Blog - Page 176 of 318 - John H Armstrong

What Does It Mean to Vacate Victories?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:44-05:00October 17th, 2009|Categories: College Football|

For the really serious college football fan summer is only a time that provides a calm period before the real fun begins again. We feed ourselves clips from season’s past and read blogs and posts about our favorite team. I get several posts a day from sources related to the University of Alabama Crimson Tide football team. I couldn't wait for the season to begin on September 5 with the greatest early match-up of them—two top ten teams: Alabama vs. Virginia Tech in the Georgia Dome. (I wrote about the game in a blog on September 5.) The place was filled with incredible energy. I had to settle for the television that evening but it was fun and I've even watched the game again on my DVR.

Some of my friends have taken note of the recent NCAA ruling against Alabama athletics (in general) for violation of a textbook policy. In short, scholarship athletes were getting text books that they should not […]

Seducing Your Audience

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:44-05:00October 16th, 2009|Categories: Culture|

Today's blog is a guest article by my good friend Dr. Monte E. Wilson. Monte directs a children's charity that serves in Africa. His point in this blog may put you off, at least at first, but read it all the way to the end if you want to grasp what he is really saying and why it matters.

Seducing Your Audience

Monte E. Wilson

Recently, while speaking at a conference in South Africa, I went down to the local strip-mall. (Think twenty picnic-tables filled with trinkets and clothes manned by a host of Africans screaming to get your attention.) Seeing a really cool carving, I walked over, picked it up and was immediately told how many SA Rand this work of art would cost.

“What is the significance of the three women?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who are they?”

“Three African […]

Naming God: Does It Matter What We Call Him?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:44-05:00October 15th, 2009|Categories: The Trinity|

Naming God is an extremely important matter that too few of us take as seriously as we should. This issue gets pushed forward now and then when various progressive readings of Scripture are promoted in the church. Sometimes these progressive tendencies come from radical feminism. Sometimes they just come from careless non-Trinitarian concepts of God.

In February of 2008 the Vatican issued an eighty word document that produced the following newspaper headline: “Vatican Says Baptisms Using Wrong Words Are Not Valid, Must Be Redone.” The document said, “Anyone baptized in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier” or in the name of “the Creator, the Liberator and the Sustainer” didn’t really get baptized with Christian baptism. I happen to agree with this statement of the Vatican and I think many conservative evangelicals would be puzzled by such agreement.

Following the Vatican’s statement in May of 2008 Christianity Today reported that a Methodist minister “howled about the Vatican’s liturgical fundamentalism that values human language over […]

Children of Heaven: A Wonderful Children's Story

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:44-05:00October 14th, 2009|Categories: Film|

Rarely do movies touch my heart. At the best they produce emotions for a few moments but not of the variety that inspires and teaches in any lasting way. Such was not the case when I discovered the 1997 movie, Children of Heaven. I was not quite ready for the beauty and humaneness of such a children’s film. I guess I should know better by now. A children's movie can, and often does, tell a very adult story in a humble way. Roger Ebert says that this film is “a nearly perfect movie for children, and of course that means adults will like it too.” He is right on. Amazingly Children of Heaven accomplishes this with only two major characters, both Iranian children!

The writer and producer of Children of Heaven is Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi. Majidi began acting at the age of twelve. He enjoyed theater and later was afforded the opportunity to direct films. Children of Heaven prompts me to see […]

The NIV/TNIV: The Controversy That Keeps on Ticking

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:44-05:00October 13th, 2009|Categories: American Evangelicalism|

Yesterday, I looked at the announcement that a new NIV (2011) translation of the Bible will be published in two years. I looked at the background to this controversy and considered why this debate arose. Today we look more directly at the translation project itself.

