Blog - Page 69 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Living as Aliens in Post-Christendom Culture (5)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 18th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Christ/Christology, Culture, Current Affairs, Emergent Church, Ideology, Lordship of Christ, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Postmodernity, Renewal, The Church, The Future|

Christian sociologist James Davison Hunter has written one of the most important studies of what it means to be faithfully present in the modern, increasingly post-Christendom world that I have been describing over the last two weeks. His magisterial book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford, 2010, has helped many of us think about how to live faithfully in the modern context. Perhaps the most important question that Hunter asks, and answers, is: “How might Christians in the 21st century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative?” I have attempted to provide some response to this same question by writing about living in a time of cultural and spiritual captivity as “a colony of heaven,” or as “aliens.”

Hunter suggests that what is really needed is a different paradigm of Christian engagement with the world, one he calls “faithful presence”–an ideal of Christian practice that is not only individual but institutional. His model works out both in relationships […]

Living as Aliens in Post-Christendom Culture (4)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 17th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Emergent Church, Ideology, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Separation of Church & State, The Church, The Future|

Since the time of Constantine (4th century) the church has been enabled, in various forms and expressions, to “share” power with the state. This was not all bad. As a result of Constantine the church was allowed the protection of law and the opportunity to create new institutions of learning and charity, to give but one grand example of a positive outcome. The church could also prosper in ways early Christians could never have understood. This may indeed be a double-edged sword but it has an edge that has done great good in the world in which we live. The result of this process was Western culture, a culture blessed with all of its art, education and growing prosperity. Personally, I think the anti-Constantinian argument is much too simple to conclude that this shift was an entirely bad one. Yet the Constantinian change allowed the church to share power without the church becoming a serious problem to those who used power, whether it was in the church or in the state. It wasn’t long until this great victory brought with it a host of deep and […]

Living as Aliens in a Post-Christendom Culture (3)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 16th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Emergent Church, The Church, The Future|

Because the church now resides in a growing state of exile, from both Christendom and a sympathetic host culture, I have suggested that we need to adjust our thinking and mission to this new reality. I believe this requires a whole new way of thinking and believing about who we are and what we should be doing as the church.

Not If We Believe, But What We Believe

When I was a young man, in college as well as in graduate theological study, the assumptions behind my training were fairly obvious, even though I did not understand them at the time.

The modern assumption was that the primary challenge to Christian faith was intellectual. My professors taught me how to have answers to those ideas that opposed the faith. The old, faithful expressions of Christianity were under attack and I needed to know how to answer this assault and make disciples who could do the same, at least in simple, workable ways.

The famous existential (liberal) theologian, Paul Tillich, believed the greatest challenge was to create a new and […]

Living as Aliens in a Post-Christendom Culture (2)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 15th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Discipleship, Emergent Church, Faith, Ideology, Kingdom of God, Lordship of Christ, Love, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Religion, Renewal, The Christian Minister/Ministry, The Church, The Future|

If living the Christian life as “aliens” really describes Christian community/church then we can understand why we are a “colony of heaven” in a “strange” land. The biblical portrait of the Christian church is one in which the church “exists for mission as fire exists for burning” (Emil Bruner). This gives us our clear identity. The DNA of such “aliens” is mission precisely because God is missio Dei. God, the Father, is a sending God who goes out into the broken land with good news by sending his Son (John 20:21). We are not drawn together simply for ourselves but rather to be the people of God engaging in Christ’s mission together. We do not do this simply as individual projects or programs that we contribute our money to but remain personally detached from. Even local congregations are not meant to do this all alone but as part of the Church in their city or area, the whole body of Christ living out their alien status in partnership and deep love.This is one reason why our divided state is such a serious scandal to the gospel.

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Living as Aliens in a Post-Christendom Culture (1)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 14th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Church Tradition, Culture, Current Affairs, Discipleship, Emergent Church, Gospel/Good News, Ideology, Kingdom of God, Lordship of Christ, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Postmodernity, The Church, The Future|

I suggested in my series last week, “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” that Christians were called by God in Christ to live as “a colony of heaven” (Philippians 3:20). Because of this calling we are to live as God’s new creation, thus as “aliens and exiles.” This is clearly the same point made by the apostle Peter when he writes:

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. [ Live as Servants of God ] Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge (1 Peter 2:10-12).

I decided, upon further reflection, to look at the primary uses of the English word “alien” in our modern context to see how we use this word and to see […]

The Babylonian Captivity of the American Church (5)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:57-05:00January 11th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Church History, Church Tradition, Culture, Current Affairs, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Politics, Religion, Renewal, The Church, The Future|

Hope Floats

A 1998 movie starring Sandra Bullock bore the title: “Hope Floats.” The movie features an unassuming housewife who learns of her husband’s infidelity on a national television talk show. In shock she returns to her small home town to try and put her life back together. She eventually discovers that only “hope” can float her life again.

