Blog - Page 48 of 318 - John H Armstrong

What Shall We Make of JFK and His Presidency?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:01-05:00November 25th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, Books, Culture, Current Affairs, Personal, Politics, The Future|

After writing my Friday blog (11/22/13) about the day that President Kennedy was killed fifty years ago (November 22, 1963), and the impact this had on my life since that fateful day, I have continued to reflect on a myriad of public responses to the assassination. In fact, I have been processing these kinds of responses ever since my college years in the late 1960s.

Over the last few weeks I have heard more interesting opinion, and endured more nonsense, than I can recall. Perhaps all of this is because of the fiftieth anniversary of the president’s assassination in Dallas. This has led me to form a few personal reflections which I hope explain something of the times then (1963), as well our times now (2013). In writing these personal reflections I seek to understand what this momentous event meant then, and what it means for us today.

First, numerous popularizers continue to lionize Kennedy, almost beyond belief. Some of this is to be expected, given the way in which he tragically died. Some of it is pure nonsense, […]

The Moment That Changed America: My LIfe Fifty Years Later

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:02-05:00November 22nd, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, Culture, Current Affairs, Death, History, Personal, Politics, Television, The Future|

TIME magazine’s November 25 (2013) cover story says it as well as any single storyline I’ve read the last two weeks: “The Moment That Changed America.” That moment, the assassination of our 35th president, John F. Kennedy, occurred fifty years ago today at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas.

If you were alive at the time, and old enough to have a memory of that incredible day, you will never, never forget it. It seemed impossible to comprehend at the time. In many ways it still seems impossible to comprehend, now fifty years later. I think, for example, that we comprehend 9/11 far better. We can fairly easily picture how and why radical terrorists would strike us. We also know who did this, or at least we are fairly certain that we know since someone claimed it and defended it.

Fifty years after the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories are still contentiously debated and the national psyche seems permanently impacted by the tragedy that unfolded in Dealey Plaza on that sunny day.

The death of our young president was captured on […]

CenterQuest–A Ministry to Draw us to the Christ the True Center

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:02-05:00November 21st, 2013|Categories: Contemplation, Discipleship, Personal, Spirituality, The Church|

My new friend, Wil Hernandez, has recently created a ministry called CenterQuest. I am thrilled by this direction and support wholeheartedly this cornucopia of resources. I am also excited to partner with this dear brother.

Wil has a unique background. He was trained in very conservative evangelical settings but, like me, was led into a deeper experience of Christ through catholic spiritual formation and deep, growing practice of contemplation. Eventually Wil pursued his dream – to train people across the entire Christian spectrum to become deep, carefully formed, followers of Jesus Christ. CenterQuest reflects this vision in being an ecumenical hub for the study and practice of Christian spirituality. I was thrilled when Wil invited me, and ACT3 Network, to become an affiliate partner of CenterQuest. I urge you to check out this amazing resource. You will also benefit deeply from Wil’s writings on Henri Nouwen. He is the author of Henri Nouwen and Spiritual Polarities: A Life of Tension (2012), Henri Nouwen and Soul Care (2008) and Henri Nouwen: A Spirituality of Imperfection ( 2006). All […]

The World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:03-05:00November 20th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Current Affairs, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Roman Catholicism, Unity of the Church|

The World Council of Churches is a worldwide fellowship of churches seeking unity and a common witness and Christian service that came into existence in 1948 following several decades of global interest in unity in Christ’s mission. It has had both an illustrious, and at times rocky, history. The most recent global gathering of the WCC, the Tenth General Assembly, concluded in South Korea less than two weeks ago. A number of my friends were in attendance and one, Fr. Steve Bevans, spoke to a plenary gathering. (Steve and I shared a speaking role last Saturday in Chicago. He is a professor of mission at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.)

In my work for ecumenism I am sometimes asked why the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) is not a member of the WCC. The answer to this question is variously misunderstood by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Some, especially (politically conservative) Catholics, make a great deal out of this fact that the RCC is a non-member of the WCC. They seem to me to do this in order to show […]

Waiting for Another MLK – What Can We Do As Christians?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:03-05:00November 19th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, America and Americanism, Current Affairs, Film, Gospel/Good News, Kingdom of God, Missional Church, Race and Racism, The Church, The Future|

My good friend Rev. Carlos Malave, the executive director of Christian Churches Together USA, shared a lovely meal with me in Louisville just a few weeks ago. Carlos was raised in the Seventh Day Adventist church but eventually became a Presbyterian minister. He was drawn to ecumenism while a student at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he was influenced by another friend, Dr. Cecil (Mel) Robeck, Jr. Carlos says of this part of his journey: “What really clicked was a church history class taught by Robeck, an Assembly of God pastor but a really strange Assembly of God pastor because he was a leading Pentecostal ecumenist. That was captivating to me, his call to work for the unity of the church.” Carlos finished his degree at Fuller and went on to serve as an associate for ecumenical relations in the Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

