Blog - Page 212 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Your Church Is Too Small

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:18-05:00November 5th, 2008|Categories: Personal|

Last week I asked you to pray that I could complete the book, Your Church Is Too Small. Thanks to all of you who supported me in completing this project. Today, November 5, I will deliver 21 chapters, and various other parts of the book (acknowledgments, introduction, glossary, etc.), to my friend Sue Taylor who will then put the various Word files into one continuous large Word file with all the notes properly arranged at the end of the book. By this process the book will be properly formatted and ready to give to the publisher. If all goes well I will mail a hard copy and electronic file to Michigan by no later than next Monday.

The other really good news, in relationship to this project, is that Zondervan's publications committee voted on Monday to publish the book in 2009. (I did not seek a contract until the book was all but done, something I had not done in the past. I wanted […]

A Moving Moment in American History

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:19-05:00November 5th, 2008|Categories: America and Americanism|

Whether you voted for Barack Obama, or John McCain, you had to be deeply moved by the images and scenes of last evening. Having grown up in the old South, as an early advocate of civil rights in the 1950s, I was moved to a few tears last night. I always felt might live to see such a moment but I wondered in recent years. One of the greatest blessings of America is now evident to the whole world: true freedom and genuine opportunity. And the exist polling data did not reveal that race played a huge negative problem for Ob. It was a huge positive, however, as millions of African-Americans (and Hispanics) proudly voted to help him become our 44th president.
The data I saw suggested that John McCain's age (72) was a bigger negative than Obama's skin color. (Not good news for aging "boomers" who think they are really what the country is all about!)

I can still remember […]

A Blog Break to Finish My Book

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:19-05:00October 29th, 2008|Categories: Personal|

I am working diligently to complete the final stages of my book, Your Church Is Too Small. I plan to give the completed work to the publisher next week, God willing. My self-imposed deadline is Monday, November 3. To reach this goal, and to preserve my time and energy, I am taking a few days off from blogging. I will try to come back on Monday or Tuesday next week. I have one simple request. Please pray for me as I seek to finish this very demanding work. I am weary, not sleeping as well as I would like, and desperately need to get this done. Your intercession would be a great blessing to me.

Patriotic Grace

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:19-05:00October 28th, 2008|Categories: America and Americanism|

Peggy Noonan, the author of the best-selling book, When Character Was King, has authored seven major works on American politics and has for some years written a regular column for The Wall Street Journal. She is one of the most intellectually rigorous, and totally honest, writers in the field. She is also a serious, practicing Roman Catholic and wrote a fine book on John Paul II. Noonan actually took time off from writing, in 2004, to assist the re-election campaign of George W. Bush. But Peggy Noonan is not the usual pugnacious conservative. She has a first-rate mind and loves her country more than she loves political ideologies. In Bush's second term she began to question the president and suggested that he had gotten away from his real message and messed up badly on Iraq. Noonan has not switched parties but she has told the truth. This is what makes her so incredibly important at this precise moment.

Her new book, Patriotic Grace: […]

Appaloosa: A Great Western That Works

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:20-05:00October 27th, 2008|Categories: Film|

Readers know that I love the movies, almost all kinds of movies. I especially like history, drama, science fiction, certain action films and a lot of biography. I like some comedy, but a great deal of it I find rather unassuming and inane. Only in the last two years have I gone back to the one film genre I watched as a child: American Westerns. Series like Lonesome Dove and the greatest Western of 2007, 3:10 to Yuma, both gave me a renewed appreciation for such films.

The new film Appaloosa is, to my view, a truly great Western. It is set in a small town in New Mexico in 1882 and is an adaptation of a novel by Robert B. Parker. It is an unassuming, character-driven, drama as much as it is a Western, including the saloons, whores and Indians. It takes a time period in American history, when people lived a rugged existence, and shows how they […]

Christmas and the Market

By John Armstrong|2008-10-26T04:25:00-05:00October 26th, 2008|Categories: America and Americanism|

There was a time when most of us thought that the Christmas season began after Thanksgiving. Then the retail stores began to start the festivities earlier and earlier in order to boost their year-end gains. I seem to recall that we began to hear Christmas music and see lights and Christmas-themed sales in mid-November just a few years ago. Yesterday, October 25th no less, I had to pick up something at the pharmacy at my nearby Costco. Low and behold Christmas music filled the aisles and sales were up and running. The place was packed. In fact the suburban roadways were in a state of traffic jam already. October 25th. Utterly amazing. And we are in a bad economy?

