Nurnberg

~ admin ~ 1 Comment

In 1945 several men fled to Christ in the face of the enormity of their sin. Major Henry Gerecke, a Lutheran army chaplain had been appointed to the accused at Nuremberg. His work was recorded by F T Grossmith in his book The Cross and the Swastika.

When Gerecke prepared the Lord’s table, the guards walked out. He reported it in this way: ‘I shall never forget the sight of those three big men kneeling, asking that their sins be forgiven. So convincing was their bearing that the guards said to me, “Chaplain, you’ll not need us. This is holy business.” And they walked out.’ The Cross and the Swastika by F.T. Grossmith is well worth the read – you might need a box of tissues. Some sound recordings are available. There is also a BBC Radio four production, Nuremberg: The Trial of the Nazi War Criminals, which references the work of the chaplain but looks at the trial from a different perspective.

Sound recordings of Gerecke’s work are [temporarily] available here:

  1. Chaplain Corps 5 min: Gerecke introduces himself and provides the background to his appointment
  2. The Colonel 6 min: The work of finding the lost sheep commences
  3. Ribbentrop 4 min: Religion turns to grace
  4. Hess 5 min: Goering takes Gerecke’s part
  5. Raeder 4 min: The Lutheran becomes a Methodist
  6. Von Schirach 4 min: If any one leads one of these little one’s astray…
  7. Dr Frick 6 min: There is much work for a chaplain who meets the families and the lost sheep
  8. Goering 3 min: The face of religion without the power
  9. Death March 3 min: 16 October 1945 I shall see you again
  10. Civic Duty 3 min: Political reflections
  11. The Executed 4 min: Application!

Fear men?

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

Having come across Perkins in relation to the Creed, Coco noticed the following words:

Lastly, whereas wee haue learned that the soule of man is immortall, wee are hereby taught to take more care for the soule, then for the bodie. For it can not be extinguished. When it is condemned, euen then it is alwaies in dying, and can neuer die. But, alas, in this point the case is flat contrarie in the worlde: for men will labour all their life long to get for the bodie, but for the soule they care little or nothing at all, chuse it whether it sinke or swimme, goe to heauen or to hell, they looke not to it. This doth appeare to be true, by the practise and behaui|our of men on the Lordes day: for if the nomber of those which come to heare Gods worde, were compared with those which runne about their worldly wealth and pleasure, I feare me the better sort would be found to be but a little handfull to a huge heape, or as a droppe to the Ocean sea, in respect of the other. But wilt thou goe an hundred myle for the encrease of thy wealth, and delight of thy bodie? then think it not much to go ten thousand miles (if neede were) to take any paines for the good of thy soule, and to get foode for the same.

How right he was. David declared in Psalm 68:11 The Lord gave the word. Great was the company of those who proclaimed it. The message that they had to bring was not quite the message that the Lord brought in the following words, but there is much similarity in it for those who see: Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. Matthew 10:27-31jesus should die?

There are many who hear the word, many who proclaim it, but do many come to hear it? It is as true today as it was in 1595 that men care more for their bodies than their souls. Indeed they live as if they have no soul, as so many false and misguided teachers suggest, until one dies and then they speak as if the dead one, who they believed had no soul but only a body yet still lives in some mysterious way.

Many pass by with no thought for their souls, no thought of God, no thought of eternity, no thought to ask why did Jesus die?

All ye that pass by, to Jesus draw nigh:
To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?
Your ransom and peace, your surety he is:
Come, see if there ever was sorrow like his.
Charles Wesley 1707-88

He descended into hell

~ admin ~ 1 Comment

It was asked the question of one of you, dear readers, what He descended into hell means.

The words he descended into hell found in the Apostle’s Creed as we read it in the present day are the source of a number of controversies none of which strike at the heart of our evangelical faith, but which exercise the minds of believers in some helpful and in some unhelpful ways. As we may expect concerning such an ancient and important text as the Apostle’s Creed it is unlikely that we can say anything new about it, and what may be said has already been said, probably several times over by many scholars over the past three half millennia and before. The standard comprehensive work, some would perhaps describe it as exhaustive, and it is certainly exhausting where even the footnotes themselves have footnotes, was produced by John Pearson DD (28 February 1613–16 July 1686) a Lord Bishop of Chester, who prepared an exposition of the creed at the insistence of his parishioners at Eastcheap in the City of London. The exposition1 was published in 1659 before he became a bishop. During the Civil War he served on the Royalist side and argued against the Puritans, but we shall not hold that against him.

