As the world mourns the death and celebrates the life of Queen Elizabeth II, It’s often forgotten that she has the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England. This title reflects her genuine Christian faith, which she often spoke about, and how Jesus was her inspiration who kept her going in good times and bad.
As hard as it was at times, listening to all the colonialist rhetoric, here are some inspirational quotes testifying of her love and acceptance of Christ and His word.
“For me, as a Christian, one of the most important teachings is contained in the parable of the Good Samaritan, when Jesus answers the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ It is a timeless story of a victim of a mugging who was ignored by his own countrymen but helped by a foreigner – and a despised foreigner at that. The implication drawn by Jesus is clear. Everyone is our neighbour, no matter what race, creed or colour. The need to look after a fellow human being is far more important than any cultural or religious differences.” (Christmas message, 2004)
“I know just how much I rely on my own faith to guide me through the good times and the bad. Each day is a new beginning, I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God. Like others of you who draw inspiration from your own faith, I draw strength from the message of hope in the Christian gospel.” (Christmas message, 2002)
“For me, the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, whose birth we celebrate today, is an inspiration and an anchor in my life. A role model of reconciliation and forgiveness, he stretched out his hands in love, acceptance and healing. Christ’s example has taught me to seek to respect and value all people, of whatever faith or none.” (Christmas message, 2014)
Today, this quote from Queen Elizabeth II holds so much meaning as a she says, “It is true that the world has had to confront moments of darkness this year, but the Gospel of John contains a verse of great hope, often read at Christmas carol services: ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’… Despite being displaced and persecuted throughout his short life, Christ’s unchanging message was not one of revenge or violence but simply that we should love one another.” (Christmas message, 2015)
Seek the prosperity of the city to which I have sent you as exiles. Pray to the LORD on its behalf, for if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Jeremiah 29:7
Let’s Pray
Yahweh thank you for life and all its ups and downs. Father, please comfort those that mourn today, including the royal family. We pray for strength and comfort as they go through the burial of their mother, grandmother, and auntie. In your Word you say, “…I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be offered for everyone— for Kings and all those in authority— so that we may lead tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity. This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,…” In Christ’s Name, Amen.
After man’s fall into sin, humans continued to live as precious works of the Creator while also needing to be redeemed from sin and brokenness. So in his great and amazing love for us, God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for our sin and to give us new life forever with him. And now the Spirit of God lives in us, guiding us to become like Jesus. He leads us “in the way everlasting.”
The apostle Paul puts it this way: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20), giving us one of the clearest statements in the Bible about dying to live.
Today, the fact that we are fearfully and wonderfully made—and remade—leads to the most glorious announcement in Scripture: “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Hallelujah!
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. . . . Search me, God. . . . See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. — Psalm 139:14, 23-24
Let’s Pray
Yahweh, thank you, for your gifts of creation and redemption. Father, please continue to search me and to lead me in your way everlasting. In Christ’s name Amen.
An honest mistake? Maybe he did not think before posting the tweet?However, thats not justification. Life is full of choices. You will reap what you sow. The tweet was very upsetting, and disturbing. You should never speak of a non-white or mixed-race child in the same breath as a chimp.
Radio DJ Danny Baker has been fired from BBC Radio 5 Live after for posting tweet about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex‘s baby son that featured an image of a monkey
The broadcaster said: ‘Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up’
Danny Baker has issued an apology, but unfortunately, that apology isn’t worth a grain of sand as the only person he seems to feel sorry for is himself?
On Wednesday, the BBC Radio 5 Live presenter tweeted a black and white photo of a man and woman holding hands with a chimpanzee in a suit and a top hat, with the caption, “Royal baby leaves hospital.”
The above picture was branded “racist” and people urged Mr Baker to quit from his show on the radio station with immediate effect. Danny Baker has since apologised for the tweet and said it was intended as a joke.
Good morning, everyone. Following one of the worst days of my life I just want to formally apologise for the outrage I caused and explain how I got myself into this mess. I chose the wrong photo to illustrate a joke. Disastrously so.
Danny Baker has since been fired from 5 Live on Thursday 09th of May 2019.
Twitter users were outraged by the post with one user tweeting:
“I used to think Danny Baker was funny as too, but if a monkey is the first thing you ‘think’ about regarding a mixed race baby, you’ve got issues clearly!.”
Another wrote: “Is there a petition going to get Danny Baker sacked? My pen is ready #racist.”
The BBC wrote:
“This was a serious error of judgment and goes against the values we as a station aim to embody.”
