Blog - Page 276 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Free Speech & Blogging: Don't Take It For Granted

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:45-05:00February 27th, 2007|Categories: Current Affairs|

The world of blogging can be dangerous, especially if you live in Egypt and oppose Al-Azhar, the most prominent religious center in Sunni Islam. Abdel Kareem Nabil, a 22-year old former student at Egypt’s prominent university found this out last week when he was convicted of a crime for, among other things, calling the school “the university of terrorism.” He was sentenced last Thursday to four years in prison for his Internet comments and his “insults” to Islam. Nabil’s lawyer, in a vast understatement if there ever was one, said this conviction will “terrify other bloggers and have a negative impact on freedom of expression in Egypt.” You bet it will. Thankfully Egyptian and international human-rights groups have already unleashed major criticism. A New York committee to protect journalism and freedom notes that as of December there are 49 bloggers now behind bars for such expressions of free speech. Anyone want to guess what religious practice and faith fosters such a reaction to freedom of speech and vocal secularism?

A U.S. State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, had no comment on the Nabil case, […]

The Power of Amazing Grace

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:45-05:00February 26th, 2007|Categories: Film|

Rarely have I seen a movie that moved me the way Amazing Grace did last evening. The new film, which opened across America on Friday, is the story of the life-long struggle of William Wilberforce to end slavery and reform British society in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The movie should compel Christians to understand how culture can be truly altered by incrementalism, deep faith, sheer perseverance, and quite often with great personal sacrifice.

When the anti-slavery movement began in earnest in the late 18th century almost every leader in the British Empire embraced the retention of slavery on economic and, in some cases, so-called “Christian” grounds. One of the chief influences against the horrible institution was John Newton, the evangelical Anglican clergyman who wrote the world best-known hymn, “Amazing Grace,” thus the title of this new movie. Newton had been a “slaver” himself and thus knew well what happened to the Africans who were sold into slavery. After his conversion Newton lived with the nightmare of 20,000 African souls perishing through his own complicity and consistently opposed the grim […]

A Day at Grace

By John Armstrong|2007-02-25T14:26:27-06:00February 25th, 2007|Categories: Missional Church|

Grace Christian Fellowship, of Largo, Florida, is twelve years old, a young church as congregations go. It was begun by Pastor Randy Evans, and his wife Becky, after Randy had served in a much larger charismatic church in the Clearwater area as a youth pastor and associate minister. I was introduced to Randy when he came to several of our conferences in Chicago, about eight to ten years ago. When he invited me to visit, and told me that I could come in the spring, I noted that I should take him up on this invitation in March of 2005. I wrote and Randy kindly invited me to come to Largo that year. (I do like to be in Florida for spring training baseball games so why not speak at the same time, I reasoned with a measure of obvious calculation.)

Today marked my third consecutive annual visit to this growing missional church. Randy, and his associate Heath Watson, are doing a great job of pointing this church, now in its new building for a little over two years, toward advancing the kingdom […]

U.S. High Schools Learning Less: What's the Answer?

By John Armstrong|2007-02-24T10:44:30-06:00February 24th, 2007|Categories: Education|

U. S. high school students are taking harder classes, receiving better grades, and from every indication in recent data, leaning much less than their counterparts fifteen years ago. Go figure. All the talk about spending more money and about improving testing and teacher standards and the end result is that two decades of educational reform may not have improved things overall.

The U. S. Department of Education released two studies Thursday that raised very tough questions. David Driscoll, the commissioner of education for Massachusetts, notes, "I think we are sleeping through a crisis." He called these two new studies "stunning." Two means were used for this study: (1) A standardized 12th grade test, and (2) An analysis of the transcripts of 2005 high school graduates.

The fascinating thing is that students in 1990 had a GPA of 2.68 and in 2005 it rose to 2.98, and this included students taking more college preparatory courses than ever before. 12th grade reading scores have been dropping steadily since 1992. So, what are students learning in college prep classes? As for math fewer […]

The War in Iraq Has New Meaning for Me

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:45-05:00February 23rd, 2007|Categories: Personal|

All Americans have some interest in the present war in Iraq. Some have a deeper and more personal interest since they have members of their own family serving in this present struggle to establish an effective democracy in a far-away place. It is relatively easy for people to debate the merits, or demerits, of this conflict so long as they are not personally touched by the tragedy and the daily dangers of death.

