Category Archives: History

I was listening to a discussion on Karl Marx, in the context of contemporary politics and culture. It seems likely that his famous dictum that “Religion is the opiate of the people” arose, at least in part, from Friedrich Engels’s reports from England, whilst Marx was still in Germany.

…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.

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.

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 →