Blog - Page 27 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Christian Unity Week @ Judson University, Part One

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:06-05:00October 20th, 2014|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Discipleship, Missional-Ecumenism, Protestantism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

I noted a few days ago, on this blog, that I helped to facilitate a Christian Unity Week at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois. Each of the three days in chapel, during the week of October 6-10, we had a service that reflected different aspects of the Christian tradition. And in these three chapels we had the three great traditions of the church represented: Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox.

On Monday, October 6, I began the week by preaching from John 17:21. I tried to show the students and faculty that we are all part of the one body of Christ. We might not share in visible unity in one church but we are brothers and sisters and thus in Christ we are one. This oneness is a reality even if we refuse to live it. But we can live it if we are empowered by God to see our oneness while we still admit our differences. We can live in a reconciled diversity while we seek for greater understanding of both doctrine and practice. Indeed, this is the […]

God, the Ebola Crisis and the American Response

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:07-05:00October 17th, 2014|Categories: Culture, Current Affairs, Death, Divine Providence, Ethics, Love, Personal, Politics, Television, The Church|

You cannot escape it even if you try. The Ebola outbreak dominates the news cycle day-after-day right now. So long as this virus impacts even one American millions of Americans will keep on watching this endless reporting. Once it dies down, at least in terms of being a threat to the US, then we will soon forget about it. Meanwhile West Africans will die by the thousands. I am not cynical about this at all. I simply think that this is the way news goes on day-by-day inside the bubble of life here in the US.

If you’ve ever traveled abroad you will soon realize just how America-centric we are in terms of what interests us. News of the world fills one page in most daily newspapers in the US. It only makes the TV news if it impacts Americans directly. (The one exception happens when a great tragedy strikes some part of the globe and then it will be mentioned once or twice and forgotten.) In Europe the news reporting covers a bit of local interest, the world at large and then America. We have this […]

How Should We Respond to Pope Francis and the Present Ecumenical Open Window?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:09-05:00October 14th, 2014|Categories: Current Affairs, Evangelism, Missional-Ecumenism, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

When Pope Francis was first presented to the crowds in St. Peter’s Square in 2013 he said, “Pray for me.” This was not window dressing. It was a deeply earnest request to us all. Shortly after this introduction my friend Norberto Saracco, who I wrote about yesterday, wrote an article for the Lausanne Movement about Pope Francis. In this article Norberto explains how we should pray for his friend Jorge, the man the world now knows as Pope Francis. Today I post Norberto’s 2013 article on how we should respond to Pope Francis and his request for our prayer.
“PRAY FOR ME” POPE FRANCIS: HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND?

I first met Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, today Pope Francis, in 2001. That year has a special place in the memory of all Argentinians: in the month of December we were forced to face the worse economic and social crisis in our history. Concurrently, the National Council of Evangelicals and the Argentine Catholic Episcopacy were meeting for the first time in order to work on a new law for religious equality.

After […]

New Possibilities in the Quest for Visible Unity

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:13-05:00October 13th, 2014|Categories: ACT 3, Current Affairs, Love, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

Dr. J. Norberto Saracco is a leading Pentecostal pastor in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Norberto has been a leader in the global ecumenical movement and deeply involved in the Lausanne Movement. He serves on the Lausanne Catholic-Evangelical Conversation committee that I chair and through this work we have become good friends. He was a presenter at our recent meeting in Mundelein. (This address and video will soon be available on our website.)

Norberto is also a very close friend of Jorge Bergoglio, who the world now knows as Pope Francis. Norberto, and the former Cardinal, shared many platforms and public prayer meetings together. They have also spent many times together in private, both before Begoglio became Pope Francis and since. Together they have witnessed to the power of Christian unity in the Spirit. With this in mind I share a guest post today by presenting Norberto’s words from a previously published article.

In February of 2006 Norberto gave a presentation that originally appeared on the website of the World Council of Churches. Today I publish this article because I […]

Send Me

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:13-05:00October 10th, 2014|Categories: Uncategorized|

Send MeUse me, God, in thy great harvest field,
Which stretches far and wide like a vast sea.
The gatherers are so few; I fear the precious yield
Will suffer loss. Oh, find a place for me!
A place where best the strength I have will tell.
It may be one the older toilers shun;
Be it a wide or narrow place,’tis well
So that the work it holds be only done.

– Christina Rossetti

ISIS and the Importance of Christian-Muslim Relations in the US (Guest Blog)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:13-05:00October 9th, 2014|Categories: America and Americanism, Current Affairs, Freedom, Friendship, Interfaith Relations and Dialogue, Religion, The Future|

The recent 9/11 anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers in Manhattan and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. also brought with it, especially in light of the present actions of ISIS/ISIL , memories of the backlash against Muslim and even Sikh communities on our own continent. Those memories underline how important it is to build relationships with people of other faiths — especially in our efforts to help those who are the victims of such violence and to seek together the common goal of peace.

The Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said as much when it reasserted their commitment to dialogue with other religions and Muslims in particular in a statement released August 19. The committee listed tensions between Christians and Muslims in different parts of the world as a primary reason for reaffirming the need for dialogue.

“We understand the confusion and deep emotions stirred by real and apparent acts of aggression and discrimination by certain Muslims against non-Muslims, often against Christians abroad,” the bishops wrote. “Along […]

Same-Sex Marriage Dividing a Local Parish

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:13-05:00October 8th, 2014|Categories: Culture, Current Affairs, Discipleship, Ethics, Gospel/Good News, Homosexuality, Missional Church, Personal, Renewal, Roman Catholicism, Sexuality, The Church, The Future|

On the same day that I read the Associated Press report that I referenced yesterday regarding the new Pew Research about same-sex marriage there was another report from Great Falls, Montana. This story struck me as one filled with profound pain and difficulty.

Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Warfel of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings conducted a meeting with about 300 parishioners from St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Lewistown on Saturday, September 20. There is a huge controversy inside the St. Leo congregation. Fr. Samuel Spiering, the priest at St. Leo’s, has decided to prohibit a gay couple from receiving the Eucharist unless they take three steps. First, they must legally divorce. Second, they must live separately. And third, they must write a statement affirming that marriage is between a man and a woman. The 300 people from the parish who met with their bishop were said to be evenly divided about the counsel of their priest. (Note: This is not an urban center where large numbers of gays might live in communities.)

The same-sex couple, in […]

Has the Political Support for Same-Sex Marriage Leveled Off?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:14-05:00October 7th, 2014|Categories: Current Affairs, Ethics, Homosexuality, Marriage & Family, Missional Church, Politics, Religion, The Church, The Future|

Has American political support for same-sex marriage leveled off in recent months? A recent Pew Research Center poll says: “Yes.” After years of continual and dramatic growth for the support of same-sex marriage this growth may have slowed, if not stopped. The poll’s authors caution that it is too soon to make definitive conclusions about this new data. To give but one example of the data, since February this new poll reveals that support for (legal) same-sex marriage has declined from an approval of 54% to 49%. The percentage of those opposed during the same period went from 39% to 41%.

The same survey showed that religious influence in America was also declining. Yet most who were surveyed saw this decline as a negative. Interestingly, about half of the respondents said churches and houses of worship should speak out more openly on public issues. And nearly half of all respondents said businesses should be allowed to deny service to same-sex couples if the owners have religious objections.

I think the most amazing number from this new Pew Research was […]

A Week for Christian Unity on a Christian Campus

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:14-05:00October 6th, 2014|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, Unity of the Church|

This morning ACT3 Network begins a new ministry that is, so far as I can tell, a first. It is certainly a first for our mission. I share this news because I believe it is ground-breaking and because I humbly need your prayers. You can read an excellent article about this coming week in the Daily Herald.

Judson University (Elgin, IL) is located about a half hour northwest of my home in Carol Stream (IL). I have ministered in various contexts and ways on the Judson campus for well over forty years. It is a historically Baptist college. Judson is an evangelical Christian university that says it “represents the Church at work in higher education, equipping students to be fully developed, responsible persons who glorify God by the quality of their personal relationships, their work, and their citizenship within the community, the nation and the world.”

The Judson University website also adds, on it home page: “The Judson community experience challenges graduates to be decisive leaders and active participants in church and society, articulate proponents of Biblical Christianity, […]

Chicago Gets a New Archbishop: Does the Media Understand the Church?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:14-05:00October 3rd, 2014|Categories: Current Affairs, Ideology, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

I have come to the conclusion that the media rarely gets the “tone” right when it comes to reporting on religion. This is true in reporting on all religion but in particular it is true with regard to Christianity in particular. I have some ideas about why this is so. But none of them involve conspiracies or the demonic. On the whole I believe that journalists and reporters have little or no first-hand experience of the church. They provide honest reporting with an interpretative angle that is often slanted by presuppositions about Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular.

I’ve seen this once again in Chicago over the last two weeks as the media has covered the story of the next Archbishop of the Diocese of Chicago, Bishop Blase Cupich (pronounced sue-pitch) of Spokane, Washington. After various television and print media sources said the pope had sent a “message” by this appointment to which Bishop Cupich stated very humbly, “I think he sent a pastor not a message.” Yet the Chicago Tribune headline still read: “Pope […]