Yesterday I had lunch with a dear friend of mine, a Wheaton College classmate, and also member of my advisory team. His son took up duties in Iraq almost three weeks ago as the executive officer of a company of about 150 men in the Baghdad area. He is, in other words, part of the much debated “surge.” My friend thinks of his son every moment of every day. When we met for lunch yesterday we talked about Stephen, what news he has heard (very little) and how he is doing in this dangerous place. All parents live with the reality that their children could be taken from them at […]

Ashes and Turning Away from Sin

By John Armstrong|2007-02-21T17:06:54-06:00February 21st, 2007|Categories: Church Tradition|

Today is Ash Wednesday in the West. Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans, as well as some other groups, follow this tradition each year. Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent, which is the six-week period before Easter. It appears to have originated in the 8th century. It is a day to be characterized by a penitential service during which Christians receive ashes on their foreheads with the exhortation: "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel." Another formula used in the application of the ash says, "Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return." In the Catholic Church this is an obligatory fast day. In the Roman rite the day was chosen because Sundays were excluded from fasting so to make up for the six Sundays before Easter the day fell on Wednesday. Lent ends on the Thursday before Easter and was also a time for adult catechumens to prepare for baptism and their first Eucharist.

What does all of this have to do with evangelical faith and practice? I suppose it all depends on your perspective about […]

The Prayer Appointed for the Week

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:46-05:00February 20th, 2007|Categories: Spirituality|

As readers of this blog know I have used The Divine Hours:A Manual for Prayer (Phyllis Tickle) for many months now. I have repeatedly found it a fruitful guide to daily fixed-hours of prayer and devotion. I do not follow the prayers every hour, or half-hour, using the guide. I try, and still fail, to follow the four designated times each day, if possible. These are: The Morning Office (between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m.), The Midday Office (between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.), The Vespers Office (between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.) and Compline (before retiring for bed in the evening). The word office came into modern English useage via the Latin word opus, which meant "work." When we think of the word office we think of the place where we work. But it also refers to an activity, such as running for "office" or holding an "office." Thus the word still carries the idea of an activity.

For St. Benedict the fixed-hours of prayer were "the work of God," or "the offices." The idea behind this was that the striking […]

Anglicanism and the Pope: Is Reunion About to Happen?

By John Armstrong|2007-02-19T10:33:54-06:00February 19th, 2007|Categories: Roman Catholicism|

The Times of London reports in today’s edition (www.timesonline.co.uk) that proposals to reunite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church are to be published later this year. Senior bishops of both churches are involved in these proposals and have written a 42-page statement through an internal commission of both churches. The statement urges exploration. Catholic bishops, according to The Times, are preparing a formal response.

The issue that presently divides the worldwide Anglican communion is gay ordination. This issue reflects a long downhill slide in the Western church that has led toward radical rejection of both biblical and historical authority. There is a deep longing among many conservative Anglicans for some form of churchly authority that can stop this awful slide.

There are 78 million Anglicans worldwide and over one billion Catholics. The Anglican Church’s credibility is being undermined in a world that many believe, and I include myself, needs a strong witness to historical Christian unity. This new report comes from the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission, begin in 2000 by Archbishop […]

Tranfiguration Sunday & My Junk

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:46-05:00February 18th, 2007|Categories: Church Tradition|

I have grown to love the church calendar for numerous reasons. Perhaps the simplest reason is that it takes me through the high points of the Christian story every single year. As Epiphany moves into Lent, and we approach the great celebration of Easter, many Western traditions celebrate Transfiguration Sunday on this date. As a Baptist evangelical in my first forty years or so none of this stuff was ever mentioned. The closest we ever got to a service intentionally linked to the transfiguration was if the pastor was preaching through a gospel text and that text fell on this event, which never happened at any special time of the year. It was always odd to me that we still celebrated Christmas and Easter, which seemed quite artificial to me. (Consistent Puritans, where they still exist, celebrate none of these days at all. Even the great Puritan-Baptist preacher Charles H. Spurgeon spoke about these dates having no significance to the church’s life and then preached sermons at Christmas and Easter that fit the occasion!) In my background our worship was generally one of two […]

The Changing Face of the Abortion Debate in America

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:46-05:00February 17th, 2007|Categories: Marriage & Family|

The cover of the week’s Time magazine has a picture of a human hand with four replica fetuses at various stages of early development resting in the hand. It is a powerful image and worth more than a thousand words. The story is titled: “The Abortion Campaign You Never Hear About.” It reveals how crisis pregnancy centers are working to win one woman at a time to not undergo an abortion and thus to give birth to her baby. The writer, Nancy Gibbs, asks: “But are they playing fair?”

What follows is a story about the growth and operation of countless pregnancy centers (one group says there are 2,300 but the number is seemingly low) around the United States. These centers are typically Christian and often operate under the umbrella of one of three national groups: Care Net, Heartbeat International and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates. What surprises me is that it took the mainstream media this long to even pay attention to this movement. The reason they are paying attention now is that the rate of abortion is […]