out of my desire to honour the calling God has placed on my heart. I am aware that we are living in times where truth is arguably the most scarce commodity in society because we have volitionally turned our backs on the source. It is clear that there are dwindling numbers of people either inside or outside the church who even want to hear it.

While I have come up against my share of detractors, the criticisms are rarely, if ever, based on a refutation of the facts or evidence I present. Disputes are emotional in nature or are a challenge to remarks I never made – the very issue that led me to title my blog “Burning Strawmen.”

With this context in mind, my next articles will present circumstances where my calling to discover truth helped me to recognise and apply logic to situations where the vast majority have been duped. Again, I want to stress that this was God’s doing, not mine. None of us has the corner on truth, we can only turn toward it or look away from the one who is the perfect embodiment of truth.