Blog - Page 173 of 318 - John H Armstrong

The Divisions That Now Threaten Churches in the West

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:41-05:00November 9th, 2009|Categories: Church Tradition|

The division that has risen within Christianity in modern times, at least in certain ways, now overshadows the older divisions of the Great Schism (1054) and the Protestant Reformation. The most obvious debate that threatens to divide the church in the West, and one that will likely continue for generations to follow, is the approval of same-sex marriage and the ordination of practicing homosexuals to the ministry. Related issues of gender, morality and doctrine have troubled the church for at least three decades but recent decisions in some churches seem to have finally created the perfect storm. Underlying this issue is the deeper and broader conflict over the nature of the Christian revelation and how to read the Scriptures faithfully.

Has God fully and finally revealed himself to mankind in the person of Jesus Christ and is this revelation timeless, unchanging and binding upon all people at all times? Traditional, confessional Christianity is convinced that these moral issues are not unclear in Scripture or in […]

A Prayer for My Witness for Christ

By John Armstrong|2009-11-08T05:00:00-06:00November 8th, 2009|Categories: Evangelism|

A Prayer for Christian Witness

Dear Lord, I have friends and neighbors who do not seem to know you. It troubles me that they do not know you the living and true God. They struggle, just like I do, but they only have their own strength to get through each day. I know you love them and that you could help them beyond all they can hope or imagine at this moment.

I don’t want my friends and neighbors to miss out on the resurrection of life and the glorious new heavens and new earth. They need to know you the Triune God. They need to know Jesus Christ as their Lord. They need to follow the one who gives eternal life to all those who come to him.

I ask you to strengthen me to be a faithful witness so that I can help them come to know you as their Savior. Open for me an opportunity to love them and to […]

Both Political Parties to Blame for Our Deficits

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:41-05:00November 7th, 2009|Categories: Politics|

Republicans blame Democrats and Democrats blame the Republicans but the truth is that both parties are responsible for our rising deficits. The numbers for the deficit that ended with the year on September 30 show that we had a deficit budget of $1.4 trillion over the last twelve months. This is the largest deficit in dollars ever and it is the largest deficit relative to the economy since the U. S. emerged from World War II in 1945. Put in simple English the government borrowed 40 cents on every dollar it spent this last year. Could your family sustain such spending? Well, the leaders in Washington will hardly tell you the real truth here but neither can the U. S. government.

Advocates will say that all this spending was needed to avoid a depression. I largely agree but the problem is still so immense that this is not a solution, only an explanation of some sort. With tax revenue in sharp decline this deficit […]

What Happens When an Abortion Provider Has a Change of Heart?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:41-05:00November 6th, 2009|Categories: Abortion|

The story of Abby Johnson (photo at left) moves me very profoundly. Abby, the director of Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas, for the last two years, resigned on October 6. Abby realized that she wanted to leave, after watching an ultrasound of an abortion procedure. She said: "I just thought I can't do this anymore, and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that's it.”

Abby Johnson reveals that under difficult economic pressures, brought on by the recent recession, the business model of Planned Parenthood has changed from promoting prevention to encouraging abortion. Johnson says she was being encouraged to bring in more women for abortions because that is where the money is.

Does anyone really want to argue that money doesn't drives the abortion industry as much as any single issue? Sure there are people who really believe in abortion as “choice” but the […]

Back It Up, Back It Up, Back It Up

By John Armstrong|2009-11-05T16:15:17-06:00November 5th, 2009|Categories: Personal|

I have been told since I first began to use computer programs: "Back everything up often." For years I did it. I even have an external drive to use for this purpose. The last year I got lazy and felt safe and did not back up. The last major back-up I did was in January. Today it caught up with me. Somehow I overwrote my Outlook program and lost my entire calendar and contact file since last year. Then when I synced my iPhone I wrote the old files onto the one calendar that I had which was correct, namely the one on my iPhone. O Man! The first response was chaos. The second was, did I mention, chaos? Then I began to settle down and decided to call a friend who has been after me to simplify my life and cut things out of my calendar for a long time. He said, like one of Job's buddies, "I told you. God shut down your calendar for you!" That helped. I actually laughed and got a little more peaceful. You have to […]

