Blog - Page 152 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Wisdom From Mount Athos

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:53-05:00June 6th, 2010|Categories: Love, Personal, Spirituality|

I have previously written about the great benefits that I have received from the writings of great Orthodox theologians and monks. My own experience of Orthodoxy began as a direct result of a deep friendship. My former pastor, and one of my dearest friends, Fr. Wilbur David Ellsworth, became an Orthodox priest and along the road of his conversion experience I shared and read a lot of Orthodox thinking. I learned so much, and still do, that our friendship is not only deeper but the differences we experience because of our respective choices makes us stronger in a way I cannot fully explain.

For the purpose of honesty I have to say that I have seriously considered becoming Orthodox and Roman Catholic, for different reasons and at very different times. The principal reason for this consideration is related to my view of the church and to ecclesial history. I do still see, however, several compelling reasons to remain outside the Catholic Church. Some of my best friends have found home there and I rejoice. I also see several reasons to […]

Learning to Take Full Responsibility for My Speech

By John Armstrong|2010-06-05T04:00:00-05:00June 5th, 2010|Categories: Personal, Spirituality|

James 1:22 says, “Be DOERS of the word, and not HEARERS only, deceiving yourselves.” I am a great “hearer” of the word. I’ve gone to church and heard the word preached literally all my life. And, hellooooooo—–I live with John! I HEAR the word a lot! And yet, when it comes to my speech, it’s really hard to follow the “DO-ing” part. I’ve always blamed my behavior on genetics—that I take after my dad. He was always quick to share his thoughts and many times his words hurt. My Granny Vejsada had a saying, “Think ten times and then speak once!” Oh, please, then I’d never get to speak at all!

Recently, at my granddaughter’s soccer game, I was sitting in my folding chair on the sidelines. The players ran in front of me and I heard a girl from the opposing team sneer rudely to my Gracie, “Watch your arms!” Without a moments thought I turned to my younger granddaughter and said, “That girl is lucky she said that to Gracie and not to ME!” How dare she say […]

Why I Changed My View on Infant Baptism

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:53-05:00June 4th, 2010|Categories: Sacraments, The Church|

A few months ago a friend, who had been a Baptist and then became a Presbyterian, asked me for a short answer as to why and how I had changed my view of baptism (which had been the view that baptism was by immersion of believers only). The answer I gave him was “short” and thus will not satisfy those who want a full-blown explanation. But maybe the very shortness of my response will be useful to friends as well as casual readers of this site.

1. Ephesians 4 presented serious problems for my view of adult baptism only. If there is "one baptism" then how could I continue to insist that the immersion of adults was the only true Christian baptism? In effect, who was I to reject the baptism of other Christians who were convinced on the basis of good reason and sound judgment? This question deeply troubled me based upon my understanding of the church and […]

An Evangelical Call for Bipartisan Immigration Reform

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:54-05:00June 3rd, 2010|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Ethics|

The National Association of Evangelicals, which has all too rarely had something meaningful to say about our national public life in recent years, recently published an ad issuing a helpful call for immigration reform. In the light of the debate created by my recent blogs about the DREAM Act I thought this NAE call worth the attention of my readers. Here is the call itself:

Our national immigration laws have created a moral, economic and political crisis in America. Initiatives to remedy this crisis have led to polarization and name calling in which opponents have misrepresented each others’ positions as open borders and amnesty versus deportations of millions. This false choice has led to an unacceptable political stalemate. As evangelical Christian leaders, we call on Democrats and Republicans to lead our nation toward a bipartisan solution on immigration that:

Respects the God-given dignity of every person
Protects the unity of the immediate family
Respects the rule of law
Guarantees secure national borders […]

Demystifying the Present Deficit

By John Armstrong|2010-06-02T04:00:00-05:00June 2nd, 2010|Categories: Current Affairs, Economy/Economics|

A member of our ACT 3 board is a financial adviser. He recently provided an article to me about the federal deficit that is one of the finest, and most clearly balanced, articles that I have read. I am not a professional economist and do not always know what to make of our deficit problems. I know deficits are not good but I am prone to be influenced by the gloom and doom futurists too easily. I think this link provides a helpful and careful analysis that many of you will find useful. This article is available as a pdf download at this link.

