Category Archives: Politics and sociology

Thomas Huxley and natural morality

Posted on 03/04/2013 by Jon Garvey

My final nod to Gertrude Himmelfarb’s enlightening biography of Charles Darwin is another reference to his “bulldog”, Thomas Huxley. As I mentioned before his attraction to natural selection, more than perhaps any other of Darwin’s immediate circle, was primarily because of its ability to “make atheism respectable.” Like Thomas Nagel in our time, he didn’t want there to be a God.

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

Jesus is too conservative for Christians

Posted on 05/02/2013 by Jon Garvey

Today the UK Parliament discusses enabling homosexual marriage and thereby totally redefining marriage. We are assured that, although there is a free vote, it will pass its second reading because all three major parties are for it. The political élite appears, therefore, to have disenfranchised the Christian churches and the other main religious groups, which have come out almost universally against the move (barring the infinitesimally small number of Unitarians and Quakers, as I mentioned here). There is no longer a political party representing Christian teaching – a sobering point to have reached.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Theology | 5 Comments

King Richard’s descendants

Posted on 05/02/2013 by Jon Garvey

I guess the whole world knows that King Richard III’s skeleton has been found in Leicester. Two things about it particularly interested me.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | 6 Comments

Cutting the Cack

Posted on 17/12/2012 by Jon Garvey

This has been the big weekend of the year for our family – my daughter’s wedding. We parents had no part in the planning. Although it was held at the Anglican church in our village, daughter and fiancé organised everything, and we were just delegated organisational roles and speeches. And bills, of course.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 7 Comments

Gay marriage

Posted on 09/12/2012 by Jon Garvey

I don’t normally write about sociological issues like this here, but followers of British poliutics may know that the Prime Minister is pushing forward a law to allow homosexuals to marry (rather than entering the current “civil partnerships”) in religious institutions. No church, he reassures us, will be forced to participate. The media report that  the Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox and Evangelical (umbrella group) churches are firmly opposed to this, as are the Muslims and the majority of Jews. But, they say, “some churches are in favour”, such as the Unitarians and the Quakers. Or rather, just these two are in favour. The BBC evening news carried an interview with a … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 1 Comment

It’s all about sovereignty

Posted on 04/12/2012 by Jon Garvey

In my last post I alluded to the hardening in the attitude of American Fundamentalists towards evolution after the Great War. And I mentioned that some of the authors of the Fundamentals had previously been sympathetic to evolution. Here’s a quote I turned up from one of them, G F Wright:

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Science, Theology | 21 Comments

The Roots of Creationism

Posted on 03/12/2012 by Jon Garvey

Quite a lot has been said about the issue of Social Darwinism and the Eugenenics movement in the Nazi programme and the Holocaust. I’ve even said some of it myself here and here. Less has been said about the role of Social Darwinism in the First World War, though it probably had more effect on the science and religion question, if not on the death count, though the First War’s 37 million is at least comparable to the Second’s 60 million. The estimates of deaths due to “evolutionary” communism range up to 150m, and so dwarf both wars.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 1 Comment

Justin Welby – my part in his Archbishopric

Posted on 09/11/2012 by Jon Garvey

Today they’ve officially announced that Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham, is to become the new Archbishop of Canterbury. He’s an Evangelical, which is good, though that doesn’t necessarily make him a good Archbishop (or even, given the state of Western Evangelicalism, a good Evangelical). Nevertheless, the word on the street is that he’s potentially both a good leader, a good mediator and a truly committed Christian.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 20 Comments

BioLogos – free again!

Posted on 14/10/2012 by Jon Garvey

There’s a new piece about oxygen on BioLogos by a geobiologist called Mike Tice. He raises again that elusive TE concept, the freedom of nature, under the banner of “co-creation”. Tice, of course, doesn’t speak for BioLogos, any more than I did in my one article for them, but he does give a rather fuller version of what has remained to me, despite many enquiries in the past to Darrel Falk, etc, a ubiquitous but nebulous idea. So let’s see what it consists of.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Theology | 29 Comments

Shock horror sex scandal

Posted on 07/10/2012 by Jon Garvey

There’s something of a furore in the UK at the moment regarding posthumous revelations about one of our most celebrated TV DJs, Sir Jimmy Savile. Savile was the first presenter in 1964 of the long running TV chart show Top of the Pops, then one of the first presenters at the launch of pop channel BBC Radio 1 in 1967, and subsequently the celebrity host of the children’s TV show, Jim’ll Fix It, the problem being that it appears Jim did fix it, rather too often with significantly underage girls, throughout his career.

Posted in Music, Politics and sociology | 1 Comment