The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.

Holiday Near Ross

All the family

Gwilym, Ezra and Betsan

With the grandchildren

Gwion and the hotshots

We had a wonderful family last week near Ross in an eccentrically furnished old farmhouse surrounded by old cars found on AirBnB by my wife. On the Monday we actually gathered ahead of time so that we could have a stag do event for the men. This is because Gwion is getting married this month. So dressed in a pink cap with the words Dance Captain, as arranged by his brother and best man Rhodri, he led about 13 of us in a clay pigeon shooting event (two fathers, six brothers or brothers to be, two friends, a cousin and an uncle). As I expected, I could hit the disc sometimes but never worked out how to be consistent. Others did much better. This part of the day concluded with Chinese food at the farmhouse and a Mr and Mrs quiz with the prospective groom and bride.
The rest of the week was all about, playing and reading and walking and a trip into Ross. We also had visits from my sister and one of Eleri's and her daughter. We now have eight grandchildren and it was great to see them iteracting with one another. On the Friday my wife took our youngest and me to Newport, where we caught the train home. She went on to Trebanos near Clydach, where my second son and his family have just moved into a new house. Good times.

10 Nazi Triangles



1 Red triangle – political prisoners: occupied country resistance members, social democrats, liberals, socialists, communists, anarchists, gentiles who assisted Jews; trade unionists and Freemasons.
2 Green triangle – convicts and criminals.
3 Blue triangle – foreign forced labourers and emigrants. This category included apatrides, Spanish refugees from Francoist Spain whose citizenship was revoked and emigrants to countries which were occupied by Nazi Germany or were under German sphere of influence.
4 Purple triangle – primarily Jehovah's Witnesses (over 99%) as well as members of other small pacifist religious groups.
5 Pink triangle – primarily homosexual men and those who identified as such at the time (eg bisexual men, male prostitutes, etc, and sexual offenders as well as pedophiles and zoophiles. Many in this group were subject to forced sterilization.
6 Black triangle – people deemed asocial elements (asozial) and work-shy (arbeitsscheu), including the following: Roma and Sinti. They wore the black triangle with a Z notation (for Zigeuner, meaning Gypsy) to the right of the triangle's point. Roma were later assigned a brown triangle. Mentally ill and developmentally disabled. Their triangles were additionally inscribed with the word Blöd, meaning stupid. This category included, notably, autistic people. Though many others including schizophrenic and epileptic people were forcibly sterilized, shot or gassed in psychiatric institutions as opposed to at the Nazi camps. Alcoholics and drug addicts. Vagrants and beggars. Pacifists and conscription resisters. Sex workers. Lesbians. Other disabled people, such as people with diabetes (as "Diabetes was conceptualized as a Jewish disease not necessarily because its prevalence was high among this population, but because medicine, science and culture reinforced each other".
7 Brown triangle – Assigned to Roma later on in the Romani Holocaust.
8 Uninverted red triangle – an enemy POW (Sonderhäftling, meaning special detainee), a spy or traitor (Aktionshäftling, meaning activities detainee), or a military deserter or criminal (Wehrmachtsangehöriger, meaning Armed Forces member).
9 Yellow triangle - Jews. These were used in conjunctionwith other triangles, so red inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow one = a Jewish political prisoner; green inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow one = a Jewish habitual criminal; purple inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow one = JW of Jewish descent; pink inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow one = Jewish "sexual offender", typically a gay or bisexual man; black inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow one = "asocial" or work-shy Jew; voided black inverted triangle superimposed over a yellow triangle = a Jew convicted of miscegenation and labelled as a Rassenschänder (race defiler); yellow inverted triangle superimposed over a black triangle - Aryan woman convicted of miscegenation and labelled as a Rassenschänder.
10 Blue inverted triangle superimposed on a red one = foreign forced labour and political prisoner (eg Spanish Republicans in Mauthausen).

Grace Abounding


Over the last few weeks I have been slowly re-reading John Bunyan's classic autobiographical work - Grace abounding to the chief of sinners. I say re-reading as this was one of the first Christian books I read. I got hold of a list of secondhand books from somewhere in Northern Ireland and bought and old hardback copy in blue cloth. (I had read Pilgrim's Progress and would go on soon to read Bunyan's work on prayer - I am currently re-reading the former too). Bunyan was an obsessive who had certain peculiarities. However, God's grace to him is not in doubt and his story does make for interesting and salient reading. The Banner edition is done beautifully (as is their PP; they should do The Holy War in similar style).

Failure to Communicate by Kreuz


I can't quite remember how I ran across this hardback book but I'm glad I did. I enjoyed its anecdote packed pages warning against various types of miscommunication. A good subject for a preacher to be up on.

