Blog - Page 181 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Mascot Madness in Chicago

By John Armstrong|2009-08-29T10:09:39-05:00August 29th, 2009|Categories: Humor|

Readers know that I love baseball. I decided this summer, due to the recession and the difficulty of getting to games in Chicago, to limit my baseball experience to a nearby minor league team, the Kane County Cougars. I get two inexpensive tickets for about 13 games a year and take friends with me to see a game and spend a relaxing evening together. This week the Cougars season (sadly) winds to a close. I will miss these boys of summer and the pure delight of hearing the crack of the bat and consuming baseball park delights with good friends.

Last week Anita and I took our dachshund Neo in the “Bark in the Park” parade at the Kane County stadium. Stacy also brought along her dog, Latte. It was a real delight for all of five of us. (We think the dogs enjoyed it!) The fans pointed at the doxies and laughed with us, or was it at us?

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Is Extremism on the Rise in America?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:51-05:00August 29th, 2009|Categories: America and Americanism|

Politics in America has tended to move toward a deeper expression of extremism over the last few decades. Opinions differ about what started this negative trend. Some think it began with the Watergate mess. Others think it became even worse during the Clinton era, especially when conservative ministers tried to discredit Clinton with a number of lies. This culminated in the impeachment trial. Still others think this only got worse in the wake of 9/11 and the bitter opposition that grew in response to George W. Bush. Now it seems to have reached an even higher level of intensity with the bitter reaction of many conservatives to President Obama.

The presidency of Ronald Reagan may have been the only time, and perhaps the four years of the President George H. W. Bush right after him, when we have not had fierce extremism in the popular culture since the 1960s. Could Reagan's humor, and his upbeat spirit, have helped him overcome some of this? But even then extreme liberals despised Ronald Reagan and tried to find various ways to discredit him […]

Rev. Ike & the Posperity Gospel

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:02-05:00August 28th, 2009|Categories: Wealth|

I sometimes say that the most original gospel message America ever gave to the world was the "health and wealth gospel" of the media evangelists. No one was more flamboyant in preaching such a message than the late Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II, or "The Rev. Ike." For Rev. Ike the love of money was not the root of all evil. Salvation, for him, was found in personal success and material prosperity. He used to say, "Don't wait for your pie in the sky, by and by. Say I want my pie right now—and I want it with ice cream on top!" Money, he often said was, "God in action." The man sure knew how to turn a phrase.

I suppose most readers under 40 would have little or no recognition of the name of Rev. Ike. For my generation he was just odd enough to capture our interest in the 1970s. Born June 1, 1935 in Ridgeland, South Carolina, Frederick Eikerenkoetter was […]

The Promise of America's Cities

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:02-05:00August 27th, 2009|Categories: America and Americanism|

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a significant leader of great interest to many Americans. It was rumored, in the last election cycle, that he might run as an independent candidate for president. I still think he may run such a campaign in the future. I listen to Michael Bloomberg whenever he talks about our cities and their future. He plainly understands the infrastructure of big cities and how they can thrive in a modern context. Bloomberg recently shared some great insights, in Business Week (August 24), into what makes a recessionary economy a time of real opportunity for true growth.

The mayor started a new technology company in an earlier recession and then ended up incredibly wealthy in the process. People told him that he was crazy to invest big money in a start-up during a bad economy. He proved them wrong. Later he was told that he was crazy to run for the mayoral office. He says, "Human achievement is built on the […]

The Present Devaluation of Christian Doctrine

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:03-05:00August 26th, 2009|Categories: Biblical Theology|

Christian doctrine has been devalued for the last one hundred plus years. Liberal teachers continue to devalue it by inverting the relationship between Scripture and secular thought. They allow secular insights to interpret the Scripture. Evangelicals devalue doctrine by treating it as something that has little or nothing to do with living faithfully. ("It is not practical and only divides us anyway!") I have heard evangelicals say, most of my life, "Doctrine divides us but love unites us!"

