Blog - Page 288 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Donna Shalala's Willful Blindness

By John Armstrong|2006-10-21T13:42:16-05:00October 21st, 2006|Categories: Current Affairs|

The University of Miami has become a great football powerhouse over the past twenty years or so, winning several national championships. It has also earned a reputation for problem athletes and bad behavior, both on and off the field. Last Saturday Miami lived up to this reputation by engaging in one of the most brutal on-field episodes of fighting that I have seen in my lifetime. Players from Miami and Florida International University, an upstart big-time college program, exchanged blows for several minutes and created a huge battle on the field that made for rare, and disgusting, video footage.

Florida International University announced this week that it would suspend all the players involved in this fight indefinitely. Almost everyone agreed this action was appropriate. Miami decided to suspend all but one of its involved players for only one game. The one game is agianst Duke, a team Miami could beat without half its team. This punishment is so minor that everyone near the sport is stunned.

So, how do you explain the leniency of this action by the University of Miami? […]

The iPod Revolution

By John Armstrong|2006-10-20T16:00:55-05:00October 20th, 2006|Categories: Personal|

As I road the Metro underground in Washington, D.C., this week I was struck by how much the iPod revolution has impacted people under 35 in age. I estimated, on about six or seven different trips that I took on the subway, that three of every young adults around me (unless they were talking to someone else) was using an iPod on the train. This is astounding when you consider that this technology was only introduced a few short years ago. It has impacted the emerging generation so profoundly that I concluded that if you want to talk to this group of people you had better consider podcasting as an important tool. I already put the ACT 3 Weekly into a podcast and intend to do more podcasting in 2007 in order to use this growing resource to reach younger people with the message of Christ’s Kingdom.

The Work of Renewal & the ACR

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:24:08-05:00October 19th, 2006|Categories: Renewal|

I have the inestimable joy of serving on the Association for Church Renewal (ACR). This group existed for many years as an ad hoc committee of various renewal voices in the mainline denominations. The reason these men and women met over the past twenty-plus years was primairly for encouragement. (Encouragement is a real need when you seek to be faithful and prophetic in this culture.) When I began to work closely with mainline churches and institutions in the late 1990s I was invited to be part of this group by the leader, Dr. James Heidinger, IV. Jim leads the marvelous Methodist work for renewal and reformation called Good News. He is a refreshingly gracious and kind man who loves the whole church but has a real passion for revival in his own church, the United Methodist Church.

The reason I was in Washington, D.C., this week was to attend the semi-annual gathering of the ACR. This particular meeting could have been historic as we began a process that may lead us to make ACR more institutionally formal and visible. We believe, after […]

Woodrow Wilson's Faith

By John Armstrong|2006-10-18T20:25:42-05:00October 18th, 2006|Categories: History|

I spent another wonderful day in Washington, D.C. today. It was a gorgeous fall day in every way. I had an opportunity to spend several hours with Rev. Dan Claire, who works with the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) and also pastors The Church of the Resurrection, a fine young church on Capital Hill. (I hope to preach there in 2007.) Dan is an unusually gifted Christian leader with a real vision for a missional church in an emerging context. He, and two other ministers who work with him, have seen rapid growth and exciting response to the gospel over the past four years. Dan is also completing a doctoral program in biblical studies at the Catholic University of America, which we toured following lunch. We also visited the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, one of American Catholicism’s greatest buildings. (It is truly gorgeous and reverential place, though the Marian elements did not move me. Some of the more clearly biblical elements, expressed in various mosaics, are breathtakingly beautiful.)

During the morning hours I made two sight seeing stops. The first […]

The Holocaust Museum and Darfur

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:24:08-05:00October 17th, 2006|Categories: Current Affairs|

Today I toured the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. I was unprepared for how deeply I would be moved by my three hours in this museum. The sights, sounds and tributes all moved me profoundly. Twice I had to wipe tears from my eyes. The whole thing is so powerfully presented that it actually overwhelms you, with both information and emotional impact. I believe it is one of the most important museums I have ever toured.

The experience of standing in a German rail car, used to transport Jews to the death camps, was quite moving. How they got over a hundred people in one of those small cars is hard to imagine when you stand in one. But nothing was as chilling as the crematorium ovens, the shoes and personal items the dead left behind before they entered the gas chambers, and the iron door that came from a death chamber at one of the camps.

