Blog - Page 72 of 318 - John H Armstrong

An ACT3 Network Partnership in Phoenix

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:03-05:00December 12th, 2012|Categories: ACT 3, Discipleship, Emergent Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Social Networking, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

Last week I shared again in a wonderful time of ministry in Phoenix. It was my third visit to the Valley of the Sun over the last 16 months. My primary purpose has been to be with my dear friend, Jeff Gokee. Jeff is the executive director of PhoenixONE, one of the most hopeful and exciting movements of the Spirit that I’ve personally witnessed in my travels across the U.S.

The mission of PhoenixONE is to be a unified movement of local churches who come together as ONE to reach 20-30 something’s for Christ and connect them to a local faith community. PhoenixONE began about two years ago and now reaches over 1,000 people every other Tuesday evening in downtown Phoenix.

After completing his B.A. at Moody Bible Institute Jeff Gokee originally moved to Phoenix to help plant an urban church. After a series of setbacks he joined the staff of an area mega-church and, after several more years of pastoral ministry, was led to pioneer this ministry to reach out to the generation that […]

Will the World End One Week from Today?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:03-05:00December 11th, 2012|Categories: Current Affairs, Eschatology, Science, The Future|

Will the world end on December 21st? An interpretation of an ancient Maya calendar has been used, for several years now, to suggest that the end of the world will take place on (or around) December 21, 2012. The film “2012,” starring John Cusack, made the idea popular with many movie goers. The warnings are linked with the Mayan calendar turning over on that day. A Mayan inscription from a small ruin was,at least according to some experts, mistranslated to imply big events surrounding that date. These big doings then evolved into doomsday scenarios made popular through various forecasts. Add to this the popular movie “2012” and there you have the buzz about the end next week.

So what should we make of this forecast regarding 2012? First, and I might surprise you by saying this first, it could be right. We do not know the day or the hour of the Lord’s return. In Matthew 24:30-31 we read:

Then a sign will appear in the sky. And there will be the Son of Man. All nations on […]

Lincoln on the Big Screen (5)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:03-05:00December 10th, 2012|Categories: America and Americanism, Film, History, Race and Racism|

Since the new film “Lincoln” deals directly with the passage of the 13th Amendment, and the abolition of slavery in the United States, scholars and pundits of all sorts are asking new questions about both Lincoln and slavery. I welcome this dialogue and actually pray that we might see a little more light and a lot less heat. Rhetorical bombs, made out of deep anguish and the pain of our collective story, often begin to fly when we engage profound American tragedy like the slavery, the Civil War and the life of our sixteenth president.

“Lincoln” rightly shows that Abraham Lincoln understood that equality before the law would not easily translate into human equality in 19th century America. Our modern concepts of equality were held by some in Lincoln’s time but held only dimly in contrast to what we believe and understand about the matter today. Lincoln advised Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, perhaps the strongest abolitionist in the House, to “avoid the swamps” in making his case. Stevens’ radical allies were appalled at his demeanor during the House […]

Lincoln on the Big Screen (4)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:03-05:00December 7th, 2012|Categories: America and Americanism, Film, History, Politics|

When producer Steven Spielberg began to talk with script writer Tony Kushner about his project to do the first serious film on Abraham Lincoln in seventy years their ideas began to coalesce when Spielberg asked, “Why don’t we make a movie about passing the 13th Amendment?”

So it is that the new “Lincoln” film came to be about only one month–January, 1865– in the life of Abraham Lincoln.

In January 1865 Lincoln had just been re-elected. The war drug on but was nearly won. The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by the president as a special war powers act, abolished slavery but only within the areas of the U.S. that were “in rebellion” against the Union. There was serious question whether this war powers act, an general emancipation, would hold any legal force once the war had ended.

It is worth noting that the intense struggle to pass the 13th Amendment is confined to only five pages of 754 in Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals. So this film may owe something to Goodwin’s great book, certainly in terms of its inspiration, […]

Lincoln on the Big Screen (3)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:03-05:00December 6th, 2012|Categories: America and Americanism, Film, History, Politics|

The screenplay for the new “Lincoln” film was written by Tony Kushner (photo at left). Kushner began writing for the screen in 2000. He previously co-wrote the screenplay for “Munich” in 2005, a film also directed by Steven Spielberg. Kushner, who is a secular Jew, is widely known for his criticism of religious extremism in Israeli politics, which has created some controversy within American Jewish circles. His written work includes scripts dealing with homosexuality and he legally married his same-sex partner in 2008. For some this is enough to make them suspicious of this film. I assure you there is no logical or palpable reason to draw such a conclusion.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, whose work I have often praised on this blog, wrote a November 29 “Evaluation” in the New York Times about the Lincoln film.

