Blog - Page 11 of 318 - John H Armstrong

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:15-05:00January 14th, 2016|Categories: ACT 3, Church History, Current Affairs, History, Prayer, Protestantism, Renewal, Roman Catholicism, Unity of the Church|

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is an international Christian ecumenical observance kept annually between January 18 and 25. It is actually an octave, which means the observance lasts for eight days.

The observance began in 1908 and was focused on prayer for the church unity. The basic idea, and the January dates, were suggested by Father Paul Wattson, co-founder of the Graymoor Franciscan Friars. Watson conceived of the week beginning on the Feast of the the Conversion of St. Paul and concluding on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Peter. The dates and ideas actually were a variant of the Protestant version of these Catholic celebrations. (Wattson was himself a former Anglican priest.) In the mid-1920’s Protestant leaders proposed an annual octave for unity leading up to Pentecost. (Many local communities also celebrate this time and offered joint prayers for unity.) Pope Benedict XVI “encouraged its observance throughout the entire Roman Catholic Church.”

What is interesting is that this observance began in Catholic circles but once it jumped boundaries it took new forms and meanings. Abbé Paul Couturier of Lyons, France, who has been called […]

Fr. Thomas Baima’s Short Address to the Muslim Society of Chicago

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:15-05:00January 12th, 2016|Categories: ACT 3, Christ/Christology, Culture, Current Affairs, Interfaith Relations and Dialogue, Islam|

Many readers know that Fr. Thomas Baima is a close friend and a supporter of ACT3 Network. Tom and I go back more than a decade now in ecumenical work and inter-religious dialogue. Tom has one of the best minds, and some of the finest first-hand experience, in this field of dialogue. I turn to him quite often to discuss a myriad of issues.

Tom spoke a few weeks ago to the Muslim Society of Chicago at a large gathering at McCormick Place. The broad topic was “Inter-religious Dialogue.” An interfaith panel from many backgrounds spoke for nearly sixty minutes. Tom’s words come around the 12 minute mark on this video and ended at about 16 minutes. In this short address you can see him answering an important question: “What is the motive for dialogue between religions from a Christian perspective?”

He suggests that there is a common motive, namely the recognition of our shared humanity and shared belief in God. He believes this motive encourages tolerance and other societal goods. He calls the second motive particular. This motive allows us to learn from each other in our […]

The Pope’s Appeal for Inter-Religious Unity and Love

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:15-05:00January 11th, 2016|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Creeds, Current Affairs, Evangelism, Faith, Gospel/Good News, Interfaith Relations and Dialogue, Islam, Jesus, Pope Francis, The Church, The Future|

In the light of the debates now raging among Christians regarding how to respond to people of other faiths Pope Francis gives us here a short video in which he expresses his heart and personal hope.

https://youtu.be/Nq7us5Lf5IU

Many evangelicals will see this video and conclude something like the following: “Pope Francis believes all people are brothers and sisters and thus he believes all will be saved by God regardless of their life and faith. Therefore, it makes no real difference whether or not the church does evangelization and mission since ALL people who are sincere in their faith will be saved in the end.”

Am I right or am I wrong in the way in the way I state this conclusion?

I think I am right. I know this is how I would have heard this message twenty years ago. So, my next question is this: “Does this make me a pluralist (or liberal) who denies John 14:6 or sees no urgency for sharing the good news and making disciples of Jesus?”

The problem lies in the meaning of all the words and ideas presented here by my comments. The Catholic […]

Christena Cleveland: A Powerful Message on Unity at Urbana 2015

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:16-05:00January 6th, 2016|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Current Affairs, Discipleship, Evangelism, Gospel/Good News, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

The recent Urbana 2015 Conference, held in St. Louis, featured a number of great speakers and topics. One of our ACT3 board members, Scott Brill, is on staff with InterVarsity and sent me links to two plenary addresses I found immensely important. I share the first of these two messages in today’s blog post. Scott Brill was also responsible for staffing a Catholic room at Urbana to network with Catholic students who were in attendance. This Catholic presence is new to IVCF and something I wholeheartedly welcome. (Catholic staff have served with IVCF for some years now, though their number is still quite small.) Pray for many evangelical mission agencies who now work openly with Catholics and do not try to “convert” students to evangelicalism but to Christ in humble faith. This is a risky strategy and presents challenges when donors do not like this direction. ACT3 not only openly supports this direction but seeks to serve it, and ministries who are doing this, wherever possible.

Dr. Christena Cleveland, author of a wonderful book titled Disunity in Christ. She is a social psychologist with a hopeful passion for […]

The Signs of Love Should Not Be Obscured

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:16-05:00January 1st, 2016|Categories: ACT 3, Christ/Christology, Current Affairs, History, Love, Spirituality, The Future|

The world roils in bad news and the story of immense tragedies. These painful realities are quite real. But the great danger we Christians face in 2016 is to focus our attention on this “bad news.”

