Blog - Page 278 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Helping An Aged Parent

By John Armstrong|2007-02-10T22:57:30-06:00February 10th, 2007|Categories: Personal|

It is late on Saturday night. I just returned from a two-day visit with my aged mom (91 years old) and my brother and his family, in Huntsville, Alabama. I have made these trips more often over the past few years. It is increasingly evident that my mom is failing more and more with each visit, becoming quite frail, much less mobile and increasingly forgetful. Nothing you do in life prepares you precisely for these difficult days of caring for a very old parent. On one level it is a pure delight to care for my mom since she gave me life and nurtured me for eighteen years. And in some ways a parent never stops parenting you, even at this stage. But the roles have changed. Along with my brother and his wife, I am now helping make the basic decisions that relate to mom’s life and care just as she once did for me. It is a major role reversal that comes when a parent lives this long, and more and more people are living past 90. If you have older parents […]

The Role of Limited Government

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:46-05:00February 9th, 2007|Categories: History|

Our religious and political rights are uniquely bound up together. Most young Americans, and far too many older native born American citizens, have little or no idea how important this truth really is.

The central idea behind this unique relationship in American political understanding is limited government. This is really what classical liberalism understood and fervently practiced. Modern liberalism has little or nothing to do with this understanding, preferring to stress ideologies that are neither truly liberal nor limited.

The founding fathers fervently believed that we were all created equal, with inherent rights to life and liberty given to us by God. This belief was rooted in both Judeo-Christian beliefs and some elements of Enlightenment philosophy. The securing of these rights was the very basis for a limited government. And a limited government was based upon the understanding that true power arose from the governed who were willing to consent to a just government.

There were some very big differences of opinion among our founding fathers, such as two very different views of America’s future as represented by […]

Shepherd Leaders Needed: Others Need Not Apply

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:47-05:00February 8th, 2007|Categories: Pastoral Renewal|

For some years I have taught biblical and common sense principles of leadership to churches. This all began by way of a two-day seminar I taught for another ministry back in the 1980s. This experience actually launched my present ministry but I did not understand this at the time. I found that I spent lots of time with pastors and other church leaders, in these local-church based seminars, teaching sessions to between 10 and 40 people about ten to twelve times a year. This experience forced me to listen, interact and develop people skills in the process. Being a student of anything that interests me at all (including theology, film, political theory, public policy, history, baseball and college football) I found that I wanted to study this subject of leadership much more intensely. I thus read lots of books, Christian and non-Christian. I talked to lots of leaders, some well-known and some not well-known at all. This all impacted my own sense of being a pastor and helped me to grow in that role during my sixteen years in my second church (1976-1992). (I […]

The Place of Fixed-Hour Prayers

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:47-05:00February 7th, 2007|Categories: Spirituality|

I was interviewed by a reporter for the Chicago Tribune yesterday who is working on a story about “fixed-hour prayers.” She discovered my interest via this blog site. Having just begun my day with fixed-hour prayer I want to comment on this ancient Christian discipline again.

Phyllis Tickle, who authored a useful three-volume series called The Divine Hours, notes: “Like a double helix rendered elegant by complexity and splendid by authority, the amalgam of the gospel and the shared meal with the discipline of the fixed-hour prayer were, and have remained, the chain of golden connection tying Christian to Christ and Christian to Christian across history, across geography, and across idiosyncrasies of faith. The former is known as the food and sustenance of the Church and the latter as its work.” It is as if there is a two-fold strand—the sacrament of the holy meal and the daily prayers.

What surprises many Protestants when they first encounter this idea of fixed-hour prayer is that the practice is deeply rooted in both Judaism and the work of the earliest Christians. Consider Psalm […]

The Rise of the Nice Baptists

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:47-05:00February 6th, 2007|Categories: American Evangelicalism|

My friend John Wilson, editor of Books and Culture, wrote an excellent guest column in the Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal (February 3, 2007). John is not a Southern Baptist but he demonstrated a keen insight into their recent history and the ongoing debates among the various camps of Baptists that now splinter the old SBC into new factions almost every passing day.

