Blog - Page 142 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Are Roman Catholics Christians?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:25-05:00September 7th, 2010|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Evangelism, Roman Catholicism, Unity of the Church|

Yes, the question at the head of this post is one that I am still asked. Admittedly, it is asked of me less frequently these days, since most who really know me realize how amazed I am that people still ask the question.

Dave Lipsiea, an encouraging Catholic reader of this blog, recently (July 14) thanked me for my commitment to true ecumenism and then asked: “Do you see wasted effort and money by different Christian denominations who try in earnest to steal sheep from other Christian groups?” Dave added that Muslims, atheists and pagans are not evangelized in some countries, as much as they should be, because so much effort is focused on missionaries reaching Catholics. He added that part of his frustration is “with those who believe Catholics are not really Christian.” He added that he meets “friendly evangelicals” but when push comes to shove they “really believe Catholics are not Christian. Until that changes true ecumenism will be stifled.”

Well, I have […]

The Four Marks of the Church

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:25-05:00September 6th, 2010|Categories: Missional-Ecumenism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

Classical Christianity, following the words of the first two great ecumenical creeds, spoke of the church of Jesus Christ as demonstrated by four great realities. These marks confess that the church is “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.”

I grew up in a part of the Christian church that did not use creeds. For this reason I did not hear these words until sometime near the end of my college experience. Even my evangelical college, Wheaton (IL), did not use the creeds. Thus I am unclear about where and when I first heard these four words. I know that when I heard them my first reaction, like so many from my background, was to react to the word “catholic.” But at the same time these words made me want to explore their meaning and grasp their deeper significance.

Following college and graduate studies I still knew very little about these marks. I planted a Baptist church (1972-1976) and then moved back to Wheaton to pastor another Baptist church (1976-1992). Somewhere, during my second pastorate, I began to study the creeds and their doctrinal/historical importance. I […]

The Dance of Life

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:25-05:00September 5th, 2010|Categories: Evangelism, Personal, Renewal, The Church, The Persecuted Church|

One of my great joys is to teach evangelism, as an adjunct professor, at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. And one of my most profound joys in teaching is to work alongside some of the finest practitioners of evangelism in the world. One such evangelist is my dear friend Dr. Lon Allison. Lon is the Director of the Billy Graham Center and a dedicated preacher and evangelist. He also promotes the unity of the Spirit in the whole church. I was asked by Lon, a few years ago, to serve on this advisory team. I gladly do this and support him in every way I can. Lon recently made a trip to Africa and shared the following account of his journey with his friends. I share it with you because of the insight it provides regarding the church in Rwanda and in the West.

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College Football is Back

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:26-05:00September 4th, 2010|Categories: College Football|

I have loved two sports for most of my life: baseball and college football. (I have begun to like hockey in a growing way in recent years.) I love baseball because it has a very slow pace and forces the real fan to slow life down and watch a long season in which endurance becomes the big factor over 162 games. You just have to “grind” as baseball players like to put it. Life is a lot like “grinding” with the need for real perseverance and focus.

I love college football for a totally different reason. As a small boy of nine years of age my dad took me to see Alabama play in its first season under the legendary coach Paul W. “Bear” Bryant. I watched this team, interestingly named the Crimson Tide, with rapt interest as my dad told me story after story about the famous “Bear.” I would learn that Bear played against my dad in high school football and that they […]

The Crime of Causing the Darkness

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:26-05:00September 3rd, 2010|Categories: America and Americanism, Personal, Politics|

Victor-Marie Hugo (1802–1885) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, artist, statesman and human rights activist.

In France, Hugo's literary fame comes first from his poetry, even causing some to see him as the greatest of all French poets. Outside France, his best-known works are the well-known novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris (known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame). The former novel is about social misery and injustice in the early 1830s, but it took 17 years to complete and thus was published well after the time in which it was set. Both books have been very influential in English literature classes for more than a century and both have been made into major films, and dramatic plays, several times.