The Holocaust Museum has established a Committee on Conscience (www.committeeonconscience.org) to alert national conscience, influence policymakers, […]

Treasuring Preaching and Sacraments Together

By John Armstrong|2006-10-15T11:07:28-05:00October 15th, 2006|Categories: The Church|

I am convinced, generally speaking, that we do the things that we treasure the most. Therefore, the reason that many evangelicals do not take the Lord’s Supper more frequently comes down to the simple fact that they do not truly treasure this sacrament that Christ gave to his people to celebrate until He comes. For all of their talk about the body and blood of Jesus these evangelicals strangely do not treasure the very means that Christ gave to us for receiving the grace of God through the elements. This generally happens because evangelicals are focused almost exclusively on the preaching of the Word without the symbols that make the Word real to both our senses and our faith. Why not focus on both?

I also am amazed, by my experience in evangelical churches across America, that for all their talk about treasuring the Bible they almost never read it in public worhsip these days. It is strange that we talk about the authority of the Bible a lot and read it very little.

I just came from a service […]

The Value of Fixed-Hour Prayers

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:24:08-05:00October 13th, 2006|Categories: Spirituality|

Fixed-hour prayer is not something I grew up with. We prayed at meals and bed time but not much else was fixed unless it was related to our public worship on Sunday. The fact is that fixed-hour a practice that I did not understand or embrace until more recently. Yes, I knew what the Scripture said about prayer, recalling numerous texts even as I write these words, but I was rooted in an anti-Catholic bias that kept me from the rich treasures of the historic church. For this reason texts like “Seven times a day do I praise you” (Psalm 119:164) were clearly known to me well but went unheeded in my practice.

Reading a biography of St. Benedict first opened my eyes. I began to understand the importance and place of such prayer. Not only did Judaism have an ancient practice of fixed-hour prayer (likely they adjusted them and then continued to adjust them over many centuries), but we can see glimpses of this same practice in the New Testament. We do know that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper and […]

Pluto Today? What's Next?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:24:09-05:00October 12th, 2006|Categories: Science|

Now that the world’s top astronomers have decided to boot Pluto from the category of a planet one has to wonder, “What’s next?” The real shock waves are being felt among astrologers, or so the press tells us. Are these people for real? Apparently so and their tribe is growing it seems. There is an America Federation of Astrologers and even an Astrological Association of Great Britain. These are the people are really upset about Pluto’s fate. And www.Beliefnet.com columnist Shelley Ackerman informs us that “Pluto has proven himself (?) worthy of a permanent place in all horoscopes.” Whew, I’m glad that’s settled.

Numerous astrologers are warning that those born between October 23 and November 21 should be cautious because of this decision about throwing Pluto out of the category of a planet. An Australian astrologer, who claims 580,000 clients, counsels, “Scorpios can be extremely explosive, and very direct, and this could be the trigger that makes them explode.” Since Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice are all Scorpios I guess we should stay tuned over […]

Why I Profit from Brian Mclaren

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:24:09-05:00October 11th, 2006|Categories: Emergent Church|

A very good friend is presently reading several Brian Mclaren books in preparation for hearing him speak publicly in his city in a few weeks. We have been discussing Brian’s agenda, or better stated, his approach, with much interest. Neither of us wants to endorse everything Brian writes but neither do we wish to trash his concerns or thoughts since he helps us reflect upon our moment in history, and the missional context, with much richer insight.

My friend shared a quotation from one of Brian’s books yesterday. Here is the quote:

“I often think that my most valuable credential is my vast repertoire of stupid mistakes that I’ve made through the years, mistakes that can’t help but teach their perpetrator something the hard way.”

I can see the house dividing even as I write these words. Some will say, “Yes, and that is why I do not like Brian Mclaren. He is far too clever for his own good, using such a display of seeming humility to gain people for his numerous theological errors and heresies.” And I […]

Generational Christian Patterns

By John Armstrong|2006-10-10T09:01:38-05:00October 10th, 2006|Categories: Emergent Church|

Generational tensions have plagued local churches for as long as I have been in the ministry. This pattern seems to repeat itself with the rise and identification of each new generation whether they are boomers, busters, Xers or millennials. The emergent generation, or emerging generation as some would prefer to call it, must come to realize this pattern, and its challenges, or it will repeat the same mistakes my generation, and many others, made.

A new generation wants new music, new styles, and bold new leaders. An older generation feels betrayed and rejected by the new. Younger people think older people are out of touch with “the real world” and older people think the younger people have rejected the great traditions of the past. The result is very often a new church division, resulting in radically different congregations that cannot live together in peace.

A friend has noted that “the church landscape is littered with such experiments, single generational congregations that died out either literally, as only the old were left, or young congregations that wouldn’t change when their first […]