Blog - Page 16 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Reflections on Forgiveness and Forgiving (Tom Masters)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:20-05:00May 6th, 2015|Categories: Faith, Forgiveness, Roman Catholicism, Spirituality|

Reading the text and commentary for the Focolare Movement’s “Word of Life” for May, 2015, brought to my mind an experience from two years ago when I was in Rome to meet with the editorial staff of the publishing house Città Nuova. On March 13, the very day that the meeting began, it happened that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who took the name Francis, was elected pope. The following Sunday he appeared in St. Peter’s Square for the customary noontime Angelus address. He offered a reflection on Jn 8:1-11, the story of Jesus’s response to the woman caught in adultery. He illustrated the meaning and quality of divine mercy with a personal anecdote:

Feeling mercy. . . changes everything. . . . We need to understand properly this mercy of God, this merciful Father who is so patient…. Let us remember the Prophet Isaiah who says that even if our sins were scarlet, God’s love would make them white as snow. This mercy is beautiful!

I remember, when I had only just become a bishop in the […]

Who Needs a “Jubilee of Mercy”?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:20-05:00May 1st, 2015|Categories: Biblical Theology, Forgiveness, God's Character, Jesus, Roman Catholicism, Spirituality|

“Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world: have mercy upon us.”

Each one of us, many times during our lives, have raised our voices and cried, “Lord have mercy.” Mercy is the kind of forgiving treatment of someone who could be treated harshly. From a Christian perspective, it is the gift that God or another person offers to someone by not treating him/her in the way they deserve.

For many, this cry for mercy is a perpetual line of their daily prayers. It expresses our deepest inability to cope with the pain in our hearts or the desperate frustration with the challenges of our sinful human condition.

We all long for mercy. The tragedy is that we are not prone to offer it to others.

This past March, Pope Francis announced, to the surprise of many, a holy year. From Dec. 8, 2015 to Nov. 20, 2016, Catholics throughout the world are called to celebrate a “Jubilee of Mercy.” The celebration of a jubilee originated in Judaism and it was the occasion to offer forgiveness and reconciliation.

I […]

Fr. Leo Walsh on Christian Unity

By John Armstrong|2015-04-19T07:09:27-05:00April 30th, 2015|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, My Christian Unity Story|

Fr. Leo Walsh serves as a priest in the diocese of Anchorage, Alaska. He is an active participant in the Lausanne Catholic-Evangelical Conversation. He is also actively engaged in ecumenism, both in his local parish and in the wider context of the North American church.

What You Can Do About the Kenya Massacre: Choose to Love

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:20-05:00April 29th, 2015|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Current Affairs, Politics, Separation of Church & State, Spiritual Warfare, The Church, The Future, The War on Terrorism|

Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe

Once again the senseless massacre of almost 150 students in Kenya has demonstrated the fallenness and depravity of humanity. It is impossible to comprehend the depth of brutality that human beings can perpetrate against others, particularly children and young people. Lives filled with so much hope and potential were snuffed out by the barbarity of those who seemingly will stop at nothing to promote their twisted ideology and beliefs.

What should be responses to such acts of cruelty? We have already seen swift military action by the Kenyan government in retaliation for the atrocities committed. Yet what should your response be, and the response of every individual Christian before God? The natural inclination is anger, to lash back, to punish the perpetrators. Yes, justice demands we respond and hold accountable the killers. But is that all we can do and will it bring an end to these senseless attacks?

It is a primary responsibility of governments to protect its citizens. However, given the fact the growing threat of terrorists is not contained within a specific geographic border, […]

The Spirituality of Designer Religions (Monte Wilson)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:20-05:00April 28th, 2015|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Discipleship, Leadership, Spirituality|

You can’t read a magazine or watch TV without hearing some rock star or movie actor gushing on and on about being a “spiritual person.” Same goes for Facebook, where people post such profound bon mots as, “I am not religious. I am spiritual.” Maybe it’s just me but this always leaves me wondering: You’re spiritual? To what spirit are you referring? It begs the question, doesn’t it?

“Being spiritual” doesn’t say enough for me to have even the slightest clue as to what you are describing or asserting about your beliefs. If we have a Buddhist, a Baptist, and a believer in Brahman, each saying he is spiritual, aren’t they all saying something categorically different? And if a word can mean so many different things to different people, why confuse your listeners with such an amorphous word?

Why, indeed.

While there are probably more reasons than I can imagine, I believe that most all of them can be traced back to two.

When I say that I am spiritual, I am letting you know that I believe in something higher than myself, but am not […]

Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian (A Review)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:32-05:00April 27th, 2015|Categories: Culture, Current Affairs, Friendship, Sexuality, The Church|

Today’s guest writer is Dan Brennan, author of the important book, Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Engaging the Mystery of Friendship Between Men and Women.

