Blog - Page 261 of 318 - John H Armstrong

The Brave Story of a Child of Islamic Martyrs

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:58-05:00August 11th, 2007|Categories: Islam|

Now They Call me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror
Nonie Darwish.
Sentinel, Penguin Books (2006)
Cloth, 258 pages, $23.95

A Book Review by Shirley W. Madany

From my first encounter with Nonie Darwish, through her articles and web site, I felt that she was someone special. I was attracted by her open and obvious love for America. That web site disappeared, only to reappear as www.arabsforisrael.com , with its unique opening statement:

To Muslims and Arabs across the globe: Reject hate, embrace love. Bring out the best in Islam by showing your compassion, gratitude and forgiveness. Make the holy land truly holy by giving Israel and the Jewish people the respect they deserve in their tiny little country. This is not a crisis over land. It is a crisis of the soul; a crisis in our faith, judgment and self confidence. Israel should not be regarded as an enemy, but as a blessing to our neighborhood. We need not fear peace, but embrace it.

These are remarkable words coming from […]

The ELCA: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:58-05:00August 10th, 2007|Categories: Homosexuality|

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has been meeting this week at Navy Pier in Chicago. The big-issue has once again been the attempt to legitimate homosexual practice among clergy. This issue will divide the church for certain. But those who propose the acceptance of the practice officially have shown no concern about church unity at all. They believe that this is an issue of justice and thus it is time for the church to repent and embrace their sexual identity and practice.

On Tuesday 80 gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gendered ministers attacked what they called a present policy of "don’t ask, don’t tell." This policy, in effect, allows some latitude for such clergy so long as these ministers do not openly create divisions in their churches that bring about opposition. But this policy is not enough for the aggressive activists. They want a church-wide policy that embraces their lifestyle as biblically and morally ethical. Many of those who openly displayed their opposition to the ELCA on Tuesday are part of the Extraordinary Candidacy Project, a group of ordained gay clergy […]

Sweet Land: One of the Sweetest Movies of the Year

By John Armstrong|2007-08-09T11:07:14-05:00August 9th, 2007|Categories: Film|

If you as sick of the boy meets girl and “hooks up” for a hot evening of passion, and falls in love (?) for ever and ever, but then not quite, then you will love Sweet Land. I did. This is the kind of movie that should have gotten an Academy Award nomination or two but would never have a chance since it was produced on a small budget and had no money for advertising. But don’t let that fool you. It is one of the finest movies of 2006 and was released on DVD in July of this year.

Sweet Land is a gentle period-piece based upon A Gravestone Made of Wheat, a short-story written by Will Weaver. The film explores the lives of early 20th century Norwegian immigrant farmers in Minnesota, just after the end of World War I. Written and directed by the son of Egyptian immigrants, Ali Selim, it bears the rich marks of the immigrant experience in a powerful and transcendent way. It is a gorgeous film, a nearly perfectly told story and extremely intelligent. What Selim […]

756: The Milestone and My Thoughts

By John Armstrong|2007-08-08T11:44:36-05:00August 8th, 2007|Categories: Uncategorized|

As baseball fans, and even many non-fans, know by now Barry Bonds hit career home run number 756 last evening in San Francisco, breaking the 33 year-old record of my childhood hero, Hank Aaron. The controversy surrounding this event has been huge. A great deal of this, as usual, was media-generated. Before we put this to rest I want to share a few reflections on the day after the famous long ball.

1. This new record will likely not stand for another 33 years. In fact, if Alex Rodriguez does not have serous injuries he will break it in less than ten years! If he doesn’t break it a half dozen others will challenge it in the next twenty years; e.g., Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, etc.

2. Barry Bonds actually handled himself fairly well during the last part of this home run chase. He was cordial, not sullen as he was for so many years, and seemed to have some measure of peace about it all.

3. Hank Aaron should not be faulted for not being present last night. His […]

Albert Ellis and the Birth of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:58-05:00August 7th, 2007|Categories: Counseling|

Albert Ellis (1913-2007) died a few days age. He was the father of a counseling method called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. When he was only 19 years old he devised a therapeutic technique to help him deal with his personal shyness. He sat on a park bench at the New York Botanical Gardens and decided to speak to every woman who sat down alone. Over the course of one month 30 women walked away but 100 stayed and chatted with him. This direct approach led him to believe that emotional hang-ups could be altered by discipline and rational choices. The National Institute of Mental Health says that today more than two-thirds of all therapists in the U.S. use this method in their counseling. When you consider where we were before Ellis, with the influence of Freudianism so strong, this is nothing less than a massive shift. It was Ellis who famously referred to Freud’s doctrines as "horseshit." He got that right.

