A dark day
Three years on, a personal account of Sunday 5th December 2021
Dear Church Leaders (and everyone else)
I have been wondering for a while whether or how to write this post. And then one night recently I woke up in the early hours of the morning, and on my mind was essentially the framework of what is written below.
I have since fleshed out those original thoughts. Unlike many of my articles, I have generally refrained from adding pictures, although there are a few in the footnotes. The black and white text somehow seems more fitting.
I doubt that anyone has ever described me as particularly emotional. Certainly not before 2020. I am not the sort of person to “wear my heart on my sleeve”. The times when I have been most upset have generally been the times at which it was natural to be so.
My mother died in her mid-50s when I was in my late 20s. And my father died in his mid-60s around nine years later. I can recall their funerals vividly. Particularly Mum’s, which took place within walking distance of where I grew up. The thing that especially sticks in my mind is the sheer number of cars parked on both sides of the streets around the Grade I listed medieval church I had attended as a child. I guess I had walked along those roads at least a thousand times before, but I had never seen them so crowded. On an average Sunday, the church car park was generally sufficient for a congregation of at least a hundred.
Rather more recently, but prior to the covid madness, I particularly remember the funeral of a close friend who had passed away leaving two young children to grow up without their father, and a thanksgiving service for a child who had died only a few weeks after birth.
But while my grief on those occasions was intense, it was nothing out of the ordinary. And I guess it was barely discernible to anyone at any distance. Sunday 5th December 2021 was very different. I was much more upset than I had ever been before.
2020
A sense of unease
Like many others, in 2020 I had felt at least something of a sense of unease when the schools were shut and the churches closed in March. As “three weeks to flatten the curve” morphed into three months, that sense of something-not-right-here grew stronger. And then, just as things appeared to be getting back to normal, face coverings were introduced. In July. Only a few months after our public health authorities had told us — correctly — at the height of “the pandemic”, that wearing a mask would likely do more harm than good.
As the year went on I read more, watched more and learned more about respiratory viruses, immunology and testing. And I wasn’t starting from scratch. I knew enough to see the holes — and the lies — in what the authorities were telling us. And to appreciate that part of the deception lay in what was not being talked about, e.g. the level of excess mortality, particularly during the summer. My concerns grew when I saw the likes of Pfizer’s former Chief Scientific Officer for Allergy and Respiratory Diseases Dr Mike Yeadon speaking out and being essentially completely disregarded by the mainstream media.
Up until the mid-2010s, I had been an avid consumer of news and current affairs, largely trusting the BBC and the broadsheets, but I had since grown somewhat sceptical. And during 2020 it was increasingly evident to me that the mainstream media was — for whatever reason — pushing an agenda of fear. Any residual trust that I had in the Beeb and the newspapers I read was ebbing away. The covid scaremongering seemed unrelenting and bizarre, especially for a respiratory virus where, according to England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty in March 2020, “the risk [was] very heavily weighted towards older people” — something which was confirmed by what happened in the subsequent months.
And winter came
And then came Christmas, where we we warned against meeting together with our families and friends. This BBC News article from the time opened with the words, “Families have been warned against hugging and kissing elderly relatives at Christmas ‘if you want them to survive to be hugged again’.”
But aside from trying to negotiate family arrangements for the festive season, several things stand out for me from around that time.
At one online church homegroup, during the usual general discussion at the end of the session, I mentioned that I had concerns about the accuracy of covid testing. Why, for example, would anyone trust a test where the false positive rate was not being disclosed? I remember being somewhat taken aback when other members of the group took exception to my questioning of the official narrative, including some of those best qualified to understand the perfectly reasonable points that I was making.
Around the same time, I recall being out for a walk in the countryside and encountering some local people. We spoke for a short while at a distance, as per the government recommendation at the time. And I remember remarking, “We are being played.” I don’t know what they thought. They didn’t say much in response, and we exchanged pleasantries and continued on our separate ways.
