Category Archives: Politics and sociology

One of the mysteries of the Christian faith is how doubt-raising issues can be seen, historically, often to take generations to solve – and yet solved they eventually are, usually just at the right time. There’s some teaching about providence in that, I think. I believe many knotty issues in the two century old origins question are of that nature, apparently permanent impasses between the Bible and developing science later becoming resolvable through discoveries about both. Many answers that just weren’t available when I asked questions in my youth have become so in my dotage. Rewards come to those who wait, and who don’t give way to fear. This calls … Continue reading →

Tomorrow (in case you forgot to organize a party) is the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, when King Henry V and his small band of proletarian archers defeated the aristocracy of France, and the media has not failed to remember it. Significantly it’s had its English pronunciation, with a sounded final “t”, restored after decades of hearing it said the French way. That’s relevant to my post, which is about providing a clearer understanding of the word “myth.”

Today is actually the day that the length of her reign overtakes that of Queen Victoria, making her the longest ruling of Britain’s forty monarchs since the Norman Conquest in 1066. As an individual she now has pretty universal respect. Opinions vary about the effectiveness of her reign, from historian David Starkey’s assertion that she’s never said anything that will be remembered, to others who consider that her management of the changes in Britain, from a stiff nominally Christian state to a secular one, and from an imperial power to a more modest world-player, has been masterful.