The war between the U.S. and Iran has put some of us in an uncomfortable position.

On the one hand, we can feel like cheering on the Iranians as we watch them stand up to the American bully. It’s like the enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the old saying goes.

On the other hand, Iran doesn’t feel like much of a friend because of its terrible human rights record — including its treatment of religious minorities in that country such as Christians, Jews and Baha’is.

Those abuses only seem to be increasing due to the war. The United Nations has condemned the Iranian government for how it is treating religious minorities during this time, saying it is using the war as “a smokescreen to deepen their machinery of repression and carry out crimes under international law with impunity.”

Three Canadian denominations have taken another step towards reconciliation with Indigenous people.

At a June 18 gifting ceremony here in Winnipeg, the United, Anglican and Presbyterian churches made a collective gift of $1.5 million towards the construction of a new permanent home for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) at the University of Manitoba’s Fort Garry campus.

In so doing, they were following up on the four calls to action for Canadian churches from the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report.

One of them, call No. 59, asked churches that were involved in operating residential schools to support ways to help members of their congregations learn about their church’s role in colonization and residential schools.

In response to growing threats around the world, Canada is increasing its military spending. In March, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the country had met its NATO benchmark of spending two per cent of GDP on defence, with plans to spend five per cent by 2035.

Is this the right direction? Is the money being spent in the best way possible? And what about other forms of international engagement such as aid, diplomacy and peacemaking?

Those were some of the questions raised by 14 faith groups in the United Kingdom in July in response to that country’s decision to increase military spending by 20 billion euros (C$32.5 billion) per year over the next decade.

In a joint letter with other organizations, the groups expressed “grave concerns” about how spending on weapons was being given priority over other ways of promoting global security such as aid, diplomacy and peacebuilding — things that are “essential and underfunded tools in building a safer world,” they stated.

Religion should unite, not divide.

That simple, straightforward message is at the core of a short film by Peace Media’s Elana Sztokman, an American Israeli social justice and feminist activist, anthropologist, journalist, book author, community organizer, podcast host and, most recently, filmmaker. Her mini documentary, The Faith That Draws Near, was just named a winner of the Global Peacebuilder Award in the 2026 Religious Freedom Film Competition.

The Religious Freedom Film Competition is sponsored by Empower Women Media, a multi-faith communications company focused on human rights and religious freedom. Its annual film competition recognizes female creators for works that explore religious expression, interfaith co-existence and women’s empowerment.

The Faith That Draws Near is just five minutes in length, but those few minutes is all that Sztokman needed to demonstrate what she sees as the true power and potential of religious observance in Israel/Palestine.

Daniel Dacombe is looking forward to the World Humanist Congress in Ottawa.

“I’m going to network with other humanists from around the world,” said Dacombe, who works for Shared Health and lives near Niverville.

“I’m looking forward to meeting people from other countries who have been building their own humanist communities, especially in places with more restrictive laws around non-belief.”

The theme of the Congress is “Humanism as Resistance.” That theme was chosen because, as the organizers put it, this is a time of “resurgent authoritarianism, escalating religious nationalism, and the aggressive spread of anti-science disinformation.”

There are over 770,000 people in Canada today living with dementia. By 2030, that number could be more than a million — a “tsunami” of dementia cases, according to Hope for Dementia, a Canadian advocacy organization.

“Current trends in growth of the number of people affected by dementia present an unsustainable trajectory,” the organization states, adding the cost of dementia care will rise from $12 billion in 2020 to $16.6 billion by 2031.

For Canadian society as a whole, it’s going to be a huge challenge. But it’s also challenging for faith groups — especially those Christian denominations that have large numbers of older members. They will be on the frontline of the increase in the numbers of people with cognitive impairment.

How can they respond? One organization that can help is the Alzheimer Society, through its Dementia Friendly Communities program.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s Cabinet unanimously approved a proposal on Sunday to designate violence against Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as a genocide.

The step, which still needs approval in Parliament, reflects deteriorating ties between Israel and Turkey. Turkey has fiercely lobbied to prevent countries from officially recognizing the mass deaths of Armenians around 1915 as a genocide, even as Armenians have pushed for it.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

For years, Israel never officially broached the subject for fear of angering Turkey, but that relationship has soured over the past two decades, especially as the most recent wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran have dragged on.

Manitobans are being asked if they want to end seasonal time changes by making either standard or daylight savings time permanent in the province.

So far, three-quarters of those who answered a survey by Winnipeg-based Prairie Research Associates support an end to seasonal time changes. Of those, 34 per cent prefer a move to permanent daylight time — which means the sun would rise and set later each day.

Eighteen per cent prefer standard time, while 21 per cent just want the province to choose one time or another.

Talk about time change got me thinking about how such a change could impact religious groups.