History Cafe

Was the Battle of Britain a fight for Luftwaffe air superiority in order to enable an invasion? The Luftwaffe itself did not think so. It had another agenda altogether. (R)

The Germans make extraordinary preparations for the immense task of invading Britain in 1940. Why bother when neither Hitler nor any senior German officer wanted to do it or thought it was possible?

Church Father, Jerome, wrote this about women who took vows of chastity for God. ‘When she wishes to serve Christ more than the world, then she will cease to be a woman, and will be called a man.’ What now survives from the Roman Empire – and the Church in particular - only tells one, heavily redacted, medieval version of the past.

By AD400 all it took to be bishop was to be stratospherically wealthy. There was no demand that bishops even knew their bible until AD787.

What happened to the women? Until the late second century committed, educated women and men who perhaps space in their own homes led informal house churches. But once church leadership became a paid, public role, they were taken by the men.  This was not theology. It was the way of the world.

What real connection is there between the earliest, informal meetings of the first apostles and their friends, and the mighty, glitzy, authoritarian institution that mushroomed in the 4th Century, and especially after AD320? And is still here today. Is it possible that there is in reality, no direct connection at all?

The Church says that Simon Peter was chosen by Jesus as the foundation of the Church. It says that Saint Peter was the first bishop of Rome and that there is a chain of direct continuity from Peter to the present pope Leo. It’s these direct links that gives the Church the right to tell its followers what to do and what to think. But is there any historical evidence?

Within days of 28 October 1962 two journalists publish the official but untruthful White House account, as instructed and edited by the President. They also call-out a political enemy for daring to consider a humiliating missile swap with the Soviets. But we show how the Kennedys had already suggested this very missile swap to Khrushchev via private backchannels, on condition he kept it secret. Which he did. (R)