On the final Sunday of the year, after the church service on 27th December, I approached our vicar to speak to him 1:1. I can’t recall exactly what the “covid rules” were then, but it was a time when people were encouraged to leave church without speaking to each other, and to avoid gathering in groups of more than six, even outside. Anyhow, the vicar agreed to speak to me, and I explained — in fairly general terms — some of my concerns, essentially saying that I could see lots of things that the authorities were telling us that didn’t make sense. I was somewhat taken aback that the vicar seemed surprised at what I was saying, and that no-one else had apparently said anything similar. I knew that there were plenty of people in the congregation who were more than capable of discerning the deception that had become increasingly obvious to me, and I had assumed that the vicar’s response would be something along the lines of, “Yes, we know. A and B mentioned this a while back. And C and D are similarly concerned.”
I recall feeling disconcerted not least because it seemed that so many others weren’t.
Into 2021
A slip of paper
It was around that time that I began to try to alert others to my concerns. I still have a Word file titled “20-12-27 covid people” which simply has this text repeated several times:
Those were the Twitter — now X — handles of several credible people, in alphabetical order, who I could tell were seeking and telling the truth. My choice has aged well. Regular readers of this Substack will recognise the names.1
After the end of one church service, while people were being ushered out, mostly masked, and in something close to silence, I slipped a slip of paper — on which was printed the above text — into the hands of four members of the congregation who I thought might engage constructively.2 Entering any of those Twitter handles into a search engine at the time would have directed the user to some of the people raising legitimate concerns about what was actually going on. At that stage, all Twitter posts appeared to be visible even to those without an account, and censorship of social media accounts was only just beginning to ramp up.
Shortly after that, churches were closed again, for several months, starting in January 2021. Opportunities to speak to people in person, even 1:1, were few and far between. Places where people would normally talk to each other, such as churches, other places of worship, pubs and restaurants, were closed. “For our safety.”
Vaccine concerns
At this stage, I was beginning to wonder more about the bigger picture. In September 2020 the World Health Organisation had begun using the somewhat Orwellian-sounding phrase, “No-one is safe until everyone everyone is safe,” and had stated that “access to vaccines, tests and treatments for everyone who needs them is the only way out [of this pandemic]”.3 That sort of talk seemed to me rather strange for a virus for which the fatality rate appeared no worse than a bad flu season.
Prior to the covid era, I had generally been someone who was inclined to trust the medical authorities. Particularly in relation to vaccines. As I wrote in this post, before 2020 I had accepted all the vaccines I had ever been offered. And for some years I had even paid for an annual flu vaccine! I was too young to be offered a jab on the NHS, but I had had a couple of bad bouts of something resembling flu in my 20s and 30s, and my working assumption was that a flu vaccine wouldn’t do me any harm, and might help somewhat. Looking back, I could reasonably have described myself as something of a vaccine evangelist. But I had given little consideration to the evidence for what I believed.
The relentless push for covid injections woke me up. It was clear enough to me from early on that what were known as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were actually gene therapy injections. The American Society of Cell + Gene Therapy said so here in December 2020, and it is there in black and white in the pharma companies’ regulatory submissions. But while many people took issue with the “gene therapy” label, it was hard to deny that the injections had — assuming that they had actually been created in response to covid — been developed in only a matter of months, a timeframe that I knew for certain was ridiculously short for the development of any medical product, let alone one using novel technology. And of course any product developed in 2020 plainly could not possibly have any long-term safety data. I thus had good reason not to trust anyone claiming that covid vaccines were safe.4
Moreover, it was not long before credible voices were raising concerns about multiple deaths in care homes where the “safe and effective” vaccines had recently been administered. Yet the authorities seemed to be nudging us towards younger and younger people taking the needle. And then came the push on children, despite the fact that Matt Hancock, then Health Secretary, had said in Parliament5 that “the [covid] vaccine will not be used for children.” And pregnant women. It seemed that basic medical ethics had been abandoned — was there anyone who had properly informed consent? — and that we had forgotten hard lessons learned from history.
