Bruce Charlton's Notions

For me, this, here, now, is New Year - in the sense that a year is an astronomical division of time, and 23-24 December would have been the first time that our ancestors could have been sure that the shortest day (the winter solstice) had come and gone; and the New Year had begun.

I think this accounts for the (approximate) date of Christmas: 1. Wait until the solstice has been and gone and the New Year has begun; 2. Spend a day or two preparing a feast; 3. Have the feast. Hence the feast of the New Year, to celebrate being in the New Year, comes after the event of the solstice.

The connection with a celebration of Jesus's birth is obvious enough, when we think of the analogy between the New Year and the New Era in the history of creation: creation inflects at the life of Jesus. But at what point of the life?

What is born, what begins, with the New Year is the potential, not the actuality. The destined, but not actual, Messiah was born.

The actuality was the Baptism of Jesus: that was when Jesus attained his full divinity and the gifts of divinity (to do miracles, especially to raise Lazarus); but at first he was a 'temporary' and 'local' deity in a mortal body that was doomed to die; and Jesus needed to die and be resurrected before he could attain to permanent full divinity - and with the universal scope of the Holy Ghost.

Probably therefore, if we want to mark the major events of Jesus's life with feasts; the Baptism of Jesus ought to be the major feast, rather than a minor and rather obscure celebration.

The birth, death and resurrection, ascension and return of Jesus as the Holy Ghost are all vital - but perhaps the Baptism of Jesus, when Jesus was recognised as the Messiah and when the divine spirit descended upon him and stayed with him... well, that was the defining point in the history of the universe! It was the exact point that death was defeated and eternal life became possible (with Lazarus as the first recipient). 

But then, Christians have misunderstood the significance of Jesus's baptism since whenever they decided not to take seriously, and thereby accord priority to, the Fourth Gospel.

Anyway, today is the New Year and the birth of the Messiah - who turned-out to bring something so very different from what was expected; and so different from what has since so often been projected upon him.

Luckily for us, we don't need to know much, or do complicated stuff, to benefit from the gift Jesus brought; simply believe him, and follow him - both of which can be summarised as love him.

Love Jesus as we should love our family, as a solid background fact of life; because his gift is precisely to allow us (if we want) to join his family, eternally, as gods - participating in the everlasting work of creation.

When the daily Google Doodle is pushing something, then you can be 100 percent sure it will be misleading or approved for some wrong reason - and the pernicious nonsense today is that this is the 'first day' of Winter!

What!? In fact today is the Winter Solstice, variously Mid-winter (in the same astronomical sense that the 21st of June is often Midsummer); and the end of one astronomical year - with tomorrow the first day of the true New Year.

Certainly 21 December is early in Winter, only about one month into it, in this part of the world - but if we determine to divide the year into equal seasons of three months (which most people seem inclined to do) then most of December must be included in order that March retain its place as the start of Spring and June as the beginning of Summer.

Does it matter? Pay Attention! - Of course it matters!

- Why else would they be trying to change it? The more we can be disconnected from awareness-of and contact-with the natural world; the more our beliefs and practices become arbitrary, absurd and against common sense - the better it is for the demonic agenda: the less rooted, the worse orientated, the more easily we can be swayed and redirected and inverted...

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And the business of wishing people 'A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year' - don't people see that that that is about denigrating Christmas?

Do we wish people "Happy Birthday and a Good Easter" or sing "Happy Birthday to you/ Have a great summer holiday", or "Happy Birthday Jane!... but not fogetting Joan who will be having her Birthday quite soon as well".

No - our congratulations are, and must be, fixed on that which is being celebrated - not bracketting something that comes a week afterwards. Otherwise we are dealing an indirect insult to the thing we are supposed to be celebrated here-and-now.

Isn't the birth of Jesus enough? - that we have to append to it a wholly meaningless 'New Year' of the First of January - an (again) arbitrary date that is neither Christianly significant nor astronomically relevant.  And not even the most important of the arbitrary year divisions...

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/new-year-significance-of-this.html

To celebrate New Year on the First of January is evidence of a society adrift, a society that has forgotten the most important things in life.

Yes, I know about that dreadful carol 'We wish you a Merry (yelped) Chriss-mas/ And a Happy New Year - Good Tidings we bring/ To you and your Kin(g)' etc... That is exactly what I mean - cheery meaningless drivel. 'We all like figgy pudding' indeed - a song of fake bonhomie for materialistic, grasping, greedy and atheistic carol-singers, if ever there was one.

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So, a Happy Christmas to you.

(That's it.)

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The New Year is a meaningless celebration and wishing people a Happy New Year is a meaningless activity.

So why do we all do it? Increasingly?

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That January 1st is meaningless is pretty indisputable - yes the year is an astronomical reality, but the 'new' year begins on 22 December, surely?

Or, the religious year starts on different days for different religions, but in Christian countries it would presumably be either on Christmas or Easter day.

Or, the financial year starts on April 1, or the educational year starts in (variously) September or October.

In Scotland, Hogmanay is celebrated as an assertion of not-being-English; however, the real Scottishness celebration is Burns Night (25 January) Robert Burns Birthday.

But nothing happens on January 1st.

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Why then do we celbrate this meaningless numerical change?

Precisely because it is meaningless.

(Because anything meaning-full risks giving some kind of offense to someone or another.)

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And this the point of New Year - it is an arbitrary celebration of pointlessness, which makes it ideal for meaningless modern celebrations - and a close ally of 'happy holidays' and the marking of other-peoples unbelieved-in religious rituals which is so much part of modern schools in the West.

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So elaborate New Year celebrations are a perfect encapsulation of political correctness: a veritable festival of nihilism.

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It's that disconcerting time of year when we are assailed by bright and friendly faces delightedly wishing us a Happy New Year - an orgy of public celebration over unwrapping the latest wall calendar.

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It is not a new year in any meaningful sense, nothing new actually starts on January 1; it is not astronomically significant, it is not part of the Christian Year nor any other religion, it is not the tax year, it is not the academic year...

The New Year is the perfect celebration for a modern world which believes in nothing - literally. In the sense that nothing is precisely what it believes in and celebrates most uninhibitedly.

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Marvelous. Great excitement, all night 'partying' and extreme drunkenness in honour of utter vacuousness: who could possibly be offended by that!

Happy New Nihilism!

