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Greetings,
Please join us this month in praying that the Gospel’s message of renewal permeates ICS, Canada, and, ultimately, every aspect of creation. Your support, especially your prayer, allows ICS to reform, extend, and amplify the Reformational tradition, advocating for human flourishing in a world that so often diminishes human and creational life.
May God bless you and keep you.
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“Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.”
—Psalm 85:10
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As a card-carrying Gen Xer, I can tell you that my love for the band Talking Heads was real. It still is. When the Jonathan Demme-directed concert documentary Stop Making Sense came out in 1984, I along with my fellow coterie of teenage friends descended upon Edmonton’s Princess Theatre, flooding the foot of the stage and dancing through the aisles, to the chagrin of the slightly older patrons, also fans of the band, who actually wanted to see the movie. It was a thing. The theatre received so many complaints that they created special screenings for those of my ilk who could not contain the energy this band elicited from us.
I can still see David Byrne swaying in his outsized suit, dancing intricately with a standing lamp, casting strange ominous shadows across the stage, as the African polyrhythms the band adopted pulsed through the theatre’s sound system. All those nights at home alone in my bedroom, Sony Walkman in hand, listening to “Psycho Killer,” “Life During Wartime,” “Naïve Melody,” and “Burning Down the House,” finally found a public outlet. Much like the experience of my first local punk rock concert, I had once again chanced upon the elusive island of misfit toys that would welcome a fellow broken toy like me with open arms.
A year later, Talking Heads released the album Little Creatures, featuring a song called “Road to Nowhere.” I admit to struggling with this song at first, with its seeming embrace of hopeless nihilism. In the liner notes to the best-of compilation album, Once in a Lifetime, Byrne describes the song in just these terms, saying, “I wanted to write a song that presented a resigned, even joyful look at doom…. At our deaths and at the apocalypse.”
Thinking the song somewhat simplistic and confectionery, I didn’t give it much more thought, excluding it from my personal Talking Heads canon. But then I watched Spike Lee’s 2020 film adaptation of Byrne’s Broadway show American Utopia, which concludes with a moving rendition of this very song. In this rousing finale, the marching band, led by Byrne, descends joyfully into the audience, themselves rising to their feet and dancing energetically, much like my teenage self did all those years ago in Edmonton’s Princess Theatre.
And it was like a lightning bolt hit me. “This is actually a song about hope, not hopelessness,” I remembered thinking to myself in a moment of true astonishment.
The word utopia itself derives from Thomas More’s 16th-century coinage, joining the Greek “ou” (not) and “topos” (place) to connote an ideal, imagined realm that, while it exists nowhere but in our imagination, yet is capable of eliciting our hope and longing. Could Byrne intentionally be connecting the “utopia” of his musical’s title with the “nowhere” of the song that closes it?
While the song still leaves room for interpretation, I am warming up to this new reading. I now hear the song as an invitation to embark on an alternative path to the current death-dealing one our society is on, one oriented to a destination we have never been and that is created through this very journey, as when Byrne sings the following:
There's a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
And it's all right, baby, it's all right
And it's very far away
But it's growing day by day
And it's all right, baby, it's all right
Would you like to come along
You can help me sing the song
And it's all right, baby, it's all right
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It is clear that the city in Byrne’s mind is a utopia, one whose possibility we uncover simply by changing our current course. It calls to us from beyond our damaged present. He in fact gives away the road’s destination very early in the song:
We're on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Taking that ride to nowhere
We'll take that ride
I'm feeling okay this morning
And you know
We're on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go
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All of a sudden, I realized that the doom, death, and apocalypse that Byrne tells us he wanted his song to be cheerful about is actually the “here” of our present, as opposed to the “nowhere” that calls us to its possibility. We can be cheerful on this road because it leads us away from the doom, death, and apocalypse of our present moment to something more hopeful and life-giving.
And this insight caused me to wonder what would happen if I read scripture in this light, if I began to think of the shalom way Jesus points us to and urges us to follow as a similar road to nowhere, a road out of the damage and brokenness that seems to define our everywhere, to something that does not yet exist but one day might be. The place we desire precisely because we feel the sharp pain of its absence. The future the psalmist imagined where love and faithfulness finally meet, and where justice and peace kiss.
It’s very far away, but it’s growing day by day.
Shalom, friends,
Ron Kuipers
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ICS Community
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Prayer Letter
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Monday, March 2 – Friday, March 6:
As we step into March, we want to thank you again for the warm reception you have given to Dr. Beth Green since we announced her as incoming President. Please keep praying that the Holy Spirit guides Beth, as she prepares to take on this new role, and Ron, as he prepares to pass Beth the baton.
