One-hundred years ago, the very first class of Providence University College and Seminary — then known as the Winnipeg Bible Training School — had 26 students and three faculty members who met for classes in a church basement.

In the 2024-25 academic year, the school had 1,693 full and part-time students at its rural campus in Otterburne and in downtown Winnipeg.

“We’ve come a long way,” said president Kenton Anderson of the school, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this weekend.

Founded in 1925 in Winnipeg, the school’s goal was to provide training for “Christian workers for service in voluntary or official positions in the Church, Sunday school, or the mission field at home or abroad.”

When I started my career over 40 years ago, I used a typewriter to write all my stories. It worked fine; I had no complaints back then.

But now I have a computer with a sophisticated word processing program. I could still use a typewriter, if I wanted — it still would work. But for me, like for most people, typewriters are obsolete. There’s no going back.

Is something similar happening in the world of traditional religion? For Christian Smith, one of the premier scholars about religion in the U.S., the answer is yes. Like the typewriter of old, the way religion is still organized and practised today is obsolete for many, especially young people.

That’s the argument he makes in his new book Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America (Oxford University Press).

A Canadian charitable foundation headquartered in Winnipeg informed donors Wednesday it has taken action after financial misconduct committed by a senior staff member resulted in the loss of nearly $8 million in donations.

“Abundance Canada has spent the last 18 months living through a tragedy, which we have resolutely addressed, bolstered by our faith, the resolve of our board and staff, and the grace of our affected community stakeholders,” board chair Jennifer Thompson wrote in a note to the organization’s 1,300 fundholders Wednesday.

Abundance Canada — formerly known as the Mennonite Foundation of Canada — learned about the misconduct after the suicide death of Winnipegger Rick Braun-Janzen on Jan. 8, 2024.

Braun-Janzen, 62, was a member of the organization’s leadership team and director of gift planning. He had been with Abundance, a registered public foundation that offers charitable gift planning services, for 27 years.

When the brand-new Hebrew Congregation of Winnipeg Beach opened on a Saturday morning back in the summer of 1950, Harry Fogelman was one of the first congregants to walk through its doors. Next Saturday, on Aug.2, his daughter, Lenore Kagan, will walk through those same doors as the tiny synagogue celebrates its 75th anniversary.

Kagan, a long-time summer resident of Winnipeg Beach, has been a congregant and volunteer with the synagogue for decades. She is thrilled to be participating in its milestone celebration.

“I love our little shul on the prairie because it is flourishing with the love and friendship of those attending,” Kagan says.

The synagogue, she explains, has no rabbi, no cantor and no official staff. It is run entirely by the people who attend its Sabbat services throughout the summer.

Antisemitism in Canada has reached record-setting levels. That’s the conclusion of the latest report from B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish service and advocacy organization.

In its Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, the organization says there were a total of 6,219 antisemitic incidents in 2024 — the highest number since the inception of the Audit in 1982. That’s a 7.4 per cent increase in incidents from 2023, when B’nai Brith recorded a then-record number of 5,791 incidents across Canada. Altogether, there has been a 124.6 per cent increase from 2022 to 2024.

According to B’nai Brith, the rise in antisemitism corresponds to the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. Incidents ranged from an arson attack in Vancouver, shots fired at a Jewish school in Toronto, hateful graffiti written on the walls of synagogues and other Jewish buildings in various places across the country, to personal harassment, Nazi salutes and online hate.

Winnipeg was not immune to antisemitism, although it was not as bad as in some other Canadian cities. It included when a man was arrested after spray painting antisemitic graffiti on various buildings and structures in Charleswood. Since he included the initials M.Y.K., which belongs to an international antisemitic extremist group, he was charged by the RCMP with facilitating terrorist activity, participating in activity of a terrorist group and the commission of an offence for a terrorist group.