Blog - Page 250 of 318 - John H Armstrong

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 […]

Did Jeanette Sliwinski Get Justice?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:35-05:00November 27th, 2007|Categories: Counseling|

Some court cases strike me as particularly intriguing. Not because they make Court TV, though they might for all I know, but because they involve complex factors in decision making and punishment. One such case in Illinois involved the sentencing of Jeanette Sliwinski yesterday to eight years in prison. Jeanette’s crime was fairly straightforward. She, now 25 years old, got into her auto in July of 2005 after a verbal fight with her mom, and then decided to take her own life. She ran into a stopped car and in the process killed all three occupants, young men on lunch break who were 29, 35 and 39 years-of-age.

Jeanette was initially going to be tried for first-degree murder but the charge could not stick so a lesser degree was sought by the state. She was tried, not by jury but by the bench, and found guilty by Judge Garritt Howard. Most critics testify that this judge is both fair and tough at the same time.

The families of the deceased victims are most unhappy with the verdict. Jeanette has already […]

Thanks for Your Prayer Support

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:35-05:00November 25th, 2007|Categories: Personal|

This week, to say the least, has been an incredible one for me personally. It began on Monday with the passing of my mom at 12:05 p.m. I then flew back to Chicago on Tuesday and celebrated Thanksgiving with Anita’s family. We then began the drive back to Huntsvile on Thanksgiving afternoon. We decided to break up the trip to conserve my energy for the busy weekend and thus drove to Louisville on Thursday and from there to Alabama on Friday. The total trip is 625 miles and took about 11 hours driving time. Tomorrow we drive back home, hoping to arrive in the early evening. I then plan to remain at home until a trip to Texas in January to speak for the annual AMiA (Anglican) national conference in the Dallas area. This extended time at home is one I have been looking forward to for some weeks now. I hope to rest, read, see some movies, visit with dear friends and family, provide more blogs and ACT 3 Weekly articles, and then get some more in-depth writing done as well.

[…]

Roman Catholic and Evangelical Forum Now Available on DVD and MP3

By John Armstrong|2007-11-23T08:02:38-06:00November 23rd, 2007|Categories: Roman Catholicism|

The ACT 3 Roman Catholic and Evangelical Forum, held on September 16, and written about extensively in nine previous posts on this site, is now available in DVD and MP3 format. It is very nicely produced and of highest quality. Information is available at ACT 3 Online. Many who have seen it have already sent comments and expressed appreciation.

There is also a DVD of our earlier forum on the Jehovah’s Witnesses with Ron Nollet, a convert from the JW’s. Future forums are being planned for 2008.

Crazy for God

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:35-05:00November 22nd, 2007|Categories: Uncategorized|

Crazy for God (Carroll & Graf Publishers: New York, 2007), by Frank Schaeffer, is a brand-new memoir written by the son of the famous evangelical writer and evangelist, Dr. Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984). I first heard of the famous Francis Schaeffer, who was already a sensation on the Wheaton College campus in the late 1960s, when I arrived in January of 1969 as a transfer student second-term sophomore. He represented the intellectual and spiritual hopes and dreams of our younger evangelical generation, desiring so much to free ourselves from the influence of rigid and separatistic fundamentalism and the anti-intellectual pietistic, conservative Christianity we had grown up with as teens. I have thus always been grateful for his life and reading this memoir by his son made me no less grateful in the least. We have a portrait painted here, warts and all, but the end result of this deeply personal account is one that makes the late Francis Schaeffer quite appealing to anyone with an ounce of grace still in them.

Frank Schaeffer, now a 55 year-old author with serious fiction and non-fiction to […]

A Christian Service of Worship and Thanksgiving

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:36-05:00November 21st, 2007|Categories: Death|

Here is the memorial service that we have planned for this Sunday in Huntsville. I would ask you to pray for me as I preach twice in the morning at Southwood Presbyterian Church, from 1 Thessalonians 5:18 on giving thanks in all circumstances, and then do my mom’s funeral service at 2 p.m. using Hebrews 12:28-29 as my text. Amazingly, the preaching was planned several weeks ago. God’s timing was perfect and my prayer is that many will see and hear the love of Christ powerfully displayed. Your intercession would be a means of grace to me personally.

A Service of Christian Worship and Remembrance of Marie Freeman Armstrong

November 21, 1915 — November 19, 2007

Sunday, November 25, 2007 @ Southwood Presbyterian Church, Huntsville, Alabama

Prelude

Invocation Dr. Michael Honeycutt

Hymn "It Is Well with My Soul"

When peace like a river attendeth my […]