Blog - Page 58 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Max Boot's "Twelve Articles" on Guerrilla Warfare and Terrorism

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:36-05:00June 21st, 2013|Categories: Books, History, Politics, Spiritual Warfare, The Future, The War on Terrorism|

Colonel Roger Trinquier (1961) said, “We . . . attack an enemy who is invisible, fluid, uncatchable.” Perhaps no statement included in Max Boot’s masterful history of guerrilla and terrorist warfare better sums up what we have faced since 9/11.

Historian Max Boot concludes his massive tome on guerrilla and terrorist warfare with a postscript called: “The Lessons of Five Thousand Years.” In 1917 T. E. Lawrence wrote an essay called “Twenty-Seven Articles” which summed up many of the lessons that he had learned as an insurgent fighter. Boot provides twelve articles that sum up the lessons we can learn from Invisible Armies. I will not develop each one extensively but provide some brief comments.

1. Guerrilla Warfare has been ubiquitous and important throughout history.

Much of the world’s population lives in states whose current boundaries and forms of government were determined by insurgencies waged by or against their ancestors. This is not just true in the two-thirds world. Think of the United Kingdom. It is united because the English defeated the Scottish and Irish insurgencies. America is united because […]

Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:36-05:00June 20th, 2013|Categories: Books, Current Affairs, History, Politics, The Future, The War on Terrorism|

Max Boot’s new book, Invisible Armies (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013), presents an encyclopedic survey of guerrilla warfare in a readable, vivid narrative that has to be the comprehensive work on the subject. I confess that I would never have read a book on modern warfare had it not caught my eye on the “New Non-Fiction” shelf in my public library. But there it was – “speaking to me”– so I decided to give it a go. I did not read it word-for-word, and frankly felt no desire to do so since I did not buy the book @ the list price of $35.00. (This is one of the many advantages of using the library since I do not feel “guilty” when I dip into such a big book and browse only what truly interests me!) End notes and text make the book come to exactly 750 pages!

Max Boot is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and […]

Why Has the Missional Movement Not Pursued Ecumenism More Seriously?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:36-05:00June 19th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Discipleship, Kingdom of God, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

In yesterday’s blog I wrote in the final paragraph:

Only in unity can we remove the scandal of our myriad schisms and heal our frequent divisions, divisions that destroy our witness to the world of the 21st century. Dialogue may not get us to where we need to be, at least not by itself, but it has to be the first-step. We share so much more in common than we disagree upon and we will only regain power in the public square when we speak as ONE. A new reality, one less political and angry, can emerge if we will pray together, love one another and radically seek what Jesus prayed for in John 17:21.

I pick up today where I left this off yesterday by asking a very direct question to those who promote “missional” theology as I fervently do? Question: Why has the missional movement, with all of its good and proper emphasis upon the church as the mission of God, not yet discovered the power of visible, catholic unity? Why is ecumenism not a serious priority inside the missional theology movement? I read […]

Why Dialogue Matters to Our Unity in a Secular Culture

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:36-05:00June 18th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Church Tradition, Creeds, Culture, Discipleship, Missional-Ecumenism, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

In my post yesterday I showed that the lack of Christian unity has profoundly contributed to the rise of secularism in the West. I argued that this was particularly true in the United States. Today I want to show you why this is the case.

When the Irish Catholics arrived in America in the mid-19th century there was a deep-seated bias against them, a bias promoted by a virulent form of anti-Catholicism that had been engrained in the American mind and heart from its origin. This bias led these two expressions of Christ’s presence to live in “solitudes” of cultural isolation. Over time the Irish would gain acceptance in major American cities; e.g. Boston, New York and Chicago. The Irish served gallantly in the Civil War, on the side of the North, and eventually entered mainstream society. They became extremely proud of their heritage and culture, for good reason. They were great Americans! (In Chicago, where I live, St. Patrick’s day is a huge celebration, one which includes a parade where all the politicians take part. The Chicago […]

Our Lack of Unity Fuels Secularism

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:36-05:00June 17th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Church History, Culture, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

Last week I shared in several ecumenical events in Chicago. I will write more about these events in the next few weeks. I think they reveal what happens when God’s people listen to one another with love and respect and what potential there is for the future of the church in our increasingly secular culture.

What stands behind my personal interests, as my regular readers know well, is my vision/vocation, a vocation that sprang from God capturing my mind and heart through the words of our Lord in John 17:20-26.

I have included these words as translated by the late J. B. Phillips in the Phillips New Testament.