I have compared Pearson’s exposition with that of William Perkins (1558–1602)2 , which was published in 1595 whilst he was a lecturer at St. Andrew’s Church in Cambridge. He was a well respected man of God who, though he conformed to Elizabeth’s settlement, continued to strive for further reform of the Church of England. One of his more famous works would be The arte of prophesy by which was meant at the time how to read, interpret and preach the Word of God accurately. It is an art which is vital to all who would dare to enter the pulpit still. I do not consider in detail here Perkins’s work.

Pearson may have had regard to Perkins’s writing for they agree in regard to the understandings of the clause which they reject. And they both reach the same conclusion, though expressed slightly differently, that the words descended into hell are a reference to the grave holding him after his burial for the three days before his resurrection.

My summary of Pearson’s work may be found here, together with a brief critique of his conclusion and comparison with Perkins3, and the sections which deal with the article he descended into hell. The full text of both Perkins’s and Pearson’s work may be found using the links in the footnotes.

You may need to log into Google or GoogleDrive to access the documents.
  1. There have been many editions of the exposition among which we have:
    Rev. E. Burton, DD Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church. Oxford; Clarendon Press, 1877.
    https://anglicanhistory.org/pearson/creed/
    Revised by the Rev. W. S. Dobson, A.M., editor of the Attic Greek Orators and Sophists, &c New York;D. Appleton & Company, 200 Broadway, Philadelphia/George S. Appleton, 164 Chestnut St. London 1850
    https://dn790002.ca.archive.org/0/items/expositionofcred00pearuoft/expositionofcred00pearuoft.pdf
    And the copy which I possess: Edward Walford MA, Balliol College, Oxford; George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden 1876

    There are minor discrepancies between the editions, which do not detract from the value of them but which may cause scholars and academics to raise their eyebrows to question whether the Latin word order, the Greek or Hebrew pointing and orthography is correct but the blame for many of these may lie not with the editors but the typesetters who being skilled in the production of excellent English texts for the nineteenth century may have applied those skills to inadvertently modify a seventeenth century text
    ↩︎
  2. An earlier and other important exposition of the creed was prepared by William Perkins a Puritan who lived during the reign of Elizabeth of England.
    An exposition of the Symbole or Creed of the Apostles according to the tenour of the Scriptures, and the consent of orthodoxe Fathers of the Church. By William Perkins. Perkins, William, 1558-1602
    Printed by Iohn Legatt, printer to the Vniuersitie of Cambridge. 1595. And are to be solde [by R. Bankworth] at the signe of the Sunne in Pauls Church-yard in London
    https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A09411.0001.001/1:5?rgn=div1;view=fulltext#backDLPS789
    ↩︎
  3. Perkins mentions a possible understanding of the words he descended into hell with the following comment:
    This exposition is good and true, and whosoeuer will may receiue it. But yet neuerthelesse it seemes not so fitly to agree with the order of the former articles.
    The suggestion is that the former wordes, was crucified, deade and buried, doe con∣taine (say they) the outward sufferings of Christ: nowe because he suffered not onely outwardly in bodie, but also inwardly in soule, therefore these words, he descended into hell, doe set forth vnto vs his inwarde sufferings in soule, when he felt vpon the crosse the ful wrath of God vpō him.
    This is a most interesting proposition and begins to fall into the realms of the mystery of the incarnation. David in Psalm 40 says Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me, which the Apostle tells us in Hebrews are the words of our Lord. Shortly afterwards in Psalm 40 David says For innumerable evils have surrounded me; my iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head; therefore my heart fails me.
    These also are the words of our Lord. How are we to understand them?
    James Allen of Dowlais provides a helpful exposition of them here. I commend it to you.
    ↩︎

Impersonational

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

It feels sometimes like waiting for the bus before there was real-time information about where the next one was, when eventually three would arrive together, so the first one is the standard warning which you may not need to read, and given the length of Coco’s musings he knows that at least one of you, dear readers, having chastised him off on several occasions for his wordiness, shall not read it. Many of you will be very well aware of the issue, and perhaps have no need to read any more than the next few words.

If you get a friend request from Coco (but unlikely if you are already friends 😉), or one of his other friends, followers or followed, or one impersonating one of these or impersonating him, then please check it out carefully first. Check it out even if it comes as what appears to be a legitimate friend suggestion from the moderator or owner of the source.

One of you not so long ago spotted a fake, impersonating public profile, from which Coco, amongst he supposes many others, had received a befriending request, and kindly advised of its existence. Thank you for doing so.

Coco has recently become aware that a number of such profiles has been set up. For the sake of privacy he shall not disclose here any names, it is not his place to do so, but advise that though you may find similar names or descriptions among his friends, the impersonations and impersonators are not there. Beware though for some impersonating profiles may have friends with other fake, impersonating profiles which help them to look legitimate.