The Heart of a Friend

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:41-05:00November 5th, 2009|Categories: Personal|

Some years ago I prayerfully looked for a Web designer who would work with me on ACT 3 site. I interviewed several talented people. I made a choice to hire Sean McCallum, who lived only three doors down from the house I lived in for nineteen years in Carol Stream. I had never met Sean until the day I interviewed him over a Mexican lunch in Wheaton. I did not realize that a number of my friends were also his friends or that a number of people I knew had known a lot about Sean's life since he was a young teen. The interview I had that day led to Sean designing our home page and managing some of our Web work over the years since. It led, more importantly, to a very deep friendship. I have come to love Sean and came to appreciate him as a brother in only a matter of a few months. He is the age of my daughter so at […]

Goodbye Solo: A Stunning Film

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:41-05:00November 4th, 2009|Categories: Film|

Goodbye Solo is a work of deep feeling and human inspiration. Two men meet. One is a refugee from Sudan who drives a cab in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The other is an older white man who is despairing of life and has plotted out the day of his own death by suicide. Their crossroads is in a Deep South context where race is transcended by hope and love.

One man, the African named Solo, is filled with hope. He sees a better future and studies hard to make that come about. The other, William, is angry, defeated and hopeless. The problem is that Solo loves William and begins to do everything that he can to stop him from ending his life. (I will not give away the ending so you will have to search elsewhere, or better yet see the film, to find out!) This odd couple embarks on a journey, over the course of about three weeks, that will change them […]

Is the Economic Recovery Real?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:41-05:00November 2nd, 2009|Categories: Economy/Economics|

The reports of the last economic quarter are now in. Evidence exists that we have experienced a recovery for the first time in four quarters. Anyone in their right mind ought to celebrate this fact. I suppose most Americans do take some comfort in this report, unless of course they so despise this president that they want to see an economic collapse on his watch. I find such people uninteresting and terribly angry, qualities that repel me personally. While I do not agree with a good number of the president's economic policies I pray for him, and us, that he succeeds. The country has always found a way to move back to the center regardless of who the president is at the time. I expect this will happen again over the course of time but the radicals on both sides need to be ignored on the whole.

The new reports says that the economy rose by 3.5% in the third quarter. That is […]

The Nobel Peace Prize Debate

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:42-05:00November 1st, 2009|Categories: Politics|

It seems like everyone had a field day a few weeks ago about the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. I admit I was stunned when I first heard the news. After reflecting on the prize, and who the committee has given it to over recent years, I was not so surprised. The whole flap did cause me to do a little research into the past winners of the prize and why they were apparently chosen. There have been some interesting winners in the history of this award, to say the least. The most interesting past recipient, at least to me, could be the least well-known of all the winners. I refer to the Christian leader John R. Mott. Mott, who directed the YMCA for some years, was the "father of the ecumenical movement" in the early twentieth century and a Christian of the greatest sort. Mott is featured in my forthcoming book, Your Church Is Too Small, because of his role in […]

Liberating the Church

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:42-05:00October 31st, 2009|Categories: Renewal|

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther performed a relatively minor act. He posted ninety-five theses (in Latin) on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. His desire seems to have been rather simple–start a serious conversation about some of the ministerial abuses inside the church. His act was the equivalent of posting a few items for dialogue on the Internet, a kind of blog post for academic debate. Historians, always looking for key dates, now see this as the spark that lit the fire that led to the Protestant Reformation. Luther himself was not so sure but this fact is clear: the events that followed October 31 1517, created a great turmoil in the Western church.

Luther argued that the church in his day had been taken captive by an inadequate gospel message. Luther's pamphlet, The Pagan Servitude of the Church, likened the church's situation in 16th century Europe to Israel in Babylon. The people of God were prisoners of a false gospel, a false worldview, a false […]