SANITY'S COVE

4/5 Stars. In many ways, this is an excellent book. If you want a book that gives a review of the social and political causes and impacts of recent immigration into Europe, this is the one. And I say that as an immigrant myself.
Regardless of your political stance or what you’d like to believe about immigration into Europe, it will be hard to argue with Murray’s research. The facts don’t care about our feelings and this book is filled with facts – many of which our feelings might not care for. His thesis is that Europe is committing suicide and one of its primary tools is through the unstrategic and (seemingly) unlimited immigration that has occurred in recent decades and – more importantly – in the last three years.
Those who may not like the facts that he presents may be tempted to paint him as a xenophobe or racist. He isn’t. He often shows how these policies aren’t particularly helping immigrants either and how genuine refugees who need our help the most, often aren’t getting it.
I …

Elijah took the child, and brought him down into the house, and gave him to his mother. -1 Kings 17
A superficial understanding of Elijah could mislead someone into believing that he – or perhaps even the God who worked through Elijah – was a misogynist.
Sadly, that term - in addition to being hard to spell - has become loaded, politicised, and increasingly vague. CS Lewis pointed out that when such things happen we are witnessing verbicide – the death of a word. It’s a shame because misogyny and its counterpart misandry are both real things. So, let’s define. By misogynist, we do not mean someone who despises a woman or who believes men and women are different. We mean someone who despises a woman because she is a woman.
Elijah was not one. Elijah stood against the work of a certain Sidonian princess – but not because she was a woman or even because she was a foreigner. He resisted her plans because she was leading God’s people into false worship and sexual immorality. Any man whose i…

‘O man of God, I plead with you, let my life, and the life of these fifty men, be precious in your sight. I know that fire came down from heaven, and burnt up the two captains and their squads of fifty men each.’ -2Kings 1
King Ahaziah, son of the late king Ahab, sends a captain with 50 soldiers to go fetch Elijah who is sitting on a hill. Like the king, this captain and his soldiers have no fear of God. They arrogantly command Elijah to obey the message like he’s the king’s lapdog. As a result, God drops fire on them. The king then sends another 50 up the hill in an equally proud manner – and God equally napalms the lot of them. Lastly, a third captain goes up in humility, falling on his knees, and asking for mercy. This man and his soldiers live.
Last century, Arthur Wallis – at the beginning of his landmark book, God’s Chosen Fast – wrote, ‘When people do not like the plain literal meaning of something in the Bible they are tempted to spiritualise it, and so rob of its potency.’ Wha…

I awoke this morning to see that a few FB friends had tagged me in a BLOGthat’s making the rounds. As I’ve written on the issue of gender imbalance in the British church before, they thought I may be interested in this article that seeks to deconstruct the ‘muscular Christianity’ movement. And they were right.
I had not heard of Eric Pazdziora before, but apparently, he’s quite an accomplished pianist, writer, and blogger. His gift for word artistry certainly comes through in this article and overall, he makes some fair points.
I welcome his deconstruction of muscular Christianity on a personal level. We have such a movement here in the UK just like they do in the States. I’ve never felt entirely at home in them. I’ve felt uncomfortable largely because of who I am. On Myers-Briggs, I’m an INFP. Typically, that’s a woman’s personality. Among other things, it means I’m a feeler more than a thinker.
I'm also not the typical sporty male – I write poetry more than play football. I'd …

'Ahab did more of what YHWH considered to be evil than any king who lived before him.'  -1 Kg 16
It was a wicked culture. Now I know we like to pretend that all cultures are equal and that one isn't better than any other. We say that cultures are just different. But that's not true. Some cultures are more perverse than others. 
Here, a wicked generation had created a wicked culture. And though many people were culpable to some degree, one man was responsible above all.
Ahab is said to have been more wicked than all the previous Israeli kings combined. It had been 58 years since the kingdom was torn in two after Solomon, and the 10 tribes had been ruled by a succession of 7 bad men. But now Ahab led the nation in creating a toxic culture that exceeded his apostate forefathers. It was a poison to all, a generation steeped in a darkness greater than any midnight. How had this happened?
Religion, Sex & Power
Call in the usual suspects. 
To start with, Ahab imported Baal wors…

Among UK Christians, the image of Pirate Party members is of grown boys who still live at home, wear Spider-Man pyjamas, and want to illegally download films without paying for them. So why would I, as a Christian minister, seriously consider supporting them?
First of all, let’s get a clearer picture of who they actually are. The first Pirate Party was started in 2006 in Sweden and it’s there that they’ve had the most success with two Pirate candidates being elected to the European Union. Their values are freedom of expression, direct democracy, and copyright reform.
While Theresa May's government works to be able to read your WhatsApp messages – surveillance laws that are not opposed by the Labour Party – the Pirates believe in the right of free people to freely communicate without Big Brother watching.

The Lib-Dems are theoretically more libertarian. But are they really any better?
Castration by Microphone
It's not fun to see a man get castrated. Yet this is what the world be…