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Author Archives: Jon Garvey
A time for everything
There’s an interesting discussion on YouTube between two Christian apologists to Muslims, the American David Wood, and the English “Bob from Speakers Corner.” They agree on the need for the churches to “muscle up,” and they have good experience to back this view up, being far more aware than most Christians about the real threat to peace (and potentially to Christianity itself) from Islam. Their message may well find more general agreement than it would have a year or so ago, as ordinary people begin to sense the antisemitic and anti-christian militancy of many from a religion that now comprises 6% of the population, and that is increasing by hundreds … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology, Uncategorized
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Hitting the Books
Part of my low output here recently (apart from a cold, driving my car into a ditch, and dealing with a broken washing machine) is down to transcribing the second volume of the proceedings book of my Baptist Church, 131 pages of hand-written entries from 1778-1904. It is generally in pretty legible copper-plate script compared to the mere 58 pages of Volume 1, from 1653, which are largely in the crabbed handwriting of that period and considerably more difficult for a modern transcriber.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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Theological sleight of hand
I read some Bible study notes on Acts 3, the healing of the lame man by Peter and John. After wise words about not everyone being healed, and questions about how we might sense God calling us to some unusual action, the study urged Christians to be bolder in praying for miraculous healing on the following logic:
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology
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More on Christian politics for the times
It’s astonishing how Scripture surprises you every time you read it, even after a lifetime of familiarity.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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Experiencing God
I wrote before on Jonathan Edwards, work on Religious Affections. I observed how Edwards, the preacher at the heart of the Great Awakening in America, gives a very astute account of the difference between truly spiritual emotions (to use our modern parlance), and those associated with merely human passions, often associated with false conversions, and occasionally even with the demonic. Careful reading of his arguments dismisses much of what passes for direct experience of God in the Charismatic movement now. My own piece ended with a sobering assessment of just how high a proportion of Edwards’ own experience of “surprising conversions” was revival as a psycho-social phenomenon rather than a … Continue reading
Posted in Theology
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Christian politics
A conversation with a younger brother at church yesterday came round to Charlie Kirk and the Christian presence at the Unite the Kingdom march recently. He’s been a dissident over COVID and related deceptions, but has been asking himself recently whether Christians should be involved in politics at all, or whether the Kingdom of God ought to be seen as a completely different kind of kingdom.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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Why Pentecostalism is the universal Evangelical acid
Mainstream Evangelicalism has become increasingly Pentecostal and less Evangelical over the years, as I have repeatedly pointed out. But though this theological drift from our Reformation roots has failed to deliver revival or even increased numbers in church over the 55 or so years since it began to bite, it continues to fascinate and spread. Why?
Posted in History, Theology
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Doctor warns paracetamol causes Trump Derangement Syndrome
The day before yesterday, President Trump introduced a 1½ hour briefing by the heads of all his health agencies, in which they summarised their efforts to get to the bottom of the appalling increase in autism across America (and indeed the West), from a one-time incidence of 1:200,000 to around 1:50. According to Trump, in California that rises to 1:12 male children. It can no longer be explained by increased detection or overdiagnosis.
Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science
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Tommy the terrorist
Tommy Robinson (real name etc etc) last week pointed out that there hasn’t been a day in the last fifteen years when he hasn’t been preparing for a court case – even when he has been in gaol. Now is no exception, despite the massive success of Unite the Kingdom last Saturday week, and I’m writing this for readers in distant lands and those in the UK who haven’t kept up, essentially to ask you to pray (or whatever other action seems appropriate) for his court case in October.
Posted in Politics and sociology
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Surreality and Messianism
No, they are relevant, honestly! I have downloaded, and am currently reading, The Great Secret of Islam by the French popular historian Odon Lafontaine (and you can too – searching on his name will take you to the free download site). The book is one attempt at an up-to-date synthesis of the evidence that the standard narrative of Islam is complete fiction, and that Islam actually began as a Messianic Jewish Christian sect linked to Arab imperialism beginning in the seventh century.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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