Blog - Page 221 of 318 - John H Armstrong

A Great New Adaptation of Sense and Sensibility

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 17th, 2008|Categories: Film|

Andrew Davies’ new three-part BBC version of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is simply superb. As noted here over recent months, the BBC and Masterpiece Theater just keep producing some first-rate 19th century video presentations of great novels. (Davies also produced the most recent Pride and Prejudice series too.) This new version has succeeded admirably in my view.

The Dashwood sisters and their quests for marriage are both entertaining and insightful views of an earlier era, a time when women did not have anything remotely like equal rights. One can be grateful that this has changed since the era in which this story is situated. One sister, the elder Elinor, is wise and cautious, and considers that what she doesn’t have should not bring dissatisfaction. Her younger sister, Marianne, dives into an emotional attachment to a man who is most unsuited to her character, only to be crushed when she discovers who he really is. She is then ready for a relationship […]

Secular Humanists and Human Dignity

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 16th, 2008|Categories: Ethics|

Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker wrote an article that appeared in May in the magazine, The New Republic (TNR). I often disagree with TNR but I generally find it stimulating and provocative reading from a moderate to left-leaning perspective. It is one of those magazines that is not so far from reality that it can’t still be genuinely worth reading. The current August 27 issue, for example, has an excellent article on Darfur and how it was allowed to happen. Conservatives desperately need the realism of this kind of journalism to challenge their comfortable categories about news.

Anyway, Professor Pinker assailed the 555-page report by the President’s Council on Bioethics issued earlier this year. He called it "The Stupidity of Dignity." (Lest someone think only conservatives can come up with titles like this please note the pejorative nature of Pinker’s title.)
Pinker called […]

Another Widely Reported Revival Down in Spiritual Disaster

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 15th, 2008|Categories: Renewal|

Some time ago a “revival” in Lakeland, Florida, was widely reported, especially in charismatic circles. Friends told me that God was on the move and that this was real. I’ve heard this before. When this happens, as it does every few years in America, I generally say nothing but wait and know that time will likely prove things otherwise. I admit I am suspicious about most of these modern reports regarding revivals in America. This suspicion is not because I do not still believe in true revival. I wrote of the real thing in my own book, True Revival, more than seven years ago (copies are available though the book is out-of-print right now). My suspicion is rooted in the widely divergent claims often made in these outpourings, as well as in the people who lead these revivals. Their confidence, if you watch and listen carefully, is generally in themselves, not in the Lord God. There is just way too much "flesh" in all of this, something about which the older Pentecostals were so fearful. This is […]

Alexander Hamilton on Facing Danger

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 14th, 2008|Categories: America and Americanism|

As a nation, Alexander Hamilton was one of the more important of our founding fathers . He once said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one."

I am not a conspiratorialist. I do not think, for example, that one election will forever alter our society. I also believe that cultures and people change slowly; they never remain the same over long periods of time, from generation to generation. They will face very defining moments, when either their better angels will prevail, or they will succumb to disgrace and weakness. If they do succumb, the result will be mastery by forces and peoples that bring down that civilization.

I believe our western civilization is faced with the portent of a long term mastery by forces of evil and destruction. I believe the Jihadists are serious and will not go away because of good will. This should have very little to do with […]

Political Ads and the Role of MoveOn.org

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:37-05:00August 13th, 2008|Categories: Politics|

Everyone understands that MoveOn.org is a very liberal 527 organization. It can say and publish anything it wants. And it seems to have endless money to do so. While people on the political left will tell you again and again that the other side runs dirty campaign ads, MoveOn.org will outstrip them all, hands down. Non-partisan groups that monitor this stuff agree. This is not conservative rant or crying.