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Old readers will know of my aversion to the official New Year defined as 1st January; which is defined in terms of what it is not (not astronomical, not seasonal and not Christian) rather than what it is - which is to say arbitrarily numerical... 

This means the Year is not truly new, but only demonic-fake-'New'. 

So, the New Year and its 'celebration' is almost-certainly Satan-spawned - as what else could it be? When we are induced to celebrate the arbitrary, it is only one step away from celebrating the actively-evil.  

Thus your cheerful and social Happy New Year! greetings with neighbours are approximately spiritually-equivalent to a Nazi salute or the clenched fist of Communism... 

(...You're welcome...)

But this is the day one of the calendar-year; and my understanding is that the demons are very keen on arbitrary numerology - on the special significance of certain arbitrary numbers (i.e. fakely-significant numbers); being super-especially fond of decimals, decades, centuries - and the metric system generally, including SI units ("Systeme International" - French, wouldn't you know). 

The lower-ranked (bureaucratic, 'Ahrimanic') demons love these systems because they are made-up by officials; and because of their abstract efficiency, and easily calculational inter-convertibility. 

SI units model the world as-if it was already the single totalitarian System that the Ahriminic demons day-dream about implementing and operating... 

The metric-SI system artificially-'unifies' the world - and achieves this abstract coherence by its indifference to the human.  

By contrast the Imperial System (feet and inches, furlongs and leagues etc) was originally based-on the human body and mind; and the usage of measures that are functionally appropriate to the actual task in hand. This was especially the case in its earlier, 'medieval' forms - e.g. when 'an acre' was the amount of land that could be ploughed in a day, locally. 

There are also sacred, 'magical' number and geometrical 'systems', apparently derived from Pythagorean-Platonic philosophy - and these are universal; but abstract, not human, not functionally-derived.

(See How the world is made: the story of creation according to sacred geometry, by John Michell, 2012.)   

But naturally, none of these genuine, good-aiming spiritualities are of interest to the demonic powers - except when they can be subverted and then inverted; because inversion is the basis of anti-Christian symbolism and ritual - just as inversion of values is the most advanced form of evil. 

It was, presumably, the middle-managers among the demons (as among humans) who chose to make 2020 the year for the global totalitarian coup. 

2020 is just the kind of meaningless but superficially-significant 'decimal' number which they like best, and which they believe brings them the best results. 

So - what about 2022? Anything special? 

I think not - not for the kind of Being that is engaged in the Ahrimanic programme. They are keen planners and 'strategists', and are explicitly aiming at 2030, the next decade - for the 'completion' of their current strategy of worldwide surveillance and control.  

But as of the approach to 2022; these mid-level demons have apparently lost control, and their plans are not happening to schedule. 

Why? Partly because the plans were based on falsehoods and could never have-worked. 

Partly because of unexpected resistance. 

But mostly because the 'Sorathic' demons of chaos, of sheer destruction and negation, are increasingly in control; and are using The System to inject chaos, destruction and negation into itself.

The Ahrimanic demons intended to use The System to rule the world post 2020... 

But the Sorathic demons want to use The System to destroy The System. 

There is no doubt that order is collapsing and chaos is increasing - locally and worldwide. 

Therefore: the most likely prediction for 2022 is... Accelerating chaos  

(...Which is actually a bit of a non-prediction - since the nature and location of chaos cannot - by definition - be predicted!) 

But this tsunami of dysfunction is not apparent to the Ahrimanic middle-managers, because they are incompetent and dishonest; self-blinded fools who live by self-serving lies - and they believe that their interests are best served by pretending to omniscience and omnipotence. 

When real knowledge and power are lacking, the adopt the Texas Sharpshooter tactic of claiming that whatever has-happened was exactly what they wanted to happen...

In the face of actual accelerating chaos; demonic middle-managers will continue 'confidently' to assert that everything is getting better... 

...All is on-track and on-schedule; tractor production continues to increase by hundreds of percent per year; and the bureaucratic utopia of own-nothing/ be-happy will be oven-ready for 2030 - all in accordance with plans... 

And this will be asserted, louder and louder, officially and by the mass media - until the world is engulfed by war and famine, disease and death, flame and flood...

At which point they will simply claim that they always meant to do that. 

Romantic Christians should not be misled by the collapse of the Ahrimanic-bureaucratic plans into assuming that this means the powers of Good are necessarily ascendant. 

The birdemic-peck narrative would indeed collapse because of Christian resistance - if such existed. But does it exist?

Good can only come of good (not from evil-motivations) - and unless there really is a Christian resurgence, then failures of evil planning will not imply a better overall outcome - not if those failure are due to ascendant chaos.  

All complex strategies and functionalities (both Good-motivated, and of evil-intent) that depend on organization, coordination and obedience will - sooner and sooner - be sabotaged by the waxing of Sorathic evil. 

Thus, the failure of evil-plans is not good news when they are being thwarted by evil-not-plans...

But only when evil-plans are thwarted by intentions on the side of Good. 

Now that we have passed the winter solstice, we are in the New Year - or would be if there was any secular coherence to the concept! 

(A religious New Year can be any time; and indeed it was, even in England, where the New Year was March 25th - Lady Day - until just a few brief centuries ago; the residue of which is the "financial year" beginning on April 6th after some extra days were added to the calendar in 1752.)

However... One thing I have learned since 2020, is that I am hopeless at predictions - at least in the medium-terms of months to years. No matter how I feel that some-thing will, or will not, happen soon; this means next to nothing when compared with what actually happens. 

So, predictions are, for me, merely an indication of how I feel about the way that things-in-general are shaping. 

What has wrong-footed me is that British people still have basically the same general attitudes as they did in 2019, or 2000. Astonishing things have happened, and keep happening; but the basic mindset, the explanatory system, the underlying interpretative assumptions, have not changed significantly. 

At some point, I guess there will be a change (on the basis that I understand the world, which I cannot help but hold, without creating a self-refuting paradox!); because the mismatch between reality as I know it, and reality as it is generally assumed, is vast and widening.

Maybe that will happen in 2024? But even-if-so that is not necessarily, or likely, to be A Good Thing; because without a prior and cataclysmic spiritual awakening the outcome will be a despair that is likely to enhance self-loathing and accelerate the established cultural suicide. 

As I have often said, it seems likely to me (and this is being officially encouraged) that an epidemic of suicide will sooner or later happen in the West; including urgent demands for medical assistance in making this a painless procedure.

