Category Archives: History

Exploring the theological status of ancient man (3)

Posted on 31/07/2023 by Jon Garvey

We left the last blog post with a simple “toolkit” from Genesis 1 which, whilst it may not “define” man in the way Aquinas sought to do, certainly describes him theologically in a way that enables us to interrogate the archaeological record for biblically human origins.

Posted in Creation, History, Science, Theology, Theology of nature | Leave a comment

Go J.F.K.

Posted on 27/06/2023 by Jon Garvey

I’m not a pacifist, though I own up to two periods of pacifism; the first as young teen, when I was in considerable need of inner peace (to which Christ was the eventual answer), and the second during the nuclear escalation of the 1980s, when the idea of mutual annihilation seemed, as it does now, worse than the alternative of rolling over and becoming Soviets.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology | 1 Comment

Unexpected livestream on my book

Posted on 04/06/2023 by Jon Garvey

Months ago I was put in touch with Rob Rowe, who has a YouTube apologetics channel based in Australia. I heard nothing until yesterday, when on a couple of hours notice he set up a livestream to discuss The Generations of Heaven and Earth, which together with Q&A lasted over two hours. Fortunately I hadn’t forgotten too much of what I’d written.

Posted in Adam, Creation, Genealogical Adam, History, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Would you Adam and Eve it?

Posted on 19/05/2023 by Jon Garvey

For Christians (and Jews and others) seeking to maintain the historicity of a first human couple, Adam and Eve, there are really three broad ways to proceed. My aim here is to cast doubt on one of them, from a biblical standpoint, and so I’ll break the usual pattern of such discussions by stating my own position first, and then leaving it to one side!

Posted in Creation, Genealogical Adam, History, Science, Theology | 8 Comments

The danger of (post)modern syncretism

Posted on 28/04/2023 by Jon Garvey

The Puritans are (and always were) misunderstood as believing that they were morally or spiritually purer than their fellows. But in fact their basic tenet was rather that there is such a thing as “pure religion,” in the sense of the original gospel of Christ and the apostles untrammeled by syncretistic additions from other religions. This, of course, was the basis for the Protestant Reformation. It is (as the first of Martin Luther’s Wittenberg theses stressed) a religion of repeated repentance leading to constant assurance of salvation.

Posted in Creation, History, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | Leave a comment

Bombed churches – cui bono?

Posted on 17/04/2023 by Jon Garvey

Whilst my internet connection was down last week, I missed being able to research the Easter missile strike on a village church in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia oblast, in Ukraine. The Presearch search engine (allegedly private, but evidently programmed for MSM) only gives me pages upon pages about the dastardly Russian outrage, all of course taken uncritically from official Ukrainian sources. That’s the consensus, then, but “the majority is always wrong,” and it just takes a little thought to prove that to be so in this case.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology | 6 Comments

The astonishing Genesis 1-11

Posted on 28/03/2023 by Jon Garvey

The word from my pastor is that our church will be basing its Sunday teaching for the next few months on Genesis 1-11 – the “Protohistory” (in Gordon Wenham’s usage) or, to quote another OT scholar, “the Old Testament of the Old Testament.”

Posted in Creation, History, Theology | 6 Comments

Too far gone to reform

Posted on 23/03/2023 by Jon Garvey

A segment by Tucker Carlson notes how few of the American public, relatively speaking, see the significance of recent news events like the Chinese-mediated rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, not to mention the alliance now formed between China and Russia. As Tucker points out, we are actually witnessing the end of American (for which, in practice, read “Western”) hegemony in the world. He’s not wrong about the complacency, yet I remain surprised. It seems to me that the very blindness of governments and people alike to this, which resembles Belshazzar’s partying complacency on the eve of defeat by the Medes in Daniel, or indeed Jesus’s analogy between his own … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | 4 Comments

Universalism and the spirit of the age

Posted on 17/03/2023 by Jon Garvey

“I can’t believe a loving God would actually inflict eternal judgement on sinners.” I heard that remark the other day, the like of which you’ll also have heard frequently in Christian circles, even extending to leading Evangelicals. Somebody responded with a remark about “hellfire preachers,” prompting me to realise that the only “hellfire preachers” most of us have ever encountered are the fictional ones criticised in remarks like that, or manufactured by woke activists to get usually moderate street preachers arrested. A teenage neighbour of mine was actually disciplined by the youth leaders at Spring Harvest once, for telling the non-Christian friend she had brought with her that she couldn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Sherlock the Neocon

Posted on 04/03/2023 by Jon Garvey

Oh dear. It seems that the first globalist was none other than Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, or at least that the Neocons and Neolibs got their ambitions, if not their limited intelligence, from the great man.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology | 1 Comment