Blog - Page 250 of 318 - John H Armstrong

After the Wedding

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:34-05:00December 7th, 2007|Categories: Film|

After the Wedding is a 2006 Danish film now widely available on DVD. It received an Academy Award nomination for best foreign language film last year. It is one of the best stories that I’ve seen on film this year. It begins with Jacob (Casino Royale villain, Mads Mikkelsen), who is running an orphanage in India. The scenes here bring back powerful remembrances to me personally since I did work there in several such settings in the 1980s, but for only a month at a time. Jacob is an idealistic, guarded and emotionally reserved guy who you sense immediately has a past that powerfully influences his present. He returns to Denmark to get money for his work from a wealthy businessman and potential benefactor named Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard).

Jacob feels very out-of-place in his five-star hotel penthouse suite and wants desperately to return to India and his work. But his life is about to be radically altered in a way that he could never have imagined. Invited by Jorgen, innocently enough as a gesture of friendship, to attend his daughter’s wedding Jacob […]

A Great Year for Films

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:34-05:00December 6th, 2007|Categories: Uncategorized|

The year 2006 was a bad year for films. I mean Al Gore won an Academy Award in 2006! And the best films were a major cut below the films of much better years. But 2007 is different. This is proving to be a banner year for good films. If you love movies, and I do, then there are some must see films playing right now.

Yesterday the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures (NBR) released its awards for 2007. These first awards often portend the other awards that will come out in the next few months, including the famous Academy Awards. This is not always the case since the Academy Awards are too often rooted in popularity and politics. The NBR members include educators, historians and film industry professionals. The NBR sometimes makes choices that disdain box office appeal and they are thus willing to pick more esoteric films. This may be the case this year but I am hard pressed to believe The Academy will not follow suit in most cases.

The best film of 2007, according to […]

Does Tradition Matter?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:34-05:00December 5th, 2007|Categories: Church Tradition|

The majority of evangelicals, at least in America, would answer the question I pose in my title negatively. When they hear this word they think of traditionalism and of ancient practices that are non-biblical. This is unfortunate for a number of reasons.

I thought about this question yesterday as I conversed with a very good friend who is a devout Roman Catholic. I was sharing how I had recently re-embraced the reading of the Scriptures in large narrative chunks of material at one sitting as a good spiritual practice. (I have tended to read the Scripture by doing technical exegesis as primary and thus became used to studying it as something like a science book at times.) She admitted that she never did read Scripture in this manner, though she attends some Benedictine worship settings where this is practiced by the brothers. She then said, "But by going to daily Mass I hear the Word of God read aloud as it was intended to be used as stated by the writers of the New Testament itself."

After thinking about this […]

Missional Churches and Partnership Styles of Leading

By John Armstrong|2007-12-04T21:07:22-06:00December 4th, 2007|Categories: Missional Church|

Leadership is a huge issue in the American Church these days. Book after book is being produced on this subject. It has become another "fad" we spend a lot of time talking about. I find most of it both boring and unhelpful.

Missiologist Ralph Winter has written: “It is astonishing that most Protestant missionaries … have been blind to the
significance of the very structure within which they have worked. In this
blindness, they have merely planted churches and have not effectively concerned
themselves to make sure that the kind of mission structure within which they
operate also be set up on the field.”

The answer to this problem is true partnership
in ministry, the kind of partnership that
is so often lacking in our modern way of leading people and missions. We place the highest priority
on entrepreneurial skills and strong vision. In the process we have often missed the mark and thus do not reproduce ourselves missionally.

A college classmate
of mine wrote me today. When I visited the Web site of his mission I found these four
marks of his […]

A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:35-05:00December 3rd, 2007|Categories: American Evangelicalism|

My late friend, Bob Webber, helped to write and establish what is now known as the "Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future." This call is available at Ancient Future Worship. There is also an active and interesting blog carried on in association with this call. I encourage you to read the Call and visit the blog spot if you have never done so. It is consistent with my vision of the past, the present and the future of the Church. If you want to know where I am headed read this material. If you want a vision that is rooted in ancient and classical Christianity then read it. If you believe that the future must pass through the historical past then read it.