Alerting others
During the early months of 2021 I began to share my concerns more widely6 — with friends, family, church leaders and others in the congregation, locals, work colleagues and others, including people I had not been in touch with for years.7 This post features the first email I wrote to the senior staff at the church I attend. I chose the subject line “a time of great darkness”, which I think has aged well.8
A few people wrote back to say that they shared at least some of my concerns. A small number asked me not to write to them again about covid. Of the other replies I received, most were brief, and along the lines of: “Interesting. Thanks for your message.” The rest did not reply at all.
Several people suggested I wrote to my MP. Prior to 2020 I had never considered approaching my Parliamentary representative, or indeed any local representative, but in December 2020 I had sought — and been granted — an appointment with my local Member, who I was aware knew Boris Johnson personally. I approached the meeting somewhat nervously but cautiously optimistic, knowing that my MP was one of relatively few with a strong mathematical background. But he seemed unconvinced about the concerns that I expressed about the covid narrative in relation to excess death statistics and PCR testing. The fact that our meeting was online and that he was running somewhat behind schedule didn’t help.
For the next few months I sent fairly regular follow-up emails, particularly in relation to concerns about evidence emerging that the so-called vaccines were anything but safe and effective. In March I got a message from one of the MP’s assistants asking me to send fewer messages — which I honoured. But in any case it was gradually dawning on me that, insofar as the course of events was being steered by government at all, it was in the hands of a very small number of people, and that MPs outside the Cabinet were unlikely to have much influence, irrespective of any personal connection with the Prime Minister.
It was also dawning on me that there was an unprecedented level of censorship of credible people who were speaking out — all over the world, and across almost all media platforms. I found the lack of coverage of protests, such as this massive one in London in April 2021, particularly striking.
I felt elements of censorship even at a local level, including at church where open discussion of the official narrative seemed to be unwelcome, especially at homegroup. And I remember having my comments on newspaper articles shadow-banned. I came to realise that those curating the comments had configured the system so that only I could see what I had written. And that they had done this without even telling me. I wondered why a newspaper would do that to its readers. I later phoned to cancel my subscription and to explain that I doubted that I would ever re-subscribe. It was not long afterwards that I started subscribing to various Substacks, and I haven’t looked back.
A greater sense of unease
My sense of unease continued to grow as the covid injections were pushed on schoolchildren. I am generally cautious in reaching conclusions, but I had seen more than enough evidence to say without reservation at a gathering of extended family that I thought the so-called vaccines were life-shortening injections — a proper lead balloon moment. I found it sinister that young people at essentially zero risk from any circulating respiratory viruses were being pressured to take what I knew was essentially gene therapy so that they could go on holiday, or even help out with gospel ministry. I remember writing to United Beach Missions in Summer 2021 in the context of their covid vaccination policy for young Christian volunteers. I could barely believe that so many people seemed so indifferent to such egregious breaches of basic medical ethics. But appeals based e.g. on the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (article 6) largely fell on deaf ears.
I was particularly aghast at the way in which church leaders, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, were pushing the novel gene-based injections. My own church leaders refused to distance themselves from what seemed to me a plainly unethical and deplorable stance. It was as if they were ignoring everything I had said and written on the matter. In a blogpost in October, our vicar, who by his own admission has no expertise on vaccines and would I think say that statistics need to be handled carefully, praised God for the covid injections and described them as seemingly highly effective. And as far as I am aware, he has not made any public statement on the matter since.
The level of coercion in the UK was bad enough. In August, care home workers were told that they had to take covid injections or lose their job. Even if they had natural immunity from covid. In November it was announced that this was to be extended to all NHS frontline workers. Worse still, in parts of Europe there were reports of a “covid pass” (or “freedom pass”) being required for anybody merely wanting to go to a large supermarket.
In October 2021 I put together these 20 questions, along with supporting information, and sent them to various people, among them the leaders of the church I attend, including one of the then-wardens who was at the time working as a consultant surgeon. I did not get much by way of engagement. I wasn’t necessarily expecting in-depth discussion of the scientific issues, but I was surprised at the lack of interest in basic medical ethics. And the broader impact on society, including churches. I am deeply grateful to those who did speak out at the time, not least Rev Dr William Philip of The Tron Church in Glasgow, and Pastor John-William Noble of Grace Baptist Church in Aberdeen.
