Blog - Page 228 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Paul: Missionary of Jesus

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:48-05:00June 16th, 2008|Categories: Biblical Theology|

Paul: Missionary of Jesus
Paul Barnett
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.
Pages xvi + 240
After Jesus Series Volume 2 A Review by Dr. Don Garlington, Toronto, Ontario Paul Barnett’s book on the apostle Paul is a fine contribution to the literature. Barnett’s writing style is flowing, easy to follow and often elegant. From page one, this volume is extremely interesting and, for its size, sheds an uncommon amount of light on Paul’s life and mission. Its main thesis is that Paul was not “the real founder of Christianity.” Barnett poses the issue in these terms (2): "Was Paul a true missionary of Jesus?" Embedded in that question are others. Did Paul know about Jesus’ life and teaching? Did Paul preach Jesus’ message? Was Paul true to Jesus’ intentions? Did Paul continue in the trajectory […]

A Rare Opportunity for the Voting Public

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:49-05:00June 15th, 2008|Categories: Politics|

Lost in the shuffle of Hillary Clinton’s exist from the campaign ten days ago was a proposal from Senator McCain to Senator Obama to have as many as 10 town hall meetings before Labor Day. Let me explain.

Debates, as we have known them since Kennedy and Nixon, the most famous of all television debates, and of course the first, have taken a turn for the worse over the years. Incumbents, like Nixon and Johnson, ran away from them since they held big leads. When we have had debates they have generally been all about "not making a huge mistake" or looking ridiculous. (Remember Al Gore looking imposing and making foreign policy mistakes when this was supposed to be his strength and George W. Bush looking at his watch?) These "debates" have become sheer spectacle, or bad theater, and little comes out of them that is truly helpful in assessing the character and views of the two candidates. And they are so worked over by both campaigns in the planning stage, and thus so many compromises go into the outcome, that they end […]

You Can't Beat Fun at the Old Ballpark

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:49-05:00June 14th, 2008|Categories: Baseball|

The famous announcer Harry Carey used to say, so often, "You can’t beat fun at the old ballpark." As many of you know I share that feeling. It is a great place to be for rest and just "a time to veg." I forget almost everything else when I am at the park.

My daughter, granddaughter and I recently went to beautiful Miller Park in Milwaukee to see the Braves beat the Milwaukee Brewers 8-1. We took, Jeff Malass, along with us. Between Stacy and me we have turned Gracie into a real true-blue baseball fan: Go Sox and go Braves!!!

Stacy always tries to get Gracie to the park early. She then works her way to just the right spots and with Gracie’s cute smile and sweet face she gets some serious autographs and photo-ops. Such was the case in Milwaukee. […]

The Weather Underground and the Radical 1960s

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:49-05:00June 13th, 2008|Categories: Current Affairs|

The Weather Underground
A Documentary Film by Sam Green and Bill Siegel
The Free History Project: New Video (2003)
92 minutes

Recent political discussion about the background,and friendships, of Barack Obama has brought up the issue of the Weather Underground. The reason for this chatter is Obama’s association, especially in Chicago, with two leaders from the Weather Underground, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Ayers and Dohrn are now husband and wife and are both professors, one at Northwestern and the other at the University of Illinois. Obama has known them both and had close association with them for many years. This has raised questions about his ties to more militant groups on the far left, at least historically, and thus questions about his judgment in having such associations, which are now being more carefully scrutinized.

The Weather Underground was a […]

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:49-05:00June 12th, 2008|Categories: Race and Racism|

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
2002
4 programs, each 56 minute episodes

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow series caught my attention because of the blog I wrote on May 6 regarding race. The producer, William Jersey, is a Wheaton College graduate and learning this prompted me to familiarize myself with his documentary film work, much of which deals with race issues. This series of four programs is, in some ways, more powerful than Ken Burns’ famous Civil War series and the civil rights series, Eyes on the Prize, both award winning documentary films. In the words of Newsday, "It demonstrates why we can’t hope to understand current issues of race and prejudice without facing up to our own ungodly brutal past." I concur and highly recommend this series. In my quest to understand the issue of race much better this proved to be as moving and gripping a presentation, quite honestly, as […]

Knowing God

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:49-05:00June 11th, 2008|Categories: Spirituality|

The mystic Catholic, Thomas Merton, once noted that: “If you find God with great ease, perhaps it is not God that you have found.”

