Blog - Page 217 of 318 - John H Armstrong

The New York Times

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:30-05:00September 19th, 2008|Categories: Politics|

The New York Times was a great newspaper at one time. It still includes some great writers and reportage. It is now, of course, a national newspaper competing with the breezy modern style of USA Today. I do not think the Times is always the "tool of the left" but it comes very close. I picked up a copy in my hotel on Saturday morning, while I was in New York, and read it over breakfast. In reading the various columnists, and these columns are partisan by design, the coverage of Sarah Palin dominated the paper, besides the storms in Texas over the weekend. If you believe the columnists in the Times, this "hockey mom" is not up to high office in any way at all. That is an "opinion," and time will tell.

I found their approach Saturday morning all too typical. […]

How Much Money Will the Democrats Spend?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:30-05:00September 18th, 2008|Categories: Politics|

Which political party will spend the most money in the election season of 2008? If you come to an answer based upon stereotypes you would have to assume the big-spenders will be the "rich" fat-cat Republicans since they are the party of business and Wall Street. Wrong! Some analysts believe the Obama campaign, the DNC, and the 527s who favor Obama will spend more than $500 million before November 4, by far the most money ever spent in an attempt to win a U. S. election. (In 2000 $629 million was spent by both campaigns!)

I truly believe in campaign finance reform. I have believed this since the mid-1990s. Enron proved how badly we need it. Unions have abused campaign finances at will and now 527’s are the new loophole. I believe money is a major problem in American politics. It has corrupted both parties. I have said on this site before that the McCain-Feingold law missed solving the major problem because people […]

Brother Yun, Living Water U.S. Tour

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:30-05:00September 17th, 2008|Categories: ACT 3|

ACT 3 is sponsoring the Chicagoland portion of Brother Yun’s Living Water U.S. Tour.

Brother Yun will speak on Saturday, September 20, from 9:30 – 11:30 am at the Lindner Center at Northern Baptist Seminary in Lombard. Seating is limited so reserve your spot today by registering online.

Village Bible Church in Sugar Grove, IL will host Brother Yun at their morning worship Services on Sunday, September 21, at 9:30 am.

Brother Yun will also appear on Sunday, September 21, at 7:00 pm at the Coray Auditorium in the Beamer Center at Wheaton College. This event is hosted by the Office of Student Outreach at Wheaton College and is part of their Missions in Focus evening event.

This is a FREE event

World Christian Fellowship Chapel at Wheaton College

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:30-05:00September 16th, 2008|Categories: ACT 3|

Tomorrow I will speak in chapel at Wheaton College. This Wednesday chapel is broadcast live on WETN.FM, 88.1. You can hear it if you live in the area. The chapel service itself begins at 10:35 a.m. It ends at 11:15 a.m. Guests are welcome to come and sit in the balcony of Edman Memorial Chapel. The re-broadcast of the service will take place on Wednesday evening and you can hear it online at the college radio feature on the Wheaton College Website.

This opportunity came about because of our hosting Brother Yun this week for several Chicago area events. I want to especially encourage you to hear Brother Yun this Saturday, September 20, at 9:30 a.m. at the Lindner Conference Center at Northern Seminary in Lombard. This unique event will go from 9:30 until 11:30. You can sign up for this free event at our Web site.

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Man Is a Social Being

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:30-05:00September 15th, 2008|Categories: The Church|

On my way to New York last Friday I bought a copy of the New York Times. I sometimes read it online but I wanted to see the print edition while I was traveling. The coverage of the interview by ABC host Charles Gibson of Sarah Palin seemed even-handed and accurate. The Chicago Sun-Times, our rag-sheet daily newspaper, as opposed to the serious and more reliable Chicago Tribune, headlined: "Hockey Mom Checked!" I knew immediately their agenda was not reporting the news.

Anyway, conservative columnist David Brooks wrote fine piece in the New York Times ("The Social Animal") that suggested Republicans were pretty tone deaf to the communitarian nature of how we should actually live our lives. Brooks quoted the late conservative champion Senator Barry Goldwater:

"Every man, for his individual good and for the good of his society, is responsible for his own development. The choices that govern his life are choices that he must make; they cannot be made by any other human being."