Hope sells! Our president ran on hope in 2008. In 2012 he told a new narrative but it was still rooted in the premise that what he hoped for in 2008 would still come if we would trust him with four more years to finish what he had begun. It was a much harder political sell in 2012, but in the end a significant number of people believed him and heard echoes of hope again. Seemingly that’s what made the difference in the end.

I am inviting you to join me in a new kind of hope, a hope that is not found in the policies of the left, the middle or the right. (Once again, I am not calling you to withdraw from society or public life, as some […]

The Babylonian Captivity of the American Church (4)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:57-05:00January 10th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Church History, Church Tradition, Culture, Current Affairs, Emergent Church, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Politics, Postmodernity, Religion, Renewal, The Church, The Future|

A Colony of Heaven

James Moffatt’s translation of the New Testament translates politeuma, in Philippians 3:20, as: “We are a colony of heaven.” The Jews in the Dispersion, and living in Babylon, understood this very well. They knew what it meant to live as “strangers” in a strange land. They understood that they were aliens trying to live on someone else’s turf (Resident Aliens, 11).

In the first century Jewish believers in Jesus as Messiah understood what it meant to gather in the name of the Lord and sing the praises of the slaughtered Lamb in corporate worship of the triune God. They understood that they were a colony, a beachhead, an outpost in the middle of a foreign culture. When they gathered they did not seek to shape the culture so much as to encourage one another and catechize their new converts and children. Their calling was to learn the lifestyle of faith and to live it in a way that was countercultural. Rome was full of gods and many kinds of spirituality and worship. These Christian believers were seen as a sect of the Jews who […]

The Babylonian Captivity of the American Church (3)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:57-05:00January 9th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Church History, Church Tradition, Culture, Current Affairs, Emergent Church, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Religion, Renewal, The Church, The Future|

Waking Up Is Hard to Do

Sometime in the late 1980s, or early 1990s, I began to realize how profoundly we had moved away from “My America.” Whatever my parents believed about America and our culture there were fewer and fewer people who believed it and the social and religious tide was clearly moving in an entirely new direction.

Fundamentalist and evangelical Christians began to realize that people were not becoming Christians by simply growing up in the neighborhood and being brought to church to follow Christ. They began to “fight back.” They demonized the secular society, especially the courts and the politicians on the left, and launched an attack mode that had a significant impact until 2008. In 2012 we saw the fading glimmers of this public and political movement come to large scale ruin. (I know, there will be more of the same to come but you can take this much to the bank–this movement is dying and will be of no significant importance in future national elections. Furthermore, those Christians who fight to transform the culture by these means will only spend more money and […]

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2014, Part Two

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:57-05:00January 9th, 2013|Categories: Church History, Current Affairs, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Prayer, Roman Catholicism, Unity of the Church|

In 1935 Abbé Paul Couturier, a priest of the Archdiocese of Lyons, sought a solution to the problem of Catholics and non-Roman Catholics observing the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity together. He found this solution in the Roman Missal as the Association for Promotion of the Unity of Christians had done seventy-eight years earlier in England. Couturier promoted prayer for Christian unity on the inclusive basis that “our Lord would grant to his Church on earth that peace and unity which were in his mind and purpose, when, on the eve of His Passion, He prayed that all might be one.” (cf. John 17:21-23). I think one of the most significant statements written, at least up until this point in the history of this week of prayer, is the expressed hope that this time would unite Christians in their prayer for that perfect unity that God wills and by the means that he wills. Like Fr. Paul Wattson, Abbé Couturier exhibited a powerful passion for unity. He sent out “calls to prayer” annually until his death […]

The Babylonian Captivity of the American Church (2)

By John Armstrong|2013-01-08T04:00:17-06:00January 8th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Church History, Church Tradition, Culture, Current Affairs, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Politics, Religion, The Church, The Future|

The Babylonian Captivity of the Church

Luther’s work was a sustained theological argument, thus it was published in Latin. But it was originally written in German, the language in which most people read it and began to discuss it.

Luther’s primary concern was to examine the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church in the light of his understanding of the Holy Scripture. He urged, to give just one example, that the cup in the eucharist should be restored to the laity. He further dismissed the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation while still affirming the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist. These were primary points in his argument.

To follow Luther’s argument a bit more carefully you need to understand that he believed the “captivity” the church had begun in the Middle Ages with something as simple, but profoundly important, as the withholding of the cup from the laity in the Lord’s Supper. This was radical stuff at the time! (It seems so tame to us five centuries later.) Make no mistake about this context, Luther said a whole lot more, some of which was […]