The BBC
That’s an understatement. It’s the second time Baker has been axed by 5 Live and is the third time he has left the BBC. Clearly the BBC has as problem.
Lack of Diversity in the BBC
The lack of diversity in the BBC is still in stark contrast to their vision for a “diverse and gender balanced senior leadership team” by 2020.
THESE are the faces of the chiefs of the BBC – despite attempts by Auntie to make its workforce more diverse. PUBLISHED: 13:59, Sat, Jun 4, 2016.
White, Oxbridge educated and middle-aged: THESE are the faces of the ‘diverse’ BBC in 2019. As you can see, no noticeable changes since 2016. Could this be the reason why people like Danny Baker were re-hired again and again? And if so what does this really say about the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)?
In 2019 the overwhelmingly middle-aged Oxbridge educated men each earning at least £250,000 a year still make up the majority of the BBC’s Executive Board.
I hope it will become a teachable moment. I now hope to see a stronger commitment to diversity and a series of unconscious bias training for all staff. #AlanSugar
Labour MP Brent Central | Opposition SOS for Women & Equalities | UK’s first elected female African-Caribbean Government Minister
Danny Baker's 'joke' about the royal baby was deeply racist and simply wrong. Here's my letter to the @BBC I hope it will become a teachable moment. I now hope to see a stronger commitment to diversity and a series of unconscious bias training for all staff. #AlanSugarpic.twitter.com/yad1x7NmbB
The photograph is a picture of famous 1920s chimpanzee Joe Mendi “the gentleman chimpanzee”.
The primate was the most popular animal entertainer of the time.
He was billed as having “the intelligence of a five-year-old child” and toted around Broadway, New York by circus-owner Lew Backenstoe.
Tricks included playing a miniature piano, posing for photographs and drinking Coca-Cola at the local soda counter.
The picture shows the primate dressed to the nines as he attended “Trial of the Century,” the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925.
Thousands watched as Clarence Darrow defended high school science teacher John Scopes for teaching evolution in his classroom while William Jennings Bryan argued for the prosecution.
Time magazine described the proceedings as ”the fantastic cross between a circus and a holy war.”
A Biblical Preceptive on the Danny Baker Post
From the fruit of their lips people are filled with good things, and the work of their hands brings them reward.
When our words help and benefit our people, we honor God. People who experience kindness and encouragement will surely bear good fruit. Many leaders do not realize that what is in their hearts comes out of their mouths, In other words, “What is in a man comes out of the man.” If one’s heart is filled with evil, then he will speak evil.
If Jesus is in his heart, then Jesus is what will come out
This is why we should, as Christian and Business Leaders, be constantly filling ourselves to the brim with goodness, not despair and disaster or things that are not wholesome. How do we do this? Here are a few suggestions:
Spend time reading God’s Word
Have a relationship with God by fellowshipping with other believers
Volunteer in a Ministry in which you can impact the world
Devote time with your family sharing your life with Christ
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have named their newborn son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. Right up until now the newest royal was referred to in the press simply as “Baby Sussex”.
Meghan recently said: “It’s magic, it’s pretty amazing, and I have the two best guys in the world, so I’m really happy,” she said during her son’s first brief encounter with a television camera.”
The name was announced shortly after the Queen met her eighth great-grandchild for the first time at Windsor Castle, where earlier the couple showed him off to the cameras and then posted pictures to social media.
“He’s already got a little bit of facial hair as well,” the bearded prince joked.
Archie’s first Instagram got 1.4MILLION likes within an hour of making his social media debut as his parents shared heart-warming family pictures taken by their personal photographer.
Both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are so incredibly grateful for the warm wishes and support they’ve received from everyone around the world, since welcoming their son two days ago.
The royal birth
Meghan gave birth to the couple’s first child at 5:26 a.m. local time on Monday. He weighed 7 pounds and 3 ounces, and Harry said on the day that both mom and baby were doing well.
Will Archie have a title?
By deciding to call their son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, it is thought that the Duke and Duchess have in doing so signified they will not use a title for their first born.
The baby could have become Earl of Dumbarton – one of Prince Harry’s subsidiary titles – or have been Lord Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, but instead he will simply be Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.
Will Archie be a Christian and attend Church?
Yes, every member of the royal family is Christened into the Church of England, which is a Protestant strain of Christianity.
The reigning monarch, who’s currently the Queen, holds the title of Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
During her 1953 Coronation, Her Majesty was anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and took an oath to “maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England”.
As part of her role as the Defender of the Faith, the Queen helps the Prime Minister appoint archbishops, bishops and deans of the Church of England.