Hugo was a committed conservative royalist as a young man but became more liberal over the years, eventually becoming a passionate advocate of republicanism (not the American political party of course). His written work touches upon virtually all of the political and social […]

The Apostles' Creed

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:26-05:00September 2nd, 2010|Categories: Missional-Ecumenism, Theology|

The Apostles' Creed is a living link that takes us back over some eighteen centuries to the early church. It has the power to bond and unite believers from diverse cultures and traditions and yet it remains a powerfully concise summary of the core of biblical faith. It was used, for these very reasons, to instruct new Christians prior to their being baptized in the early centuries of the Christian church. It can still be used for the same purpose. And it can be used to ground all believers in the faith, young and old.

A powerful resource to teach the Apostles’ Creed is now available to Christian teachers and pastors who want to introduce the creed for the first time or teach its meaning to those who already know it and recite it in liturgical settings. The Apostles’ Creed: A Look At Its Origin and Its Relevance To Our Lives Today, is a video series which includes over nine hours of instruction from some of the […]

Random Reflections on Life from Donald G. Bloesch

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:26-05:00September 1st, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Ethics, Ideology, Personal, Spirituality, Theology|

Yesterday I told you the story of my friendship with the late theologian Donald G. Bloesch and his widow Brenda. Donald is best known for his major works in theology, ethics and spirituality. He was a master at processing a ton of information and putting his conclusions into a context that kept the gospel central to everything.

Recently I went back to Donald Bloesch’s book, Freedom for Obedience (Harper & Row: New York 1987). Bloesch writes: “The Christian ethic is an ethic . . . that cannot be assimilated into the moral consensus of the wider community. . . . The way of the cross cannot be reconciled with the way of the world, just as the gospel cannot be conjoined with the laws that give stability to social order.” How I wish an entire generation of men like Falwell, Robertson and Dobson (to name only a few) would have understood that simple, but profound point. You cannot paste Christian ethics into the culture […]

Donald G. Bloesch: On the Death of My Friend

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:26-05:00August 31st, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Death, Personal, Theology|

Donald G. Bloesch, a prominent evangelical theologian who was an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, passed away last Tuesday, August 24. This news deeply moved me since Dr. Bloesch was one of my most trusted and beloved mentors. This was true even though I never formally studied under Don as a professor. My relationship was far more interesting in its own way.

Back in the 1970s I first heard the name of Donald Bloesch but at first I didn’t think much about him since I was fairly shut off in my own sectarian world of thought and practice. One summer, in the late 1970s I believe, I attended a small gathering associated with the ministry of a popular magazine of the time called Present Truth. The magazine actually opened my eyes to the need for recovering gospel truths in an age that was fast losing its grasp on the grace of God. Two teachers were leading this small gathering […]

Do You Know Who Is and Is Not a Real Christian?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:26-05:00August 30th, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Unity of the Church|

One of the most common responses I have run into about my thesis regarding missional-ecumenism comes down to this question: “I cannot cooperate with churches and people who are not Christian!”

If it were only this simple. You know who is and is not a follower of Christ and thus you can clearly judge the matter and not cooperate with false professors of the faith. Again, this problem arises in very conservative contexts where we believe we can judge the fruit of others and if they do not confess all the faith, or the part we think to be vital to living faith, we judge them to be false. This does not generally happen in real life situations, face-to-face, so much as it feeds an attitude that is ubiquitous in many churches. We say that we are just “fruit inspectors.”

Look, if someone is born again we can know they are, right? No, we cannot. God alone judges the heart. And only called and equipped leaders (elders) are charged with determining false teaching inside a church. Making this command the calling of every Christian, in […]

Digital Books, the Internet and the Future

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:27-05:00August 29th, 2010|Categories: Books, Personal|

I am both a reader and a writer. I once had an immense library but I have sold about 60% of it in the last four years. I sold some of my best books earlier this year, removing about 35-40% of my theology section. I confess that this was not easy to do but it became increasingly obvious that it was the right thing to do.

I routinely bump into someone who says, “I just bought a book on the Internet and your name was in it. Are you selling all your books for some reason?” The answer is a qualified yes. I still have a larger than average library but it is shrinking. Why?

The first reason is driven by the market and the space limitations in my home. My dear wife does not want books in our living space so I am limited to a very large basement and a nice study, which is more than enough room. But even with this space […]