I wonder with the economy in the tank, so to speak, if Christmas will begin in September next year. Who knows, maybe we could eventually begin right after July 4th. Why not? A culture with little or no understanding of the meaning of the incarnation only has an aggressive sales plan left anyway. I have often […]

North & South

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:20-05:00October 25th, 2008|Categories: Film|

Elizabeth Gaskell's nineteenth century novel, North & South, is a passionate tale of love across the social divide of the agrarian south and the industrial north of mid-nineteenth century England. It is a book which tells a great love story while it brings the reader into the social context of the Industrial Revolution and how the impact of suffering and class struggle upon many ordinary people. The BBC produced, in 2004, a four-part mini-series based on the novel, also called North & South. It stars Richard Armitage and Daniela Denby-Ashe, both of whom are superb British dramatists.

Margaret Hale (Denby-Ashe) is the daughter of a middle-class English parson who looses his faith and can no longer follow the Prayer Book with confidence. Hale's dad decides to leave the ministry and relocate to northern England to take up teaching. Margaret's life is so fundamentally changed that she is forced to begin a whole new life in Milton (a fictitious town which is meant […]

Lay Up Treasures in Heaven

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:20-05:00October 24th, 2008|Categories: Economy/Economics|

I wonder how many Christians in America really believe the teaching of Jesus? I mean, "How many really believe it?" I doubt that the number is actually that large. Jesus plainly taught that we should "Lay up your treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupt and where thieves do not break in to steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Mathew 6:20-21).

From observation I see few who actually live this teaching. Most of us believe that we are obligated to give God a tip, or maybe even 10% as a tithe, if we are really religious. (Remember, a modern tip is now 15%.) But the text does not stop there at all. It says that where our money is amounts to the place where our heart is. American Christians are finding out these days where their hearts really are and the picture is not that pretty. I have never seen so much fear and anguish. […]

What Do the Polls Mean?

By John Armstrong|2008-10-23T19:18:01-05:00October 23rd, 2008|Categories: Politics|

Would someone please explain why we have polls on the upcoming election that say Obama's lead is as high as 13% while two very reliable polls, released in the last 24 hours, that say his lead is 1%? (A statistical dead heat!) Is this wide range of numbers as odd to you as it is to me? I am not into conspiracy theories, as I have said numerous times, but something seems amiss when the range is so vast. And why do we have so many poll anyway? What purpose do they really serve? Every one of them is based on various bits of data directly rooted in the questions that are being asked and when they are being asked. None can say who will finally vote.

Does anyone remember that the polls in 2004 said that John Kerry was up by 10% in most of the battleground states only to have him loose these states and the nation, 51% to 48%. I am not an expert on polling but I do know that these numbers are so […]

It's the Economy Stupid!

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:20-05:00October 23rd, 2008|Categories: Uncategorized|

Bill Clinton ran and won, in 1992, on the economy. Barack Obama is attempting to do the same thing in 2008. He may succeed. John McCain is doing everything within his power to stop him and to show why he can be better trusted to resolve our problems. I believe both candidates fail to grasp the depth of the "real" problem. It's not the economy, it's the debt. You don't have to be an economist to figure this one out.

Who caused the financial panic of the last few weeks? Republicans blame Fannie and Freddie. Bill O'Reilly nightly gets angry at the greedy Wall Street CEOs and corrupt congressmen. Democrats blame President Bush and the run-away free market. Republicans blame the Cintonites for creating massive entitlements and starting this mess. Democrats believe "trickle down" economics has finally failed and Republicans believe "pork spending" is the culprit. There is blame everywhere. And there is truth in some of all of it.

But no one seems willing to […]