Prince Charles has previously said that, when he becomes King, he will be known as Defender of Faith – to avoid excluding all the other religions practised in Britain today.
Harry and Meghan, a timeline
8 November 2016 – Kensington Palace releases a statement that confirms Prince Harry has been dating Meghan Markle “for a few months” and asks the press to respect their privacy
28 November 2017 – Harry and Meghan announce they are engaged to be married
15 December 2017 – Kensington Palace confirms the couple have chosen to wed in Windsor on 19 May the following year
19 May 2018 – Harry and Meghan are married in front of 600 guests at St George’s Chapel and become the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
15 October 2018 – Kensington Palace announces the duchess is pregnant, and is due to give birth in Spring 2019
6 May 2019 – Meghan gives birth to a boy, who becomes seventh in line to the throne
The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh meet royal baby Archie, held by Meghan as Prince Harry and Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, look on. Photograph: Chris allerton/Sussex Royal/Twitter
Inside a railway arch in Brixton, a piece of history was brought back to life. First built in 1928 by Captain Richards & A.H. Reffell, Eric is one of the UK’s first robots. Eric’s design was relatively simple. He was automated, but the interesting thing about Eric is how much extra stuff people read into him. Ingenious electrical instruments enabled Eric to hear questions and answer in a human voice.
On September 28 1928 Eric stood up at the Royal Horticultural Hall, bowed, looked right and left and moved his hands as he proceeded to give an opening address as sparks flashed from his teeth.
The New York Press described Eric as the “perfect man,“ built less than a decade after the word robot was used for the first time, Eric toured the world with his makers but then vanished, seemingly forever.
Nobody knows if the robot was thrown out, or lost, but it’s apparent that Eric once lauded for his technical prowess became an early victim of technological obsolescence. He may have no longer been needed or wanted even though he may have still been in working order.
In May 2016, over 800 Kickstarters investors campaigned to bring Eric back to life. Roboticist and artist Giles Walker created a replica of Eric using just a handful of archived news cuttings, pictures, and video. The robot is built with the same finesse as modern robots but purposefully lacks their capabilities. Eric is controlled by a pre-programmed sequence, using software similar to that used for controlling lights in theatres.
By resurrecting Eric, Russell and Walker want to make people reevaluate the place of robots within our history and society at large.
Commissioned by the Science Museum and funded through a successful £51,000 Kickstarter campaign, Eric is on display at the South Kensington museum ahead of a Robots exhibition in 2017 and will thereafter tour the world just like he did more than 90 years ago.
The new exhibition will feature more than 100 robots, from a 16th-century mechanical monk to robots from science fiction and modern-day research labs.
In whose image are robots made?
According to Russell, Curator, London Science Museum the answer seems to be “ourselves.”
Robots are almost like mirrors, they reflect back on ourselves, tell us who we are Ben Russell, Curator, London Science Museum
As research into artificial intelligence continues, we will continue on the path of making artificial intelligence (AI) in our image. But can Christian thought provide an alternative approach to how robots are made?
The original Eric is a product of a time when an intelligent robot was still a far-off possibility. At the time, filmmakers and audiences treated these robots instrumentally; there was little sympathy for the robot dead.
Times, however, have changed. Christopher Orr, writing in The Atlantic, notes that there is a major philosophical shift in the newest version of Westworld: A shift from concern for the creators, made of flesh and blood, to concern for the created, made of steel and silicon.
Professor Pavel Matousek, a Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Senior Fellow and Chief Scientific Officer of Cobalt Light Systems Ltd, has pioneered revolutionary techniques for analysing the chemical composition of materials and co-founded a highly successful spin-out company. He has helped develop and commercialize award-winning laser technologies that detect liquid explosives at airports, rapidly check the quality of pharmaceutical products, and that may one day non-invasively diagnose breast cancer. Pavel states:
“I Am Very Excited about What I Do and Driven to Answer Questions in Front of Me, Unravel Complex Problems and Deliver Something Useful to Society.”
STFC science writer James Doherty meets the Laser Man.
Pavel, what first got you interested in physics?
I became fascinated by the stars and Universe while growing up in the Czech Republic. I joined an astronomy society at secondary school and it became clear I wanted to study physics. I got very interested in laser physics during my MSc at the Czech Technical University in Prague. It is a very dynamic field.
When did you arrive at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL)?
I joined as a research associate in 1991, and went on to complete my PhD in ultra-fast Raman Spectroscopy at RAL, awarded by the Czech Technical University. I’ve been here almost 25 years to the day.
So what is Raman Spectroscopy?