Church covid policy
The stated policy at our church — recorded in the PCC minutes — was that government guidance on covid would be followed. In practice, the church leaders went beyond what the government was requiring, even when it was clear that whatever respiratory viruses were circulating posed little or no risk to most people. As I noted here, in the UK no church was asked to repeat the mantra that mask-wearing and “social distancing” were “keeping us safe” — something for which there was never any robust scientific evidence. And yet this was a repeated refrain of our church’s messaging, not least in their email communications.
It would also have been in line with government guidance for church leaders to state openly from the front of church that the mask-exempt were welcome at services. And indeed a kind thing to do in the context of congregation members who were uncomfortable (or worse) with wearing a mask, but were doing so because they felt pressure to go along with the crowd. But no such statement was made at our church, even when I expressly requested it.
In 2020 I had largely gone along with government recommendations at first, not least because I held what I later came to realise was a rather naive view of Romans 13. But as I discovered more and more of what was actually going on, and I gave more consideration to the matter, I changed what I thought and what I did. And by mid-2021 I was one of a handful of people in our large congregation who did not wear a mask at church.
On several occasions during 2021 I got up and quietly left the church building during services, usually when someone had said something from the front which from my perspective was essentially endorsing something from the authorities that was plainly not true. It did not help to look out on a sea of masked faces each week, and it was an ongoing source of distress to me that our church leaders refused to state that the mask-exempt were welcome.
I found it ironic that the government — tyrannical though it evidently was — was in late 2021 offering concessions that churches did not seem to want. It would surely have been reasonable for church leaders to point out that the UK government guidance during Advent 2021 stated clearly that: “there is a reasonable excuse for someone to remove a face covering when it is reasonably necessary for them to sing, for example, if they are singing as part of a choir, or during a service, rehearsal or for a performance” (emphasis added). But while the stated policy at our church was that we were following government guidance, the church leaders refused to announce this particular provision, even when it was pointed out to them.
Sunday 5th December
Approaching church
And so we come to December, and specifically Sunday 5th December, the second Sunday in Advent.
In some ways, it felt much like any other December morning as I walked to church with my family. The weather was cold and dry, and the city centre shops were filled with festive fare. But my heart was heavy, not least in the context of what I have already described. A further contributory factor may have been the then-recent news that Durham Cathedral was to require a covid pass in order to attend Christmas services.9
As I approached the church entrance with my family, the line of masked figures queuing for hand sanitiser was longer than I had ever seen it. I often wondered exactly what was going through people’s heads at such times, and to what extent their actions were motivated by fear versus compliance versus being seen to do the right thing, all of which had played on my mind at some stage during the previous couple of years. I also wondered how many of them thought that what they were doing was actually making much difference. And indeed whether they were giving much thought to what they were doing at all.
But in any case, I was in the habit of by-passing the sanitiser table, irrespective of the size of the queue. I cannot remember ever engaging in that particular covid ritual, not least owing to long-held reservations about the effects of regular sanitising on beneficial bacteria. And it had been a long time since I had covered my face at church. So I entered the building in much the same way as everyone had during the winter of 2017/2018 — when there were an estimated 50,100 excess deaths in England and Wales and hardly anyone seemed to notice, let alone suggest that we should act any differently.
During the service
For some reason — I think probably a call of nature — I ended up climbing the stairs to the church balcony somewhat later than the rest of my family. And, somewhat to my surprise, when I looked around the upper seating area, I couldn’t readily find them. I guess it was the first morning after the university term had finished, when the church reverts to a single morning service rather than the term-time two, and the church was packed. I did eventually spot my family though, and, owing to a lack of space, sat down in one of the rows behind them.
The service began much as usual. Ours is the sort of church which feels informal but actually has a very predictable service structure, along the lines of: hymn; children’s talk; song; notices; song; prayers; reading; 25-minute sermon; hymn. With occasional minor variations. The services generally last barely an hour, and the format works well. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone complain that a service was too short.