A good example of this devaluing process, at least on the liberal side, is what we presently see happening regarding sexual ethics. The seventh commandment is quite clear. If you read what Christians teachers have said about this commandment since the first century the response would have been very, very consistent. But now, less than one decade into the twenty-first century, there is a huge debate about same-sex marriage. There really shouldn’t even be a debate. This debate can only thrive in a context where the role of Scripture has been inverted.

The […]

What is Christian Doctrine and Why Does It Matter?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:03-05:00August 25th, 2009|Categories: Biblical Theology|

Doctrine is the revealed truth of God defined and taught by the church in conversation with the Bible and the whole Christian tradition. Doctrine is for the growth of believers as well as for the whole world. The Latin word doctrina literally means teaching. Indeed, our English Bible most commonly translates the Greek word for doctrine with our word teaching. If a person teaches then they are communicating doctrine. It may be bad doctrine or good doctrine but it is doctrine. This is why I am always puzzled by people who say, "Just teach the Bible. Do not teach us doctrine."

The church, at least on the pages of the New Testament, appears as a community of learners. Some of these learners became teachers of the early church. All Christians were to be engaged in the lifelong task of taking in, meditating upon, and living out Christian doctrine. The most important of all Christian doctrines is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news. This doctrine most feeds our minds and hearts so that we can know and […]

An Interview with Satan on Church Unity

By John Armstrong|2009-08-24T11:35:36-05:00August 24th, 2009|Categories: Unity of the Church|

Check out this interesting video that humorously captures a great deal of the spirit of my faith and practice. It is quite clever and makes some exceptionally good points about Satan's desire to divide and separate us. Remember, C. S. Lewis rightly suggested that the devil cannot handle humor since it exposes him in a clever way and he likes to keep things that are clever all to himself. I tend to think that this is why he wrote his classic Screwtape Letters.

Why Spending More Federal Money Is a Truly Bad Idea

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:03-05:00August 24th, 2009|Categories: Economy/Economics|

I have said on several occasions that I am not a trained economist. I do not understand all the debates about theories and systems and frankly think most of our politicians do not either. I have also said that I think the most refreshing moment of honesty in the last presidential campaign was the most politically damaging. I refer to John McCain's admission that he did not understand the economy that well. The statement killed him but it was a rare moment of honesty almost never heard from a political candidate.

One thing I do understand. When revenue decreases spending should decrease. I took a 25% salary decrease twelve months ago. My wife and I have managed but only because we changed our spending habits rather dramatically. It has been a challenge but we've managed on a lot less. We've done less of those things that we enjoy and more careful accounting for every dime we receive and spend. It just makes sense. Everyone, […]

Barth: On Understanding the Tragedy of the Divided Churches

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:03-05:00August 23rd, 2009|Categories: The Church|

Karl Barth was one of the greatest Christian thinkers in the twentieth century. Some think that his multi-volume Church Dogmatics is the most vigorous re-statement of essential Christianity produced in the last century. I remember when I first began to read it. It took me awhile to appreciate Barth because I had been told so many things about him by fundamentalists who thought that he was an enemy of the faith. When I began to read his work I was stunned at the care with which Barth handled the Bible. His thought was saturated with Scripture. Barth had a lot to say about the church but one of the finest statements I have read captures my attention whenever I read it. Consider Barth's thoughts:

There is no escape-hatch from the visible to the invisible church . . . Nor should we try to explain the multiplicity of churches as something willed by God, the normal unfolding of the grace […]

William Graham Sumner on Economics

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:04-05:00August 22nd, 2009|Categories: Economy/Economics|

William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) was an American academic and a professor at Yale. He was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and graduated from Yale College in 1863. He was appointed to the newly created Chair of Political and Social Science at Yale and made his name as a sociologist. His major accomplishments were developing the concepts of diffusion, folkways, and ethnocentrism. Sumner argued that government-mandated reforms were generally useless. He was a staunch advocate of laissez-faire economics and was active in the intellectual promotion of free-trade classical liberalism. One of his most brilliant quotes is well worth thinking about at the present time:

The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as […]