It is a technique that involves shining a laser beam at the surface of a material, and then observing the colour of light scattered from the point of illumination. This typically provides information about the chemical composition of the material’s surface. C.V. Raman observed the effect in 1928 and subsequently won a Nobel Prize.
You pioneered a technique called Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy (SORS): What is it and how does it differ from normal Raman Spectroscopy?
“We couldn’t have developed the SORS technique without the instrumentation and long term research continuity available at the Central Laser Facility at RAL”
SORS is a technique that we stumbled across in the Ultrafast Spectroscopy Laboratory (ULTRA) by chance. We had assumed that photons could only be detected at the illumination point but we were wrong. Some photons migrate sideways through the material then emerge adjacent to the illumination point. As these photons have interacted with molecules deeper inside the medium, they provide information about internal chemical make-up: SORS probes deeper into the material. And the further you move from the illumination point, the deeper you see into the medium. The process
involves large photon migration distances, often extending to several centimetres or more. This came as a big surprise.
“SORS involves probing at one location and detecting at another. Our minds, and those of others, were constrained by our perception of how the Raman Spectroscopy process worked but once we made this serendipitous discovery, we quickly realised it had potential major applications.”
What kind of applications?
“The Range of Potential Applications for Sors Is Staggering.”
Insight100 (Cobalt Lights Systems Ltd) scanner for noninvasive analysis of bottles at airports.
Using micro-SORS for non-destructive analysis of painted layers in Art
We immediately realised SORS could determine the chemical make-up of substances by non-destructive means. This could have applications in bio-medicine, chemistry, security, forensics, heritage, and beyond. But we first focused on pharmaceuticals, and developed novel ways for analysing the chemical make-up of manufactured drugs.
We swiftly filed 8 patents, which became the basis of our company Cobalt Light Systems.
Cobalt Light Systems is perhaps best known for its airport security scanners. Can you describe how these work and their impact to passenger travel?
Security scanners represent the second generation of technology developed by Cobalt. To date there are around 400 operational units in 70 airports across Europe and Asia. They are used to scan traveller essentials, such as medicines or baby milk, and compare their chemical make-up to a database of potentially explosive substances. Suspicious substances are automatically identified and flagged. For example, the technology avoids passengers having to drink liquids (e.g. baby milk) in front security officer to prove they are not dangerous, which is clearly safer and more hygienic. It has also contributed to new legislation, and is expected to lead to a relaxation of the complete ban of taking liquids on board a plane in the future.
The scanners are currently the size of a microwave oven but right now we are launching a SORS handheld device. This should have further applications for first responder teams called to spillages of unknown substances and fire fighters attending chemical fires.
First off, we used instrumentation at STFC’s Central Laser Facility to demonstrate the basic capability to detect the SORS subsurface signal. Once we made the discovery in 2004, we worked closely with STFC’s Technology Transfer Office SIL (formerly CLIK) and Business and Innovations (BID) to develop, optimise and protect our ideas. There was a complex path to navigate from discovery, to optimising SORS, building a prototype, and ultimately to securing investment in 2008. BID/SIL coordinated the company at all levels and provided the support necessary to achieve this goal.
“My story illustrates the national and international importance of STFC. If its determination to deliver impact on science was absent, the chain from a fundamental discovery to Cobalt Light Systems’ product would have been broken. STFC responded appropriately at every stage. And this is just one example of how STFC contributes to the UK’s know-how economy.”
What are you working on currently?
I’m focused on developing novel non-invasive medical screening techniques, including diagnosing bone disease such as osteoporosis (jointly with STFC’s Prof Tony Parker and University College London’s Prof Allen Goodship), and I’m working with Professor Nicolas Stone of Exeter University on non-invasive breast cancer screening.
In addition, I’m collaborating with Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche in Italy to apply the SORS technology to objects of art on microscales. For example, we can scan different layers of paint to determine compositional information essential in restoration and preservation of artefacts.
How will the medical applications benefit patients?
Patient benefit could be enormous. Current diagnosis techniques for osteoporosis are around 60-70% accurate as they sense only mineral content. SORS on the other hand has a high specificity for mineral and collagen content – both of which determine bone strength – and so holds considerable promise for providing improved diagnostic accuracy. SORS could also be used to classify breast or prostate tumours as malignant or benign without needle biopsy. This would reduce patient stress and save medical provider costs.
However, medical problems are challenging as the human body is complex and variable. These applications are probably still 7-10 years away.
Why do you do this research?
This is where my passion and interest lies – I’m very excited about what I do.
“As You Push the Boundaries of Technology and Make New Discoveries, the End Goal Always Changes. This Is the Nice Thing about Science.”
