Blog - Page 174 of 318 - John H Armstrong

A Friendship That Teaches Me a Great Deal About Christ, Part 4

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:42-05:00October 29th, 2009|Categories: Unity of the Church|

My theology of missional-ecumenism says that we should all go back to the ancient standards of faith confessed by all Christians in the undivided church of the first five centuries. I believe in what has been called, by theologian Thomas Oden, paleo-orthodoxy. In these standards of faith we can find a place where all true Christians can stand together and contend for the historic Christian faith side-by-side, even while we continue to work on our remaining differences, which are considerable. To say we agree on a great deal, while we still work on our differences in a spirit of Christian love, is not compromise by any serious definition.

This kind of response, most common among very conservative evangelicals, and very conservative Catholics, is hard to explain but most know what it is when they see it. I am tempted to call it “fundamentalism” but this is neither entirely accurate nor seriously helpful. Whatever it is it amounts to reductionistic thinking. It often leads people to several fallacies in thought and practice.

One such fallacy is the dicto […]

A Friendship That Teaches Me a Great Deal About Christ, Part 3

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:42-05:00October 28th, 2009|Categories: Unity of the Church|

In my correspondence with my friend Nick Morgan, in the aforementioned letter that I cited yesterday, he added the following:

I had a recent discussion with two different men from the evangelical church that my wife belongs too. I had been forwarding the "ACT 3 Weekly" to them both. One of them, a former elder, is an extremely gracious and Godly man and seems to appreciate what you are saying, even though he doesn't agree with all of it. He is a former Lutheran and really struggles with a truly sacramental view of baptism and the Eucharist. However, he is encouraged by leaders like Pope Benedict XVI and about hearing the Pope's very evangelical sounding teaching regarding justification.

The other man is a former Roman Catholic. He has a very negative attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church and any pope, including Benedict XVI. He's definitely of the mindset that no Catholic who's "truly saved" should remain in the Roman Catholic Church. His impression of your articles was that you are basically saying "let's all just follow Jesus and […]

World Series 2009

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:42-05:00October 27th, 2009|Categories: Baseball|

The New York Yankees are the definition of the greatest franchise in all of professional sports. They just won their fortieth American League championship of all time. If you are a historian of the game you know how truly amazing this number is. No one else is remotely close. This year the Yankees dispensed with the Twins and the Angels with relative ease. Now they face the best team they have played so far, the reigning World Series Champion Philadelphia Phils. If I had to pick a winner this evening it would have to be the Yankees. The Phils are tested and strong, especially when it comes to team chemistry and hitting. But after Cliff Lee they are not as solid as N.Y. in starting pitching and their bullpen does not compare.

These have to be the best two starting lineups in baseball. Both can mash the ball and manufacture runs both. And both are always able […]

A Friendship That Teaches Me a Great Deal About Christ, Part 2

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:42-05:00October 27th, 2009|Categories: Unity of the Church|

People sometimes ask me, “Do you still agree with what you wrote in the two books that you did on Roman Catholicism in the 1990s?” I think this is an excellent, yet provocative, question. I answer that I do believe almost all of what I wrote then, at least in all the major ways. I would write these two books very differently today but the essential content, at least in terms of where I differ with Catholic theology, would remain the same. I hope the way I would say it would be more mature and better stated in ways that are more irenic and helpful to unity

I am a Reformed Church in America minister. I embrace the major confessional tradition of the magisterial Reformers. Some accuse me of lying when I write such things but my accusers did not examine me before my Classis. They have never taken the proper measure of my beliefs in a sympathetic and helpfully critical way.I will say more about this later when I write about fallacies used in debate and argumentation.

What does […]

A Friendship That Teaches Me a Great Deal About Christ

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:42-05:00October 26th, 2009|Categories: Unity of the Church|

One of the most faithful regular readers of this blog is Nick Morgan, a firefighter in St. Louis. Those who read the comments on this blog for very long have seen Nick’s name appear in the “Comments” section now and then. With permission I want to tell you a bit about Nick and our friendship. I also want to share some items from a letter that he sent to me just before 2009 began. I do this not to “puff” this blog, or the work of ACT 3 (especially me) but rather to demonstrate just how a friendship between a devout Protestant, and an equally devout Roman Catholic, can actually work itself out in the real world where we do not agree on some very important Christian doctrinal truths.

