Sub Tweeting the Church

There is a tendency at the moment towards something quite unpleasant and potentially dangerous. The other day, I wrote about the problem when people resort to hyperbole attacking this or that Christian for heresy without much evidence and when in fact the debate is usually one within the boundaries of orthodoxy about how to most… Continue reading Sub Tweeting the Church

The problem with porous boundaries

I’ve argued throughout COVID-19 that in a pandemic compliance and non-compliance matters.  The nature of non-compliance is important too. It is actually better to have a self-contained 10% of the population failing to comply if the other 90% are complying at 100%. However, if 100% of the population comply with 90% of the measures or… Continue reading The problem with porous boundaries

Covid and euthanasia of the elderly

Dystopian Literature often focuses on the concept that elderly people in an ordered authoritarian society will be required to accept that a day will come when they must lay down their lives. [1]For example, in “The Fixed Period” by Trollope, the inhabitants of Britannica near New Zealand legislate that at 67 years old, citizens should… Continue reading Covid and euthanasia of the elderly

Coronavirus and what the data is telling us

This is one of my regular appeals for us to work harder at understanding the Pandemic and to be slower to jump to tribal political responses of either panic or complacency. This week it was announced that the UK now topped the list as the worst hit country for deaths per million.  This led to… Continue reading Coronavirus and what the data is telling us

How do you stop a pandemic?

Most of my working life, I’ve been interested in how to keep things moving, flowing and spreading.  In my previous workplace as a manufacturing engineer and later operations manager my primary concern was to ensure that product flowed smoothly along the production (or in our case repair) line without interruption or delay. In my  role… Continue reading How do you stop a pandemic?

Zoom communion revisited

Back when we first went into lockdown, our church decided to use zoom and Facebook to enable us to continue gathering. We recognised that these means were not perfect but we felt that the Scriptural injunction to gather was so important that we should try by every means possible to do so. As a church… Continue reading Zoom communion revisited

Lockdown 3 Five questions for the Government that politicians and the media are not asking

In terms of volume, the COVID-19 debate in the UK is dominated by two extremes. These tend to reflect traditional political divides, the libertarian right versus the liberal left, the Brexiteers versus the Remainers. It is as though COVID-19 is another proxy for old battles.  On the onside, lockdown obsessives insist that nothing less than… Continue reading Lockdown 3 Five questions for the Government that politicians and the media are not asking

To stop a crisis like the pandemic you need to identify root causes

So here we go again. In any crisis there are three types of people. There are those who don’t think there is a crisis. “What’s all the fuss? ” They ask before accusing those wanting action of sinister motives. Then there are those running around shouting, panicking and trying anything and everything. Sadly, the COVID… Continue reading To stop a crisis like the pandemic you need to identify root causes

Isolation is a form of death

Early in the pandemic, I wrote an article called “There is more than one way to die.” I was concerned then and remain so today that in their desperation to prevent physical deaths from the virus, authorities would miss other deadly dangers. There are two strands to the point that there is more than one… Continue reading Isolation is a form of death

A suppressed virus will always return

It’s not just Britain then -and it probably isn’t just about a new mutation. Around the world, coun tries are bracing themselves for a third wave of Coronavirus.  Today, the news attention has shifted focused form the South East of England to South Korea which is experiencing its own third wave of the virus. In… Continue reading A suppressed virus will always return