Haykin on Revival


Despite being cobbled together to some extent, as it uses material from elsewhere to tell its story, this is an excellent introduction or refresher course on the subject of revival and on 18th century church history more generally. It ends with eight theses regarding revival. it is well written, cogent and includes some important material that can be found elsewhere but not in such a succonct and well crafted form. This is a great resource.

Lord's Day May 19 2024


We carried on in the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 6 again. We had a second session on prayer focussed on the Lord's Prayer. In the evening our famous text was Philippians 4:8. We had a good congregation in the morning as so often and in the evening it was not too bad as we had one or two extras in London with the Christian Answer. We sang unaccompanied and did it quite well.

Frog

This chap appeared in the garden this morning.

Birthday Books


One of the joys of a birthday is that kind people buy you books. Above is my haul for this year. Mostly history as you see. I tipped off my wife about the first one and the second is from my first son who has cornered the market in Nazi themes (one of my favourite subjects). I first saw the book on Africa in Kenya and have bought with money kindly given by family.

10 Primitive Persecutions of Christians in the Roman Empire

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
  1. The first persecution under Nero, AD 67
  2. The second persecution under Domitian, AD 81
  3. The third persecution under Trajan, AD 108
  4. The fourth persecution under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, AD 162
  5. The fifth persecution commencing with Severus, AD 192
  6. The sixth persecution under Maximinus, AD 235
  7. The seventh persecution under Decius, AD 249
  8. The eighth persecution under Valerian, AD 257
  9. The ninth persecution under Aurelian, AD 274
  10. The tenth persecution under Diocletian, AD 303

Midweek Meeting May 22 2024


Nine of us plus one or two online this Wednesday as we looked at Romasn 3:25, 26 and spent time in prayer. The general election had just been announced so that fuelled a little of our praying. The bext moemnt was to hear someone praying Romans 3:25, 26 thankful for propitiation. We also had a short members meeting to hear testimony about two prospective new members who we will hopefully baptise soon.

10 More Auschwitz Books

  1. The Thief of Auschwitz
  2. The Child of Auschwitz
  3. The Twins of Auschwitz
  4. The Saboteur of Auschwitz
  5. The Violinist of Auschwitz
  6. The Musicians of Auschwitz
  7. The Fake Prison Doctor of Auschwitz
  8. The Last Boy in Auschwitz
  9. The Guard of Auschwitz
  10. The Auschwitz Photographer
(Also seen, A tailor in Auschwitz, A Gypsy in Auschwitz, Lovers in Auschwitz, Swimming in Auschwitz, A Little Girl in Auschwitz, The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz, The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz)

10 Auschwitz Books


I noticed recently that there is a plague of books called "------- of Auschwitz". I think the Tattooist of Auschwitz was the first. Here are ten.

1. The Tattooist of Auschwitz
2. The Stable boy of Auschwitz
3. The Midwife of Auschwitz
4. The Librarian of Auschwitz
5. The Dress makers of Auschwitz
6. The Redhead of Auschwitz
7. The Fighter of Auschwitz
8. The Brothers of Auschwitz
9. The Sisters of Auschwitz
10. The Daughter of Auschwitz

10 People who died at the age of 65

Bach by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, Public domain; Milton source unknoown;  Hardy National Portrait Gallery, CC0,
(via Wikimedia Commons)

  1. Cotton Mather
  2. Justin Martyr
  3. Clement of Alexandria
  4. John Milton
  5. J S Bach
  6. Walt Disney
  7. Miles Davis
  8. Lewis Carroll
  9. Oliver Hardy
  10. Carl Perkins

Day Off Week 20 2024


Day off this week was mostly reading as ever. I made a good start on the book on revival by Michael Haykin. Full of good things. I rarely buy a newspaper these days but I sometimes look and see what obituaries appear and that can sway me. On Tuesday the combination of Frank Ifield and Ebrahim Raisi of Iran made me buy (we have an Iranian couple staying with us at the moment). We had Ifield's She taught me to yodel and one or two others at home when I was growing up so it was interesting to read about him. The Times artile was keen to tie him to The Beatles and was able to do that in various ways. I also headed out for lunch and in The Works I saw three books I fancied and bought them plus a collection of dog portraits in a book in a charity shop, which I bought. 

Rumours of a Better Country


I was back at the Pastors Academy in Finchley on Monday for the reading group. This current book didn't draw the crowds as the book last time did but there were 9 or 10 of us and we enjoyed talking through the book  Rumours of a better country by veteran traveller and Schaefferite March Moyle. we all agreed that the book is rather quirky and a little hard to get into but felt that a willingness to stick with it bore fruit in time. The book looks at the ten commandments ina fresh and interesting way, as an apologetic directed at the interested unbeliever. Mostyn Roberts (no stranger to things Schaefferian) chaired. Next time we are back to Rosaria Butterfield and her book Five lies of our anti-Christian age. We meet next September.