Blog - Page 53 of 318 - John H Armstrong

The Atonement Debate: “Why Did Christ Die?” Part 3

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:14-05:00September 4th, 2013|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Church Tradition, Death, God's Character, Jesus, The Church|

The centrality of Christ’s death on the cross has influenced everything we believe as Christians. Make no mistake about this simple fact. Even our language is influenced, giving us words like “crucial,” which literally means “pertaining to the cross.” When we say something is crucial we are making the point that this is central to our belief, argument or practice. Evangelicals have rightly argued that the cross is central. The debate is not here but rather about a point of interpretation.

One of the most famous proponents of evangelical theology about the atonement was the late Australian scholar Leon Morris. (I had the privilege of taking a class under Dr. Morris at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the 1970s.) In an article on the atonement Morris said, “The atonement is critical; it is the most central doctrine of Christianity” (New Dictionary of Theology. InterVarsity Press, 1988, 54). He goes on to say this does not mean “other doctrines may be neglected” (54). My question is simple – “Is the […]

The Atonement Debate: “Why Did Christ Die?” Part 2

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:14-05:00September 3rd, 2013|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Church Tradition, Death, God's Character, Jesus, The Church|

When I read the USA Today story about conservative Christians debating the use, or non-use, of the phrase “the wrath of God was satisfied” (in a popular modern song) I decided to go back and read views of the atonement that I could find in the early church fathers.

One of the earliest quotations I discovered comes from Clement of Rome (c. 96): “Because of his love for us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave his blood for us by the will of God. He gave his flesh for our flesh, and his soul for our souls.”

The martyr Polycarp (c. 135) said Jesus Christ “bore our sins in his own body on the tree.”

Justin Martyr wrote: “The whole human race will be found to be under a curse. . . . The Father of all wished his Christ, for the whole human family, to take upon him the curses of all, knowing that, after he has been crucified and was dead, he would raise him up . . . . His Father wished him to suffer this, in order that […]

The Atonement Debate: “Why Did Christ Die?” Part 1

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:14-05:00September 2nd, 2013|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Church History, Church Tradition, Creeds, Death, God's Character, Gospel/Good News, Jesus, Orthodoxy|

A recent dispute over the meaning of the atonement has sparked an outbreak of charges, and countercharges, among Protestant leaders. This particular dispute, not unlike so many in Christian history, arose from a line in a popular song. At issue are various theories of the atonement, not the simple confession made by all Christians from the earliest Christian era. We hear this simple faith confessed in the Apostle’s Creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried.

That’s it – pretty simple and straightforward: Jesus Christ suffered under Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. It would be some time later, indeed centuries later in many cases, before major debates arose about the meaning of these simple words.

Today the atonement is often a matter for intense debate, especially among conservative Protestants. More than fifteen centuries of time have allowed Christian thinkers to offer various doctrinal interpretations of what “Christ’s death” […]

Creating Out of a Deep Sense of the Transcendent

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:14-05:00August 30th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Books, Culture, Current Affairs, Leadership, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, The Church, The Future|

Author Robert Fritz, in his book The Path of Least Resistance, offers what the publisher calls “a revolutionary program for creating anything, from a functional kitchen to a computer program, to a work of art.” Fritz demonstrates that all of us have the innate power to create. Until I read his book I would have seriously doubted this particular claim since I thought creativity was almost always limited to rare individual with unique skills and insights.

Fritz believes that we can discover functional steps of creating. (I shared these several days ago.) The important thing is that we see the importance of creating what you truly love and then learn to focus on the creative process. This is what can move us from where we are to where we want to be. This process is not mystical or magical.

Using as an analogy the scientific principle that energy follows the path of least resistance, Fritz writes an easily assimilated self-help book which argues that just as wind moves around natural obstructions, seeking the path of least resistance, so we […]

Why Should We Create? The Musings of a Missional-Ecumenist Filled with Hope

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:15-05:00August 29th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Books, Culture, Current Affairs, Leadership, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, The Church, The Future|

I’ve been attempting, over the last few days, to show how important it is to develop the ability to create as a pattern of life rather than simply living as a problem solver. This is particularly true with regard to my big, audacious, imaginative, and Spirit-driven, vision of missional-ecumenism. How can the church in general, and church leaders in particular, imagine a new future that is very different from the past? Simply put, “Why would you create anything?”