In the wide-ranging online conversation about Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner’s “Lincoln,” it’s been interesting to watch the movie be praised and criticized for the same artistic choice: Its determinedly narrow focus on the month or so […]

Lincoln on the Big Screen (2)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:03-05:00December 5th, 2012|Categories: America and Americanism, Film, Politics|

The famous English/American journalist Alistair Cooke (1908–2004), best known for his moving works like Letter from America and Alistair Cooke’s America, was one of the most devoted students of American history, and personal life in the states, in the twentieth century. Most of you will remember him as the host of Masterpiece Theater, from 1971 to 1992. “Letter from America” was actually the longest running radio broadcast of its kind, lasting for 58 years. Cooke loved all things America! It was Cooke who once said of President Abraham Lincoln, “It is difficult, and in some quarters thought to be almost tasteless, to talk sense about Lincoln but we must try.” Yes, we must try. And the new film “Lincoln” should require us to try once again.

A recent reviewer of the new “Lincoln” movie wrote in the National Review that “few topics of discussion bring men and women of the Right to sword’s point faster than the significance of Abraham Lincoln in American history. He has been decried by some as the first significant champion of creeping statism, […]

Lincoln on the Big Screen (1)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:04-05:00December 4th, 2012|Categories: America and Americanism, Film, History, Leadership, Race and Racism|

In Steven Spielberg’s new movie “Lincoln” we get a powerful glimpse of one small period in the life of President Abraham Lincoln, a period of only a month just before his death and right after his re-election to a second term (November 1864). The film opens in January of 1865 with an appropriate scene of the carnage of the Civil War. This terrible struggle is still being actively pursued by both sides. The south was near the end but would not yet surrender. Negotiations for peace are ongoing in private. Quickly the viewer is brought into the two major struggles that the president faced in early 1865: the end of this long, bloody, bitter war and the permanent end of slavery with the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment.

As many of you may know by now this movie is based, in small part at least, on the popular book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Goodwin. Several other Lincoln scholars, several of whom I have had the privilege of knowing […]

ACT 3 Network – Our New Web Site

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:04-05:00December 3rd, 2012|Categories: ACT 3|

Our transition to a new web site was successfully completed over the weekend thus our new, and wonderfully improved, site is working today, Monday, December 3. The old web address will still get your to our site but the new address is: www.act3network.com. Please make note of this address in your bookmarks and please check out our new web home page as soon as possible. It is clean, graphically sharp and includes a blend of ancient-future faith that reflects rather well our vision of “empowering leaders and churches for unity in Christ’s mission.”

I am sometimes asked, “What does ACT 3 actually stand for?” Some have mistakenly referred to our mission as Acts 3, thinking this is a reference to the third chapter in the book of Acts in the New Testament. This is not the case at all. ACT 3 is an acronym that stands for: Advancing the Christian Tradition in the Third Millennium. We chose this name six years ago because of our missional-ecumenism and growing relationship with the catholic church in its various expressions; e.g. Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox. This ecumenism is openly reflected […]

Taizé Returns to America in 2013: A Unique Event for Students and Millennial Leaders

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:04-05:00November 30th, 2012|Categories: Missional-Ecumenism, Renewal, Unity of the Church|

I wrote a blog about the Taizé meeting held at DePaul University in Chicago last May. I also announced this unique event at our March 26 Conversation with Cardinal George. I devote a section of my book, Your Church Is Too Small, to Taizé. Taizé’s ministry in America has rightly been called a “pilgrimage of trust” in North America. This “pilgrimage” is continuing in the new year with another special gathering for young adults. This one is very unique and I expect some of my youngest readers will be deeply interested.

Over the past few years, a relationship has grown up between Taizé and some Native Americans who live in South Dakota. A large group from South Dakota, including many Native Americans, took part in the May 2012 meeting in Chicago. As a result of this relationship, the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) people, who live on the Pine Ridge Reservation, have welcomed Taizé to have an event on the reservation during Memorial Day weekend May 24-27, 2013. Here Taizé will stage a pilgrimage of trust in an entirely […]

More Whacky Eschatology Gone Bad?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:04-05:00November 29th, 2012|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Civil Rights, Eschatology|

A 15-year old high school student in the San Antonio (TX) has sued her school district for requiring her to wear “the mark of the beast.” I’m not making this up friends.

Andrea Hernandez believes a locating device, increasingly used inside various contexts as an ID, is a violation of her rights to freedom and more directly to her Christian confession. The school actually allowed Angela to remove the chip but she was still required to wear the badge anyway. In the suit filed against the San Antonio district the Hernandez family objected to Andrea wearing even the badge because it was tantamount to “submission to a false god.” Their reasoning is that the badge itself, even without the locator chip, indicates her participation.

A state judge will rule whether the school district can transfer Andrea Hernandez to another school district to end the problem, at least temporarily.

The wearing of micro-chips is becoming more and more common. I recently use a tracking device in my iPad to locate it when it had been taken. I then went to the home, with the police helping me, where my computer […]