Category Archives: Theology

How Jesus is society’s only answer

As nearly everybody, even starry-eyed Christians, begins to get a sense of the dire situation into which British and Western culture has sunk, I’ve heard a number of people say stuff along the lines of “Politicians and scientists won’t save us – only Jesus is the answer.” And I don’t disagreeā€¦ subject, though, to a number of serious qualifications.

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The undeceived don’t panic

Here’s an excellent piece by John Stackhouse, writing for the Jubilee Centre. I don’t know John, but I do know Guildford Baptist Church, of which he is senior pastor, well from the past. He sums up my own feeling that closing the door gratefully on the COVID era leaves Christians vulnerable not only to future lockdowns, but to all kinds of ungodly restrictions that might be sprung on us.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 4 Comments

The Syro-Phoenician sister’s lived experience

(The woke answer to Matthew 15:21-28 and Mark 7:24-30) So, I heard this faith-healer was speaking in Tyre, and I went to hear him because of my daughter’s mental health issues. If I’d realised he was Jewish, of course, I’d have been there with my “Death to Zionists” banners rather than thinking about my daughter, who always stays at home for protests because they trigger her. In fact, the only time I took her to one she was arrested for decking a policeman and screaming “Why don’t you arrest my demons instead, Pig?”. That’s where NHS child psychiatry gets you!

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Understanding the Cult Wars (or trying to)

Toby Young (of the Free Speech Union – join!) reports that he had a moment of revelation recently when he realised that England’s current ruling class is, in fact, a “technocratic theocracy,” acting in effect as a secular State Religion, its own beliefs being unchallengable truths, and its opponents irredeemably evil.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | 6 Comments

Helping Starmer build my internet footprint

Yesterday, the fifty-ninth anniversary of my new birth in Christ happened to coincide with my being asked to preach on one of the parables of Jesus. I chose “the labourers in the vineyard” from Matthew 20, and it seemed natural to include some testimony to my six decades of being one.

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The Turin anomaly

The Shroud of Turin is in the news again, after some sophisticated scientific study of the aging of the linen cloth not only suggested that it is, indeed, two thousand years old, but proposed the most likely itinerary among those previously suggested, based on climatic factors, and assuming, I suppose, that the shroud is a genuine relic from Jesus’s time.

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Unpluggable gaps?

Earlier this month I wrote a piece on the accusation that ID resorts to a version of the “God of the Gaps” fallacy (whilst repeating my belief that the fallacy is itself largely a fallacy).

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology of nature | 4 Comments

Christians outsourcing persecution?

To follow up on my last-but-one post, consider this.

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Christians hindering revival?

The time has come for judgment to begin, and God’s own people are the first to be judged. 1 Peter 4:17 The thing that upset many people most during COVID, and in the permacrisis since, was the total failure of a majority of people to comprehend that there was anything fundamentally wrong. That blind attitude has persisted into the most recent manifestation of the crisis (if you don’t count monkeypox and the NATO invasion of Russia at our expense), that is the protests and riots that have many US commentators wondering what has become of English justice, and even caused a friend in the impoverished and violent state of Sri … Continue reading

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Plugging more gaps in the God of the gaps

Last Thursday I was interviewed for a podcast on God’s Good Earth by geologist Gregg Davidson, co-author with Ken Turner of the excellent Manifold Beauty of Genesis One, as well as writing an excellent sci-fi trilogy. The podcast should be online in about five weeks, Gregg says, so I’ll let you know about it when it happens.

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