It is perhaps worth checking from time to time for pages similar to your own – why would anyone set up a fake page of me you might ask, so does he? but people do. Coco thought little of the first one that he saw, at first, but there are many dangers here. Some public fora have tools to report pages which impersonate others. Whether they are effective, remains to be seen.

As for the other two omnibus, they have already left the stop should you have spent time reading this post whilst waiting…

Happy Christmas

Xmas treats?

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

Whilst, in the words from the article, LICC is not ‘automatically aligned with [Coco’s] opinions1‘ this is an interesting article from the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity.

Not on our side: Christmas and the danger of co-opting Jesus

Discernment is required when reading articles from LICC, though Coco must be quick to remind himself that they are not of the same nature as the Parson’s Egg.

This article references a right-wing attempt at co-option, which is perhaps easier to identify than a left-wing one where social justice, love, equality and brotherhood have a higher place on the agenda, and so appeals more easily to the hearts of the followers of Jesus, but a careful review of both the right- and left-wing, even the centrist, agendæ[sic.] will reveal that they are all opposed to the teaching of our Lord, not recognising, the perhaps disguising the lack of recognition in a pretence by referencing his words but out of their context, his authority over men.

Read it carefully, and having done so, compare all the vain attempts of men to promote a different message than the one that Jesus brought that the Son of Man must be handed over to the authorities, be crucified for our sins, and be raised from the dead on the third day, with the Word of God once and for all delivered to us.

The Lord be with you, especially if you, as many do, take a peculiar regard2 to the days at this particular time of the year in remembrance of his coming as a man into this world.

  1. Coco’s opinions are referenced in the footer of this web-page. ↩︎
  2. One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. Romans 14:5-6 ↩︎

Sedimentary acrobatics

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

It was an interesting article: Thousands of dinosaur footprints found on Italian mountain with a good come-on line, but it was not so much that as attracted Coco, as the evidence that the find provides.

Now Coco is not a geologist, but thinks he can tell the difference between a sandy beach and a hardened sedimentary rock face. He would ask geologically minded readers, please, to come to his assistance and correct, or provide better, or even good, explanations of the data. He would also ask such readers to forgive his ignorance to use the proper geologic terminology, or jargon, for what he wishes to describe, just as Carney may be forgiven for using the correct forms of English.

Elio Della Ferrera, Arch. PaleoStelvio © 2025 BBC
The tracks may be seen here clearly on the rock face which appears to be made up of sedimentary rocks. Now one would expect sedimentary rocks to be laid down in horizontal, parallel layers as may be seen for example in the walls of the Grand Canyon.

Soft material is laid down by water and over the years it hardens, and further layers are deposited on top, which themselves then harden. Coco understands that the traditional explanation for sedimentary layers that are not found in horizontal layers is that the rock layers have been folded by some later folding event, perhaps the movement together of tectonic plates, or an uplifting event such as gave rise to the great mountain ranges and in particular to the Alps in which these footprints have been found, followed by abrasion.

The prevalence of cracking in the sediments may give an indication of the plasticity or otherwise of the rocks at the time of the folding event. Cracks are visible in the photograph. Are these cracks subsequent to the folding, and due to more recent weathering, or are they original?

We should consider what happened to the sediments that would have been attached to the sediments that we can now see in the mountains. Where are they? Before the folding event they would have been at one. It is said that they may have been scoured away by other events occurring after the folding, as poorly illustrated in the diagramme.

Is that what we see here? An event has occurred which lifted the sediments; a subsequent event took away part of the rock and left the edges of sedimentary layers exposed; some time later the prosauropods came skipping along to left their footprints in the now exposed layers of sedimentary rock. Does that sound a possibility, or is it another just-so story so beloved by the old agers?

We must consider that when the tracks were left, this exposed surface, however it came to be exposed, must have been soft, at least plastic, in order that footfall would leave footprints. If the sediments had been laid down over long ages, then would they have been even remotely in a condition which we could call plastic when our dear sauropods visited it? Perhaps the absence or otherwise of cracking would provide us with a clue.

What however is fairly clear is that these are not footprints left in a sandy beach (or even a muddy on, as shown in the video, of “Footage supplied by the team of scientists [to] show the scale of the footprints and a recreation of how they were formed”. Sandy beaches, as we observe, lose their evidence of the crossing of large mammals and reptiles at almost every tide. Perhaps on a windy sandy beach they may even be lost to sight before the tide arrives. And yes, Coco is aware that sauropods may have been reptiles not mammals, but as a living one has not been able to be examined in the modern era the hypotheses that they were reptiles is perhaps no better than the hypothesis that they were mammals, unless you believe the just-so stories about footprints on a sandy beach being fossilised.

