Category Archives: Theology

Soft sacerdotalism

Tom Wadsworth’s 2021 paper, The Shift, for the ETS (available here) gives a good account of how the New Testament’s primarily “horizontal” concept of “meeting for mutual edification in the Spirit” became a vertical “meeting to serve God in worship” by the fourth century. Essentially, the Christian assembly became temple worship redividus despite the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, and the culprit was sacerdotalism.

Posted in Theology | 2 Comments

What the Spirit says, and how he says it

Tom Wadsworth, whom I referenced recently, is particularly strong on the idea that teaching and exhortation in church is not simply the job of a credentialed Pastor, but of multiple people in a fellowship. I expressed some caveats to this in my linked piece, but it is a particularly strong idea when linked to the role of the Holy Spirit in co-ordinating Christian assemblies so that they are, indeed, edifying to all because all participate.

Posted in Theology | Leave a comment

Science simony

Our own commenter Shopwindows recently coined the excellent Virgilian aphorism for corruption in science: “I do not trust Geeks bearing grifts.” Physicist and YouTuber Sabine Hossenfelder gives an excellent, and disturbing, example of this not in the politically controversial fields like climatology or vaccinology, but in fundamental science.

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

Christians need to learn who their friends are

Currently London is hosting a conference of the ARC (Affiliation for Responsible Citizenship). Attending is Toby Young (now Lord Toby Young, PBUH), the founder and chief honcho of the excellent Free Speech Union and the Daily Sceptic website. Both are rare defenders of independent thought on the British scene.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 5 Comments

In the end greatness means God’s law

With the recent revelations of the horrible corruption of USAID, a number of “awakened” commentators, broadly supportive of the Trump revolution, have lined up to express caution lest the president’s own team dismantle Deep State evils only to construct their own. This is a sign of political health – if from the start one’s supporters are critical friends rather than starry-eyed worshippers, then the checks and balances of a political entity are operating.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Brotherly babies and baptismal bathwater

Last year I wrote about David Peterson’s Engaging with God and how it radically transforms our view of Christian assembly by showing that the New Testament never describes, or intends, such meetings to be for worship. Inasmuch as “worship” forms a part of Christian life, it is transformed from the Old Testament temple-locus of God’s presence, to the concept of Christ and his people being the temple and the priesthood, and therefore Christian living itself is our “spiritual sacrifice.”

Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

All that glisters is not gold

There’s a good deal of optimism amongst “conservatives” (a euphemism for “Far Right Thugs” to Mr Starmer, of course) about the breakneck speed of the turnaround under Donald Trump. I share it, and yet I wonder why I still seem to feel these are “bad times” rather than “good times,” and still less the start of a “Golden Age” as per the President’s inaugural rhetoric.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Wot a pretty world we live in

The same day as someone said to me (not untypically now) that there’s not much good news about in Britain, someone contacted me out of the blue to point out a numerical error – or rather outdated information – in an old post. His update was actually a reminder that if we lift up our eyes to the natural world, we always see good news of abundance, variety and beauty.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology, Theology of nature | 5 Comments

End times postponed – or not?

It’s strange how, as so many of us have noted, society seems to be divided into at least a couple of quite distinct and watertight realities. One is that fed to us by the mainstream media, and the other by alternative sources of one kind or another, seemingly with few connections between them.

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

Confusion over temples produces confusion over worship

In Chapter 16 of my Generations of Heaven and Earth I spend eighteen pages contrasting the Old Testament tabernacle/temple, based on the Genesis cosmic temple of Genesis 1 and emphasising the separateness of God from his creation, with the New Testament (and New Creation) temple in which all barriers are dissolved in the body of Christ.

Posted in History, Theology | 5 Comments