I am not praying only for these men but for all those who will believe in me through their message, that they may all be one. Just as you, Father, live in me and I live in you, I am asking that they may live in us, that the world may believe that you did send me. I have given them the honor that you gave me, that they may […]

Missional Church and Why It Matters

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:36-05:00June 13th, 2013|Categories: Biblical Theology, Books, Kingdom of God, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church|

I read a post earlier this week that claimed the missional church movement, which the author quite incorrectly said was about fifteen years old, would die soon. (The way he defined it I think he is right but the problem is in the word itself and how it has been used and abused. The “fads” will die but this theology is bigger than anyone’s fad and much bigger than evangelicalism!)

There are various paradigmatic ways to think about the church and the mission of Christ. All of these can help us to better understand the nature and mission of Christ’s church. If you are a deeply missional Christian you should get this point going into the conversation. Missional church theology believes that there is no single way, or theological paradigm, that fully expresses the whole truth about Christ’s people. Most serious ecumenists have come to recognize this through their shared experience, which is an extremely powerful way to encounter the living church that will take you far beyond books and ideas. I entered this process and conversation about […]

50 Years Ago Today – The Death of Medgar Evers

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:36-05:00June 12th, 2013|Categories: Civil Rights, Culture, Death, Freedom, Race and Racism|

Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers (pictured at right) was a trailblazer for racial equality in the South, all while displaying a tireless dedication to self-improvement, education, and fair treatment for citizens in his native Mississippi and abroad. On this day of June 12, 50 years ago, Evers was killed in the driveway of his home by a Ku Klux Klan “white supremacist” who lived free for a time after the senseless murder of this amazing man. I still recall the day Evers was killed. I was fourteen years old. I knew in my soul that “my people” (white Southerners) were in need of a change that had to come. The unfinished end of racism is a great challenge but some progress has been made. We can be thankful today for a man like Evers.

If you like to read more about this leader check out NewsOne for Black America.

James Meredith: A Humble Man with a Vision We Should Embrace

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:37-05:00June 12th, 2013|Categories: Uncategorized|

After reading James Meredith’s memoir I have real sympathy and love for this man, which should be evident by now. I’ve devoted three posts to his life story. Perhaps I identify too much since I see some elements of my life’s journey even though Meredith grew up a poor black man in the South and I grew up a middle-class white guy. But it is men like him who helped me exegete my world and become who I am in my 60s.

James Meredith, in spite of all he went through as a young man in his 20s and 30s, has lived an anything but dull life and he has seen great joy in his children and grandchildren, much as I have. One of Meredith’s sons not only graduated from Harvard but won the 2002 Outstanding Doctoral Student award at Ole Miss in the School of Business Administration. James says his entire time at Ole Miss was a “grotesque insult and humiliation” until the day his son received his doctorate. He also has twin sons who received degrees […]

James Meredith: An Idiosyncratic American

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:37-05:00June 11th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, Books, Culture, Current Affairs, Education, Freedom, Politics, Poverty, Race and Racism, The Future|

Yesterday I gave an overview of James Meredith’s new book, A Mission from God. Today I follow-up that blog with reflections on the final chapter of this moving civil rights memoir.

After telling about his interesting and rather eccentric life James Meredith begins his final chapter by writing:

I am an old man. I have spent almost eighty years on this earth. I hit the gym and take power walks almost every day, always wearing my Ole Miss baseball cap, and I’ve survived prostate cancer and many of the travails of old age. Shotgun pellets still dot my body, lying just under the skin like a harmless but abiding reminder of the sniper’s blast on that Mississippi roadside (June 6, 1966). Sometimes the pellets cause me considerable discomfort and occasionally they decide to just pop out of my body. I have seen cherished friends like Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr., get murdered by the beast of white supremacy, I have seen most of the lions of the civil rights era grow old and die, along […]

A Mission from God – Inspiration from James Meredith

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:37-05:00June 10th, 2013|Categories: Books, Civil Rights, Culture, Current Affairs, Free Speech, Freedom, Personal, The Future|

I remember the fall of 1962 like it was yesterday. John F. Kennedy was president and the South was in deep turmoil over race and white supremacy. The struggle was now centuries old and the race problem still fundamentally unchanged by a Civil War and a Constitutional amendment. I know these truths firsthand. I am a white son of the South. I am also a white son who longed for change and watched daily reports closely as the civil rights movement grew.

One of the most memorable moments came in the fall of 1962 when James Meredith, a black son of Mississippi, enrolled at the University of Mississippi. James Meredith, a nine-year veteran who was honorably discharged from the U.S. Air Force, engineered two of the most epic events of the American civil rights era: the desegregation of Ole Miss in 1962 and the March Against Fear in 1966, which opened the floodgates of voter registration in the South.

Who is James Meredith? I confess that when I picked up his new book at the library, A Mission from […]