“Where was I to find love? Where was I to give love?

If Scripture and the Christian tradition were right that I shouldn’t

try to find a husband, surely the apparent corollary couldn’t also be

right—that I was therefore cut off from any deep, meaningful

form of intimacy and communion. Could it?”

Wesley Hill

As an evangelical who has significant interest in the connection between sexuality and friendship, I was eagerly awaiting the delivery of Wesley Hill’s Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian. He did not disappoint.

Although Hill writes from the perspective of a gay celibate, he writes as an evangelical who seeks to integrate a post-Freudian view of sexuality with friendship. To be clear, Hill doesn’t use that phrase. That comes from take. In my own language, some of the distinctive features of a post-Freudian sexuality are that it 1) affirms we are all spiritual-sexual beings, 2) expands the meaning of sexuality beyond […]

Are We Ignoring Domestic Violence?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:33-05:00April 24th, 2015|Categories: Culture, Current Affairs, Marriage & Family, The Church|

The growing problem of domestic violence has come under profound scrutiny in recent months because the problem has surfaced quite often in the world of professional sports. Sports Illustrated, which has a great knack for solid journalism and good writing, has done some remarkably insightful reporting on the problem in several recent issues.

In the April 13, 2015, issue of Sports Illustrated, in a column called “Say What?,” the magazine reports that Dallas radio broadcaster Tim Cowlishaw asked female Dallas Cowboys fans to call into his program to complain about the team’s signing of defensive end Greg Hardy. Hardy, a talented and needed defender, recently had charges of domestic violence against him dropped. Cowlishaw writes that, “We got [only] three callers, and [they were] fully in support of it [signing him].” Cowlishaw added, “Cowboys fans want to get that next victory more than they care about moral implications.”

Before you castigate sports in general, or even Dallas in particular, think about this again. Wide-scale cultural shifts are not created by sports but […]

What a Classic Movie Can Teach Us About the Church

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:33-05:00April 23rd, 2015|Categories: Church Tradition, Culture, Current Affairs, Film, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

Today’s Guest Blogger is Dr. Dave Lescalleet

Every year our family watches the 1952 classic movie The Quiet Man as a way to enjoy St. Patrick’s Day. This film, because of its Ireland location, is more and more associated with this national holiday. The story, set in the 1920’s, stars John Wayne as retired American boxer Sean Thornton who returns to the village of Inisfree, Ireland, where he was born, in the hopes of finding peace and quiet but in the process finds love. The beautiful and equally talented Maureen O’Hara plays the female lead as Mary Kate Danaher. The feisty Danaher, quickly falls in love with the affable Thornton and easily proves his equal, giving as good as she gets.

The Quiet Man is a ‘fish out of water’ story as Wayne’s Thornton must not only integrate himself into the odd but endearing community of Inisfree, but along the way learn their old Irish customs and how they do life together. To say that this is one of my all-time favorite films is an understatement. From the […]

Christianity East & West: An Evangelical Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Dialog (Video)

By John Armstrong|2015-04-21T15:08:19-05:00April 21st, 2015|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Missional-Ecumenism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

Several years ago ACT3 staged a dialogue on unity and diversity between two Orthodox theologians and two Protestant evangelical theologians. This Sunday evening event was hosted by First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Greetings were given by Fr. Wilbur Ellsworth, an Orthodox priest who served as chairman of the ACT3 board for a number of years. I moderated the conversation. This is the first time we’ve made this older resource available for wider usage.

This dialogue runs for nearly two hours so you might want to mark it for use when you have the time to watch it. There are some real gems within the discussion we had on this evening.

Cardinal Francis George (1937-2015): My Personal Tribute to My Friend

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:13:33-05:00April 20th, 2015|Categories: ACT 3, Current Affairs, Death, Leadership, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Roman Catholicism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

Christian charity is a virtue that is widely recognizable. Where the church goes compassion and care for the poorest and weakest follows. Missionaries and Christian teachers have opened hospitals, cared for orphans, the widows and the poor. Where the Christian faith has advanced universities and day care have followed. Churches, from the beginning, have given to those in dire need with no expectation of direct response. One mark of the Christian faith is caritas, or love. In fact, the word caritas (Latin) means love.

But Pope Benedict XVI taught us that there is a somewhat less recognizable form of love for others that can rightly be called “intellectual charity.” Mother Teresa, respected in India and beyond, for her deep commitment to “material charity” said, “We are not social workers, we are brides of Jesus Christ.” She thus makes it clear that though material charity is important to Christian love “intellectual charity” is even more important.

The danger of material charity is that we reduce the other to a mouth to feed, a body to clothe, a need to be […]