What actually motivates the creator is “the desire for the creation to exist” (58) says Robert Fritz in The Place of Least Resistance. Emotions will change, rising and falling, but this desire to create remains steady when you have grasped the end for which you wish to create. “A creator creates in order to bring the creation into being.” You create not for a return on investment, or to please everyone (or anyone) else, but rather because you see the need, or the end purpose, for its own sake. Poet Robert Frost, a highly creative person himself, wrote, “All the […]

The Steps to Creativity Are Observable and Can be Learned

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:15-05:00August 28th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Culture, Current Affairs, Leadership, Missional Church, Personal, The Church, The Future|

Robert Fritz, whose book The Path of Least Resistance I’ve drawing offering insights from over the last few days, has several others published titles to his name. One title, which sounds like a seventeenth-century one, tells you everything about his central thesis. This book is called: A Short Course in Creating What you Always Wanted to But Couldn’t Because Nobody Ever Told You How Because They Didn’t Know Either. I’m not kidding. The subtitle of The Path of Least Resistance offers further insight into what Fritz is teaching: “Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life.”

Fritz is not selling intuition or mystical theory. He believes that you and I can really learn how to create what we desire to be or to do. There is a learning process that can be used to explore and attain your ends/goals as a creative person. Yesterday I began by looking at some of the fundamental principles he provides. A major hurdle to creativity is the reactive-response orientation. He concludes: “Parents understandably want their children to avoid negative consequences. But […]

Why Missional-Ecumenism Needs Creativity Not Problem Solving

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:15-05:00August 27th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Books, Leadership, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, The Church, The Future|

Robert Fritz (b. 1943) divides his book on becoming a creative thinker, The Path of Least Resistance, into two parts. Part One deals with fundamental principles. Part Two with the creative process itself.

Fritz’s central argument is that most people can “learn to create.” Given the words of the first of the two creation narratives in Genesis this point is, at least to my mind, one that orthodox Christians should accept without hesitation.

26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

27 So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the […]

Living Systems That Are Lean – Learning to Cooperate and Do Mission Together in the Kingdom of God

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:15-05:00August 26th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Leadership, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Renewal, The Church|

Lean manufacturing, lean enterprise, or lean production, often simply called “Lean,” is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, “value” is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. The term originated in Japan within the Toyota manufacturing process. I have been aware of “Lean” thinking for a time but not deeply aware enough to get into it in any serious way. This all changed about two weeks ago when I met Jim Sutton, a friend in Washington, Georgia, who introduced himself to me after reading Your Church Is Too Small. We had several long chats on the phone and exchanged several emails over the course of the last nine months or so. On Monday, August 12, I met Jim and his wife Debbie in my hotel in Atlanta. When I asked Jim what he did […]

American Evangelicals and World Christianity

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:15-05:00August 22nd, 2013|Categories: Uncategorized|

Jay R. Case, in his recent book An Unpredictable Gospel: American Evangelicals and World Christianity, 1812-1920 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) argues that assumptions about the superiority of western civilization permeated nineteenth century American evangelicalism and thereby worked themselves out in overseas missions through something akin to “the white man’s burden.” There is little doubt that American missionaries exported more than the message of redemption and reconciliation. Case makes a compelling argument for what this meant and how it impacted Christianity through missions.

What Case argues is that most analyses of the Christian missionary encounter have failed to take into consideration the role of indigenous Christian leaders in the missionary response. Case believes standard histories have often misread the power dynamics of the missionary encounter. In the words of reviewer Douglas Tzan (Boston University School of Theology) in the Evangelical Studies Bulletin (Summer 2013/Issue 84), “Indigenous leaders played critical roles in the emergence of new forms of world Christianity, and the most successful missionaries worked from ‘positions of weakness’ (page 8 in Case).” Indigenous peoples critically adopted […]

A Legacy of Ecumenism – Leaving Something Real not Something Full of Argument

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:15-05:00August 21st, 2013|Categories: Uncategorized|

In my final tribute to my friend Jeff Gros I would like to tell you more about what made him such a singular influence on the lives of so many and how he was remembered by many of his friends at his funeral service of August 17.

Jeff had a long-standing commitment to Christ and the faith. The Lasallian Brothers have an affirmation that expresses personal faith and their understanding of their own order. It goes like this: “Long live Jesus in our hearts, forever!” This legacy was expressed by the brothers who gathered at Jeff’s funeral. When the words were spoken they responded in unison: “Forever!” If ever I knew a man who desired for Jesus to live in his heart with love it was Jeff Gros. Jeff was pre-eminently a man of intelligent, deep faith who always pursued a sense of profound wonder. He could be amazed at the most simple and beautiful things. In fact, as the eulogist said of him at his funeral, “He nurtured them.” A surprisingly shy man Jeff was filled with […]