Category Archives: Politics and sociology

Rules based order

Posted on 18/03/2023 by Jon Garvey

My school friend Murray wrote a scurrilous parody of Manfred Mann’s single My Name is Jack in order to lampoon the teaching staff, and especially the new headmaster, whose first name was Wilfred. He got punished for it, no doubt because he posted it hand-written on a school notice-board, but it was very funny. It began: My name is Wilf, and I live by myselfAt the Royal Grammar SchoolAnd every week I bring youA wonderful new rule.

Posted in Politics and sociology | 2 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

The spiritual gift of careful listening

Posted on 11/03/2023 by Jon Garvey

In a comment on another site, on the subject of the mass state-censorship of Twitter comments recently exposed by Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and others, I happened to speculate that it may not be the bigotry of random individuals that fosters “hate,” as in “hate-speech.” Rather, historically it seems to be that it is when governments and others in authority organise that bigotry, by Jim Crow laws or state propaganda, that lynchings and pogroms occur. Does the anonymous idiot who posts “Everything is a Jewish conspiracy” actually cause synagogues to be flamed, or is it not more the case that ideologically-motivated political leaders making blanket condemnations of Israel and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 3 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

Christian asceticism in suburbia

Posted on 02/03/2023 by Jon Garvey

A good friend of mine predicted a couple of decades ago that the next big thing, in popular religion, would be asceticism. He was, I think, foreseeing a reaction against the rampant hedonism of the times. I think there is indeed an element of that reaction seeping into our culture, so he’s been proven right about the fashion trend, at least to an extent. But I think there is a real, and largely involuntary, asceticism of the truly spiritual kind that is proving to be a necessary Christian accomplishment in our times.

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It’s the epistemology, stupid

Posted on 21/02/2023 by Jon Garvey

Gavin Ashenden, some-time chaplain to the late queen, after long soul-searching left the Anglican church for Roman Catholicism, around three years ago. That’s out of the frying pan into the fire as far as I can see, but I respect his conscience and his intellect, and indeed his work helped me bottom out some of the ideas in my own e-book on the Great Deception, Seeing through Smoke. He was unwilling to live by lies.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Theology | 2 Comments

When kings go out to war

Posted on 15/02/2023 by Jon Garvey

When I mentioned Le Morte d’Arthur recently I observed in passing the blase way in which mediaeval aristocrats fought wars with their relatives for their power, consigning thousands of their unsung soldiery to death in the process.

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My poor bald pate

Posted on 05/02/2023 by Jon Garvey

I don’t know which is sadder – the US government and the entire media industry peddling tales of a Chinese spy balloon, or the fact, from comments under the news stories, that many people believe it.

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But who can replace a spook*?

Posted on 03/02/2023 by Jon Garvey

*An allusion to Who can Replace a Man? by Brian Aldiss. There are encouraging local signs that, after three irrational years, the COVID scare is ending. First, I saw that our local hardware-cum-everything-else store had removed its useless Perspex barriers and queuing separation system; although Tesco still has their screens it gave up on social distancing months ago. Then my wife tells me our dentist’s waiting room is now open, so you no longer have to bang on the door for admission and pass a gauntlet of hand-detoxification before being treated by a dentist in a diving-suit. Lastly I notice that our church no longer opens the windows in freezing … Continue reading →

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | 4 Comments

Gobbledegook from hobbledehoys

Posted on 01/02/2023 by Jon Garvey

I found this article at the Daily Sceptic intriguing. The author, unimpressed with a university (UCL) “vision statement” that looked as if it had been cobbled together from buzzwords by AI, decided to use a commercially available AI program to construct his own.

Posted in Music, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Theology | Leave a comment