First, let me tell you that Nick initially met me by attending one of our large conference events in Wheaton back in the days when I was viewed as a role model teacher by some conservative Reformed Christians. Nick, himself a cradle Catholic, had gone through a deep conversion experience and […]

Labeling Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Is It a Disease or a Syndrome?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:42-05:00October 25th, 2009|Categories: Personal|

What you label something, or someone, is so important. If you are called lazy then you will likely become lazy. Or, as it has been in my case, you will over-compensate against the lazy label and then become a driven perfectionist who works nonstop. I had this lesson drilled into me very early by good parents who valued hard work done very well. It seems from the biblical narrative that "naming" is truly powerful. This is why God gave this power to human beings in the creation account in Genesis. We share in the work of creation in so many unexplored ways. But sin intervened and now we easily abuse this God-given power to our own harm and that of many others around us.

I thought of this when I wrote about my struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) just a few weeks ago. Putting a label on this illness is problematic for many reasons. It can become a way that I actually choose to define myself. This can allow me to excuse all kinds of things. I get impatient with Anita and […]

The Influence of C. S. Lewis on Head and Heart, Part 3

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:43-05:00October 24th, 2009|Categories: Apologetics|

I have suggested that C. S. Lewis was a truly great evangelist and apologist, though a reluctant one in a profound sense. I want to conclude my sundry thoughts about why Lewis is so important to us by a few quotations from Lewis himself.In an essay title "Man or Rabbit," written in 1946, Lewis says:

Here is a door, behind which, according to some people, the secret of the universe is waiting for you. Either that's true, or it isn't. And if it isn't, then what the door really conceals is simply the greatest fraud, the most colossal "sell" on record. Isn't it obviously the job of every man (that is a man and not a rabbit) to try to find out which, and then to devote his full energies either to serving this tremendous secret or exposing and destroying this gigantic humbug?

Think about this one for a moment. Though I think the modern atheists, called by themselves the Four Horsemen (e.g. Christopher […]

The Influence of C. S. Lewis on Head and Heart, Part 2

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:43-05:00October 23rd, 2009|Categories: Apologetics|

My good friend Dr. Jerry Root teaches a class at the Wheaton Grad School on C. S. Lewis. In the catalog it is listed EVAN 694 but the title is "C.S. Lewis: Apologist to the Head and the Heart." This is a course I wish I could take and someday maybe I will. Jerry is not only an inspiring teacher but he is a great student of all things C. S. Lewis.

In his syllabus Jerry asks, "Why was Lewis so effective?" He answers, "In part, his effectiveness stemmed from his holism; that is, he spoke to the head and the heart." I could not agree more.

C. S. Lewis speaks to my heart in a way that few modern writers do. He wrote out of deep personal experience. He was, as some young people would put it, "real." His journey to the faith, recounted in his own moving story Surprised By Joy, and his subsequent growth into a deeper and […]

The Influence of C. S. Lewis on Head and Heart

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:43-05:00October 22nd, 2009|Categories: Apologetics|

Some have referred to the late C. S. Lewis as "an apostle of faith and reason," or the apologist of "heard and heart." Lewis was arguably one of the great integrators of faith and learning in the 20th century. He also impacted my life deeply when I was a student at Wheaton College in the 1960s.

Before I transferred to Wheaton, from the University of Alabama, I only knew of Lewis because of his famous book Mere Christianity, which is really a collection of short presentations he gave over the BBC radio network during World War II. When he died, on the same day as President Kennedy's death, I did not take notice at all, since I was freshman in high school and had not yet even heard of him.

Lewis remains as important as ever, indeed more important in my estimation, precisely because he was a serious thinker, a serious Christian and an intellectual who spoke clearly […]

Are American's Abortion Views Really Changing or Not?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:43-05:00October 21st, 2009|Categories: Abortion|

A recent poll, conducted by the ever reliable Pew Research Center, shows that support for abortion has declined. The public is now almost divided 50-50 on the issue. The apparent shift in opinion has occurred in the last twelve months. In 2008 a Pew poll found those in favor of keeping abortion legal outnumbered opponents 54-40%. The new poll is 47-45%. This is, according to researchers, a fairly significant shift in opinion. The problem is that this new survey did not seek to find reasons for this shift but I expect we will have more polling on this question in time.

Pew researchers pointed out that this shift has occurred since the election of President Obama, a strong supporter of pro-choice law who has said he would like to reduce the number of abortions while keeping it perfectly legal. (The reality is he wants to expand the practice as widely as possible from everything he has said and one to […]