This statement underscores one of the deepest problems I have encountered over the course of my own life. I settled for thinking that I knew God, or God’s will or purpose, when I am quite sure that I was overconfident many times. The ease with which I spoke, and the ease with which I processed this knowledge, should have warned me but I was too dull oft times.

Theologians rightly speak of the deus absconditus, or of the God who is absconds, or is absent. The Psalmist knew this reality and do did Mother Teresa. Great mystics have known it and so have ordinary saints. Luther and Calvin knew it too. Just when we think we have God, or we have figured him out, he is absent from us again. He will be sought but finding is […]

My Dialog with an Orthodox Priest

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:49-05:00June 10th, 2008|Categories: ACT 3|

Last Friday evening I shared in a dialog with Fr. Jon Braun, a priest of the Orthodox Church. It was a fine evening and I enjoyed connecting with Jon Braun again. I first heard Jon speak as a college student in 1967 at the University of Alabama. His subject was "Love, Sex and Dating." Believe it or not he was giving the same teaching on Saturday to young adults in Bloomington. (The more some things change the more they remain the same I suppose.)

Back when I first heard Fr. Braun he was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ. He left Campus Crusade in 1969. He is a delightful Christian, now 75 years old and very healthy and sharp. He was most charitable and gracious to me personally. I hope I was the same to him. I am beginning to blog a new series about the back-and-forth of our evening dialog at my missional site. The first post […]

When Should You Leave Your Church?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:49-05:00June 10th, 2008|Categories: The Church|

As virtually everyone knows by now Senator Barack Obama has removed himself, and his family, from the membership at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. This happened following the sermon preached at Trinity by Father Michael Pfleger, a priest who has been a friend to Obama for some time and a man who even had a volunteer role in his campaign for a season. Father Pfleger has been a popular priest inChicago for some years, serving an African-American Catholic parish as a Roman Catholic priest.

All politics aside I am saddened that all of these events came to this place. I can’t help but think that this controversy ended poorly for the Obama and his church. Whereas he once said he could no more deny his friendship with Jeremiah Wright than […]

Is God Green? Making Sense of the Environmental Debate Among Christians

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:49-05:00June 9th, 2008|Categories: Environmentalism|

Is God Green?
Bill Moyers on America
Films for the Humanities & Sciences (2006)
60 minutes

The issue of the environment has clearly appeared on the radar screen of evangelical Christians over the past eight years. Is this a good thing or a not so good thing? A debate now rages among high-profiled evangelical leaders, most of whom know little or nothing about science. At the same time ordinary Christians are paying more attention to the environment than ever before, or so it seems to me.

This is the subject of a recent Bill Moyers’ documentary presentation called: Is God Green? It was produced in 2006, right in the middle of the fierce back-and-forth debate of two sides in the evangelical world. Moyers suggests that millions of Christians are now “green.” (I think his way of determining this sizable number is questionable, as I will soon show.) These Christians, he does show quite effectively, have taken […]

The Most Comprehensive Truth of Christianity

By John Armstrong|2008-06-07T05:00:00-05:00June 7th, 2008|Categories: The Trinity|

Theologian Charles W. Lowry has called the doctrine of the Trinity "the most comprehensive and the most nearly all-inclusive formulation of the truth of Christianity." I happen to agree with him profoundly.

Many scholars actually believe that the bulk of truly Christian doctrine is nothing more than "an extended commentary" on Christ’s reference to God as Trinity in the Great Commission (cf. Matthew 28:19-20). No truly missional conversation can advance without this "extended commentary."

It should be noted that "name" in Matthew 28 is singular, which prompted Karl Barth to strikingly call this (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) the "Christian name" of God. And contemporary theologian Thomas Oden has added, "From the time of the apostolic fathers, triunity has been considered definitive of Christian teaching of God, accepted alike by Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern church communions . . . . It is not merely speculative or theoretical or incidental or optional teaching, but is regarded by consensus as essential to the Christian understanding of God."

You will often hear certain Reformed and Lutheran conservatives cite Luther’s famous line that justification by […]