Category Archives: Politics and sociology

Forgetting the gift and the giver at harvest time

It’s the time of year when churches still tend to have some kind of harvest festival. I was reminded of that this morning both by having to get the songs for our harvest service out to the various musicians, projectionists and so on, and even more by my daily reading happening to be Acts 14, in which Paul and Barnabas discourage the Lycaonians from treating them as gods by reminding them that the true God has revealed himself to them because “he has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” Ironically, … Continue reading

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology, Theology of nature | 4 Comments

What’s wrong with the mark of the beast, anyway?

It’s generally thought that the earthly reality behind the book of Revelation’s “mark of the beast,” the infamous 666, was the imposition of emperor-worship by Nero, whose name is argued to add up numerologically to that number. For the Christian, it meant the compulsion to own any other god than the true one revealed by and in Christ.

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Permission to hate, Sir

Standin’ on the gallows,Stagolee did cuss.The judge said, “Let’s kill him,before he kills some of us.”That bad man, that cruel Stagolee (Stagolee, Mississippi John Hurt version).

Posted in Politics and sociology | 1 Comment

National priorities

Two current statistics: Britain has the tenth biggest economy in the world, according to IMF: and one in 7 British households (around 11 million people) lack food security, according to Trussell Trust, which organises a majority of our food banks.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 11 Comments

Pandemic religion – a lab leak?

I well remember, as a student, going to the home of another guy to pick him up for some evangelistic work we were doing. For interested Brits, it was actually street-theatre in North Wales with a group called Breadrock, later to become Riding Lights, Britain’s first Christian theatre company, which is still going strong although its co-founder and Artistic Director, my good friend Paul Burbridge, sadly died this April. RIP Paul – see you in glory, with many a laugh.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Weeny, Weedy, Wiki

Here is an interesting discussion between journalist Glenn Greenwald and Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, on how the latter has become little more than a crude propaganda platform. Sanger has been putting this message out for several years, but like most truth now, a majority of people still have no idea that Wikipedia is anything other than an unbiased source of information. Even earlier this year, or perhaps last, responding to some such accusation of bias, the anchor of The Hill opined that whilst Facebook is unreliable, Wikipedia usually gets it right. Wrong, when the subject is controversial. Greenwald’s disillusion came firstly from seeing how his own Wikipedia entry gradually … Continue reading

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | 1 Comment

Satan’s end game?

Our friend Levi introduced me to Rene Girard, whose writings on the way that crowds become mad, set in the context of the Christian message, certainly have something to say about the present experience of cancellation, censorship, and a lot more.

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

Unidentified Aerial Putins

When I last wrote about UFOs (now officially and paradoxically relabelled “UAPs” though, we are told, the government knows they are alien spacecraft and therefore “objects” and not merely “phenomena”), it was in the wake of the release of the “Tic-tac” episode by the Pentagon. I speculated, tongue in cheek, about the possibility that they might simply be the equivalent of interstellar dolphins rather than anything more intelligent.

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How to spot deception before researching it

Words of wisdom for the times by the excellent Nick Hudson:

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Refugee crisis hits Springwatch

I’ve remarked from time to time how the BBC series Springwatch (and its other seasonal offshoots) has learned to treat bad-anthropogenic-climate-change as the default explanation for every apparent change in Britain’s natural world, being obligatorily appended to any more scientific explanation that may be to hand. Hence the recurrent phrase, “Apart from the usual causes, like loss of habitat and climate changeā€¦”

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