I can’t recall what the opening hymn was that morning. But I do remember that, during the children’s talk that followed, I became deeply distressed. I sat motionless as I was overwhelmed by an extraordinary sense of sorrow. And I wept, audibly. It wasn’t just that I was more upset than at any time that I could recall. It was that I was perhaps outwardly more upset than I had ever personally witnessed in another adult. Certainly in a church service, funeral or otherwise. Of the five hundred or so people in the congregation, no-one with normal hearing could have missed the sound of my distress.10
The person giving the children’s talk continued relatively unperturbed, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Meanwhile, one or two people close to where I was sitting offered to help and/or to escort me outside. I can remember crying out, “Leave me alone!” On this occasion there had been no obvious trigger from what had been said during the service, and I did not feel inclined to leave. After a minute or two, the vocal outworking of my distress began to subside, and I sat still with my head in my hands for the rest of the service — and beyond — as the tears gradually subsided. I cannot remember what was going through my mind. But I know I felt at least somewhat numb.11
After the service
My recollection of what happened after the service is somewhat hazy. I don’t remember anyone coming to talk to me. But if they had done, I would have — again, but this time quietly — asked them to leave me be. I guess that after a few minutes I made my way out of the building and headed back towards the car. I don’t recall whether my family accompanied me, or, perhaps at my suggestion, stayed to mingle before joining me.
Since then, I don’t remember anyone present that morning asking me about what happened, either in terms of why I was upset, or how I am feeling about it since. Though I do recall discussing it with a small number of trusted people I know locally, some of whom recognise the true nature of at least some of what has been happening.
If anyone asked now, my default response would be along the lines of this article.
Looking back
A diabolical deception
To this day I cannot explain fully exactly what upset me so much on Sunday 5th December 2021. I have no doubt that there were multiple factors, not least the realisation of some of the implications of what had been happening, particularly during the previous twelve months. But I wonder to what extent the long queue for hand sanitiser that morning had reminded me of people queuing up for covid injections. And how much the fact that I had got separated from my family reminded me of the way in which the authoritarian Australians were isolating people away from their families in internment camps.
But I think that the primary reason for my distress lay in my growing conviction that something deeply malevolent was happening. I realise that statement will sound strange to some people, even now, but it comes from a sober analysis of the facts, some of which are laid out in e.g. these recent posts.
The fact that we were being deceived was evident enough to me in 2020. As I pointed out here, anyone capable of passing GCSE Maths can go to the official UK Office for National Statistics website and see for themselves that registered deaths in the England and Wales were at or below normal levels right up until the nation was ordered into panic mode on March 23rd. As to New York City and northern Italy, which were both reported as being epicentres of the covid pandemic, those who have looked carefully at what actually happened there in Spring 2020 make a strong case that in both places the death curves look fraudulent.
As I observed in the meme12 at the end of this post, if we consider covid as a “public health emergency” created for a “vaccine” rather than a vaccine created for a public health emergency a lot of things make a lot more sense. And that was the conclusion that I had gradually reached during 2021. But it is worse than that. There is now a substantial body of evidence consistent with the covid injections being designed to harm people. I find Mike Yeadon’s analysis here and elsewhere hard to fault, and I am not aware of anyone who has mounted a credible challenge to his argument. Moreover, I am aware of plenty of other evidence13 consistent with what he says.
And while I was initially somewhat reluctant to believe that depopulation might be one of the ultimate aims of the covid injections, it has always seemed obvious enough to me that if powerful people wanted to stealthily reduce the population — as was widely reported back in 2009 — it was hard to imagine a more effective way to do it than via life-shortening and/or fertility-reducing injections under the guise of mass vaccination to save us from a deadly pandemic.