On the flip-side, will be murderous cults rooted in prideful and resentment-fuelled self-assertion (and some of these will probably include self-described traditionalist Christians).   

That Pride is not a legitimate antidote for Despair ought to be obvious, especially to Christians - but it isn't obvious, or, at least, the sin of Pride is strong enough to overcome scruples. 

Again on the flip side, the sin of despair is also capable of subverting and destroying real Christianity.

What is actually needed is - presumably, mutatis mutandis - modelled by the life of Jesus Christ; which is that fear should be defeated by faith, rooted in hope, validated by God's love of each of us. 

Death is a serious business, and while we are sustained alive than we have important spiritual work to do; but we cannot allow ourselves to regard death as the worst possible outcome. From a Christian perspective there are many things worse than death (as evidence by the Sainted martyrs, among many others).

To put matters differently; we need to recognize that survival cannot, and should not, be our priority. Partly because survival merely means some delay in dying. And partly because the price of surviving may be evil - and, indeed, that we are each asked to pay the cost of prolonging personal survival by embracing evil in our heart - is all-too-likely in these End Times.   

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After the anti-Christian, lying drivel spouted by Rowan Williams and Justin Welby over the Christmas season; how refreshing and enthusing it is to read the New Year message from the Anglican Archbishop Wabukala of Kenya - which I reproduce in full below.

Western Anglican Bishops need to learn how Archbishop Wabukala discusses both Christianity and Politics: subordinating the Politics to Christianity!

The following comments are striking, and contain a seed of hope:

In our modern context we need now to be thinking of mission beyond our borders.

In the past we have been the recipients of missionary endeavour and we thank God for those who brought the gospel to this land, but now the sending nations of the West are in deep spiritual and moral crisis and it is time for us to take a lead in global mission.

The majority of Anglicans are now in the Global South and that means we need to take greater responsibility in global leadership.

We cannot simply stand by as we see many of the Anglican Churches in the West, including the Church of England itself, being severely compromised by the deepening spiritual and moral darkness of the societies in which they are set.

To which I say to the Archbishop: Thank you and Amen.


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Arise, shine, for your light has come.’ Isaiah 60:1

My friends, as we stand at the beginning of a New Year with our hopes and our fears I want to encourage you to have a strong and confident hope in Christ. It is time for us to hear again the words of Isaiah ‘Arise, shine for your light has come’ (Isaiah 60:1). In Jesus Christ, the light has come and this great truth gives substance to the hopes we hold as we stand at the threshold of a New Year. We have hopes for our children, our relationships, study and work and as we enter the 50th year since full independence, we also have hopes for our nation, especially that the General Election under a new constitution will mark a clean break with the troubled politics that have blighted the life of our nation and lead us forward to peace and prosperity.

As we read the newspapers we find some commentators are optimistic and some are pessimistic. Both views can find evidence to support their position, but I want today to say that we Christians should be neither optimists nor pessimists, but people with a strong hope in the promises of Scripture and the power of prayer. When the Bible speaks of hope, it is not just a wish, like saying ‘I hope there will be good crops this year’, but it is something definite and certain that will happen.

Optimists hope for the best, pessimists expect the worst, but we trust in the God who is able to strengthen us to do the best things even in the worst times. We are always hopeful because we know that there is a God in heaven who is working out his purposes in history despite, and even through, human sin and failure.

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Our reading from Isaiah 60:1-7 is one of those great prophetic passages which foreshadow the climax of the bible story in the closing chapters of the book of Revelation. In wonderful poetic language we glimpse what it will be like when the victory of God over sin and evil, achieved in principle upon the cross of Christ, is fully revealed at the end of human history. Isaiah sees the people of God radiant with the glory of the Lord, thrilled and exultant as they are gathered to the restored Jerusalem from all the nations of the earth.

Some of you will be thinking that this is all very well, but it seems remote and doesn’t have much connection with the reality of our lives here and now. How do I make sense of Isaiah’s call to ‘Arise, shine, for your light has come’? The answer is that our future hope is already being realised. We will not see this glory and this light in its full splendour until Christ returns, but the light has already begun to shine out, just as we know that the first shafts of sunlight at dawn will lead to the full strength of the noon day sun.

The reality is that in Christ the light is already shining and the darkness, however thick, cannot ultimately resist it. This hope is a great strength to us now and can transform the way we think and live. So how can we live as people of hope and as agents of transformation in the year ahead?

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Firstly, we are called to ‘Arise’. What does it mean to ‘Arise’? It means to be fully awake, shaking off drowsiness and the false world of dreams. As the Apostle Paul quotes to the Ephesians ‘Awake, O sleeper and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you’ (5:14). We who are children of the East African Revival movement are familiar with the phrase ‘Walking in the light’. It means having personal and spiritual integrity by being transparent to God and to one another because we know that the blood of Christ cleanses us from our sins.

Walking is a lifestyle, not just an experience, in which we commit ourselves to seeking the reality of God’s presence and love day by day. We do not conceal or pretend and we do not lead double lives. Imagine what a difference there would be in the life our nation if everyone who calls themselves a Christian lived in this way! In fact Isaiah does not simply say that we are in the light. He says that because we are in the light, we ourselves become light. We ourselves are to ‘Arise and shine’ and reflect the glory of the Lord by a lifestyle and behaviour that is true to our new identity as those who have been born again to a new and living hope in Christ.

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Secondly, we cannot be people of light without coming into conflict with darkness. Isaiah speaks of the earth and its people as covered by a ‘thick darkness’ (v2). Light cannot compromise with darkness because light by its nature is the opposite of darkness. Where darkness would mask and conceal that which is evil, the light exposes, reveals and rebukes. This spiritual darkness is the natural state in which we live without the light of Christ and we should not be surprised that many people seem confused, indifferent or even hostile to the gospel and follow false religions. We need to be much more sensitized to this spiritual reality and our response must be to let the light of Christ shine brightly through both faithful preaching of the gospel and consistent Christian living in everyday life.

To take a practical example, in the 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International, Kenya is ranked 139 out of 176 and the same organisation has evidence which shows that the annual cost of what we call ‘petty’ bribery in Kenya is running at 33.6 million Ksh. We cannot expect our politics to be healthy if we as Christians are willing to tolerate a culture of petty corruption in everyday life which corrodes trust in those who are entrusted with authority. What a great step forward it would be if we could mark 2013, our fiftieth anniversary of full independence, but a significant step up the Transparency Index!

