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- The lab-leak is slowly leaking out 26/07/2026
- Another reminder that genre is crucial to biblical interpretation 17/07/2026
- Faith in feelings 14/07/2026
- Cognitive dissonance – the midwife of wisdom 08/07/2026
- Conceptual divergence 02/07/2026
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Category Archives: Theology
The lab-leak is slowly leaking out
I was quick to become sceptical about the whole COVID civilisation-bust of 2020 and onwards, as a mountain of my posts here from March 2020 demonstrates. But I believe my first mention of the possibility of the escape of a manufactured virus was only that September, and it took several more months before the evidence I was seeing for a lab-leak became overwhelmingly convincing.
Posted in History, Medicine, Politics and sociology, Theology
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Another reminder that genre is crucial to biblical interpretation
I came across an observation on Genesis (via another YouTube video, I’m afraid) by the late Jewish scholar Nahum Sarna. He noted in the 1960s that the unnaturally high ages of the three founding Patriarchs of Israel may actually be represented by one mathematical formula, suggesting that the ages had numerological and theological, rather than chronological, significance.
Posted in History, Theology
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Faith in feelings
I’m getting tired of how many Bible Studies nowadays seem to base all, or most, of their questions on the formulae “How did X feel when ..?” or “How would you feel if…?” or “How does this make you feel?”. I question how much progress in the Christian faith can ever be made by exploring (and discussing) either one’s own feelings or those of Bible characters, on which Scripture is notably reticent.
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology
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Cognitive dissonance – the midwife of wisdom
Cognitive dissonance is usually seen as the enemy of reason. For example, in the science-faith field, the old trope is that the Christian indoctrinated in the superstitions of the Bible, when confronted by the facts of science, becomes mentally scrambled and simply fails to perceive obvious realities. This criticism extends to the highest levels, for example in Jerry Coyne’s attempt to exclude Francis Collins from becoming head of the NIH some years ago, on the grounds that he was a Christian and therefore not scientifically reputable. But in fact, cognitive dissonance can often free the mind to pursue truth.
Posted in Creation, Science, Theology of nature
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Conceptual divergence
A couple of decades ago, when I still lived in the world of general medical practice, one of the local GP appraisers persuaded me and another GP, John, to run a course on spinal manipulation for the next generation of medics. Both of us had learned the same stuff, from the same pioneering doctors, John Paterson and Loic Burn, when we were young GP partners in the early 1980s.
Posted in Creation, Science, Theology of nature
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The Church in Ezekiel’s shoes
Rupert Lowe’s Rape Gang Enquiry has been published, and is here. Where it isn’t is anywhere in the Main Stream Media, nor under passionate discussion in Parliament, where a sparsely populated House of Commons seems to have received it with a general sense of ennuie. They’ve heard it all before… or at least, have studiously missed debates on the matter to avoid hearing about it.
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology
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A rose by any other name is still a rose…
…but the rose itself can mutate I watched a video, by a YouTuber I’d not encountered before, with some hesitation. It is entitled Why I’m no longer evangelical, and I can live without another apostasy story, or even another defection to Rome or Constantinople. But given that the provider goes by the name “Reformed Pastor,” the contradiction intrigued me.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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Some brief new thoughts on Genesis 6
In my Generations of Heaven and Earth (pp.36-39) I deal with the odd story of the sons of God marrying the daughters of men, related (but not necessarily genealogically) with the mysterious nephilim, often translated “giants” and much beloved of YouTube fantasists.
Posted in Genealogical Adam, Theology
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Ideology as brain surgery
The Henry Nowak murder has rightly drawn attention to the Critical Race Theory underpinning and infecting police training, and much more, within our institutions. But perhaps the focused coverage is in danger of missing that the same cult ideology governs every aspect of what passes for British institutions now.
Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Theology
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What turns Evangelicals Catholic?
Prompted by my last post I have dug into Elliott-Binns Religion in the Victorian Era. It confirms my understanding that the re-moralising, and re-spiritualising, of Victorian Britain was quite complex in causation, but did indeed seem to begin with Nonconformist and Anglican Evangelicals campaigning on the abolition of slavery. Maybe Asa Briggs just read Elliott-Binns and took the credit.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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