No matter what a person had suffered or struggled with in the past Ellis argued that "Neurosis is a high-class name […]

You Can't Control Community but You Can Nurture It

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:58-05:00August 6th, 2007|Categories: The Church|

Thankfully large numbers of Christians are coming to understand that individualistic lifestyles are sub-Christian at best. In some cases they are anti-Christian, at least when they become utterly self-centered. The emerging generation, and the postmodern social and cultural context, have both reminded us that we need people, people in community and people in families. This is more than a new mantra. It is fundamental to our identity as creatures made in the image of the triune God, a God who enjoys community within himself as a trinity of persons. Further, God made the solitary to live in the family and he created the family to be the original community designed for life together. And he made Israel and the Church to be living communities.

What is hard for so many who are pursuing participation in community with new joy is to understand is that they cannot control community. You can’t even make it happen or create it, all tendencies my generation thinks it can manage. No, you can’t control community but you can nurture it. Find it and enter into it. Accept […]

The Bourne Ultimatum: A Real Thrill Ride

By John Armstrong|2007-08-04T18:03:30-05:00August 4th, 2007|Categories: Film|

Sequels usually don’t get it for me and "threequels" are often even worse. Not so with The Bourne Ultimatum, the third movie in a series of three. If you like action thrillers this has to be the best one of the summer. Michael Phillips calls it "a breathless 115 minutes" for a very good reason. It is an action picture that treats narrative rather lightly but in the end it just works superbly.

Novelist Robert Ludlum, who wrote the trilogy about the character Jason Bourne really knows action and detail. And Bourne, an undercover CIA special agent, is perfectly typecast in this movie with Matt Damon. (The film does leave the door open for another Bourne movie but I would guess this has to be it for the series!) Agent Bourne, played adroitly by Damon as noted, is a CIA-trained assassin who is on a search mission to figure out how he was programmed and who he really was before he began killing people all over the world for the U. S. government. The Bourne Ultimatum was supposedly produced on a $130 million […]

Pitching Excellence and BABE

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:58-05:00August 3rd, 2007|Categories: Baseball|

I bet the title of this blog got your interest, even if you don’t like baseball at all. BABE is a new baseball statistic, so far as I can tell, that until today I knew nothing about. The Wall Street Journal (August 3) has a great feature article on this measurement for pitching. BABE stands for bases per batter. A pitcher gets credit for each batter they face and the BABE equals the total number of bases they allow per batter. It is arrived at by dividing the number of total bases (both hits and walks a pitcher gives up) by the number of batters faced. The best BABE in baseball is Chris Young of the San Diego Padres who has a BABE of .330. Tim Hudson, star pitcher for my Atlanta Braves, is third in the MLB with a BABE of .359.

Baseball is a huge statistical game for those fans who carefully follow this game. Pitchers have an ERA (Earned Run Average), a won-loss record and percentage, even a WHIP, the statistic which refers to walks plus hits divided by […]

Markets and Their Importance to the Electorate

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:58-05:00August 2nd, 2007|Categories: Economy/Economics|

I have argued for many years now that free markets are intrinsically good. I have tried to engage this issue with Christians but many are either not interested or do not see any importance in the pursuit. I know markets can become bad masters when people lack virtue. I also know that the alternatives to free markets have littered the twentieth century with more death than any single cause in human history. (Think socialism, facism and Marxism.) And representative democracy, a republic of just laws, is not perfect either but it sure beats the alternatives. Shared power is always better than control by the one or the few. Social engineering and economic planning by an elite and powerful few strips us of both human dignity and true freedom.

Bryan Caplan, an economics professor at George Mason University, is the author of a new book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Politics, that has a significant bearing on how we should think about the political side of economic concerns in America. Professor Caplan concludes, in words that are not […]

John Stott's Final Public Address

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:22:59-05:00August 1st, 2007|Categories: Evangelism|

Readers of this blog know that I have held a life-long appreciation for John R. Stott. Now 86 years of age the famous minister just gave his final public address. He spoke at the well-known Keswick Convention in Britain on July 17 and you can read the sermon at Langham Partnership. If you want to hear it you can download it for a small fee.

The report describes the famous man walking to the podium with his wooden cane and appearing, as always, to be the senior statesman that he has been for decades. His last book, The Living Church, will soon appear in print. Interestingly this will be his fiftieth book. Though Stott does not seem to be on death’s door he is significantly slowed and thus has decided that the transition of his work has now been completed. Even in fully retiring he shows us once again the grace that has always marked this man.

Stott’s last public message stressed incarnational evangelism, a biblical truth that he had lived and taught for a lifetime. The sermon is […]