As we look forward to the General Elections on 4th March 2013, let us rise to the occasion by conducting our campaigning period with dignity and concerning ourselves with issues rather than the sentiments that inflame tribal clashes. These elections should be marked by respect for one another and a willingness to take responsibility for the outcome, with those who loose accepting defeat for the sake of the common good.

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Thirdly, we need to remember that light not only exposes, but also reaches out. Twice in these verses Isaiah speaks of the ‘glory of the Lord’. In verse 1 he says ‘the glory of the Lord has risen upon you’ and in verse 2 ‘his glory will seen upon you’. Glory is attractive, it is magnetic, and the result is seen in verse 3 ‘And nations shall come to your light’. The glory of God will not be fully revealed until Christ returns, but it should be our hearts' desire that here and now we have a foretaste of that glory in the power of the Holy Spirit through transformed lives and heartfelt worship. The East African Revival added greatly to the churches’ numbers because people saw and experienced the glory of God as a personal and life transforming reality. Walking in the light is not to be confused with simply maintaining an inward piety, morality or traditional values.

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It is dynamic Spirit filled faithfulness to Christ and his Word to which unbelievers are irresistibly drawn. In our modern context we need now to be thinking of mission beyond our borders. In the past we have been the recipients of missionary endeavour and we thank God for those who brought the gospel to this land, but now the sending nations of the West are in deep spiritual and moral crisis and it is time for us to take a lead in global mission.

The majority of Anglicans are now in the Global South and that means we need to take greater responsibility in global leadership. We cannot simply stand by as we see many of the Anglican Churches in the West, including the Church of England itself, being severely compromised by the deepening spiritual and moral darkness of the societies in which they are set.

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The GAFCON movement is one way in which global Anglicans are responding to this need and I am very happy that in October this year, we are expecting the second Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON 2) to be held here in Nairobi and we look forward to welcoming Anglican leaders from around the globe. I believe this will be a strategic moment in the reshaping of the Anglican Communion to fulfil our vision for global mission and a time when we will experience a foretaste of that glorious gathering of the people of God which Isaiah prophesied.

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So as a new year begins, I hope we are beginning to see more of what it means to align our lives with Isaiah’s great vision of the people of God as a global community, radiant with his glory. In recent decades we have rightly emphasised what we call the ‘holistic gospel’, aware that the good news must be expressed in deed as well as word, but we must never lose sight of the fact that to be truly holistic, there needs to be a seeking after the presence of the God who has revealed himself in the Scriptures at the heart and centre of our life as a church.

God is light and we can only arise and shine if he is present with us. Moses understood this truth when he pleaded with the Lord, despite Israel’s sinfulness ‘If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here’(Exodus 33:15) As we prepare to move forward into a New Year, let that cry for God’s presence echo in our hearts too.


The Most Rev’d Dr Eliud Wabukala, Archbishop of Kenya and Bishop, All Saints Cathedral Diocese, Nairobi.

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As I have blogged before - there are various justifiable candidates for the start of a New Year - of which the weakest is January 1st!

One of the strongest candidates for New Year is surely the winter solstice; and that has now passed, and therefore we are already in the new astronomical year. 

So, how do I regard the prospect? To answer, I need to divide the spiritual from the material.

 

Materially speaking I have near-total pessimism about the coming year. I don't know in what specific material ways 2021 will be even worse than 2020 (which I regard as the worst year for many decades) - but I don't perceive any significant movement towards an overall-better material world.

 

Spiritually; I regard 2020 as probably the worst year in the history of the world, so far as I know. 

The only question about this is: how much of 2020 was a mass movement of people becoming evil (joining-with the side of Satan, the side against-God, creation and The Good)? --- And how much of 2020 was 'merely' a revealing of evil in people that was already there, but until 2020 was occult, hidden?

How much of 2020 was wholesale corruption into evil, and how much was merely a vast unmasking of already-present evil? 

 

On the whole, I am inclined to belive that 2020 took a very large number of (often nice, decent, kind) people who were only just on the side of evil, but in a condition that repentance would not have been unlikely; and has led them deeper and deeper into evil choices, each new wrong choice building-upon the previous one; with a greater and greater surrender of their souls to evil; and the abrogation of responsibility to evil external sources. 

(For example, those who accepted the validity of the birdemic and the Establishment's global-coup 'response'; then supported in-your-face lying-evil of MLB-antiracism; and then went to to deny the stunningly-obvious fraud of the presidential election... By which time they were deeply on-side with the Father of Lies. Each wrong choice makes more-likely the next, and builds-upon the previous.) 

By now, the masses of the world seem to have chosen to become Hollow Men, willingly open vessels to receive the purposive evil that dominates public discourse; vehement, agngry, self-righteous in their rejection of honesty and truth. 

And therefore their condition worsens, resistance-drains away, repentance is less likely, with every passing day.

That is my evaluation of the Big Picture ,and the mass majority. 

That damage has been done, and I see little chance that it will be undone. Those who are bad will presumably continue to get worse. 

We now have a mass world who hold fast to the value-inversions of the demonic perspective, who have chosen to live-by untruthfulness, fear, resentment, and despair. 

But - starting from that very low ebb - I do have a relative degree of spiritual optimism about 2021...

 

It seems that there is a significant, albeit small, minority who have begun to wake-up over the past few months. 

At present, this is mainly negative - an awakening awareness of the evil nature and intentions of the Global Establishment. More people realise more of the Big Lies. More people notice that government and the mass media, and the leadership of all major institutions, are strategically and purposively evil. 

For some, the trigger was the contradictions of the birdemic, for some it was the antracism exacerbation of MLB - with its lies, riots, arson and murders being excused, funded and indeed mandatorily celebrated by what seemed like every corporation and organisation and agency. For others it was the US election, and the genuinely brave response of the President; contrasted with the stunning, monolithic, bare-faced dishonesty of the media and global officialdom.   

At any rate, my perception is that this awakening to lies, especially, is happening; and this is a Good Thing... 

However, it is Not Enough, and will not amount to anything substantive unless it becomes a positive, that is a Christian, thing - and given the annihilation and suicide of the churches, that Christianity would have to be Romantic. 

 

In other words, 2020 has seen a great deal of the worst people getting more evil; and of middling-wavering people choosing the side of evil (e.g. failing a Litmus Test) - then moving deeper into that state... 

