Blog - Page 107 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Why I Love Fr. Joe Girzone and Support Joshua Mountain Ministries

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:22-05:00August 5th, 2011|Categories: Friendship, Jesus, Personal, Roman Catholicism|

Each month Father Joe Girzone writes a news and prayer letter for friends and people who support his mission on Joshua Mountain. During my three days with Joe I saw him take phone calls from people as far away as Japan and as close as near-by Albany. He referred to his large “parish” several times. I soon became aware that he was not exaggerating at all. I was amazed at how he listened and interacted with everyone, many of them people he had not met in the flesh at all. At times he was extremely funny and at others most serious and helpful. He was always joyful and always quick with his wit. Joe just lights up around people and brings joy to them with great blessing. The presence of Jesus is quite real in his simple, unpretentious, very human presence.

I can tell you that Fr. Joe’s parish is genuinely represented by people from all over the world. He responded to emails late into the evening […]

Getting to Know the Joshua Priest, Fr. Joe Girzone

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:22-05:00August 4th, 2011|Categories: Books, Jesus, Personal|

Since the publication of Joshua: A Parable for Today (1983) countless millions of readers have been transformed by the way Fr. Joseph F. Girzone presents the good news of Jesus in a simple and compelling manner. The Jesus of this best-seller is a good person, kind beyond all measure and full of true love for everyone he meets. His unconditional compassion is almost too much for some people to handle. (A search of comments about the book on the Web will reveal deep appreciation mixed with some incredible, and generally unfair, criticism of Fr. Girzone and this book.)

But who is Fr. Joseph Francis Girzone?

Until two years ago I knew nothing about the author, except that his books had sold like very few religious books in the last thirty years. One reason, I soon discovered, for the popularity and sale of Girzone’s books is that they are not religious in the normal sense of that word. They are deeply spiritual, but I assure you they […]

The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:22-05:00August 3rd, 2011|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Politics, Prayer, Renewal|

I recently became aware of a major gathering that is taking place this Saturday in Houston, Texas. It is called The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis. My initial thought was quite simple: “What could possibly be wrong with anything that calls the nation to prayer?” My second thought led me to visit the site online and ask some questions. My third thought came when I was invited to join a group of national leaders who listened to Gov. Rick Perry on a phone call set up to inform us about the event. But before I get to this conference call I must tell you that I personally called some trusted friends in Texas, friends who are not political partisans. These are wise Christian leaders with insights into the ways in which conservative political leaders have consistently linked partisan politics and candidates with calls for national prayer and renewal. The way this generally works is through large-scaled grass roots movements that get Christian […]

The Supreme Authority of Scripture and Interpretation

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:22-05:00August 2nd, 2011|Categories: Biblical Theology, Church Tradition, Hermeneutics, Patristics, Personal, Reformed Christianity, Roman Catholicism|

Yesterday, I wrote about the authority of Scripture. I am often asked what has kept me from embracing the Catholic Church in its present state? I have many friends who’ve converted to Roman Catholicism. I have many supporters of this mission who are Catholic. This happens because these friends and donors know I am serving the whole church in a unique and ecumenical context. The fact is that I have great love for the Catholic Church. And I am clearly not an anti-Catholic. Further, I have no desire to become a polemicist who engages in anti-Catholic evangelicalism. I am a serious ecumenist and as such I love all Christians – Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. I long to see full communion between the great ancient churches of the Christian faith. Because of this love and longing I will continue to engage with these kinds of issues for the rest of my life. It is because I love Christ and all his people that I do so.

But I am […]

The Supreme Authority of Scripture

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:22-05:00August 1st, 2011|Categories: Biblical Theology, Church Tradition, Patristics, Reformed Christianity, Roman Catholicism|

A major tenet of Protestant theology is the authority and finality of the biblical revelation. This principle is often poorly stated but the essential point is that Scripture serves as the supreme court in all matters of faith and practice.

