Blog - Page 318 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Just the Facts

By John Armstrong|2005-04-20T12:11:53-05:00April 20th, 2005|Categories: Spirituality|

A once popular program, in the days of black and white television, was a detective show called Dragnet. The famous sargeant on the program had a simple line that he used all the time to interrogate people: "Just the facts, Mam, just the facts." I have thought about how often we think that truth is simply getting the facts right.

My college student newspaper (The Wheaton Record) recently ran an editorial that underscored this business about "the facts." I was party to the facts in this case and I know that, though the facts seem very clear on the surface of the matter, the real facts are quite different from the assumptions made by the student editorial. The short version of the facts are as follows. A program was altered by the administration, over the course of more than twelve months, and in the process several popular professors were impacted directly, one choosing to leave the school. Both professors happen to be very good friends! At the same time I served on the committee that was convened by the administration to actually recommend these changes […]

Recommending a Systematic Theology Book

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:25:09-05:00April 19th, 2005|Categories: Biblical Theology|

This morning I wrote an email to a very good friend who had written to ask me to recommend a systemtic theology book for a resource section that will appear in a booklet he recently wrote that will be published by a national ministry. I wrote the following letter:

Dear Brother:

I have been thinking a bit further re: systematic theologies for your intended general audience. I think first of Alister E. McGrath’s always excellent work. He writes readable, basic, and very sound stuff. His method is historic and biblical while his content is centrist and non-extreme in every way. He is an evangelical who is truly ecumenical and irenic without ever giving up any of the essential truths that are basic to Christian faith. His conclusions are always mainstream and orthodox without the quirks. He has a new book called Theology: The Basics (Blackwell, 2004). I highly recommend this as a guide for your readership. His larger book, still very accessible, is Christian Theology: An Introduction and then following it there is The Christian Theology Reader, in which he provides solid readings taken from historical theologians.

A little […]

The Loss of a Champion for Church Renewal

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:25:09-05:00April 18th, 2005|Categories: The Church|

Dr. James Heidinger, the president of Good News, a renewal ministry in the United Methodist Church, wrote the following note this evening to members of the Association for Church Renewal (ACR), a group related to mainline Protestant renewal ministries:

Our dear friend and colleague in renewal, Diane Knippers, died this afternoon a little before 2 p.m. She had been failing for the last several weeks and was in the midst of chemo treatments, but had weakened enough that they could not continue them. Late this morning her kidneys began to shut down and several planned procedures were canceled. Her husband, Ed, was with her, as well as her Mother and Father, Vera and Clancey LeMasters, and her brother Doug.

Diane was a dear friend and colleague and a giant among those in renewal ministry. How we will miss her and her clear, mature voice. Many of you would not be aware that Diane was […]

Twinkies or Broccoli

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:25:10-05:00April 18th, 2005|Categories: The Church|

Martin Marty, the well-known Lutheran religious historian, has been a student of American religious culture for a lifetime. I sat down with Martin Marty last year for a forthcoming Reformation & Revival Journal interview. To say that he is a fascinating person would be an understatement. His insights are many and sometimes complex.

In a recent Chicago Tribune interview with the director of Children’s Ministries of America, which teaches churches how to make Sunday School more beneficial and appealing, director Mickie O’Donnell Gutierrez referred to Martin Marty. Gutierrez teaches churches how to employ multidimensional learning for the benefit of better Christian education. She was asked about the spiritual hunger seen in so many in America today. Citing Marty, Gutierrez observed that we could meet this hunger with "twinkies or broccoli." I like that Marty analogy. Twinkies can meet a need for sure, at least for the moment. But the sugar and fat grams can kill you in the long term. My complaint with many evangelical church-based educational prorgams is not that they feed children absolutely nothing, but rather they provide teaching that is more like twinkies […]

The Apocalypse on NBC

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:25:10-05:00April 17th, 2005|Categories: Television|

"Revelations," a new NBC mini-series, was launched last week to much fanfare. The jury is out about the ratings for the first episode but the themes developed were entirely predictable; e.g., sacred vs. secular, believer against skeptic, and good vs. evil (Satan).

Seeking to capture the interest in religion demonstrated by the success of the "Left Behind" books, and the woefully misleading novel The Da Vinci Code, NBC is gambling that religion is so hot that this series will draw viewers and sell advertising. Time will tell. Chicago Tribune critic Sid Smith noted that "were timing everything ‘Revelations’ would ascend right to the top, its biblical lore in modern dress arriving when God and moral values are pre-eminent." The target audience for the series is clearly conservative Christians. The producers tell us that the name of Christ comes up three times, suggesting that if they say the name of Jesus often enough we should really like it. Having seen part of the first episode I fear that many Christians of my generation will actaully like this stuff since the number of socioreligious hot buttons passionately pushed […]

Downfall: The End of Hitler's Life

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:25:10-05:00April 16th, 2005|Categories: Film|

Downfall is a haunting and chilling movie. I left the theatre with an impression that I rarely have after viewing a two and a half hour movie. Starring Swiss actor Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire, 1989) as Adolph Hitler, this powerful movie offers an insider’s view of the last ten days of the life of the infamous Hitler, and his Third Reich, between the days of April 20 and 30, 1945. It also makes Downfall one of the very best World War II movies ever made.

