Blog - Page 45 of 318 - John H Armstrong

The Priority of Christ, Part One

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:58-05:00January 6th, 2014|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Christ/Christology, Jesus, Lordship of Christ, The Church|

In 1956 a group of British theologians chose to honor the twentieth century’s greatest theologian, Karl Barth, with a collection of Essays in Christology. They chose this theme because Barth was a champion for high Christology but also because but because the editors and contributors believed the very heart of Christian theology was Christology, the doctrine of Christ. I believe we can learn something vitally important for this decision.

Interestingly, in 1966 the same group, now including English-speaking colleagues from around the world, decided to honor Barth’s eightieth birthday with a collection of essays. This volume was on diakonia, or the service and ministry of the church. The order of these two major works is critical, at least to my mind. First comes Christ, always and in every circumstance. Second, comes the church, its service in mission and orderly arrangement and practice.

Make no mistake about what I am saying here. These two truths – Christ and the church (its order and mission) – cannot be separated. Nevertheless, the first ought to always precede the second in our thinking and teaching. […]

The Sunday Assembly – A Non-Theist Response to Religion

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:58-05:00January 1st, 2014|Categories: Culture, Current Affairs, Free Speech, Personal, Postmodernity, Religion, Social Networking|

For well more than a century freethinkers, and religious skeptics, have gathered, talked and participated in various forms of social interaction without any expression of formal religion. In 1882 the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago was founded to provide a meeting and fellowship for just such a gathering.

The Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago describes itself as a democratic fellowship and spiritual home for those who seek a rational, compassionate philosophy of life without regard to belief or non-belief in a supreme being. According to their website they value “the importance of living an ethical, responsible, and joyful life [and] promote intellectual, philosophical, and artistic freedom, avoiding dogma and rigid creed.” They also say of themselves: “While respectful of the faiths and traditions we have been born to, we serve as a new religion or as an alternative to religion.” A full-blown description can be seen on their very attractive website.

A new movement, similar in many ways, began in January a year ago in London and now already has over thirty meeting places in the United States. This […]

The New Ecumenism of Pope Francis: “An Ecumenism of Blood”

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:58-05:00December 31st, 2013|Categories: Current Affairs, Death, Love, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Roman Catholicism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

Vatican Insider is a project run by the daily newspaper La Stampa. The website provides comprehensive information on the Vatican, the activities of the Pope and the Holy See, the Catholic Church’s presence on the international scene and on religious issues. It is an independent multimedia tool, produced in three languages: Italian, English and Spanish and is distributed through the website www.VaticanInsider.com. It boasts a staff of qualified Vatican correspondents, flanked by some of the most prestigious international names in the field of religious and Vatican-based information.

It provides free news and in-depth reports seven days a week and offers its partners exclusive journalistic services, inquiries, interviews and information packages. In the December 14 issue there is an interview with Pope Francis, titled” Never Be Afraid of Tenderness.” This interview includes some insights about Pope Francis’ views of ecumenism and mission. Because of my calling to this specific vocation I share this excerpt:

Question – Is Christian unity a priority for you?

Yes, for me ecumenism is a priority. Today there is an ecumenism of blood. In some […]

The Hope of My Life: “God-Love”

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:58-05:00December 30th, 2013|Categories: Books, God's Character, Love, Personal, The Church|

If you go to the very heart of what God has revealed of himself to us, looking at the central theme of Holy Scripture and Christian faith, you will very soon discover what is patently clear–God has revealed himself to us as love.

The apostle John writes: “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8, NRSV) and “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16, NRSV).

The late Chiara Lubich has so powerfully influenced my journey into the love of God. With this influence she has helped to shape the book I am now writing titled: Our Love Is Too Small. Chiara gave her life to understanding and living this holy love like few people I have read and followed in recent years. As I have read her work over the last two-plus years I have come to believe that her experience of this love is the one thing most lacking in our time. Further, when we come to the Christian […]

Pray for Sister Madge and the Mission of Christ in South Africa

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:58-05:00December 27th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Current Affairs, Education, Friendship, Leadership, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Roman Catholicism, Spirituality, The Church, The Future|

Sister Madge Karecki is a dear friend to me and many others. Madge knows how to make and enjoy deep friendships like few people that I have met in the last several years. Sadly, at least for her scores of friends here in Chicago, Madge was called to be the president of the only Catholic college in the nation of South Africa. At the end of November she left Chicago for her new appointment. (The photo below was taken at a Midwest Missions Fellowship meeting where I spoke the day before Madge left for South Africa!)