Illustrazione di Fabio Manucci, Arch. PaleoStelvio © 2025 BBC
Artist’s rendition of a herd of prosauropods walking across a muddy plain during low tide. Smaller footprints suggest the herd also included young specimens

All of that said, and whilst he does not believe the story provided, Coco still cannot tell you how the footprints actually came to be embedded in the rocks now exposed in the Alps. As Holmes was supposed to have said: Once you have eliminated the possible, the only explanation left is the impossible. There was a flood. The sediments were laid down, folded and abraded quickly, and were still soft when our sauropod pod arrived.

Gnats and camels

~ admin

It was an amusing tale in the published by the BBC Council’s clean-up warning for St George’s crosses but also the co-incidence with an article published by the LICC that prompted Coco. We do so easily see the gnat, but fail to notice that there is a camel in our beaker of notoriously middle-class or upwardly-mobile freshly ground and brewed, steamed, iced, skinny, but extra hot, caramel latté (Coco’s judgement on that drink: ☹).

Continue reading →

Preferred pronouns

~ admin

What a mess is the language of Coco.
Not so long ago most dialects of British (if not also other forms of the language) English dropped the singular form of the second person, though it hung on for in the vales and tor of the West Riding for many a long year after its abandonment in standard English, so that What has(‘)t(‘)h’done could ring in the ear of many a bairn. Coco is not quite sure of the correct orthography, perhaps you/thou dear reader will/wilt provide it.

We are also in danger of losing any distinction in the third person, where he/she/it are slowly being replaced by they: There were no other customers. Simon was alone in the bookstore and after they had paid, they walked off with their book.

Have you, dear readers, or, as is perhaps more likely unless sharing a screen, hast thou, dear reader, noticed that they have started a campaign to remove the first person singular form also and so we, who are English speakers, move away from the use of I to be replaced with we? Now in regal use that has long been the case, for the monarch spoke not merely on his own behalf but on the behalf of his government as a whole, but for thee and me, surely not?

A letter recently arrived from them as follows – only relevant content is included:

We are sorry to hear…
We are writing to you because…
Incorrect….and we fully accept that…
We hope that you will appreciate that…
We recommend that when…
This address should … if you need to write to us please write to us separately….
If any other…..we will contact you separately….
If you are … we may need to contact you again…because we are required..but we will contact you if…
If you would like more information…please contact us. Our telephone number is at the top of this letter.
If you would like independent advice…you can ask these organisations to contact us on your behalf.
Please accept my apologies once again for contacting you at this time.
Yours sincerely

Office Manager

All would have been well, apart from the final inclusion of the word again. Without that word Coco would have understood that Office Manager would have been writing on behalf of the organisation and therefore we would have been the correct form to use up to that point. At no point in the letter though did Office Manager ever express apologies for anything, so it was not possible for Office Manager, as distinct from the organisation on whose behalf they(sic!) were writing, to correctly say again. The conclusion must be, for the use of again, that we and my in this letter refer to the same person, persons or being of more than one personage. The question may arise, to which person does we/my refer?

We may skip the option of a being of more than one personage, as this is an entirely of this world letter, so there is no need to invoke an alien origin. As the letter was from an organisation, Coco did not expect an individual of the name Office Manager to write on their(sic!) own behalf, so it was not inappropriate to take the earlier references in the letter we that we was the organisation, being a collection of persons or a company of such. The use of again however contradicted that assumption. The we of the earlier part of the letter must be the same person as the my preceding the again.

But if that is the case, why then was my not used throughout the letter? The conclusion must be that the use of my at the end was an oversight. It was really intended to be we, but an individual, whom Coco shall name for the sake of naming, Office Clerk, had failed to make the correction when scrutinising these official letters for any use and all uses of the singular pronouns.

So, the merely singular use of my suggests to Coco that we was always the intended form and that my is an mistake or oversight, The answer to the question to whom does we/my refer? then becomes unimportant. For either way, if it refers to Office Manager we, being used multiple times is the preferred pronoun for them(sic!), and if it refers to the organisation, then the my used towards the end is a mistake.

Given that emotions can only be felt by sentient beings, then whereever we/my is used to express and emotion, the reference must also be a sentient being, so cannot be the organisation but must be Office Manager.

Coco must conclude that as the use of my was a mistake, and that Office Manager, on behalf of the organisation has consistently used we to refer to themself(sic!) [should that be themselves?], Coco must conclude then that a decision has been taken somewhere in government to suppress the use of all singular pronouns.

Let them do so:

Singular
We are
You are
They are
singular-noun is

Plural
We are all
You are all
They all are
plural-noun are

Singular
We love
You love
They love
singular-noun loves

Plural
We all love
You all love
They all love
plural-noun love

Coco just needs to get all in the right place, that’s all.