But only recently have we seen the other side of this 'End Times' phenomenon of 'things coming to a point'; the polarisation and separation of sheep and goats* - with some people beginning to see reality more clearly, taking courage, and being strengthened in their conviction of supporting the God and The Good. 

 

Whather this awakening will actually happen to many people is something I don't know and nobody knows - but I am more optimistic that it will happen to significant numbers of folk, than I was four months ago. 

(And every single, individual soul who chooses to accept Jesus's offer of resurrected life in Heaven is of eternal, hence incalculable, benefit!) 

So, 2021 may well prove to be better than 2020; better spiritually, even though (almost certainly) worse materially.  

*By my understanding, the best thing to be nowadays is a goat-like sheep! We want to be a sheep in the sense of following the Good Shepherd, but goat-like in terms of that species' characteristic individualism, courage and sheer bloody-mindedness. To be sheep-like nowadays is suicidally damning; I mean 'sheep-like' in terms of passively following the flock, being led by just anybody who waves a stick at us, or fleeing in blind panic from the slightest perceived danger. 

From what I perceive, 2016 is indeed unfolding to be the year of reckoning which some have predicted - perhaps best understood as the year of choice; and more exactly the year of branching choices.

Starting from the triumphant domination of secular Leftism, it looks as if looks as if more and more of the Establishment are defecting from the programme - or are on the verge of doing-so, and as if the ruling cabal is afraid - very afraid - of a major backlash. Hence the global conspiracy of evil is trying to strike prematurely with their long-prepared plan of a mega-destructive World War III (starting in the Middle East); before the lower-level Establishment and the population of the West have been brought behind the idea.

The choices of 2016 can be seen as a branching system. Early choices are worth having - but only if the choices follow through (reasonably swiftly) will they do any more than somewhat delay the plan for comprehensive destruction of Good.

The first choice is:

Secular Leftism versus Not-secular Leftism

This is about as far as we have currently reached - a negative reaction against the prevailing trends.

Then there is a choice between:

Cynical nihilism versus Spiritual Awakening

Cynical nihilism is negative - and the Cynical Nihilist decides merely to operate on the basis of his gut-feelings, which he regards as subjective - so it is merely a kind of systematic selfishness. This is better than secular Leftism, because not actively suicidal - but CN is unstable and severely suboptimal. Spiritual awakening is therefore the way forward.

But spiritual awakening has happened before - eg. in the mid 1960s - and it is likely to be poisoned at source by the (Leftist) Sexual Revolution unless it leads to religion. So the next choice is either to retain the sexual revolution - leading to New Age spirituality or to reject the sexual revolution, which leads to religion (of one sort or another):

New Age Spirituality versus Religion

We know from experience the New Age spirituality leads nowhere, so Religion is the way forward. The next step is to 'choose your religion'. For Westerners this means Christianity of something-else:

Not-Christianity versus Christianity

If Christianity is chosen, at this point it refers to real Christianity, not Liberal Christianity - which is merely secular Leftism with some Christian top-dressing.

The re-adoption of Christianity by the West would be a major step in the right direction - but it would essentially be a 'rewind'; hence the question arises: would it be enough to prevent secular Leftism returning, just as it did in the past? I don't think so.

The next step is the most controversial - because there is a choice between one or many churches of Actually Existing Christianity - which is the world of the existing denominations, each of which claims (more-or-less) exclusivity and New Christianity - which does not exist and never has existed even conceptually except among a few specific individuals.

Traditional Christianity versus Evolution of a New Christianity

The evolution of a New Christianity would probably evolve from one or more of the existing churches - but not be exactly the same as any of them currently are; nor would it be any kind of Liberalisation or assimilation to secular norms.

New Christianity would be (would need to be) a correction of those flaws in past Christianity which were exploited by secular Leftism - and would indeed be a restoration of a Christianity closer to the intention of Christ and more in-line with the nature and purposes of God.

That, I believe, is the destined way ahead - that is what Christianity was supposed to do way back around 1800 at the start of the Industrial Revolution and the first outburst of Romanticism - the kind envisaged by the likes of the poets Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge.

So, with New Christianity I am talking about Romantic Christianity.

So the final destination of 2016 would need to be

Romantic Christianity 

Which comes at the end of a many branched path of choices - so the chances of us getting to that destination seem remote; and anything less will - I believe - fail to suffice.

Nonetheless, any steps along that path would be very welcome - and we are currently seeing the first step being taken by ever more people.

We therefore now have a real chance; albeit a slim chance.

It has become a (dreaded) annual tradition for me to say something snarky about the (so-called) "New Year". 

This past one has been dominated by the Fire Nation war - the start of World War Three. The escalation has been all-but one sided; with the Western powers making some of the most outrageous and gratuitous provocations imaginable, and the Fire nation (in particular their leader) demonstrating astonishing restraint while building vital alliances that prevent the FN's isolation when (not if) the pressure for escalation becomes irresistible. 

This coming year will be, I predict, the year of civilizational collapse in The West - and by collapse I mean an irreversible and accelerating process of breakdown towards chaos. 

Yet, of course, such collapse will be deniable - and indeed denied - probably by a majority of the population. 

One mode of denial will surely be to re-conceptualize and explain-away civilizational collapse as the consequence of war - hence alleged (unprovoked!) foreign aggression. 

But other pretend rationales will potentially be wheeled-out such as climate emergency/ breakdown, Birdemic 2.0, epidemics of "died suddenly" syndrome, explosions of pseudo-racism, or any of a selection of engineered (and faked) crises. 

This will (probably - of course I don't really know!) happen because it is ever-more obvious that the "Sorathic" powers of spiteful-destructive evil are ever-more dominant in The West - and are not being recognized as such, but instead ignored and excused by nearly everybody. 

Of course there is also colossal destruction from short-termist profiteering on an unprecedented scale, which is amplified by deliberately-constructed incompetence of leadership personnel (which has become so extreme, and so endemic, that people have ceased to notice that there we are well into the consequences of an active process of selection of known-incompetent thoroughly-corrupted leaders in (I think) all Western nations). 

So, those who are ultimately holding greatest power in The West and who knowingly want evil-destruction; are less-and-less trammeled by the presence of anyone who might desire to oppose them, or be able to oppose them. 

Collapse is just a question of time; and (since the underlying situation is deteriorating) the longer delayed, the more rapid and extreme it will be. 