A low point
In retrospect, I think December 2021 can reasonably be viewed as something of a low point, and not just in terms of it being literally the darkest time of year. January 2022 saw substantial pushback from NHS workers who had the courage to stand against what were plainly coercive and highly unethical vaccine mandates. One of the key moments was this encounter between then-Health Secretary Sajid Javid and NHS consultant anaesthetist Steve James. All of us owe the NHS100k a debt of gratitude.14
Only a matter of weeks later, the relentless covid fear-mongering melted away, as the Trusted News Initiative turned its attention to Ukraine. But to me covid had revealed a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And I sensed that that wolf was here to stay, which is a judgement that I think has been borne out by events — see for example these recent articles.
Inversion
During the covid era, at least some people thought me possessed of some kind of mental illness. Yet this was surely but one of many inversions of those crazy days. When those who chose to show their faces were seen as eccentric or even as a threat. And when people who expressed reservations about gene therapy injections with no long-term safety data were viewed as dangerous “anti-vaxxers”. Incidentally, I find it interesting to note that, by the standards of 2021, most NHS workers are now “anti-vax”.
What most people failed to appreciate then, and perhaps still do not realise even now, is that my distress was a perfectly natural reaction to what was actually going on. I sometime wonder how many more tears will eventually be shed when people come to terms with what has happened over the past few years.
As to mental illness, I find it sobering to note, not least in the context of the recent UK vote on assisted suicide, that, according to this recent post by Paul Yowell, Associate Professor of Law at Oxford University, “In 2027, [Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program] MAiD will be extended to people whose sole condition is mental illness.” I am reminded of the horrendous experience of Thomas Binder, a Swiss doctor who was forced to take psychiatric medication after questioning the covid narrative. It’s well worth taking a few minutes to listen to what he has to say from 10:15 here.
Ongoing denial
One of the things that I have been most wrong about over the past few years is the rate at which I thought people would come to recognise and acknowledge at least some of the covid deception. I remember Mike Yeadon quoting — in 2020 — some words often attributed to Mark Twain: “It’s Easier to Fool People Than It Is to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled.” But I had not realised just how difficult it would be to convince people. It seems to me that many simply do not want to engage with the evidence. I have lost count of the number of times I have met with people who have said, at the start of a discussion, something like, “Let’s just put your concerns about covid aside.”
I find it ironic that some of those who would on paper be among the most capable of engaging with the evidence are actually among those who are most reluctant to do so. But perhaps it should come as no surprise that it is highly credentialed people, and particularly those who have enjoyed successful careers, who are most disinclined to countenance the possibility that they could have been fooled. I wonder how much consideration they have given to the many occasions in history, including in the Bible, where the minority report is correct and the majority are wrong? It seems to me that they think that such a scenario could not possibly happen to them. Do they not realise that it is not only in Christ that God makes foolish the wisdom of the world? I am reminded of the old joke, “What is the difference between God and a surgeon?”15 But it doesn’t just apply to surgeons.
I do recognise that, as our behavioural psychologists know all too well, it is particularly hard for those who were most invested in the covid narrative to admit that they were deceived. And especially for those who had responsibility for implementing “covid rules”, and who parroted lies to those who looked to them for guidance. There are many who fall into this category, among them parents, teachers, headteachers, university staff, university leaders, church staff, church leaders, nurses, doctors, public health representatives, and middle and senior managers in the private sector. Etc. And I can understand why those who encouraged others to test, to isolate, to cover their faces, and even to take the injections, are keen to brush what has happened under the proverbial carpet. Or, as they might prefer to put it, to move on.
But would not a failure to acknowledge what has happened be dishonouring to the one who claimed to be the Truth even if there had been relatively little suffering caused as a result of the deception? Does truth no longer matter? It is surely bad enough when our wider society shies away from truth and reconciliation. But when this extends to Christians, who would claim to be walking in the truth…? Or church leaders, who, according to the apostle James, “will be judged more strictly”…? I can’t help wondering what God makes of what is happening.