Doug Moo (photo left), a frontline New Testament scholar and solid translator, is chairman of the Committee on Bible Translation that will work on the NIV (2011). Doug admits that the committee has not yet decided on how much of the gender-inclusive language will be included in the new NIV (2011). Since this is what primarily prompted the immense criticism of the TNIV in 2002 I wonder what this really means. He rightly admits that what the committee did then was right. He also says everything is back on the table. He even says, “[Members of the committee] feel much more comfortable about the TNIV” than the NIVi, which was its controversial British forerunner.
[…]

Baseball: And Then There Were Four

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:44-05:00October 12th, 2009|Categories: Baseball|

Now we know the four teams that will vie for the pennant in their respective leagues. I have said that the Dodgers would win the National League since early in the season. I stand by that prediction more than ever. In seven games their pitching, overall, will beat the Phils. The wild card here is pitcher Cliff Lee, who is dominating at this stage in the season. The Dodgers in seven.

In the American League my heart wants to say the Angels will make it an all-So Cal series but I think the Yankees are just too loaded to lose this year. Yankees in six with the Angels giving them a good run for their money.

If this happens you will have a classic Dodgers vs. Yankees series. That brings back some great history for fans like me who love the game and its long history. LA vs. NY. The two largest cities in America. The network television folks will love […]

The New NIV and the Bible Translation Debate

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:44-05:00October 12th, 2009|Categories: American Evangelicalism|

The gender-inclusive debate often alarms me. I have seen this debate from both sides. I believe the effort to fundamentally change the way we speak about God is fraught with some rather serious theological problems. Several great books addressed this problem fifteen or twenty years ago when it first broke on the scene in the mainline denominations rush to revision in God-language. I am not interested, in this post, in refuting these mistakes. A number of first-rate scholarly books and monographs have addressed these concerns, as I said. I believe there is sufficiently good reason for retaining the Bible’s language regarding God. (I freely grant that there are feminine images of God given to us in Scripture and these should not be easily overlooked!)

I am more concerned, at this moment, about the continued debate over the New International Version (NIV, 1984) and the subsequent TNIV (2002). For those who do not recall the details this debate came about because […]

Learning to Live In This World

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:45-05:00October 11th, 2009|Categories: Spirituality|

It seems to me that one of the most difficult questions serious Christians routinely face is this: What am I to do with what this world has to offer me in light of the fact that I am a child of God, destined to spend my life in a world that is anti-God? Can anything good be gained from this world. The answer to this question has produced more movements and answers within the Christian tradition than we know what to do with. Some act as if there is nothing in this world worth anything at all but the fire of judgment. Others think this world is so touched by divine grace that almost everything in it, except for the obvious sins like immorality and murder, is to be used to the max. A friend recently suggested the following maxim to me: "A humble person takes whatever there is in the world that helps him to find God and leave the rest aside."

That is not quite as strong as I would prefer it to be but it […]

Meeting Big Al in Kentucky

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:45-05:00October 10th, 2009|Categories: College Football|

Last Saturday I had a marvelous afternoon in Lexington, Kentucky at Commonwealth Stadium. It was fun to see my football team play, and win (38-20). But it was even more fun to soak in the sights and sounds of big-time college football. The pageantry of such an event is a great deal of the fun for me personally. Tailgating, talking to fans (serious and casual), engaging with various team personnel and the media and watching the team arrive and leave are all part of such a great game-day experience. The photo at the left is the Alabama equipment trailer that travels with the team to road games carrying all their stuff. I thought it was a pretty cool truck myself.

My daughter told me before I left for Kentucky that she wanted me to get a photo with Big Al, the Alabama mascot. I told her I […]

China and State-Sanctioned Repression

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:45-05:00October 9th, 2009|Categories: The Persecuted Church|

Those of us who lived through the summer of 1989 can never forget the historic Tiananmen Square protests in China. Student led protests created a massive movement for a more open and democratic government that reached a crescendo in early June. Then the Chinese government decided to stop the Beijing protests with force. No one knows how many people actually died in Beijing as martial law was enforced and soldiers marched on the city to clear the streets. Tanks rolled and people died. Official statements say that a little over 200 people died. The more likely guess is that the number approached 3,000. People were shot in their own homes by bullets that soldiers sprayed randomly into crowds and homes. The pictures that we saw in the west were astounding. Most of us watched with amazement. The end result was that the student protest was put down and the people were again forced to submit to a repressive government.

Filmmaker Antony Thomas […]