Blog - Page 199 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Lincoln's Call to National Prayer

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:48-05:00March 10th, 2009|Categories: America and Americanism|

I have a very mixed response to certain types of religious involvement in American politics. The practice of, and dangers of, civil religion are often very real. Most conservative Christians are virtually oblivious of these problems, which date more to the era following the Second World War than to an earlier time in U. S. history.

While I do not care for "political religion" I do think the culture has clearly had a long relationship with faith, and in particular, Christian faith. Sometimes reading a bit of history will give a little perspective to these things. Here is a famous declaration from President Abraham Lincoln. I wonder if anyone could conceive of such a statement being issued by any president today.

President Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation:

A Day Of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer
in the The

United States Of America

[…]

Why Do Some People Deny the Holocaust?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:48-05:00March 9th, 2009|Categories: Israel|

I have always wondered why some people deny the Holocaust. The record is so self-evident that no one should have any series doubts. But Holocaust deniers are real. We were all reminded of this fact by the recent controversy that touched the Vatican when renegade British Bishop Richard Williamson was restored to the Roman Church by Pope Benedict XVI.

Williamson, as you probably now know, dismissed the “so-called Holocaust” as “lies, lies, lies.” Iran’s dangerous president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejab, has called the Holocaust a “myth” while Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah says, “Jews invented the legend of the Holocaust.” Hutton Gibson, the father of actor Mel Gibson, is an ultra-conservative critic of the modern Catholic Church and argues that after World War II there were more Jews in Europe than before the War. And an engineering professor at prestigious Northwestern University, Arthur Butz, wrote a book titled: The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jews. What […]

Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:48-05:00March 8th, 2009|Categories: Evangelism|

Joe Eszhertas grew up in refugee camps and then in America's back alleys. When his mom died he was twelve years old. He turned against the church and God and dedicated the rest of his life to attacking everything virtuous and religious that he knew. Eventually he became a police reporter and covered robberies, shootings and serial killers. He then wrote dark, sexually graphic, and very violent films like Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge and Jade.

Joe knows a whole lot about darkness. He became addicted to cigarettes at 12 and drugs and alcohol by 14. He did everything within his power to dull his pain and to live out his anger at God and the world. But in his late 50s, on a very hot day in the summer of 2001, Joe came to faith in Christ on a street in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. Battling to save his life from the throat cancer that had caused him to stop alcohol and cigarettes Joe, […]

Roland Burris Wants a Legacy Just Like So Many Other Public Figures

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:49-05:00March 7th, 2009|Categories: Current Affairs|

Politics in Illinois is sad business, indeed the stuff of late night jokes. One bad governor after another and then came the Blagojevich impeachment in January. Now Blago is going to get a book deal. It makes you wonder why he signed for only six figures. But John Kass, in his often humorous and rightly cynical Chicago Tribune column, suggests the former governor could shake down a lot of folks to keep quiet about their connections to his "pay-to-play" political career. The one thing I personally feel fairly sure about is that President Obama never got hooked up with this scandalous business. (I hope this belief is proven true or the whole nation will face a crisis that we can ill afford right now. Watch the Blago story for unfolding dramatics.)

But what about Senator Roland Burris? This is the man the ex-governor appointed to take the seat previously held by Barrack Obama. Burris was tainted from the beginning but most thought that he was clean. Now he tells us a lot of information we did not […]

Wheaton College Men's Basketball Begin Their Search for the Best Today

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:49-05:00March 6th, 2009|Categories: Personal|

I have mentioned, several times since the first of this year, that Wheaton College, my alma mater, has a great basketball team this season. The Thunder finished 24-3 and ranked in the top five nationally. They were ranked number one for some weeks in December and January. They lost three games in a row when their All-American star, Kent Raymond, went down with an ankle sprain. When Raymond returned they got better in every game. They even won the conference title last Saturday when they were trailing rival Elmhurst in double digits very late in the game only to win dramatically at the end, 67-63. These guys seem to know how to win, even when their best game is not there for them. They are experienced, battle tested and really ready to play.

Tonight Wheaton opens the NCAA Division III tournament at home. They play the Fontbonne University Griffins (18-8) in the opener. Who knows where Fontbonne is located? I did not until I read the Wheaton […]

Friederich Hayek on the Economy

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:49-05:00March 5th, 2009|Categories: Economy/Economics|

One of the more formidable voices in economics was that of the late Friederich A. Hayek (1899-1992). In his classic, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), he argued that progressive taxation does not accomplish what most people believe. Taxing the wealthy at higher rates, in order to provide for larger government spending for the poor, does not obtain the desired goal according to Hayek. Hayek said: “Not only is the revenue derived from the high rates on large incomes, particularly in the highest brackets, so small compared with the total revenue as to make hardly any difference to the burden borne by the rest; but for a long time . . . it was not the poorest who benefited from it but entirely the better-off working class and the lower strata of the middle class who provided the largest number of voters.”

Hayek believed, as do most fiscal conservatives, that in principle the progressive tax is a political issue more than a tax issue. In theory […]

Is David Brooks a Conservative?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:49-05:00March 4th, 2009|Categories: Politics|

One respondent suggested, in commenting on my blog this week about columnist David Brooks, that he is most certainly not a real conservative. This type of argument is easy to make, so long as you define the word "conservative" by a definition that has little to do with the standard definition of the term in political use. Brooks actually defines himself by Edmund Burke, who is the gold standard for the word so far as I can tell. Most writers and thinkers always go to Burke in defining what really constitutes political conservatism in English/American tradition. Brooks is not a libertarian, nor a right-wing conservative or a Patrick Buchanan isolationist. He is a standard historical conservative in the primary sense of the word. For those who are open and interested you can hear the lecture I wrote about on the Wheaton College radio station. I encourage you to listen if you are interested. You may also view the presentation if you have the right tools on your computer. You be the judge. Do not let me, or anyone else, convince you […]

The Recession and Christian Missions

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:49-05:00March 3rd, 2009|Categories: Economy/Economics|

The
economic recession has hit many of us very directly. I do not particularly
welcome the loss of income or the attendant problems this has presented
to me. But I believe God is at work in these difficult times in
renewing the faith, hope and love of his people in so many ways. I have seen
this firsthand in my own life and in the lives of several of my close friends. ACT 3 has suffered some loss of
income but God continues to provide for us day-by-day. I am learning
again to trust him as I did in the early 1990s when we were in our
infancy as a mission.

Many of you share in supporting this mission financially. Your gifts are vital
to our work. I am as thankful to God for your gifts as I have ever been. I try to make this gratitude know as personally as possible but to those that I do not know personally please know that I am grateful for you too.

The Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability (ECFA) member
missions recently reported that […]

ACT 3 Luncheon Forums: The Surprising Neocalvinist Mandate for Diversity with Vincent Bacote

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:49-05:00March 2nd, 2009|Categories: ACT 3|

Turning Sixty

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:49-05:00March 1st, 2009|Categories: Personal|

Today I turn sixty years of age. Like anyone who reaches this age I wonder: "Where did the years all go?" And, "I can't be this old yet." It just doesn't seem possible at all. But the truth is what it is. I am 60! I think I am dealing with all this in a way that is emotionally and spiritually healthy but then I have my days when I do wonder.

Do I have any regrets? Of course I do. But I refuse to be led into the future by such regrets. These will not make me more like Christ.

Most of my regrets are about things I doubt I could change much if I tried. Many are even rooted in a kind of guilt that does not produce godliness. I would say the biggest regret I have is that I spent too much time pursuing causes and debates that do not matter […]