Blog - Page 109 of 318 - John H Armstrong

John R. W. Stott: An Appreciation

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:24-05:00July 17th, 2011|Categories: Leadership, Personal|

Perhaps no evangelical thinker and writer has more influenced me over the last 45 years than John R. W. Stott, who turned 90 in late April. I’ve met John Stott on several occasions and keep a cherished photo of him in my study. The last time I saw him was in Carol Stream about four years ago.

Jim Packer has been a true friend, indeed a mentor. I’ve shared a great deal of time and fellowship with him over the last thirty years or so. He has personally encouraged me and been a profound theological influence. His frequent visits to serve as a senior editor for Christianity Today afforded us many evenings of sweet fellowship. But it is Stott that I write about today.

David Neff, editor of Christianity Today, wrote a tribute to Stott a few months ago and suggested that two things struck him as he read two different collections about his life. First, John Stott has remarkable discernment. Second, he has incredible discipline. My friends who […]

New Hope for Treating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:24-05:00July 16th, 2011|Categories: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Personal|

I’ve shared before that I have had a 13-year struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). This is an illness that has no known cure and creates a pattern of physical breakdown that borders on complete exhaustion through the inflammation of the central nervous system. Personally, I can function at reduced capacity and must take breaks and rest at various times of the day. Some days are so-so and others are terrible. By God’s grace I have learned to deal with this illness (weakness) by developing an increasingly contemplative practice of Christian faith. Some of this appears in occasional blogs and some of it is too personal to share at this point.

A few months ago scientists discovered proteins in spinal fluid that can distinguish people with two different, but similar, mysterious illnesses that mimic one another – Lyme disease and CFS. The study earlier this year is small and needs further verification. But some see it as a promising start. The bottom line, however, is that there is still no good means of consistent diagnosis or treatment. Dr. Suzanne Vernon of the Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction […]

A Post-Christendom Ecclesiology

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:24-05:00July 15th, 2011|Categories: Missional Church, The Church, The Future|

Looking over a thousand years of church history the Dutch theologian Hendrikus Berkhof asserted, “For centuries a static concept of the church [has] prevailed.” Historically Christendom churches stressed the institution and pastoral character of the church. This led to hierarchical leadership and ecclesiastical tradition, both of which reinforced the authority of the church over the role of the members. Even the Catholic Church acknowledged this at Vatican II and recent papal encyclicals have spoken about recovering the ministry and mission of the laity.

In this context theology has been formally preoccupied with the intellectual and pastoral concerns of the church, not its engagement with the world around it. What is the church’s role in winning people to the faith, in making disciples of every ethnic people group on the entire planet? If the goal is the kingdom of God, and this kingdom will finally come in all its fullness when Jesus returns, what is the church’s role in the kingdom now?

For too long the church has isolated the […]

Can Faith Be Both Biblical and Flexible?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:24-05:00July 14th, 2011|Categories: Hermeneutics, Theology|

I referred a few days ago to the dangers of labels; conservative and liberal. I believe we live in a time when labels have less meaning than ever. I am just not sure what a person means by the use of these labels, especially with regard to the Christian faith. Let me explain.

If being a conservative means that one takes the creeds and the core of the Christian faith with all seriousness, and really believes the truth claims of the historic faith are essential to right confession and life, than count me as a conservative. I wish to conserve the ancient faith. But, and this is important, that faith is not conservative in terms of many modern issues we face that require us to think and grow as believers.

If being a liberal means that one has an openness to the sciences, to new ideas about solving persistent problems, to different ways of seeing the world and the church then I am a liberal. If liberal means that you take a suspicious view of the Bible’s integrity and truthfulness or that you think what the church rightly […]

Josh Hamilton: An Icon of Grace in a Game of Skill

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:24-05:00July 13th, 2011|Categories: Baseball, Current Affairs|

Texas Rangers superstar outfielder Josh Hamilton has won an MVP award and played in the World Series in the past year. He is just one of the very best players there is in a game that demands skill, perseverance and dedication all wrapped into one athlete. Hamilton is also a serious and thoughtful Christian.

