Blog - Page 286 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Was Lincoln Really the Great Emancipator?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:54-05:00November 20th, 2006|Categories: History|

There has been a debate for 140-plus years regarding whether Abraham Lincoln was really an emancipator, much less the Great Emancipator. We all know the facts: He signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. His reluctance and prevarication about abolition, and his willingness to not free the slaves if he could save the Union, are well known to those who study the man in his actions and words. So, should African-Americans be grateful for the work of "Father Abraham" to free them?

Last evening I had the oportunity to think a lot about this question. Drs. James and Lois Horton, two really superb historians and speakers, gave the annual Gettysburg College Remembrance Day lecture on Abraham Lincoln at the Majestic Theatre in downtown Gettysburg. The evening included a special award given to novelist E. L. Doctorow for civil war fiction. His recent book, The March, is about U. S. Grant’s march to the sea. This is the work that gained him the evening’s honor. (I have not read the book yet but I did get a signed copy, along with several of […]

Passing On the Ability to Tell a Story

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:54-05:00November 18th, 2006|Categories: Baseball|

I had the priviledge of meeting the award-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin at the Lincoln Forum this morning. She gave a wonderful lecture based on the title of her book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. She underscored how Lincoln was able to work with his rivals in order to accomplish much good during his years as president. She further suggested that Lincoln’s quiet self-confidence and temperamental abilities allowed him to judge people and issues with peaceful fairness. She added, intestingly, that this intense president also learned how to relax (carriage rides, reading and the theatre) in the midst of great pressure.

At the end of her lecture Goodwin spoke about how she became a writer. She traced it back to her dad teaching her how to score a baseball game as a child. She would score the game day-by-day, listening to the Brooklyn Dodgers on the radio in the afternoon after school. When her dad came home she could retell the story of the game with her scorecard. She learned the skills of research and story telling through […]

A Day at the Lincoln Forum: The Real Greatness of Our Greatest President

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:55-05:00November 17th, 2006|Categories: History|

I am attending the Lincoln Forum this weekend at Gettysburg. This is a superb event in every way. I so enjoy this time each year with about 200 people who love all things Lincoln as I do. The lectures and conversations here are always superb. Lincoln, in my judgment, was our greatest president. He is still a man who attracts incredible scholarly and popular interest the world over, 141 years after his death.

The lecture tonight was titled: "Abraham Lincoln: The Humble Military Genius." The presenter was Dr. John Marszalek, a professor of history (emeritus) at Mississippi State University. How could Lincoln, clearly a political genius by all accounts, also be seen as a military genius? He had no military training and learned everything that he knew on the job (during his presidency). He had no combat experience either. (Lincoln actually went to the Library of Congress on a number of occasions to study military tactics during his time in the White House.) The answer to this question, said Professor Marszalek, lies in the word "humility." Lincoln learned how to develop […]

My Final Post-Mortem on the Recent Elections

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:55-05:00November 16th, 2006|Categories: Politics|

The recent election post-mortems have strongly suggested that the Religious Right is not dead, but it will either change in the next few years, or it will die. Its importance in terms of real accomplishment in public policy is less and less prominent in the big picture of things. Many have strongly suggested that this change is already underway in less strident quarters. These changes have many stories within their larger story but I will list a few I see for further thought:

1. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson do not speak for most conservative Christians, if they ever did. The coalition of Christians who believe that they should actively engage the culture within the public square politically is much broader, much deeper, and far more ecumenical than anything represented by these strident voices.

2. Roman Catholic social thinking has filtered into evangelical thinking and the result is a much more mature and balanced Christian response in the larger public arena. I believe we will see this coalition grow (informally in almost every case I am quite sure) in the […]

How Postmodernity Serves Faith

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:55-05:00November 15th, 2006|Categories: Postmodernity|

Postmodernism is discussed and debated in almost every church-related setting in our day. Part of me wonders if this is simply the church catching up to a philosophy that has come and gone. Another part of me, the part that believes something significant has clearly shifted in Western thought, believes postmodernism is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

What is postmodernism? This is part of the problem. It is notoriously hard to define but I would say that it was a term first appropriated by German and French philosophers to designate the criticism of reason which had come to be regarded as a universal and certain foundation for knowledge and morality in modern culture. (The target of postmodernism appears to be the thought of Kant.) What postmodernism deeply questions is whether or not reason can establish a complete and coherent system of thought.

