Old churches and the numinous

Posted on 14/06/2025 by Jon Garvey

My pastor took an excellent line for his teaching on Pentecost Sunday last week. His main thrust was how the glory of God filled the completed Tabernacle in Exodus, and likewise the completed Solomonic temple, in 1 Kings, but after its judgemental departure (“Ichabod”) before the temple’s destruction by the Babylonians, it is not mentioned as filling the second temple built after the return from captivity. Instead, in fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel, at Pentecost God’s glory (later termed the shekinah) came to dwell within every believer born again in Christ. God is no longer represented in a sacred place, but in his sacred people.

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Luke’s gospel – some new thoughts

Posted on 12/06/2025 by Jon Garvey

An ossuary discovered in Jerusalem a couple of decades ago once contained the bones of Joanna, daughter of John and granddaughter of Theophilus, high priest from 37-42AD, who was a son of Annas, and brother-in-law of Caiaphas, both implicated in the trial of Jesus. The discovery has led one apologist, Shane Rosenthal, to suggest that this Joanna might, in fact, be the same Joanna mentioned in Luke’s gospel, and only in Luke’s gospel, as a witness to the resurrection.

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The new importance of Josephus to Christian faith

Posted on 04/06/2025 by Jon Garvey

In complete contrast, both in subject and mood, to Debbie Lerman’s book, which I reviewed in my last post, my other recent reading has been a new monograph by T. C. Schmidt on the passage in Josephus’s Antiquities about Jesus Christ. Published by Oxford University, in an incredibly enlightened gesture Josephus and Jesus – New Evidence for the One Called Christ is available for free download here. Presumably it is thought to be of interest only to nerdy academics. Maybe that’s me.

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Tying a few (or a lot of) COVID loose ends

Posted on 02/06/2025 by Jon Garvey

I’m reading Debbie Lerman’s The Deep State Goes Viral. It is deeply satisfying as it explains almost without remainder, with as much documentation as one is likely to get, all the nonsense of COVID, on which I wrote tens of thousands of frustrated words.

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Posted in History, Politics and sociology | 2 Comments

Unsung saints

Posted on 29/05/2025 by Jon Garvey

Two years ago I did a piece as an obituary to an old friend, Peter Loose, who though incredibly self-effacing made a great behind-the-scenes difference to many Christian enterprises both here and in the US. I described how I first got to know him in my home Bible Study Group based on the ordinary, if large, Baptist Church where we were both members.

Today I hear news of the death of another member of that small (and unremarkable) group, whom I’ll call “K,” and although (or perhaps because) she had nothing like the kind of influence on the world that Peter did, I feel a eulogy is called for, because without the Ks of this world, the Peters of this world would not be possible.

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From Athens to Bedlam

Posted on 21/05/2025 by Jon Garvey

Realising late in the day that I needed some holiday reading to supplement an Agatha Christrie novel, I hurriedly ordered the book that had been on my Amazon wish-list the longest, Prof. Stephen R. L. Clark’s From Athens to Jerusalem. To my surprise it went on the list as far back as July 2012, when I heard him speak at an Intelligent Design conference in Cambridge, hosted by the Philosophy of Religion branch of the Tyndale Fellowship. Time flies when you’re geriatric, doesn’t it?

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Goodbye, Old Stick

Posted on 19/05/2025 by Jon Garvey

The day before yesterday I lost Uncle Ralph’s stick, whilst we were on holiday in Cornwall. A small, but significant, bereavement for me. Either I left it behind after the excitement of seeing a chough on the coast-path near Porthleven, or less plausibly someone nicked it from the open back of the car outside where we were staying. Either way, it’s drawn a sharp line under an eighty five year old story, and Uncle Ralph, aka Ralph Hopper, deserves to have his unsung death in World War 2 told, I think. As there is no longer an artifact to hang the tale on, I guess the web will have to do.

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Southport protests – silenced truth and spouted lies

Posted on 10/05/2025 by Jon Garvey

The new report from the police, or specifically His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, has created a stir on the Internet, though not so far in the mainstream media, by concluding that there is not (and never was) any evidence of the involvement of Far-Right groups in the protests after the Southport massacre, and that most of the disorder involved angry locals, and not mindless thugs traveling in on buses and trains.

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More on Christian music and church music

Posted on 07/05/2025 by Jon Garvey

Thanks to those wonderful YouTube chaps, I’ve just discovered the fascinating and surprisingly contemporary-sounding music of Pérotin, the thirteenth century composer of Notre Dame, Paris, who was the first to write choral music for four parts, eight centuries ago. I’m tempted to say I’ve developed Pérotinitis, as it’s such good stuff.

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Is “moderate Charismatic” an oxymoron?

Posted on 05/05/2025 by Jon Garvey

The reason for posing this question is that whilst the excesses of the “Hypercharismatic” megachurches are plain to see, and have been so for many years, they still seem remarkably attractive to the undoubtedly sane and generally sound Charismatics in most British Evangelical churches.

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Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 1 Comment