While this is, of course, a bit of a worry; it ought not be a cause of fear - not if we reflect that fear is a sin, and that the mandatory Christian virtues include faith (trust in God) and hope (assurance of ultimate Good). 

Yet we must recall that faith and hope are directed at the spirit and eternity, hence mostly post-mortal resurrected life. The absolute assurances of faith and hope ought Not to be directed at the material circumstances of this finite mortal life.    

Luckily for Christians; we are not dependent on the general, civilizational circumstances of this earthly existence. 

But we do have a job to do; and that is to understand, discern, and choose. 

That is, to know Good from evil; to locate and to take the side of Good.  

This need not be a problem, unless we insist upon being directed by external, this worldly, merely-human influences. 

So long as we are prepared to take responsibility for our own salvation and theosis, to work things out for our-selves; there will no shortage of help, guidance and comfort from divine sources and by means of the active work of God's creation in the world and our-selves. 

Ten Commandments by Leo Szilard, c1940, Number nine:

"Do your work for six years; but in the seventh, go into solitude or among strangers, so that the memory of your friends does not prevent you from being what you have become."

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Because of astronomy and the decimal system, human life tends to be measured either in years or decades. Yet, a year seems too short to measure the trends and transitions of an individual life or the life of a human institution; while a decade seems too long.

But the half-decade, which is often used in politics and by state bureaucracies – e.g., the five year plan, five yearly evaluations of organizations, or five year grants for individual scientists or programs for funding advanced research – seems too short.

I would suggest that traditional wisdom and empirical observation unite in recommending a 7 year unit for measuring human life; and that seven years should become the standard unit for tracking social trends, measuring individual attainment, and for strategic planning and support.

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There are precedents for using a seven year unit. These range from the jokey ‘seven year itch’ (after which married men supposedly want to become unfaithful to their wives) to a notorious saying attributed to the Jesuits: ‘Give me the child until he is seven, and I will show you the man’.

This led to a famous and very popular UK documentary television series called ‘Seven up’ in which director Michael Apted interviewed a cohort of seven year old children in 1964 and has followed them at seven year intervals ever since.

Most viewers of the program would agree that the time frame seems just about right for tracking the lives of this symbolic British sample. Perhaps, seven years corresponds to some currently obscure human psychological or developmental cycle?

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Naturally, seven years is inexact – even Leo Szilard’s own life did not fall precisely into seven year units of professional activity. Yet seven seems near-enough as an analytic division, and nearer than the rival decimal-related measures. Even when people talk of cultural decades (e.g., the ‘naughty nineties’ or ‘roaring twenties’ in England) it can usually be found that there is a better-fit for seven years. The most famous recent decade – ‘the sixties’ actually falls more neatly into the optimistic technocratic early ‘swinging’ sixties up to about 1968; then a late-sixties/early seventies characterized by hippies and a more pessimistic counter-culture of psychoactive drugs and utopian protest.

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In science, likewise, seven year units work well. Seven years is approximately the time spent at high school, and then the time taken for a traditional basic scientific training (e.g., the first degree and doctorate). The early post-doctoral period, building the knowledge to become an expert specialist, is also about seven years. After this, matters are less clear, and it would be interesting to perform empirical studies measuring career increments and professional transitions on a random group of scientists.

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At any rate, there is already enough anecdotal evidence to support the idea that we should at least reconsider the reflex but un-thinking use of five year plans and evaluations, and the analysis of social, professional and personal trends by whole decade units.

A new – and previously unconsidered – field of research beckons.

(Edited from http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2007/07/scientific-life-seven-year-units.html)

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On the eve of retiring from his tenancy of the Archbishopric of Canterbury (thus head of the third-largest Christian denomination in the world), Rowan Williams has finally, publicly, utterly abandoned the pretence of being a Christian.

In last year's January the First broadcast, RW managed to restrict mention of Christianity until the last minute of a four-and-a half minute broadcast.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/archbish-of-c-speaks-to-nation-spot.html

But this year he has succeeded in eliminating from his final broadcast any reference to Christianity whatsoever.

To be frank - such honesty comes as a bit of a relief.

I only wish he could have been honest about his apostasy a wee bit earlier - for example ten years earlier, before he took the Canterbury job...

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http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2777/archbishop-appreciate-the-silent-conspiracy-of-generous-dedication

Full text: 

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Archbishop Rowan Williams' New Year Message

1st January 2013

Whenever I make a broadcast like this one, I’m acutely aware of the gap between what I’m seeing here and what you’re looking at, at home.  You see me now sitting quietly in my study. What I’m seeing is a small crowd of wonderfully expert and efficient technicians doing the filming, meticulously checking the pictures and the sound.  What we see happening is only a small part of what’s going on in order to make it happen.

And this last year we had a chance to notice this, for once, in a very vivid way.  The extraordinary events of the Olympics and Paralympics last summer provided an unforgettable spectacle.  But everyone who visited the Olympic site or watched the broadcasts will have been made aware of the army of volunteers who cheerfully gave up their free time and worked away, without complaint, all hours of the day and night to make these great events happen. They were the key people who translated the Olympic vision into reality for the rest of us.

It ought to make us think a bit harder about all the other folk who quietly, often invisibly, turn vision into reality and just make things happen – especially volunteers.  Here at the Robes project, over twenty local churches are combining to offer food and shelter to homeless people in London.  Religion here isn’t a social problem or an old-fashioned embarrassment, it’s a wellspring of energy and a source of life-giving vision for how people should be regarded and treated.  So let’s recognise this steady current of generosity that underlies so much of our life together in this country and indeed worldwide.

It’s all based on one vision – to make our society, our whole world, work for everyone, not just the comfortable and well off.  And it’s a vision that sometimes seems to need Olympic levels of patient hard work and dedication.  If you have the good fortune to live in a community where things seem to be working well the chances are that if you slip backstage you’ll find an army of cheerful people making the wheels go round – and don’t forget just what a huge percentage of them come from the churches and other faith groups.

How very good that people like that are there for us, we can say – but as soon as we’ve said that, we should be prompted to ask the tougher question: what can I do to join this silent conspiracy of generous dedication?  There’ll be those who have time and skill and strength to offer; there’ll be those who have less of these, but can support in prayer and goodwill.