The issues are of course exacerbated by the fact that the covid deception has caused massive suffering: babies and infants whose development has been compromised by seeing mainly masked faces at a key time in their lives; children who have at times been denied a normal education and who have suffered in so many other ways, as discussed in this post; vulnerable people who have died as the result of “covid protocols” in hospitals and care homes, through lack of basic healthcare provision, denial of antibiotics, over-zealous application of Do Not Resuscitate orders, treatment with midazolam and morphine, and more — with relatives of the victims often denied the opportunity to say a proper goodbye to their loved ones. And then there are those who have suffered life-changing injuries (or worse) from the injections. In the UK, we don’t know how many of the thousands of excess deaths among the 40s, 50s and 60s are vaccine-related. Or how many of the 800,000 extra people unable to work are vaccine-injured. But we do know that the authorities will not release the data they hold which could at least give us some indication.
A spiritual dimension
I sometimes genuinely wonder to what extent church leaders — and many Christians — actually believe what the Bible says about certain things, among them: evil, which is often exemplified by inversion (as discussed briefly earlier); Satan, who we are told is the god of this age, the father of lies and a crafty deceiver who sometimes masquerades as an angel of light; Satan’s servants, who masquerade as servants of righteousness; the human heart, which is deceitful above all things; and the armour of God in which the belt of truth is the first item that Paul mentions in the context of believers standing their ground
I find it interesting when I encounter people who, prior to 2020 at least, would not have called themselves Christians, and yet are able to discern a spiritual dimension to the events of recent years. In contrast, many church leaders seem extraordinarily reluctant even to discuss such things.
For me, one of the most poignant ironies about this is that I see and hear credible reports that God is at work in the lives of non-Christians who are choosing to engage with what is going on, with some ultimately coming to faith. Meanwhile, my own church leaders — and many others — show little or no interest in engaging with calls to repentance such as the one featured here, and instead seem intent on helping to protect the lies that they have endorsed.
I wonder whether part of the reason for this is that what has happened is too dark for most people even to contemplate. And, up to a point, I can understand why that might be, not least in the context of my experience on Sunday 5th December 2021. But maybe it is sometimes necessary to see the dark in order to better see the light?
Related:
Dear Church Leaders most-read articles
Some posts can also be found on Unexpected Turns
The Big Reveal: Christianity carefully considered as the solution to a problem
See the following links: Clare Craig, Norman Fenton, Joel Smalley, Mike Yeadon; I also recall later alerting my church leaders to the fact that Rev Dr William Philip (featured here) shared some of my concerns, but I have no evidence that any of them acted on that
None of them did
And in May 2021, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had developed a curious enthusiasm for the promotion of novel medical products, was saying something similar
Just in — no pun intended — case it disappears, here is a snapshot of the article:
Having taken the time to look into vaccines more generally, I now have serious doubts as to whether others actually do more good than harm, not least HPV. I have come to suspect that most doctors recommend vaccines without having given much consideration to the available evidence. And it seems to me that most people — doctors included — are unaware of even recent problems with vaccines.
Mostly via email — not least because in-person gatherings were (at least) strongly discouraged at the time, but also so that I could send supporting information which people could (if they wished) peruse at leisure
This was completely new territory for me. Prior to the covid era I had — for better or worse — rarely spoken out. By way of illustration, I do not recall ever asking a question at the annual church meeting, and rarely in any public forum.
I remember seeing this cartoon around that time:
I am reminded of the song When a man cries by The Divine Comedy, particularly 1:09-2:06. But in my case, as anyone present at church on Sunday 5th December could attest, the lyrics “but he doesn’t make a sound” most emphatically did not apply.
I am reminded of the lyrics of the song Numb — written by 15x Oscar-nominated Diane Warren, and turned down by Aerosmith before being recorded by the Pet Shop Boys. Football fans may recall that the song was used by the BBC for their biannual England-Are-Out-Of-A-Major-Tournament compilation in 2006 after Sven-Göran Eriksson’s side lost to Portugal on penalties in the 2006 World Cup quarter-final.
This meme:
See e.g. this post — 5 ways to skin a (genetically modified) cat — from an anonymous medical whistleblower
I find it curious that not only does the link to the NHS100k website no longer work, but that (unlike in most cases) the pinned NHS100k Twitter/X post cannot be viewed without logging in. The page below appears for only a fraction of a second:
The answer being: “God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon”