Blog - Page 33 of 318 - John H Armstrong

A Sabbath From Social Media and the Cell Phone

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:20-05:00July 18th, 2014|Categories: Culture, Current Affairs, Personal, Social Networking|

Blade Barringer develops and maintains our ACT3 website as well as my blog site. He is a consummate professional. I recommend his services to any of you who need help in these areas of your ministry. His work is incredibly good and his prices are fair. His day job is with a Christian publisher but he handles some side jobs like his work for ACT3 Network. If you’d like to contact him let me know and I’ll pass along how you can reach him.

One of the things Blade has given to me is “freedom” in my spirit about how to use the various media tools that I employ. I am so clueless about this stuff but in Blade I have a friend who is patient, slow to speak, gentle and a great teacher. He will interact with me and yet never overwhelms me with big data in the process. I may sound “dumb” to him at times (I never ask) but he never makes me feel “dumb.” My world is so much better since Blade began to […]

Westminster Theological Seminary – Can Institutions Respond to Controversy in Radical Love? (Seven)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:20-05:00July 16th, 2014|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Current Affairs, Education, Love, Personal, Reformed Christianity, The Church, The Future|

In this, my final post about the culture and conflict at Westminster Theological Seminary (if you do not know what this is about then see my posts from last week) I offer some more thoughts about how a “spirituality of love” could transform the institution inside and out. I offer these points very sincerely and in hopes that some will hear me and act in faith to seek a better WTS.

Amy Uelmen, in her aforementioned book, Positive Political Dialogue, says that the fourth step to a “spirituality of love” in political contexts is to “recognize suffering as a springboard to love.” The suffering that has transpired at Westminster Seminary is immense. I do not know the future of the school but I have to guess that this new controversy is not the end. Some may celebrate that they have “cleaned house.” I hope this is not the case. Will more bodies fall and more faculty leave, some for very different reasons than the Christotelic debates about hermeneutics? Amy Uelmen asks, working out of a “spirituality of love,” the following: […]

Westminster Theological Seminary – Can Institutions Respond to Controversy in Radical Love? (Part Six)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:23-05:00July 15th, 2014|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Culture, Education, Personal, Reformed Christianity, The Church, The Future|

I began, in yesterday’s post, to offer my ideas about how a “spirituality of love” could transform the landscape of an institution such as Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS). Westminster is a school that has been known for internal controversy as much as almost any such conservative seminary that I know in the United States. WTS has had a major impact on many graduates and has clearly done a great deal of good, especially in terms of its high level of academic accomplishment. Yet the seminary has always struggled, so it seems to me as a long time friend, to become a community of love. It has been embroiled in controversy after controversy among members of the faculty, administration and (even) students for several decades or more.

What I propose could be applied to many seminaries as well as other kinds of institutions. This is why I have given this series the title that I have above. Today I add four new points to what I began proposing yesterday on how radical love could transform the seminary.

Westminster could make it a priority […]

Westminster Theological Seminary – Can Institutions Respond to Controversy in Radical Love? (Part Five)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:24-05:00July 14th, 2014|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Church Tradition, Culture, Current Affairs, Education, Hermeneutics, Leadership, Personal, Reformed Christianity, Spirituality|

A common view, at least within many evangelical circles, is that a “culture” cannot be changed. Before I proceed to argue against this view let me define my terms just a bit.

I am using the word “culture” as it has evolved in English usage through the social sciences. It came to refer, in the 20th century, to a central concept within anthropology that encompassed the range of human phenomena that cannot be directly attributed to genetic inheritance. Specifically, the term “culture” has two meanings:

The evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols and to act imaginatively and creatively.
The distinct ways that people, who live differently, classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively.

It is this second use that I have in mind in my title for this series of blogs. Can a seminary, such as Westminster in Philadelphia, experience a significant cultural change that would make it look, feel and function like a different institution?

How could the institutional culture at Westminster Theological Seminary be truly changed? How could the present members […]

Westminster Theological Seminary – Can Institutions Respond to Controversy in Radical Love? (Part Four)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:24-05:00July 11th, 2014|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Church Tradition, Current Affairs, Education, Patristics, Personal, Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, The Church, The Future|

A friend has asked me, “John, can you market a seminary today without suggesting that we are the really faithful heirs of our particular tradition?” He added, “Could a school market itself as a loving, caring, and biblical community and still succeed?” My answer is that this is the only way in which I think a school will survive, and thrive, in the next two decades. I am persuaded that the next generation of young students will not buy the old way of selling a school’s uniquely distinctive views as over against other similar institutions that are not that remarkably different from each other. In the conservative Reformed world there has been a vast expansion of total seminaries since 1970, including at least eight new schools opening in the last forty years or so. But of the thirteen schools that come to mind in this part of the church ten of these seminaries are non-aligned in terms of church affiliation; the three aligned schools are Calvin (CRC), Erskine (ARPC) and Covenant (PCA). Does this independence lead toward another evidence of the function of […]

Westminster Theological Seminary – Can Institutions Respond to Controversy in Radical Love (Part Three)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:24-05:00July 10th, 2014|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Christ/Christology, Church History, Current Affairs, Education, Hermeneutics, History, Personal, Reformed Christianity, The Church, The Future|

There have been a number of previous controversies at Westminster Theological Seminary (PA). In the middle of the last decade there was one that many believe is linked (in some way) to the “retirement” issue of Doug Green. The Enns debate surrounded the teaching of Dr. Peter Enns, an Old Testament professor who left the faculty six years ago. It is widely believed that some of the issues regarding the teaching of Pete Enns, according to people on both sides of the current 2014 Douglas Green controversy, should be understood in the broader context of the seminary’s debate over hermeneutics. Dr. Enns resigned, under considerable duress, in 2008. The issue surrounding Enns’ teaching grew out of the publication of his book, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Baker, 2005). This book was unfavorably reviewed in the magazine of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. A battle about what Enns wrote followed. Articles appeared in academic journals and many people beyond the school were hard pressed to understand the central issue. I recall reviewing the book myself and then reading the review published in […]

Today’s Post – Revisions Being Made

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:24-05:00July 10th, 2014|Categories: Uncategorized|

I had several historical and factual errors in my post made earlier today about Westminster Seminary. I am presently correcting these errors and will repost this blog (Part Three) later today. Bear with me while I try to make sure that what I report is accurate and truthful. I welcome any corrections to my post(s) and will seek to get this story right before I proceed to the next posts in the series. I knew in writing this story that I would likely not have all the facts quite right so please bear with me while I listen and rewrite. I cannot make the points that I wish to make next week if the facts I share today are wrongly reported.

Westminster Theological Seminary: Can Institutions Respond to Controversy in Radical Love? (Part Two)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:24-05:00July 9th, 2014|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Current Affairs, Hermeneutics, Personal, Reformed Christianity, The Church|

Yesterday I provided a general historical overview of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. I wrote this overview because of my long interest in the school, its faculty and its students, mostly those who are graduates and who remain friends. I am not a Westminster graduate. I have never been a Presbyterian. I am an ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America. This Dutch tradition is far less rigid in how it uses the confessions standards than the more conservative tradition at Westminster. I say all this because my true desire in writing these posts is to serve the good of the kingdom of God and to be utterly transparent in what I write. I am far more interested in the impact of Westminster upon the wider church. Westminster’s impact, in my view, has been primarily one that has been good for the mission of the church. I am also deeply interested in how the school has dealt with the removal of several faculty members in recent years. With this in mind my second point about Westminster Seminary, […]

Westminster Theological Seminary: Can Institutions Respond to Controversy in Radical Love? (Part One)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:24-05:00July 8th, 2014|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Current Affairs, Hermeneutics, History, Personal, Reformed Christianity, The Church|

In early June I commented on my Facebook wall about the “retirement” of Old Testament professor Dr. Douglas Green at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia (WTS). You can read the official Westminster announcement online. The seminary says that Dr. Green is leaving for early “retirement.” But Doug Green is not of retirement age in the normative use of this word, meaning he is not 65 or older. The school says that he will honorably retire next year, on October 1, 2015. But he left his teaching position as of the end of the last term (2014). I commented on my Facebook wall about this departure in a manner that challenged this statement. I also questioned the integrity of the investigation and the final decision made by the board. (My words were not as charitable as they should have been and I noted that within a few hours of posting my short comment.) While I confess that I know a great deal about this decision, and much which gives me genuine pause (none of which comes from Dr. Green who […]

For the Life of the World: The Classic Book and a New Video Series

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:25-05:00July 7th, 2014|Categories: Acton Institute, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Discipleship, Film, Personal, Renewal, The Church, The Future|

I have mentioned my friend Byron Borger at Hearts & Minds Books in several contexts. There is no better reviewer of good books than Byron. Everyone who values my blogs should subscribe to his newsletters and pay attention to his reviews and book specials. There is simply no better Christian resource for good books – at least in the Protestant world – so far as I have discovered. Below is a review that covers the brilliant new film series that I am totally stoked about: “For the Life of the World.” Please order this series from Byron and you will not regret it I promise you. Show these films to friends, your small group, your local church, your adult education class, your older children, etc. There is no better introduction to whole life discipleship thinking available. This is not a series of polemical overviews but a good, solid Christian discipleship resource about living well that is applied to life in a holistic way.

Hearts & Minds Books

DVD “For the Life of the […]