It was not always this way for Josh Hamilton. When he first came up to the Major Leagues he was addicted to drugs and on a course to total destruction. In fact, when I looked for information and photographs of Josh Hamilton I found pictures of his present life and past life, revealing something of the lewd behavior he once engaged in when he lived in spiritual darkness. But then Josh Hamilton genuinely encountered the grace of God in Jesus Christ and became a new creation. Not only did his marriage and personal life dramatically change but his baseball career got new life. One could say that this guy walks and talks “resurrection life” […]

Fr. John Corapi: Scandal in the Catholic Church?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:24-05:00July 12th, 2011|Categories: Roman Catholicism, The Christian Minister/Ministry|

Fr. John Anthony Corapi is a 64-year old Catholic priest who is well known to many conservative Catholic readers of this blog. I knew very little about him personally until quite recently. I have enjoyed listening to him on Relevant Radio now and then. He is an engaging speaker and in style could pass for a passionate evangelical preacher! He is humorous, convicting, clear and winsomely human. He speaks about his past, sometimes a bit too much for some, but he seeks to exalt Jesus in his redemption. He is dogmatic and generally very opinionated. Corapi has had both extensive television and radio ministries for several years and has conducted speaking tours across North America that have introduced him to countless thousands of the faithful. Fr. Corapi’s story is available at his own web site as well as at Wikipedia.

Earlier this year Fr. Corapi was charged with sexual impropriety and drug addiction. His bishop began an investigation in March. Fr. Corapi pled with his listeners […]

An Ecumenical Document of Historic Consequence: Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:24-05:00July 11th, 2011|Categories: Ethics, Evangelism, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council on Inter-religious Dialogue (PCID) recently released (June 28) an historic document on the ethics of Christian mission – Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct. This document is in part a response to criticisms leveled at Christians by some religious communities. These leaders perceive that Christians sometimes use unethical methods in their attempts to do evangelism. In some case these objections have led to anti-conversion laws and violence, especially in Muslim areas. The three main world Christian bodies have responded to this problem with a thoughtful document that not only identifies the biblical call to continue to do evangelism but outlines specific ethical mandates related to the Gospel and how we proclaim it.

This document was launched in late June by statements of endorsement made by Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe (photo), Secretary General of the WEA, Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of the WCC, and Cardinal Tauran of the PCID, […]

Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin: A Bad Thinker Produces a Bad Man

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:24-05:00July 10th, 2011|Categories: Economy/Economics, Ideology|

Actions are generally the result of thoughts, both good and bad. As we think so we act. Carlyle once said, “God help the world when he lets loose a bad thinker.” In the case of Vladimir Lenin we have a man of many noble and positive qualities who learned how to channel his good qualities into a revolution that he followed in Russia because of a very bad thinker, Karl Marx (photo left).

It is generally believed, in modern liberal society, that ideas do not have serious consequences. What matters is how we act not what we think. But just a little knowledge of history will dispossess you of this idea rather quickly. Ideas often have immense consequences. The idea is first; the deed follows. The famous American Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen wrote (1957): “Ideas do not long remain within the two covers of a textbook, nor within the four walls of a classroom; they are planted as seeds and later on grow as either cockle or […]

“This is what God says!”

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:25-05:00July 9th, 2011|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Current Affairs, Politics|

When it comes to any debate about any issue that is controversial in the church today the strongly positioned conservative response is to say, “This is what God says!” When the Southern Baptist Convention put a new section into its faith statement against women as pastors/ministers this was the way the president of the SBC put it when asked about why they had chosen this path and changed a statement of faith that had never included these kinds of statements in the past.

At the opposite end of the spectrum the more liberal response to questions about the reality and historicity of Jesus is to debunk the witness of the four Gospels as the naive beliefs of first century writers who knew nothing about a credible scientific world view. The Jesus Seminar, an extreme representative of this kind of liberalism, ends up telling us that very little of the […]

The Problem with Labels

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:25-05:00July 8th, 2011|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Current Affairs, Love|

Christians are divided by many labels. None, at least so far as I can tell, divide us more than conservative and liberal. People on both sides recognize the other as being extreme and want little to do with each other. And once you have a label for a viewpoint, a perspective, then you can be done with having to deal with the messy business of dealing with the person who is “liberal” or “conservative.”

As these two labels are broadly used I accept them, at least to a certain extent. But I have found them increasingly useless in terms of loving and serving others. This does not mean I stopped thinking. Quite the opposite actually. It means I think a great deal about Christian beliefs and practices but I refuse to draw back from a brother or sister I disagree with based on this label. Almost every week I meet someone who so shatters the way I once used these labels that I am required to let my […]