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Meta
Category Archives: Theology
A time for everything
There’s an interesting discussion on YouTube between two Christian apologists to Muslims, the American David Wood, and the English “Bob from Speakers Corner.” They agree on the need for the churches to “muscle up,” and they have good experience to back this view up, being far more aware than most Christians about the real threat to peace (and potentially to Christianity itself) from Islam. Their message may well find more general agreement than it would have a year or so ago, as ordinary people begin to sense the antisemitic and anti-christian militancy of many from a religion that now comprises 6% of the population, and that is increasing by hundreds … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology, Uncategorized
3 Comments
Hitting the Books
Part of my low output here recently (apart from a cold, driving my car into a ditch, and dealing with a broken washing machine) is down to transcribing the second volume of the proceedings book of my Baptist Church, 131 pages of hand-written entries from 1778-1904. It is generally in pretty legible copper-plate script compared to the mere 58 pages of Volume 1, from 1653, which are largely in the crabbed handwriting of that period and considerably more difficult for a modern transcriber.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
2 Comments
Theological sleight of hand
I read some Bible study notes on Acts 3, the healing of the lame man by Peter and John. After wise words about not everyone being healed, and questions about how we might sense God calling us to some unusual action, the study urged Christians to be bolder in praying for miraculous healing on the following logic:
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology
8 Comments
More on Christian politics for the times
It’s astonishing how Scripture surprises you every time you read it, even after a lifetime of familiarity.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
2 Comments
Experiencing God
I wrote before on Jonathan Edwards, work on Religious Affections. I observed how Edwards, the preacher at the heart of the Great Awakening in America, gives a very astute account of the difference between truly spiritual emotions (to use our modern parlance), and those associated with merely human passions, often associated with false conversions, and occasionally even with the demonic. Careful reading of his arguments dismisses much of what passes for direct experience of God in the Charismatic movement now. My own piece ended with a sobering assessment of just how high a proportion of Edwards’ own experience of “surprising conversions” was revival as a psycho-social phenomenon rather than a … Continue reading
Posted in Theology
2 Comments
Christian politics
A conversation with a younger brother at church yesterday came round to Charlie Kirk and the Christian presence at the Unite the Kingdom march recently. He’s been a dissident over COVID and related deceptions, but has been asking himself recently whether Christians should be involved in politics at all, or whether the Kingdom of God ought to be seen as a completely different kind of kingdom.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
2 Comments
Why Pentecostalism is the universal Evangelical acid
Mainstream Evangelicalism has become increasingly Pentecostal and less Evangelical over the years, as I have repeatedly pointed out. But though this theological drift from our Reformation roots has failed to deliver revival or even increased numbers in church over the 55 or so years since it began to bite, it continues to fascinate and spread. Why?
Posted in History, Theology
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Surreality and Messianism
No, they are relevant, honestly! I have downloaded, and am currently reading, The Great Secret of Islam by the French popular historian Odon Lafontaine (and you can too – searching on his name will take you to the free download site). The book is one attempt at an up-to-date synthesis of the evidence that the standard narrative of Islam is complete fiction, and that Islam actually began as a Messianic Jewish Christian sect linked to Arab imperialism beginning in the seventh century.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
2 Comments
Keeping the revolution velvet
There were many different issues and moods amongst both crowds and speakers at the London Free Speech Festival yesterday. The most revolutionary voice was probably that of Elon Musk, whose message was that we probably don’t have another four years to replace this government (and the Uniparty structures around it) before too much damage has been done to personal freedoms and the economy. People in sleepy villages (like mine) need to wake up, he said, and act to bring about such change. It’s difficult to interpret that in any other way than as a call to revolution.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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If it quacks like a duck⦠it’s probably Pentecostal
I have in mind the Toronto Blessing and similar phenomena in my title. Thinking in some recent posts about the singing of Bethel songs in non-New-Apostolic-Reformation Evangelical churches, I’ve thrown around the names of a few of the “big players” that many conservative believers think should be avoided, such as Bethel, Elevation, and Hillsong. But it’s instructive to look at some of the most popular “worship songs” not emanating from those sources.
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology
2 Comments