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in this year’s academy awards Downfall opens in 1942 in East Prussia, outside "The Wolf’s Lair," Hitler’s planning center for the war. In the opening scenes a twenty-two year old Munich woman, Traudl Hump, is ushered into Hitler’s office for an interview to become his personal secretary. Traudl is noticeably treated with kindness and human warmth by Hitler (one reviewer says Hitler appears here as a "fatherly and depressed sort of man"), demonstrating that he was not an entirely sub-human monster. But this is not the last time that we see good qualities in […]

Why Liberals Don't Get It

By John Armstrong|2005-04-14T10:53:07-05:00April 14th, 2005|Categories: The Church|

Everytime I engage the more liberal parts of the Christian Church I am amazed at how clueless these folks really are about true evangelism. I suppose I should not be amazed. Afterall, if you don’t have a gospel that takes sin and the fall seriously, and grace biblically, along with an objective/subjective redemption accomplished by the historic Christ and the blessed Holy Spirit working supernaturally, then you don’t really have a lot of good news to share. And when you continually reinvent your message to fit the culture you have no anchor for the soul either.

I was among mainline Christians again this week and picked up a copy of The Circuit Rider (March-April 2005), a magazine for United Methodist clergy published by Cokesbury, the denominational publishing house. In this issue I discovered a full-page ad for a program called Living the Questions (www.livingthequestions.com). The tag line says Living the Questions is "an unapologetically liberal alternative to the Alpha course." For those who do not know Alpha is a twelve-week course that is extremely popular in many churches, especially in mainline churches. I can explain […]

Avoiding Ideology

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:25:10-05:00April 11th, 2005|Categories: The Church|

Tomorrow morning I drive to Dubuque, Iowa. I will share in a special evening, at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, where a number of us will honor the life and work of Dr. Donald Bloesch, one of the greatest evangelical theologians of our time. Bloesch is not widely known to ordinary folks but he is profoundly respected within the academy.

I first met Donald Bloesch about thirty years ago. I began to read his work shortly thereafter. Only about eight years ago did we actually become freinds. I would now call Dr. Bloesch my mentor in many important ways. First, he has profoundly influenced my thinking on many levels. He has also helped me deepen my spiritual journey in terms of prayer and devotion. I believe I comprehend the centrality of Jesus Christ in Scripture better because of Donald’s personal piety and his crystal clear teaching on Christian spirituality.

Bloesch, like the earliest Protestant evangelicals, is a theologian of "Word and Spirit." He believes reason must always serve faith, not faith reason. This method has transformed my approach to theology and removed a great deal […]

The Problem of Dullness

By John Armstrong|2005-04-10T21:26:50-05:00April 10th, 2005|Categories: Spirituality|

Is it me or do you find many Christians spiritually dull these days? Again and again, I leave churches of all kinds and wonder to myself, "How can so many people listen to the mystery of the gospel preached with no seeming interest, or at least very little interest?" It is not that I look for tears, or warm facial response, but at least someone should appear moved in some way. The singing is often listless, the listening seems ho-hum, and the evidence of real spiritual hunger expressed in words following the service seem so rare. I often leave saying to myself, "What can change this dull response?" The answer lies in God’s Spirit alone. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit."

Francois Fenelon said it well: "It is easy to mistake intellectual curiosity for spiritual hunger." The late A. W. Tozer once said, "We are as filled as we want to be." I beleive that is true. And the fact is few of us truly long to be filled. Tozer also said, "If there is anything in your life more demanding […]

Show Me Your Glory

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:25:10-05:00April 9th, 2005|Categories: Biblical Theology|

I have resisted composing blogs for almost a year. While many friends continued to tell me that I must enter the "brave new world," I declined their suggestions regularly. Friends not only urged me, they bugged me frankly, to begin. Journaling seems so private, so simple, so intensely useful, if done well. My friends kept saying, "Write your journal thoughts." I can’t I argued. Blogging is just too public for such writing, even potentially manipulative I feared.

But the medium is not the message, at least in this case. The message is what really matters to Christians I believe. I have prayed and labored for an outpouring of God’s glory, almost daily, since 1970. This is my passion. My message reflects that passion. Put very simply, I write and pray to see the goodness of God exalted in the church.

Like Moses, I have seen something of the Lord’s presence go with me, in my case for more than five decades. But like Moses I too pray, "Show me your glory." I saw something of it in the Jesus Movement in 1969-70. I have seen glimpses and […]