Please also pray for our friends at Act Five, who are hosting an incredible lecture series on the Christian imagination this winter. There are still five evenings left. Pray that participants and speakers are edified, and that these gatherings become a space for fruitful dialogue and renewed imagination. Remaining speakers include Brian Dijkema (March 4), Kirstin Jeffery Johnson (March 11), Angela Reitsma Bick (March 18), and Joash Thomas (March 25). Sessions take place on Wednesdays from 7–9 PM at Benediction Church in Hamilton, ON. More info at actfive.ca.
Monday, March 9 – Friday, March 13:
Please pray for a joyful and well-attended book launch for Brian Walsh’s Of Prophets, Priests, and Poets, taking place at Knox College (Classroom 4, 59 St. George Street, Toronto) on Friday, March 13. This collection reflects on Christian formation across more than twenty-five years of writing, with particular attention to Walsh’s work as a campus chaplain amid the sobering realities facing the contemporary church. Pray for Brian as he shares from this work, and for everyone who attends, that the evening would be a genuine space of encouragement, reflection, and renewed faithfulness. For more info and to RSVP, visit links.icscanada.edu/bw-launch.
Monday, March 16 – Friday, March 20:
On March 16, the ICS Board of Trustees will meet as part of their ongoing work of guiding the Institute according to God’s call. Please pray for wisdom, clarity, and spiritual attentiveness for the Board as they deliberate together.
On March 17, ICS President Dr. Ron Kuipers will serve as an external examiner for the PhD defense of Dylan Ziegler at Trinity College in the University of Toronto’s Toronto School of Theology (TST). Dylan’s dissertation, Resilient Faith: A Kierkegaardian Reading of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Religious Convictions, represents years of careful and dedicated research. As part of ICS’s affiliation with the Toronto School of Theology, Dr. Kuipers is cross-appointed to the TST’s Graduate Centre for Theological Studies and regularly serves on TST graduate student committees. Please pray for wisdom, clarity, and composure for Dylan as he defends his work, and for the members of the examining committee as they carry out their responsibility with care and discernment. May the defense be a positive and rewarding experience for all involved, and a fitting capstone to years of faithful study.
This week is also March Break (March 16–20) for public schools in Ontario. Please pray especially for our MA-EL students, that they would find real rest, and that the break would make space for family life, renewed friendships, and the joy of God’s creation. Pray, too, for parents and caregivers, that this time would be life-giving rather than hectic.
Finally, our Free to Be Faithful spring courses begin this week. Please pray for strong participation, good conversation, and careful learning:
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March 18: The Christian-Jewish Question Today with Matthew D. Taylor, engaging the complicated history of Christian-Jewish relations and the contemporary realities of antisemitism, Christian Zionism, and political theology.
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March 19 (weekly for six sessions): The Evangelical Imagination with Karen Swallow Prior, exploring how stories, metaphors, and social imaginaries have shaped evangelical culture, and how imagination might also become a site of renewal.
Visit f2bf.icscanada.edu/courses to register.
Monday, March 23 – Friday, March 27:
Please pray for the planning and setup for the April 18 book launch for Dr. Edith van der Boom’s Cultivating Learning Communities of Belonging in Burlington. This book addresses school and classroom culture with attention to belonging, racial justice, Indigenous perspectives, human sexuality, and restorative practices, asking how educational leaders can nurture communities where learning is connected to communal flourishing. Please pray for Edith, for the organizers, and for all who will attend, that this event would strengthen and encourage educators in their callings. Spots are limited, so please RSVP here: icscanada.edu/evdb-launch.
Monday, March 30 – Friday, April 3:
As March comes to a close, please pray for the April 1 application deadline for the MA-EL and MWS-E programs. Please pray for prospective students who are discerning whether to apply, and for those rushing to complete applications, references, transcripts, and writing samples. Pray that God would guide the right students to ICS, and that the admissions process would be fair, careful, and wise. More information is available at icscanada.edu/admissions.
Thank you for your continued prayers and support as we move through the final weeks of winter and toward the promise of spring. We are grateful for the ways that your prayers sustain and encourage us in our work.
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Stay Connected
Events, Links & More
Find our updated events calendar, important links, and ways to connect with the ICS community, all in one place.
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Support ICS
ICS has been proudly donor-funded since we first opened our doors in 1967. Your generosity makes the education, events, and publications we offer possible.
If you have any questions or need help donating, please reach out to
Matthew
at
416-979-2331
x223 or
donorrelations@icscanada.edu.
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