Brooks […]

Start Them When They Are Young

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:31-05:00September 14th, 2008|Categories: Baseball|

My readers know I am a baseball fan. In fact, I am working to get several baseball stories and analogies into my forthcoming book on church unity. Yesterday I saw the Mets play the Braves at Shea Stadium, thus reaching my 28th of 30 major league parks. (Only the two parks in Florida remain but then New York will open two new stadiums next season which will get me back here again I am quite sure.) Special thanks to Dr. Craig Higgins, the senior pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Rye, New York, who got me a ticket and took me to the game. (Craig is a Georgia native and also a big Braves fan who is living in exile while serving Trinity in New York.)

What really tickled me was to get this recent picture from my two grandchildren. They have begun to follow their grandfather’s legacy it seems. They have been to several […]

Lipstick, Pigs and Partisan Politics

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:31-05:00September 13th, 2008|Categories: Politics|

The American two-party political system is both wonderful and severely flawed. It allows us to conduct free elections and to promote our ideals through a political means that can actually accomplish something for the overall good of the nation, or at least it did at some points in our history. At the same time this wonderful, and sometimes efficient, two-party system is severely flawed. I am inclined to think that what it does best, at least in the present context, is to keep one single group from dominating and forcing radical change. By this means it preserves us through a time when we are an almost evenly divided nation about a number of political and social issues. Being an incrementalist I believe one of the reasons the founders, for example, set up three branches of government was to hinder the prospect of future revolutions. Yet we still had a bloody Civil War. No system is perfect!

I have quoted former-president Harry Truman […]

Brother Yun

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:31-05:00September 12th, 2008|Categories: ACT 3|

I wrote a blog on the Chinese pastor Brother Yun sometime last year. As a result of that blog, and the kindness of God, I will now host Brother Yun in his Chicago area appearances related to his book tour that Zondervan is conducting for his new book Living Water. You can get information about this at our Web site.

I will also be speaking in chapel at Wheaton College next Wednesday, September 17, at 10:35 a.m. CDT. This chapel program is associated with the World Christian Fellowship at Wheaton. I am speaking on the global church in preparation for Brother Yun’s visit to campus on Sunday evening, September 21. Brother Yun will also speak for ACT 3 in a special Saturday morning event at Northern Seminary in Lombard at 9:30 a.m. and at Village Bible Church in Sugar Grove, Illinois in their morning service on September 21. Again, you can find all this information on our […]

9/11: The Day We Should Never Forget

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:31-05:00September 11th, 2008|Categories: America and Americanism|

Because the "war on terror" is so hotly debated I believe most Americans have little or no concept of what our civilization is engaged in right now. I know this sentence is controversial to some readers but I am convinced it is true. I majored in history and have always had a great love for the subject. I have studied twentieth century history in particular. It was the "bloodiest" century in human history. I think both World War I and World War II were not necessary, at least not initially. The problem is that many "wished" for the best and then did little or nothing to prepare for defending the West against the onslaught of ideologies and leaders who hated our values. In the case of World War II this was particularly true. One only has to recall Neville Chamberlain to know how unpreparedness set the stage for a longer and more costly conflict.

On this date, September 11 (seven years ago), […]

Another 9/11: September Dawn

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:31-05:00September 10th, 2008|Categories: The War on Terrorism|

More than a hundred years before September 11, 2001, another terrorist attack took place on American soil that most of us know nothing about. I refer to the Mountain Meadow Massacre on September 11, 1857, in the Utah territory. The disturbing and horrific film September Dawn tells the story of the actual events of this attack. The film story is woven around a fictitious love story that gives a certain human texture to what would otherwise have been a documentary in the end.

Historians do not agree about the full story but even Mormon historians now admit the massacre actually happened. They put a spin on it and the debate rages on in many circles. But raw facts have a way of forcing you to admit the truth, even about your own religious fathers, when 150-plus years have transpired. Meanwhile the debate about whether Brigham Young actually knew and approved of this massacre still rages on in Mormon circles. You can read […]