For some all one needs to do is quote a verse and the issue is settled. For others they are aware of the difficulty of some questions and realize Scripture does not directly address some doctrinal and ethical issues with complete clarity. The Westminster Confession of Faith puts this principle rather clearly:

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

Here, and elsewhere, the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura reflects a nuanced […]

God Is a Community of Persons

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:22-05:00July 31st, 2011|Categories: Love, The Trinity|

Perhaps the most astounding discovery of my last ten years or so has been the realization that God is a community of persons existing in an eternal relationship of love. The Father loves the Son. This is more than a source of doctrinal acknowledgement or confession. It is even more than a source of inspiration. We actually share in this community of persons because He loves each of us with that same unconditional love. This is what St. John tells us when he says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”

To be a Christian is much more than imitating Jesus. It is certainly more than following his commandments, as important as this really is to living faith. Authentic faith leads us beyond these limits into the richness of a divine relationship. We are called to not only imitate Jesus but to live our lives in Him.

Through faith and Christian baptism we share in the glory that was his before the world began. This […]

The Trinity Is Not an Abstract Doctrine

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:22-05:00July 30th, 2011|Categories: Lordship of Christ, The Trinity|

I wrote yesterday about my growing awareness of the love of God as a community of persons. I was brought into this community by faith in the Son of God and through Christian baptism. This is why I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Far too many Christians I’ve known over the years seem to find the Holy Trinity to be nothing more than an abstract doctrine. It is not, in their understanding and experience, a living community of persons. We think of God as pure mystery, at least in the sense of his being someone who is impossible to understand, rather than as an invitation to endless love and understanding. The fact that God is three persons in one is a mystery, a mystery so profoundly deep that it is endlessly rich. It is in this sense that St. Paul speaks of “the mystery of God.” Without this insight our life will become little more than a moral effort […]

The Great Reversal

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:22-05:00July 29th, 2011|Categories: Jesus, Kingdom of God, Poverty|

Historians have long written of what they call “The Great Reversal.” By this term they are referring to a time in the early twentieth century when evangelical Protestants turned away from their earlier position about the poor, a position that had a lot more in common with the language I used yesterday about a “preferential option for the poor.”

But thanks to men like John R. Stott the global evangelical Protestant church began to move back to its earlier emphasis in the last few decades of the twentieth century. This movement is still going on and the younger leaders of churches in North America are calling for this stance more and more. I believe this is a healthy development all around.

Put in theological terms there is an intrinsic link between theology and ethics, thus the way we respond to the persecuted and marginalized demonstrates whether or not we are acting in faith and obedience to Christ.

But is God on the “side” of the poor? And if so what […]

“God’s Preferential Option for the Poor”

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:22-05:00July 28th, 2011|Categories: Ethics, Jesus, Kingdom of God, Poverty|

Over the last two centuries wealth has grown in the West. Now it spreads to other parts of the world through a growing globalized economic system. I am a huge proponent of this growth and believe one way of addressing the issues of poverty is through global business and the growth of education and jobs that go along with it. At the same time there are serious dangers associated with wealth, especially in the absence of true virtue.

Yesterday I referred to the way modern Western Christians began to read the Bible statements about the poor metaphorically once wealth increased and more Christians had more income. This problem has resulted in a number of aberrant responses, one of which was Latin American liberation theology.

I refer often to recently published The Cape Town Commitment. I believe it is the most important global mission statement in the twenty-first century. Here is an important excerpt, addressing the dangers of prosperity emphasis from the West, taken from Section IIE […]

The Church and the Poor in Our Midst

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:23-05:00July 27th, 2011|Categories: Politics, Poverty|

My post on Monday, regarding the politics of cutting the federal budget and the dangers of these cuts harming the poor in the process of attempting to balance our federal budget, struck a nerve. For this I am grateful. I have continued to reflect on several comments and responses, from both this site and my Facebook page.

One person wrote on Facebook: “As a Pastor in the U.S. I can state, unequivocally , that if the care of the poor were given to the church in it's present state the poor would cease to exist as a class in one year. They would starve to death the first Summer and freeze to death the first Winter.”

There is a note of cynicism in this comment but it makes the point. People often say, “Let the church help the poor.” I want to ask, “Which churches and how will they do this on such a massive scale?” Show me the way this works and how it would help right now?

The […]