Is Jesus Really Central to Your Life?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:54-05:00June 1st, 2010|Categories: Books, Christ/Christology, Lordship of Christ, Renewal, The Church|

My friend David Bryant helped to persuade me some years ago that we Christians, and especially we evangelical Christians, had come to the place where we no longer treasured Jesus Christ above all. His book, Christ Is All, makes this point so powerfully that it became an instant classic on the subject. The problem here is rather simple. Most people do not read real classic. In this case I urge you to read Christ Is All. David shows that religious concepts, ideas, strategies, doctrines, techniques, formulas and methods had all worked to push Jesus to the periphery of our life and practice. I would have said, for more than thirty years, that we had pushed doctrine to the side in favor of all of these other pragmatic concerns but frankly I too had failed to see that even in recovering doctrine, at least in most of the contexts where I labored, we still […]

What Is Unique About Your Church Is Too Small?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:54-05:00May 31st, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

I wrote Your Church Is Too Small in order to show how both church history and theology can be rightly used together to better understand the need for unity in the church. I also wrote it to give readers practical illustrations of how this is actually being done by real Christians in America and beyond. I think the one thing that singles this book out from many other helpful treatments of this subject is that it remains intensely practical. I discuss this on this new video.

How to Cope with Changing Forms of Worship: A Guest Blog

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:54-05:00May 30th, 2010|Categories: Liturgy, Roman Catholicism, The Church|

Karen Anderson, a visitor to this blog spot, offered a guest post that I feel can be helpful to some of you who struggle with public worship on the Lord’s Day. Since today is the first day of the week, the time when Christians routinely gather to remember their resurrected Lord in corporate worship, Karen’s words have particular meaning for some readers on this day. While I do not agree with everything Karen writes I believe the value of “hearing” her voice outweighs the perspective that only my voice should be heard on this site. Here is Karen’s story:

I was born and raised a Catholic; I went to schools that were Catholic and so, that is the only way I know how to worship and pray. And until a certain age, I had no idea that Christianity was a broad umbrella which encompassed various forms of worshipping Christ. It was only when I moved out of my small hometown […]

Give Me Neither Poverty Nor Riches

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:54-05:00May 29th, 2010|Categories: Donors and Funding, Personal, Poverty, Wealth|

The wise man wrote: “Give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich I may deny you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name” (Proverbs 30:8b-9, NLT).

America is truly the richest nation in the world, indeed the richest nation ever. Yet the gap between rich and poor increases every year in this land of abundance. But if we are such a rich nation, and most of you who read this blog are relatively rich in comparison to everyone else in the world, why is it that so many of us are still in need of more money?

Most of you would say, with me, “God provides for all my needs and then much more.” Yet we still want/need more. ACT 3 is running behind financially and I sometimes still worry about that more than I should. I want to give more to my church and to other worthwhile missions and people […]

Can Evangelicals Open Their Hearts to a New Paradigm of Unity?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:54-05:00May 28th, 2010|Categories: Books, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Unity of the Church|

I get a lot of correspondence these days re: Your Church Is Too Small. I try to answer every letter, email and facebook comment that I can. People often ask, “How is it going? How are people responding to the book so far?”

The response is about 95% positive but I am quite aware that there will be more than a few readers who will oppose the idea that Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox can find much common ground to pursue unity together in anything of consequence. One of my frequent responses is to suggest that the book should be read as “a modest proposal” and not as a blueprint for getting us all together. If you have read the book, or even begun to read it, you know this to be true. I am not proposing a single, unified, compromised church.

I think Mark Galli, writing in the May issue of Christianity Today in “Quick Takes” […]