What does this have to do with the Christian gospel? Many suggest that it means postmodernism is the avowed enemy of the gospel in every possible way. I am not so sure. I am […]

Reflections on My Day at a Catholic Seminary

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:55-05:00November 14th, 2006|Categories: Roman Catholicism|

I mentioned last week that I spent a 24-hour retreat day on the campus of Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake. My personal retreat included time to walk, pray, read and rest. It also included some time in the library. Mundelein Seminary has a great library filled with wonderful biblical and exegetical resources, as well as the expected Roman Catholic theological treasures. I love to “hang out” in libraries and discover what a school provides as resources to its faculty and students. Mundelein clearly has a first-rate library. The older section feels like its 1920s origins and the newer, brighter, window-filled newer section is inviting and warm.

I drew some comparison/contrasts between Mundelein and evangelical seminaries I have visited, and even taught at, over the years. I made a few mental notes of several differences:

1. Mundelein puts corporate worship at the very center of seminary life. Morning prayers are held each day at 8:00 in the chapel and a community worship time, with the Mass of course, is held daily at 11:30 a.m. Evangelical seminaries also […]

How Shall We Understand the Apocalypse?

By John Armstrong|2006-11-13T10:27:28-06:00November 13th, 2006|Categories: Biblical Theology|

When it comes to interpreting the Book of Revelation, and all the predictions of the end of the world, the commentator ended the one-hour program by saying: “You only have to be right once.” With these final words a brilliantly scripted National Geographic Channel one-hour presentation on the Apocalypse ended last evening at 10 p.m. CST.

The whole program must have irritated hardcore dispensationalists, who quite naturally would have felt their views got short changed. The whole dispensational package was discredited but I for one felt that it was done well. In fact the views of dispensationalists like Tim LaHaye were presented in an accurate and telling way, including the origins of the rapture theory with a fifteen your old Scottish girl, Mary MacDonald, in the 1830s. Even C. I. Scofield got mentioned, again in an accurate and not-too-favorable way.

Mention was made in the final two minutes of the program that Roman Catholicism is considering a new document (an encyclical perhaps?) on universalism that would plainly leave the door open to this being a possibility. This is clearly a […]

Are Evangelicals Now Calvinists?

By John Armstrong|2006-11-12T16:33:46-06:00November 12th, 2006|Categories: American Evangelicalism|

A recent Harris Poll was published this weekend that revealed some numbers that frankly surprised me. I never take heart in these numbers but I do think they reveal just how far removed we are from serious Christian teaching and confession among most of those who profess faith in this country.

73% of Americans believe in God. No surprise there. 97% of those who say they were "born again" believe in God. I wonder how the other 3% can confess to being "born again" and not believe in God? My guess is that these are the people who have been "born again" (by some definition) and no longer believe that God exists. If so the number is much lower than I would have thought.

Another question put to people was about God’s gender. This is a question I have never seen asked in such a poll and the results are thus quite interesting. 1% of women and Catholics said that God was female. But 36% of those surveyed said God was male, with more women agreeing that God was male […]

Is There a New Kind of Evangelical Presence in the Political Arena?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:23:55-05:00November 10th, 2006|Categories: Politics|

Pundits and pollsters are sorting out the results of Tuesday’s elections day-by-day now. Most are agreed that these mid-term elections do not signal a huge victory for the political left. But why? The Democrats did win both houses of Congress didn’t they?

1. Most of the seats lost by Republicans were lost to candidates as a result of the Democrats running men and women who were far less extreme than the voices of the post-60s crowd that has controlled their party for decades. Think of Robert Casey, Jr. and Harold Ford, Jr. as two basic examples.
2. American is still fundamentally religious, with upwards of 85% expressing allegiance to some organized faith and a third still attending a house of worship weekly. The Democrats took this far more seriously in this most recent election cycle. Time will tell what this means and how it will play out but I expect more pro-life candidates from the Democratic Party in the coming years. One can at least hope and pray for such. In a recent Pew Research study only one in four thought this party […]

The Impact of John Paul II

By John Armstrong|2006-11-09T09:40:16-06:00November 9th, 2006|Categories: Roman Catholicism|

I am spending a twenty-four hour sabbath, after a busy six weeks of travel and speaking, at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois. Frankly, this 80 acre campus is one of the most gorgeous places in all of Illinois. It is about an hour’s drive north of my home. Last evening I had a lovely dinner, in a very wonderful Sicilian restaurant, with my good friend Rev. Dr. Thomas A. Baima, the provost of Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary. Tom and I met about four years ago when a group of evangelicals in Naperville, Illinois, arranged a Catholic and evangelical dialogue for us. It was well-attended and well done. We formed a friendship through that evening and have since explored ideas that will lead, we trust, to a larger Catholic/evangelical forum in Chicago in 2007. (Stay tuned for details!) Tom is also a contributor to my forthcoming Zondervan book on four views of the Lord’s Supper (It has a late 2007 release date, with the corresponding book on Baptism due out in January of 2007.)

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