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 Lanka to phone me to see if I was safe.

I’m not safe, of course, because I write “anti-establishment rhetoric,” and that gets people jailed over here. But it seems that a majority accepts the narrative that Far-Right groups instigated the protests for the mindless hell of it, and should all be banged up and the key thrown away. The despair of ordinary folk goes unnoticed by those more fortunate, as well as by Keir Starmer.

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Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | 7 Comments

Confessions of a Far-Right thug

paid-up Well, since I can see that the game is up, as the authorities trawl through the internet and efficiently mop up old ladies making angry tweets, I know that real members of the Far-Right like me are on borrowed time in England. It’s clear that prison sentences of a couple of years for one Tweet of an opinion will be several times greater for those who antagonise justice by not pleading guilty. Or that’s what we see from the January 6 occupation in America – even thinking about attending a rally gets them solitary confinement for three years before trial – until they make a plea deal and become one of the 800 self-confessed unarmed insurrectionists. When America sneezes, Britain catches a cold. So it’s time to own up now and plan for my eventual release while I’ve still got time to pay into my State Pension.

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Posted in Politics and sociology | 2 Comments

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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Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology of nature | Leave a comment

The official guide to cultivating Astroturf

Yesterday a consensus was developing across independent commentators that the “popular counter-protests” that drove the Far Right rioters off the streets of our cities were, in fact, a false flag operation. I agree.

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Posted in Politics and sociology | 5 Comments

The internal illogic of mass immigration

The seething public unrest in Britain today is, behind the “Far Right Thugs” mantra, mainly focused on immigration. It is important to remember that this is only the most obvious cause, rather than the most important one. Economic hardship, loss of freedoms, and the blind arrogance of the political class are equally important, but less easy for ordinary people to express, especially en masse, and even more when the media and politicians are only interested in accusations of racism.

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Posted in History, Politics and sociology | 5 Comments

Agents provocateurs?

I learned how heavy-handed policing can turn peaceful protests into a violent confrontations (making for establishment-useful headlines) during COVID. And I learned how there are sometimes suspicious connections between the forces of Laura Norder and protesters of all shades during the BLM demonstrations. And so it is that I record an impression I’ve been gaining since viewing some of the footage of recent riots. Perhaps you can inform me if you’ve noticed the same, or whether it’s just me.

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Posted in Politics and sociology | 2 Comments

Privatised public opinion

There’s a piece on the substack of the commentator known as Eugyppius, most of which is behind a paywall, but whose introduction alone gives food for thought.

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Posted in History, Politics and sociology | 6 Comments

Fifteen minute čitties

My basic mental schema for the industrial revolution has been that it eventually brought great benefits, but only at the initial cost of millions of working people (including my Garvey ancestors) living in squalid and unhealthy conditions in city slums. Oliver Twist and all that. But I’m having to revise my ideas.

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Posted in History, Prometheus, Theology | 2 Comments

Providence meticulous, mysterious and momentous

I’ve just re-read Luther’s classic The Bondage of the Will, in which he refutes the ubiquitous belief that the (fallen) human will is balanced between good and evil, able to choose either. I’ve only just got it back after an Arminian friend borrowed it to refute it twenty-two years ago, seeking to achieve against Luther what Erasmus failed to do, and not succeeding, kept it on his shelf.

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Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | 3 Comments

The deep roots of Englishness

I’ve recently re-read Beowulf, which has been described as the foundation of English literature. And that’s partly true, but partly also it’s a record of what the English abandoned in order to become a nation worth celebrating.

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Posted in History, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Theology | 1 Comment