Madge Karecki, OSC, is a Franciscan Sister (Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis) who was born in Chicago, Illinois. She has degrees in both spirituality and missiology from St. Bonaventure University in New York and The University of South Africa. She was a missionary in South Africa for 21 years. Before returning to the USA in her response to the continued call to Christian mission, she was an Associate Professor of Missiology and Christian […]

He Who Finds a Wife Obtains Favor From the Lord

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:59-05:00December 26th, 2013|Categories: Love, Marriage & Family, Personal|

“He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22). Forty-three years ago, on this day, I “found” a wife. My bride, Anita Ruth Siml, became Mrs. John Armstrong, my beloved companion and best friend. She always told me that the name Mrs. Armstrong sounded like my mom so I never actually called her that, in public or in private. Yet that is what the minister said to us once he pronounced us husband and wife: “I present to you Mr. and Mrs. John Armstrong!” Never have I heard words that thrilled me more.

It did not take long for Anita and me to realize that we were truly in love but just as truly that we were so opposite of each other in a number of ways. As we discovered just how different we really were we began to realize, slowly at first, just how much we had to change in order to grow in true love. Change we did, by God’s grace and Anita’s patience with me. I learned […]

The Light That Shines Upon Us

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:59-05:00December 24th, 2013|Categories: Christ/Christology, Gospel/Good News, Jesus|

The Gospel of Luke reveals to us an angelic prophecy regarding the birth of John the Baptist that was given to Zechariah. I never read this text (Luke 1:5-25) without imagining what it would have been like to go about one’s priestly service in the days of Herod only to have “an angel (later said to be Gabriel in verse 19) of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense” (1:11). When Zechariah saw this angelic person he was “terrified, fear overwhelmed him” (1:12). I’ll bet he was terrified.

Let that scene sink into your mind for a moment. This man was “overwhelmed” in sheer terror at what he saw. But what he heard was even more difficult to handle. His prayers were to be answered in the pregnancy of his wife Elizabeth, a woman who was “getting on in years” (1:18). Because Zechariah did not believe what the angel told him he would “become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur” (1:20).

Luke then gives an account of another visit from […]

Chronic Fatigue and God’s Mercy

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:59-05:00December 23rd, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Love, Personal|

Since 1998 I have struggled with a chronic illness that carries various labels and a wide variety of explanations. The American name is Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS).

Here is a medically acceptable description of this illness:

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS), myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and by other names, is a complex and debilitating chronic illness that affects the brain and multiple body systems.

CFS is characterized by incapacitating fatigue (experienced as profound exhaustion and extremely poor stamina) and problems with concentration and short-term memory. It is also accompanied by flu-like symptoms such as pain in the joints and muscles, un-refreshing sleep, tender lymph nodes, sore throat and headache. A distinctive characteristic of the illness is post-exertional malaise, a worsening of symptoms following physical or mental exertion occurring within 12-48 hours of the exertion and requiring an extended recovery period.

When I first received a proper diagnosis of this illness I was devastated. It sounded final and left me with little or […]

Rethinking a Christian Response to Suicide

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:59-05:00December 19th, 2013|Categories: Baseball, Bio-Medical Ethics, Church Tradition, Current Affairs, Death, Ethics, Science|

I am continually amazed at the lack of sensitivity and pastoral grace that many Christians have regarding their response to a death by suicide. There was a time when Christians–Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant–generally considered suicide an “unpardonable sin.” For this reason when a person took their own life the family was left with the profound sense that their loved one was eternally condemned through this final act of (self) murder. Both officially, and unofficially, this view has been largely altered over the last fifty-plus years. (I still recall how I felt when I first came across this “historic” view through reading Pilgrim’s Progress, the popular classic written by the English minister John Bunyan.)

The advances we’ve made in understanding mental illness, and especially the issue of suicide, have been nothing short of a major paradigm shift in understanding both human behavior and moral accountability. While it is true that the “moral” issue remains the same in suicide (a person takes a life, which is morally wrong) it seems to me that the way Christians understand this moral issue has changed rather dramatically. This change, I submit, is […]

The Brave New World and the Building of Democracies

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:59-05:00December 18th, 2013|Categories: Culture, Current Affairs, Free Speech, Freedom, Ideology, Politics, Religion|

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama declared in his 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, that “mankind’s ideological evolution” was complete in Western liberal democracy, a form of democracy which is now “the final form of human government.” So much for a theory that lasted for less than a half of one generation.

Joshua Kurlantzick, in his book Democracy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Representative Government (Yale, 2013), says the last decade is best characterized by a broad swath of nations embroiled in internal strife and the decline of democracy.

Kurlantzick describes protests in Thailand that led to the fall of its elected government in 2006 followed by an almost continuous violence between the middle classes and the poor ever since. He tells of social and electoral chaos in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malawi, Kenya, Venezuela, and in various countries in Eastern Europe and, of course, in the Middle East. The aborted “Arab Spring” has done little to fundamentally change the region. As economic problems arise globally far more people […]