And as we think about this silent groundswell, perhaps our minds can begin to open up to the deepest secret of all – the trust that the entire universe is held together by the quiet, unfailing generosity of God.  What we see and grasp isn’t the whole story – but just occasionally we can get a glimpse.  I hope there will be lots of joyful glimpses like that for you in the year ahead.

Every blessing and happiness for the coming year.

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Which are the elite universities in the UK? And why is the number declining?

Bruce Charlton

Oxford Magazine. 2008; 275: 22-23.

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How many elite universities are there currently in the UK? And which are they?

If ‘elite’ is defined in terms of the intellectual quality of their students, then the number of elite UK universities has declined very substantially from about 35 to about 12.

I suggest that the main reason for this decline is the expansion of the undergraduate intake in the most-selective universities.

My suggestion is be that the current elite UK undergraduate universities are: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, Warwick, St Andrew's, UCL, York, Bristol, Edinburgh, Bath and Durham.

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Introduction

There were about 50 UK universities pre-1992 (when the former polytechnics were re-christened). The current ‘elite’ of these pre-1992 institutions are usually considered to be those thirty-eight research-orientated universities who are members of either the Russell Group (larger institutions) or the 1994 Group (smaller institutions).

Among the Russell and 1994 Groups, according to the Sunday Times University Guide, the top-twenty most-selective UK universities are, in order: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, Warwick, St Andrew's, UCL, York, Bristol, Edinburgh, Bath, Durham, Nottingham, Manchester, King's, Glasgow, Birmingham, Sheffield, Southampton and Newcastle.

But how many UK universities are elite? Are all of the Russell and 1994 Group universities elite, or just the Sunday Times top-20, or more, or fewer? The answer depends on how terms are defined.


Defining the cognitive elite of students

I will define elite universities as those recruiting mostly from the top 10 percent of the population in terms of IQ. Since IQ in the UK has an average of 100 with a standard deviation of 15, the top 10 percent of the UK population have an IQ of about 120 plus.

IQ mainly measures rapidity of learning and ability at abstract logical thinking. It is highly predictive of a wide range of successful outcomes in modern societies such as educational attainment, salary, life expectancy and social class. But IQ does not measure all valuable attributes – for example a ‘conscientious’ personality capable of sustained and methodical work also predicts success in many domains. (For a clear and balanced discussion of IQ see Intelligence: a very short introduction, by Ian J Deary from OUP.)

My definition of the cognitive elite derives from the work of IQ scholars such as Linda Gottfredson or Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray (authors of The Bell Curve). They note that US data suggest that relatively few ‘high-IQ’ professions have an average entry standard of 120 plus and absorb about half the cognitive elite.

These professions include accountants, architects, scientists, computer scientists, social scientists, university teachers, mathematicians, engineers, lawyers, dentists and physicians. Leading Chief Executives and senior managers make up the other main high-IQ group.

The suggestion is that the great majority of the national elite in societies such as the US and the UK are drawn from the top ten percent of people with an IQ of at least 120; since in modern developed societies (although less-so in less-complex societies) almost all leadership positions require a high level of those attributes such as rapid learning and abstract thinking which are measured by IQ.


Defining an elite university – a majority of elite students

Using the IQ 120 threshold, I will define an elite university as an institution that has a majority of students in the top ten percent, with an IQ at or above 120.

There are currently approximately 800,000 eighteen year olds in the UK population in any given year. This means there are about 80,000 potential undergraduates per year in the cognitive elite group having an IQ above 120 (ignoring undergraduates from abroad).

I roughly estimated the numbers of first year undergraduates in the Sunday Times guide top-20 most selective UK universities by looking at the number of undergraduates listed in Wikipedia and dividing the number by three (this will somewhat overestimate the number of first years because some undergraduate degrees last for longer than three years – for example MAs in the Scottish universities and also several professional and vocational degrees).

In round numbers it turns-out that there are around 80,000 undergraduate first year places at the top-20 most selective UK universities – i.e. about the same number of first year places at top-20 universities as there are 120-IQ 18 year olds. I will assume that virtually all of the top ten percent of 18 years olds by IQ will go into higher education – and this seems to be largely correct.

So, if there was a perfect system and assortment of students by IQ, there would be enough 120-IQ students completely to fill the top twenty universities with none left over, or else to provide between 20 and 40 universities with a slim majority of cognitive elite students.

However, this cannot be the case; because in practice cognitive elite students are spread across a much larger number of institutions. This happens due to personal choice (students who choose to attend a less-selective institution than their qualifications would allow), constraints on personal mobility (eg. students’ need to attend a local institution), centres of excellence located in lower-ranked and less-selective institutions (such as medical schools and law schools – which may be attracting 120-IQ students to institutions that are considerably less selective than this on average) – and of course the inevitable imperfections of national examinations and institutional selection procedures.

My guesstimate, therefore, is that less than half of the age cohort of 80 000 elite – not more than 35,000 students per year - will find their way into the top 20 most-selective UK universities.

It is worth focussing on this number for a moment. My proposition is that there are at-most just 35,000 IQ-120 university students for whom all the best universities are competing. It does not take very many universities to absorb 35,000 UK students per year.

This analysis implies that at most twenty UK universities can be regarded as truly elite in the defined meaning of it being possible for them to have a majority of students from the top 10 percent of IQ.


Fewer than twenty elite UK universities

However, twenty elite UK universities is an upper limit, and in practice the number of elite universities must be lower than twenty.

A further down-grading of this estimate is required because there will be large differences in the proportion of the cognitive elite even among elite universities defined in this fashion.

If US data on the Ivy League are taken as a guide, a university such as Oxford or Cambridge will probably have students with an average IQ more like 145; which is three standard deviations above average – or roughly the top 0.1 percent of IQ, or roughly the top thousandth of the UK population. So that we should assume that virtually all Oxbridge students will have an IQ above 120. This would mean that more than six thousand of the best of the top ten percent students in each year cohort will go to Oxbridge alone.

Recall that there are only about 35,000 potential elite undergraduates. If the top-two universities pretty-much fill-up with elite students, then the same applies – to a decreasing extent – as we descend the selectivity league table. Each decrement in university selectivity will take a lower proportion of the elite among their n-thousand first year entrants; nonetheless the threshold at which there is less than a majority of IQ-120 undergraduates in an institution will be reached considerably before the twentieth university.

The conclusion is that there is currently something between ten and fifteen elite universities in the UK.