The second annual gathering around the Ancient Evangelical Future Call took place November 30 to December 1 at Northern Seminary in the Chicago suburb of Lombard. The subject this year was: "On the Primacy of the Biblical Narrative." Plenary speakers included Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Scot McKnight and Edith Humphrey. I have read Kevin a great deal and […]

The College Football Season Takes More Strange Twists in an Already Strange Season

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:35-05:00December 1st, 2007|Categories: College Football|

Now that Missouri and West Virginia, the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in college football this week, have both fallen today, there is still no reason to believe that the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) will be changed. During a conference call with reporters earlier this week Mike Slive, the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference and the coordinator of the BCS system, told reporters that a college football playoff is unlikely in the foreseeable future. Slive said that he was open to discussions about the BCS going to a plus-one format, which would match the top two teams in the country after the four major bowls are played but did not think and eight team playoff system was in the offing.

Currently, there are five BCS bowl games and the matchups for these games are set following the regular season, with the top two teams playing in the BCS championship game. With Hawaii as the only unbeaten team left in major college football, the national title game is assured of having no undefeated team for just the second time in BCS history. […]

Crazy for God: A Presentation by Frank Schaeffer on C-Span

By John Armstrong|2007-12-01T08:07:47-06:00December 1st, 2007|Categories: American Evangelicalism|

Author Frank Schaeffer, whose book Crazy for God, I began to write about last week, will appear on C-Span this evening and tomorrow, December 1-2. (My comments on the book will continue in the coming days.) If you have access to cable television you should be able to see this presentation on your C-Span channel. Book TV, the weekend programming of C-Span is some of the most useful television programming in our time. Check out C-Span on the weekends and especially Frank’s presentation this evening. If record or Tivo the program then the link above will provide the time.

The Death of a Great American: Henry Hyde (1924-2007)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:35-05:00November 30th, 2007|Categories: Abortion|

Henry Hyde (1924-2007) was my congressman. Yes, he was a
national figure to many. Indeed, I believe he was one of the most influential figures in
recent American political history. But to me he will always be “my congressman.”
He not only represented my
district in congress, and received my vote with deep pride every two years, but he
was a larger-then-life, but very human, hero too.

Hyde’s district did not always include my area of Illinois but in
redrawing the political district many years ago he became our congressman. I
was delighted! Whenever I saw him I felt a pride in knowing that this was the man who in some way spoke
for me in a powerful but graciously human way. You see Henry Hyde was not your ordinary political
figure. Nor was he always the mean conservative that many thought him to be. He was a man of the people, who always had time to care for the human person individually, and he was a man of highest moral character. (I know all about his
moral indiscretions, revealed during Clinton impeachment hearings to help defame him. […]

The Danger of Political Correctness Cuts Both Ways

By John Armstrong|2007-11-29T21:05:48-06:00November 29th, 2007|Categories: Uncategorized|

Radio and TV talk show host Glenn Beck’s new book, An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World’s Biggest Problems (Simon & Schuster) has soared to the number one spot on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list—despite the fact that it has been totally ignored by the mainstream press. Beck, now rated as the number three most-listened-to radio talk show host among listeners under 54 years of age, and the host of an increasingly popular daily television program on CNN’s Headline News that I have watched ever so infrequently (I watch very little television), seems to have come out of nowhere to be a fresh voice for reasoned opinion among conservatives. Even some non-conservatives have had to acknowledge that Beck is bright and fresh. His new book is already ranked number one among all books on amazon.com.

According to one source, that has reviewed the book, Beck dissects the surrealism and flawed thinking so rampant in today’s culture. His astute analysis puts the lie to comic Jon Stewart’s description of Beck as “a guy who says what people who don’t think, […]

Opinions on the College Football Season

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:35-05:00November 28th, 2007|Categories: College Football|

Well, we have another new No. 1 team this week—Missouri. I have been saying for weeks that Kansas would lose a game so I guess I am not a total dunce when it comes to predictions. LSU losing to Arkansas was a surprise, but not completely. And go figure, Tennessee will play in the SEC Championship game and Alabama beat them 41-17! But think about this startling fact. Coach Houston Nutt resigns from Arkansas, under intense state-wide pressure, after Arkansas beat the No. 1 team in the land on the road and finished with eight wins, a very respectable season. (I think Arkansas will regret losing Houston Nutt.) Then about twenty-four hours later Houston Nutt is the new coach at rival Old Miss. Now the merry-go-round moves again. Will Tommy Tuberville get the contract extension he deserves at Auburn or will be bolt to Arkansas or Texas A & M perhaps? And what will Les "The Mouth" Miles do at LSU? Is he singing "Hail to the Victors" in the shower these days? I think so. We shall see.

So Missouri is […]