Take for example Mike Conaway, a Republican Congressman from Texas. He will safely and easily win re-election. In fact, he doesn’t even have a Democrat running against him this November, only a Libertarian. So why would you attack him and spend lots of money to do it?
Ask MoveOn.org since they recently did it. Here is the ad they ran against Conaway:

"Why is Mike Conaway grandstanding in Congress instead of […]

Ben Witherington on The Shack

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:37-05:00August 12th, 2008|Categories: The Trinity|

One of the very best, if not the absolute best, theological, social and political blog spots on the Internet is that of Ben Witherington, III. Witherington is a highly-esteemed New Testament professor at Asbury Seminary (Wilmore, Kentucky) and the author of numerous academic and popular books that are always of superb quality. I only read a few blogs regularly, mostly because of my personal time constraints. This is one blog that I try to get to as often as possible. After I wrote my simple critique of The Shack last week I was linked to Witherington’s blog (go to the archives and then go to July 22 and there you will find the review), by a friend. He asked me to comment on Dr. Witherington’s review of The Shack. I told him that Witherington’s review is a thorough and extremely helpful critique. For all the hyper-conservative rant about this book, this particular blog offered a serious reflection with some helpful theological insights that I […]

The Story of a College Football Hero You May Not Know

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:37-05:00August 10th, 2008|Categories: College Football|

John Mark Stallings, the son of former University of Alabama head coach
Gene Stallings and one of the most beloved members of the Crimson Tide football family, died Saturday, August 2, in Paris, Texas, at age 46. Most of you do not know anything about John Mark Stallings. But he happens to be a true hero of the sport of college football.

John Mark was the last of five children and the only son born to Gene and Ruth Ann Stallings. John Mark often joined his father on the practice field, at coaching stops from Texas A&M to the Dallas Cowboys to the St. Louis/Phoenix Cardinals and back to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where after the 1989 season, Gene Stallings became the head coach of my beloved Crimson Tide.

"There weren’t any lives he (John Mark) touched that weren’t made better by his influence," said Linda Knowles, Stallings’ secretary at Alabama. "He loved life, and he loved Alabama […]

Values and Culture Seen Through Comedy

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:37-05:00August 10th, 2008|Categories: Culture|

Sometimes a movie gives us a humorous, but quite serious, overview of some pretty important cultural issues. Such is the case with the wonderful comedy Spanglish. John Clasky (Adam Sandler) is a devoted father with amazing culinary skills that land him one of the biggest jobs possible as a master chef. His family lives well and represents a great deal of what wealth affords to people in our culture. His wife (Cloris Leachman) is so into herself that you are not sure whether to laugh or cry at times. The great performance, however, is that of Flor (Paz Vega), a housekeeper who comes from Mexico with her daughter to start a new life in the U.S. (We are not told if she is legal or illegal in the movie.)

Flor eventually learns English and becomes wise to the values of upscale American families. She longs to protect her daughter and to help her get ahead, without compromising her values and simple roots. […]

Thinking Back on My First Obama Post in 2006

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:37-05:00August 9th, 2008|Categories: Politics|

A careful reader of this blog sent me an email last week and reminded me that I wrote a blog on Barack Obama on June 1, 2006. I had to look at the date more than once to imagine that I had actually written about Obama in this way at that point in time. Now I am not generally so able to judge what might happen, but it seems that I did in this case. My friend urged me to post this blog again in August of 2008. After some reflection I agreed. I felt Obama would be the nominee long before he entered the race for all the reasons that have proven true. Now I wonder if he will finish the deal and become the president. He should enjoy a big lead right now, but does not. I think voters are still learning about him. I hope they take the time to really study his record, or lack thereof, and get to know […]

Ministry in San Francisco

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:37-05:00August 8th, 2008|Categories: Personal|

I am in San Francisco this weekend, or north of the city to be more precise. I am speaking to the elders and pastoral staff of City Church in San Francisco. City Church is one of the truly great churches in the U.S. It began about 13 years ago as a church plant right in the center of the most secular city in the United States.

It has been noted by one recent poll that less than 4% of the people in San Francisco attend any kind of religious gathering even twice monthly. I can’t believe that any major city in the U.S. could compare to that low number, and the figure includes the practices of many who are not Christian in any sense of the term. Put into the equation the numbers of people attending churches that are not even remotely orthodox, and the percentage of people actually attending confessional churches could be less than 1%. Anyone who thinks about […]