Category Archives: Politics and sociology

Before knowing your enemy recognise his enmity

In a comment on my last post, Ben links to an X post that compares Islam to Tolkein’s ring of power, arguing that whoever tries to control it will be controlled, and then destroyed, by it.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | 1 Comment

Christendom has its advantages

I was recently in touch with a friend from my old church in Essex, which has now grown to over 1,000 weekly attenders. There were only about 80 when I joined in 1987, and it has grown steadily since. That doesn’t automatically mean it’s doing something right – Hillsong and Bethel were bigger, after all, and look what’s happened to them. But in this case it is, and it’s a cause for personal rejoicing.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | 10 Comments

The many-faceted Israel (2)

I understand that some modern Jews do not even know that Jesus “the Nazarene” is a Jew, explaining his ministry from the Hebrew Scriptures and (uniquely) obedient to torah throughout his life. Christianity seems to be regarded by them as a Gentile heresy to which Jesus, or Paul, or both, “converted.”

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The many-faceted Israel (1)

If we consider Christians’ attitudes towards Israel, I suggested in my last post that there is a need to identify what they actually mean by the term “Israel.” The Bible gives a surprising number of options. Here I’m mainly going to list as many of the meanings as I can, and even then I may miss some. Today I’ll focus on the Hebrew Bible, with a follow-up post on the New Testament, and my conclusions, next time.

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Omnicorruption week

Last week was, in my view, rather remarkable for the release of at least five massive tales of corruption and deception simultaneously. Most have attracted less attention than they deserve. All are profoundly depressing.

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Righteousness exalts a nation

Soon after the Epstein files were released, the MSM tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to launch a story that Epstein was actually employed by Russian Intelligence to create a honey-trap to uncover Western secrets.

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Forever blowing bubbles

This morning the price of gold broke the £4,000/oz level. Even the Beeb news has had charts this week showing the exponential rise in bullion prices. I don’t think they were so upfront in drawing the main lesson that the accelerating rise in price over the last few years teaches: that it indicates the abandonment of confidence in the world financial system, which is built on escalating debt and rapidly depleting trust.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 8 Comments

Equipping tomorrow’s spiritual warriors?

A Christian apologist on YouTube suggests that (American) public schools no longer teach children how to think, but instead what to feel. Which is a recipe for disaster. I think the same is true of churches over here in Britain, which is a recipe for spiritual shipwreck.

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Signs of life?

I wrote back in December about the distrust, by Christians of all people, of the present working class movement towards Christianity. The veritable Who’s Who of Christian opponents to this groundswell, as it was manifested in Tommy Robinson’s Christmas carol concert in Whitehall, is typical of this distrust. I think I showed in my piece on the latter that there is no evidence whatsoever of cynical racist motivation, though of course pockets of almost any kind of corruption will be seen somewhere in any mass-movement.

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The same old schtick, Shift.

My last-but-one post was prompted by my reading of a book on C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series. I’m just completing the inevitable follow-up exercise of re-visiting the series itself, for the first time since I read them to our kids forty years ago. I should add that my parents unaccountably failed to introduce me to the books when I was a kid, so this is only my second time through.

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