Wilson notes that certain “hardliners” control several of the official seminaries, referring particularly Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas. Wilson correctly calls Southwestern’s president, Paige Patterson, a “hyper-conservative.” It was under Patterson’s leadership, for example, that a woman professor was asked to leave her job (as reported by the Associated Press) because Patterson believes women should not teach men theology. (This argument stands on slim, shaky and non-existent grounds if you pay careful attention to the Scripture itself!) This kind of action drives even more moderately conservative people away from the leadership of the SBC. It has even led others to leave the SBC altogether. Enter former president Jimmy Carter, who left the SBC in protest […]

Two Consistent and Courageous Senators with Totally Opposite Views on the War in Iraq

By John Armstrong|2007-02-05T19:59:28-06:00February 5th, 2007|Categories: Politics|

John McCain and Russ Feingold could not be more different about their views of the War in Iraq. Feingold is prepared to cut off all funding, to bring the troops home now, and thus to stop the President’s direction. McCain is just the opposite in his view. He believes we actually need even more troops than the “surge” calls for. He has been saying this for well over a year, long before most in the Senate or elsewhere even discussed it. But there is one thing that unites Feingold and McCain. Both are consistent and both are bold in stating their views. They are not willing to spin this war in the air waiting to see how much they can defend or attack and then get away with it. Both men have the courage of their convictions, which may explain why they stood side-by-side in their campaign for financial reform legislation just a few years ago. (Their famous bill, known as the McCain-Feingold Act, proved to really solve almost nothing even though it tried to present some real solutions in the area of campaign […]

Two Great Coaches and Their Faith in Christ

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:47-05:00February 3rd, 2007|Categories: Evangelism|

The Super Bowl is finally upon us, with kickoff at 5 p.m. CST tomorrow afternoon. I have made my loyalty to the Chicago Bears widely known. What I haven’t commented upon previously is that both the head coaches of the two teams in this Super Bowl are wonderful Christian men. Tony Dungy (Colts) and Lovie Smith (Bears) are not only the first African-American head coaches to take a team to the Super Bowl but they are open and clear about their profession of faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord.

Coach Dungy lost a son, James, to suicide just a year ago. His story is powerfully related to that personal tragedy and how his faith helped him through it. Coach Smith grew up in a strong Christian home and speaks of his mother’s influence on his faith living in the deep South. These two men are not theologians so do not watch their stories with a critical eye. Watch them to hear a simple, clear testimony from two prominent men, who have been given a very big stage this week. Both men […]

If You Want to Serve the Public You Better Show Up for Work

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:47-05:00February 2nd, 2007|Categories: Politics|

A recently announced conservative candidate for president is Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas). Brownback is openly proclaiming the need to restore God-centered values to the nation. His announcement speech almost sounded like an evangelistic appeal. But there is a major flaw in Brownback’s values and public performance. He has been virtually absent from Congress while he has been running around the country trying to build momentum for his candidacy in 2008. One has to wonder what values Brownback really holds to when Congress adjourned on October 4, 2006, and then began a new session in early January of ‘07. During that time period, of about eleven weeks, Brownback needed to show up for only a few days of work, but he skipped town entirely.

Then, when Congress began meeting again in 2007, Brownback missed all of the votes in the first full week of the new Congress. What is even more amazing is that this value oriented conservative senator was too busy to participate in the important senate discussions regarding ethics reforms. And Sam Brownback hasn’t been working much this week either, missing all […]

Surviving the Internet's Ability to Make Private Statements Public in an Information Age

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:47-05:00February 1st, 2007|Categories: Culture|

I am still frankly amazed at how comments can be taken, and then interpreted out of their context, and spread via the Internet in a matter of seconds, creating a controversy that should not even exist. Truly this powerful medium, which has done so much good and will continue to do great good, can be used for malicious talk and character assassination. Anyone with a computer can say about anything they want and seemingly without personal consequences. I am reminded, as a Christian, that I am responsible for every word I speak, or write, and that I will answer to God. I am also aware that far too many people make far too much out of very little and the Internet feeds this frenzy.

I often remind folks that if Martin Luther were alive today many Christians would consider him crude and a man with poor tastes in both drink and culture. But since he is dead he is a hero to many. He was, like you and me, a mortal. He was also a very flawed but profoundly interesting mortal. I […]

The Super Bowl and Christian Freedom

By John Armstrong|2007-01-31T10:03:06-06:00January 31st, 2007|Categories: Culture|

This is, as millions already know, Super Bowl week. Nothing is hyped all across America quite like the Super Bowl. This game has reached amazing proportions when it comes to the viewing audience and massive commercialization. It is a stunning piece of popular culture and one doesn’t know whether to weep about it or celebrate. Some pietistic folk see this as clear evidence that there is little real difference between us and the ancient Romans in the Coliseum. Others think this is the greatest day of the whole year with the biggest event of all time at 5 p.m. Everything, so it seems, virtually comes to a halt for the Super Bowl.

Here in Chicago the event is, of course, really big with the Bears in the game. So, how important are the Bears this Lord’s Day? Well, big enough to alter many churches and their plans for the day. What few churches still have services of any sort on Sunday evening will cancel them this week, with only a few exceptions. One priest, whose parish does have an evening Mass (as […]