In his final public utterance of 2015, Pope Francis on Thursday, December 31, insisted that the horrors of the past year are often “weighed down by private interests, by an insatiable thirst for power, and by gratuitous violence.” But Francis stressed that the reality of true goodness should not be lost in 2016. Indeed, I believe this true goodness should be stressed, certainly not in a pollyannaish way, but in a distinctly Christian way. Christ has overcome evil and his peace has changed the world. During these twelve days of Christmas let us remember that the evil of sin remains, but only for the time being. (Sin too will finally be put down completely on the “Last Day!”) This is why we should not entertain false notions about world peace.

Pope Francis added, “How many great gestures of goodness, of love […]

Truth & Love Will Have the Final Word: A Commitment to Writing for 2016

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:16-05:00December 31st, 2015|Categories: Uncategorized|

The late Christian civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said: “I believe the unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” As we come to the end of 2015 I have reflected upon this a great deal and applied it to my own life and work. We are about to enter what appears to be a year that will be filled with war, tumult and continued suffering. There will be a lot more bad news. And we are entering an election year in the U.S., a time when minds and hearts are taken away into profound partisanship.

I look ahead to 2016 praying to God that I will be armed with both “truth” and “unconditional love.” I do believe it is not “pie-in-the-sky” to adopt this stance toward all things. Let me elaborate.

Those who love me, and follow me via the social media, know that over the last six months of 2015 I wrote very few blogs. There were several reasons for this:

I was working on a new book and this […]

The Francis Effect

By John Armstrong|2015-12-24T11:32:32-06:00December 5th, 2015|Categories: Pope Francis, Roman Catholicism|

Dr. Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org. In a recent article in First Things David Bentley Hart, who is Orthodox, says he finds the response of many Catholics to this pope “inexplicable.” Dr. Mirus explains why hypersensitivity and hysteria have no place in a truly Catholic response to the pope. He writes:

At the same time, there is a right way and a wrong way for a Catholic to respond to his fears. Any type of hypercriticism, hysteria or panic—especially when accompanied by accusations which go beyond a strict and necessary construction of the evidence—is, as I have already noted, not of God. This sort of anxiety, and the quick (and even petty) trigger finger that goes with it, always comes from the Devil. What comes from the Holy Spirit is interior peace, joy, generosity, and trust in God.

Mirus sees legitimate and illegitimate reasons for a sensitive or suspicious response to Pope Francis but provides some helpful […]

Pope Francis, the Mercy of God, and the Danger of Fundamentalism

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:16-05:00December 4th, 2015|Categories: American Evangelicalism, God's Character, Mercy, Missional-Ecumenism, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, The Persecuted Church, Unity of the Church|

Pope Francis just returned from his first trip to Africa a few days ago. Those of us who watch and pray for him were amazed once again at his courage, faithfulness and continued displays of pastoral mercy. Surely “mercy” does sum up what Francis says and does as pope. Thus it is not surprising really since he has declared the coming year to be a “Year of Mercy.” He recently said that he will make twelve big (“significant”) gestures, one each month.Each is mean to demonstrate God’s mercy. This is what the Catholic Church calls a Jubilee Year. This year was pre-launched last Sunday when Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of the cathedral in Bangui, Central African Republic. One of the admirable features of Catholic Church life is the way this biblical concept of jubilee can be used to capture the minds and hearts of the whole church over a span of time.

In a brief interview in Credere, the official jubilee weekly magazine in Italian, Francis said: “There will be many gestures, but on one Friday each […]

The Passing of My Friend Joseph F. Girzone

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:16-05:00December 1st, 2015|Categories: ACT 3, Biblical Theology, Christ/Christology, Death, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, Love, Personal|

Several years ago I shared the story of how I met Fr. Joseph F. Girzone (1930-2015). I had read Joe’s wonderful book, Jesus: A New Understanding of God’s Son (New York: Doubleday, 2009). I simply loved it. Frankly, it changed my life in many profound ways. I wrote my first ever review on Amazon and as a result someone showed it to Joe who then reached out to get to know me. Since this is the kind of thing I would do, and it is rarely done to me, I had an immediate desire to know this lovely man. Well, we began to chat on the phone and by email. The man who wrote the huge best-selling novel, Joshua (1983), was a friend. What a pleasant and divinely-orchestrated surprise. When I first encountered Joshua in the days of its immense popularity in the early 1980s I was so profoundly influenced by Puritanism that I considered a novel about Jesus a virtual sacrilege. (So much for a mind that was open!) So getting to know this unusual priest became an […]

George Koch – A Word for Unity from the Chair of the ACT3 Board

By John Armstrong|2015-11-21T14:26:22-06:00November 25th, 2015|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, My Christian Unity Story, The Church, Unity of the Church|

Rev. George Koch is the chairman of the ACT3 Network board and pastor of the Jerusalem House of Prayer, a messianic Anglican parish, located in West Chicago, Illinois. George is a great advocate for unity and has a magnificent influence in my life. His video for today is both solid and helpful.