In a recent letter to leaders in CCT, titled “Waiting for Another MLK,” Carlos eloquently wrote this appeal:

Are we waiting for another Dr. King? As I collect […]

Three Films on Race and Racism That Will Help Us as Christians

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:04-05:00November 18th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, Civil Rights, Culture, Current Affairs, Film, Race and Racism, The Church, The Future|

Seeing popular movies will never change your heart at the deepest level. Yet movies are a powerful art form that can reach into your human heart and this power can deeply impact us, both personally and corporately. I believe 12 Years a Slave does this as well as any movie about race that I have ever seen. Indeed, it is the only full-length feature film to present slavery from the perspective of the slave. Think about that statement for at least a moment. Amistad was a magnificent movie but it was actually about the social and political struggle for abolition in America. So was Amazing Grace, but it too was about abolition in Great Britain. Both of these superb movies deeply move the heart. Roots was the closest thing that we’ve ever had to 12 Years a Slave but Roots was a fictional television series. 12 Years a Slave is based on a true story and moves the viewer profoundly if you will allow it to touch you.

In the light of the power of this amazing story, and because of the artistic medium of modern film, […]

What Has Trayvon Martin to Do With Faith, Grace and Freedom?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:04-05:00November 14th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs, Race and Racism, The Church|

The Trayvon Martin case, hotly debated several months ago and now off the front page, offers a unique opportunity for Americans in general. It offers an even more important opportunity for Christians in particular. Can we deeply ponder where we are in terms of race and racism in our nation? I do not know but I am resolved to be a peacemaker and to try harder than ever.

As I have stated in a number of other contexts I am a minister in the Reformed Church in America. Just two years ago my church adopted a fourth confessional standard, along with the three historic standards of unity created by the Reformed side of the Protestant Reformation (i.e., the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession and the Canons of the Synod of Dort). This forth statement originated among Reformed Christians in South Africa. Our church body, in adopting this new standard known as the Belhar Confession, became the first American church to formally adopt it.

The Belhar Confession has its roots in the struggle against apartheid in Southern Africa. This “outcry […]

A Great Film and the Nagging Question of Race in America

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:04-05:00November 13th, 2013|Categories: Uncategorized|

President Abraham Lincoln believed that he was acting in the humane religious tradition of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights when he spoke in March of 1865. “This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe,” he said of the Founders’ view of what Hamilton had called mankind’s “sacred rights.” “This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures,” Lincoln said. “Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows.”

Lincoln concluded this short second inaugural address with one of the most memorable lines about race ever spoken in our entire history:

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of […]

Was Lincoln Right About God’s Providence and the Great Sin of Slavery?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:04-05:00November 12th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs, Race and Racism|

American slavery was evil, completely and totally evil. It was a form of human condemnation to a frequently violent life and an even more tragic death. There is nothing benign or acceptable about the institution or its practice. What we as a nation did in defending and protecting this evil is hard to fathom living in the legal freedom of the twenty-first century. We legally deprived millions of Americans of life, liberty and any meaningful pursuit of human happiness. This is just fact!

Today many talk about the Constitution with a reverential respect that borders on the sacred. I celebrate our Constitutional republic. I truly do. It is a blessing in numerous ways. But I cannot shake this sad, agonizing sense that so few of us understand the deep stain that slavery gave to our collective character. Had all of this collective evil ended in 1865 it would be a memory that would still haunt us. But slavery was followed by a century of legal segregation, “separate but equal.” (What a complete misnomer if there ever was one!) […]

12 Years a Slave – A Film That Reaches Into the Heart

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:04-05:00November 11th, 2013|Categories: Civil Rights, Culture, Current Affairs, Film, Personal, Race and Racism|

Steve McQueen’s stunning visual portrayal of the story of Solomon Northup, a black musician living in Saratoga Springs, NewYork, with his wife and two young adoring children in 1841, is nothing if it is not one of the most moving films I’ve seen in many years. 12 Years a Slave is art but it is art at its highest and noblest best, thus it is more than a film with a great story, or great action and stunning visuals. (All of which it has.) It is a film about America in the middle of the eighteenth century that causes the problem of slavery to come alive for modern viewers. There should be no mistake about the perspective the film adopts since it makes the American experience come alive in a way that far too few of us have understood at a deeply emotional level.

Richard Cohen, a syndicated Washington Post writer, wrote a particularly moving editorial on this film a few weeks ago, in which he said, “[The film reveals what] we obscured, we covered up – we […]