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- The extended God hypothesis 01/08/2026
- The lab-leak is slowly leaking out 26/07/2026
- Another reminder that genre is crucial to biblical interpretation 17/07/2026
- Faith in feelings 14/07/2026
- Cognitive dissonance – the midwife of wisdom 08/07/2026
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Category Archives: History
The lab-leak is slowly leaking out
I was quick to become sceptical about the whole COVID civilisation-bust of 2020 and onwards, as a mountain of my posts here from March 2020 demonstrates. But I believe my first mention of the possibility of the escape of a manufactured virus was only that September, and it took several more months before the evidence I was seeing for a lab-leak became overwhelmingly convincing.
Posted in History, Medicine, Politics and sociology, Theology
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Another reminder that genre is crucial to biblical interpretation
I came across an observation on Genesis (via another YouTube video, I’m afraid) by the late Jewish scholar Nahum Sarna. He noted in the 1960s that the unnaturally high ages of the three founding Patriarchs of Israel may actually be represented by one mathematical formula, suggesting that the ages had numerological and theological, rather than chronological, significance.
Posted in History, Theology
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Gillick competence and sexual abuse
One of the harrowing things about the recently published Rape Gang Report is how often young girls of twelve or thirteen, once discovered to be in abusive situations, are assumed by the police and other authorities to be in consensual relationships.
Posted in History, Philosophy, Politics and sociology
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A rose by any other name is still a rose…
…but the rose itself can mutate I watched a video, by a YouTuber I’d not encountered before, with some hesitation. It is entitled Why I’m no longer evangelical, and I can live without another apostasy story, or even another defection to Rome or Constantinople. But given that the provider goes by the name “Reformed Pastor,” the contradiction intrigued me.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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What turns Evangelicals Catholic?
Prompted by my last post I have dug into Elliott-Binns Religion in the Victorian Era. It confirms my understanding that the re-moralising, and re-spiritualising, of Victorian Britain was quite complex in causation, but did indeed seem to begin with Nonconformist and Anglican Evangelicals campaigning on the abolition of slavery. Maybe Asa Briggs just read Elliott-Binns and took the credit.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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British values were Evangelical Christian values
We live, now, in a low trust society. We now expect our governments to deceive us into compliance using psychological manipulation. We assume our insurance company will be rewarding our loyalty by quietly escalating our premiums. We have no way of negotiating the cashless world without a bank account, but the banks are free to freeze our account without explanation at any time. And, of course, we take it for granted that abortions, divorces and STD will increase exponentially, that schools and universities will teach our kids perversion and political propaganda, that real wages and jobs will decline as corrupt oligarchs prosper, and that the police and courts will routinely … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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Donald Campbell and Darwinian theory
A YouTube video by a member of the engineering team that salvaged and restored Donald Campbell’s jet boat Bluebird from Lake Coniston explores why the boat’s recent return to that lake proved a bit of a damp squib.
Posted in Creation, History, Science
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Speech suppression more contagious than COVID – and certainly deadlier
Thames Valley Police have (through some legal device or other) cancelled an Oxford Union Debate, promoted by the Union’s female Muslim president, on whether Islam is compatible with Western civilization. She had invited Tommy Robinson, Laurence Fox and Rev Calvin Robinson, and reportedly even Jacob Rees-Mogg, to speak.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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Unite the Kingdom May 16
I suppose many of my UK readers will be up to speed on the rally in London yesterday, organised by the infamous Tommy Yaxley-Robinson, originally known as Stephen Real-Name. But I attach a few remarks, partly for overseas readers wondering what England has become.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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The triumph of the cross
The ever-helpful YouTube offered me a video which, a little research showed, drew on a 1995 paper by W. E. Schmidt entitled The Crucifixion Narrative and the Roman Triumphal Procession. It was a revelation to me. The article demonstrates the remarkable, and clearly deliberate, similarity between Mark’s account of the humiliation of Jesus as he goes to the Cross and the Imperial Triumph tradition. Mark has shaped his account to show how the Romans (at the instigation of the Jewish authorities) have actually given Jesus an Imperial Triumph, culminating in the Cross as his final victory.