But if we go back forty-something years, the average intake of a UK university was less than half, more-like a third of what it is today. In those days, even the largest of the most selective universities took just a few thousand new undergraduates per year, and some took less than a thousand. Inevitably this meant that the cognitive elite was spread thickly across a much larger number of institutions.

My hunch is that forty years ago, instead of about ten to fifteen elite universities there would have been more like thirty to forty elite universities. In other words, a couple of generations ago most UK institutions with the title of ‘university’ could legitimately have been considered ‘elite’.

This means that twenty-something previously elite UK universities have declined to non-elite status over a fairly short period of time – mostly during the past twenty or so years of rapid university expansion .


Who are the current elite among UK universities?

This analysis suggests that there has been a rapid decline from elite status in more than half of the less-selective pre-1992 universities as the most-selective universities have expanded their intake; because relatively few top universities can now hoover-up almost all of the top ten percent of students available for selection.

My point is that a major but neglected cause of the average students’ cognitive decline, which has been noticed in many of the UK’s most prestigious universities, must surely have been the several-fold expansion in the size of the most selective universities. As the annual undergraduate intake of the top UK universities doubled, then trebled in size; they became able to mop-up almost all of the limited supply of circa 35,000 students per year who constitute the UK cognitive elite.

There must therefore have been a very-significant decline in average cognitive ability of undergraduate students at most (but not all) of the Russell and 1994 Group universities – especially a decline of IQ-related abilities such as rapidity of learning and capacity for abstract logical thinking.

The outcome is that the student intake at the minority of most-selective Russell/ 1994 Group universities is bigger in numbers and has largely retained the same high levels of average IQ as before the massive UK university expansion; while among the lower-ranked majority of the Russell/ 1994 universities the post-expansion intakes are bigger in numbers but also the average students are significantly lower in terms of IQ. So that most of the Russell and 1994 Group universities are now non-elite.

In conclusion, I suggest that there are now likely to be only between ten and fifteen elite universities in the UK; where an elite university is defined as one in which the majority of the undergraduates have an IQ in the top ten percent of the population.

Assuming that the Sunday Times data are correct, my tentative suggestion is be that the only current elite UK undergraduate universities are: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, Warwick, St Andrew's, UCL, York, Bristol, Edinburgh, Bath and Durham.

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Second thoughts: 18 March 2009

I would now consider that in the modern educational system, the personality trait of Conscientiousness counts for as much, or more than, IQ in determining examination results.

http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-are-modern-scientists-so-dull.html.

So I would now refer to these dozen elite universities as having students in the top 10 percent of examination results, instead of the top 10 percent of IQ.

The non-Christians who are insightful enough to see the fake and lies of the mainstream System (the 'secular Right') are tying themselves in knots trying to describe and characterize the nature of the ideology that oppresses the world. 

They have nothing positive and motivating to suggest - but they routinely denigrate Christianity... and other religions too - but the focus is naturally on Christianity as the only potentially viable Western religion. 

They persist in describing the Global Establishment ideology of atheist, materialist Leftism as a New Religion - and persistently use religious analogies as a slur against Leftism - on the assumption that because faith, rituals, observances, prayer etc. are religious, that means they are dumb, irrational and/or manipulative.

So they are calling totalitarian Leftism a New Religion because Religion means bad. Yet this is a supposed religion that has - in the past year - closed down, taken-over and thereby utterly discredited not just the Christian churches, but all plausible pretense to spiritual authority of all the large and organized churches. So this 'New Religion' has destroyed spiritual authority... What kind of 'religion' destroys spiritual authority? 

Secular Leftism is also a supposed religion that does not believe in God: it is atheist in its avowed beliefs, and God is excluded as a significant factor from all areas of public discourse. What kind of a 'religion' does not believe in God, any gods, and any abstract deity?

This supposed 'religion' also disbelieves in any positive purpose or meaning to human life; and instead insists that reality is merely a combination of random and rigidly-determined 'physics'; just processes, grinding-on and with no point for humans.  

It insists that there is no soul, no life after death - that all human behaviour is reducible to 'psychology' and that the only kind of morality is based on 'feelings'.  

In what sense is this New Religion actually any kind of 'religion'? Well, only by superficial analogies and not by any deep beliefs or assumptions. 

This idea of Leftism as a New Religion is thus an analysis which makes worse the problem it tries to cure: it exacerbates the belief and harm of Leftism by tarring all religion with the same brush - and implicitly arguing from a standpoint of such total disbelief that religions go down in flames with Leftism because even the feeble negative and oppositional beliefs of Leftism are regarded as of the same nature as the powerful positive motivations of real religion. 

The problem is that the atheist "right" can't help themselves - so long as they remain atheist, for so long they must believe (by assumption) that all religions are false, and therefore all the beliefs, rites, rituals and other 'religious practices can only be made-up for the purpose of population manipulation. And are now being used by the 'New Religion' for the same purposes as they were used by 'old' religions. 

Yet the reality which explains the 'New Religion' is very simple - it is an anti-religion to Christianity; it is in essence the opposite of a real religion (Christianity, specifically) and the rites and rituals of Leftism have the same nature as those of explicit Satanism - they are a subversion or inversion of the Christian truth and reality. 

History teaches us that Real Religion is capable of motivating man more strongly than anything else - nothing else is able to sustain courage and social cohesion like a real religion. 

By contrast, modern Leftism is demotivating; it presides over a society of unprincipled cowards who cannot even oppose the secular authorities in the privacy of their own thoughts and are intimidated into craven obedience by the mere threat of stern looks and harsh words so that actual oppression is not needed. 

Against this, the secular Right have nothing positive to offer. 

Negatively; they are perfectly correct that our civilization is being actively-destroyed; and that all social functionality is being actively-destroyed - and that we are headed for the collapse of modern living and cooperative society; for severe mass human suffering from famine, violence and (real) disease. But negatively not-wanting this to happen is grossly inadequate - it is not a positive motivation.  

No civilization was ever built or sustained by the fear of losing a comfortable and convenient life. To grow and defend a civilization needs that courage and cohesion that only religion can give. 

We are the first and only thoroughly post-religious society, ever. 

By continually pretending we have a 'New Religion' and using religious language as a slur; by sniping at even the possibility of a real religion, by equating the literally Satanic anti-religion of Leftism with real Christianity - the secular Right are de facto fighting on the same side as the Leftism they so much despise. 

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Defining an elite university – a majority of elite students




















Who are the current elite among UK universities?