Blog - Page 59 of 318 - John H Armstrong

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 […]

The Gospel of the Kingdom (8)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:37-05:00June 7th, 2013|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Discipleship, Evangelism, Faith, Gospel/Good News, Kingdom of God, Lordship of Christ, Missional Church, The Church|

The Gospel writers plainly want us to see that faith trumps force. The cross exposes Rome as “en evil bully who uses death as a weapon of fear and terror to dominate its subjects” (Heaven on Earth, 201). On the cross, in his horrific death, Jesus secures a real, cosmic and earthly victory over the kingdoms of this world without lifting a finger to defeat man’s greatest enemies–Satan and death.

On the day of Jesus’s death Rome believed it had prevailed against this Jewish “false” King. The disciples were defeated and discouraged. The resurrection was “the” great surprise and by it Jesus proclaimed his complete victory! The resurrection accounts, and especially the epistles of the New Testament, reveal a great change that came about as Spirit-filled disciples witnessed to the power of God working through the exalted and enthroned Jesus.

Streett is insightfully on target when he concludes his chapter on the present reign of Christ with these moving words:

When we think of King Jesus and his kingdom, we must avoid the mistake of separating his death […]

The Gospel of the Kingdom (7)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:37-05:00June 6th, 2013|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Discipleship, Evangelism, Faith, Gospel/Good News, Jesus, Kingdom of God, Lordship of Christ, Missional Church, The Church|

What we have seen, especially in Matthew 16, is that the church and the kingdom are not the same thing. The church preaches the kingdom. In the words of a 20th century theologian the church is the outpost of the kingdom in a neighborhood or community. The church serves the kingdom’s mission. As a messianic voluntary association the church “carries our Messiah’s agenda, just as other voluntary associations carried out Caesar’s agenda” (Heaven on Earth, 176). But what are the “keys” that are mentioned here in Matthew 16 with regard to the gospel of the kingdom that is entrusted to the church?

Streett correctly suggests that Jesus is “not specific [but] they [the keys] likely represent the good news of the kingdom, which calls on people to repent and believe” (Heaven on Earth, 176). The church is “at the center of Christ’s kingdom plans from the time of his ascension to his return at the end of the age. He uses people to carry out his mission” (Heaven on Earth, 177). Binding and loosing relates to being bound […]

The Gospel of the Kingdom (6)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:37-05:00June 5th, 2013|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Biblical Theology, Church History, Church Tradition, Discipleship, Evangelism, Faith, Kingdom of God, Lordship of Christ, Missional Church, The Church|

When Jesus spoke about the church, right in the middle of his teaching about the kingdom of God (Matthew 16), what did he mean when he used the word “church”? Before you answer too quickly consider the importance of biblical words and how we have become accustomed to use them thoughtlessly in many instances. This is genuinely true when it comes to the English word church.

Alan Streett understands the word church to refer to what we should call a voluntary association. Most biblical scholars believe that the first church was much like a synagogue. It functioned much like a synagogue if one viewed it as a messianic movement within Judaism. In time the church (congregation/assembly) became a behind-the-scenes gathering of people who voluntary submitted to Jesus and to one another in faith and baptism and then meet regularly for prayer, the hearing of the Word of God and the receiving of the sacred meal, the Lord’s Supper. This church was built by Jesus and it belongs to him, not to us or a human agency. He calls […]

The Gospel of the Kingdom (5)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:38-05:00June 4th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, Biblical Theology, Discipleship, Evangelism, Faith, Gospel/Good News, Jesus, Kingdom of God, Lordship of Christ, Missional Church, The Church|

Last week I began a series of blogs that grew out of my reading of Professor Alan Streett’s excellent new book, Heaven on Earth: Experiencing the Kingdom of God in the Here and Now (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 2013). I believe this is a perfect study aimed at everyday evangelical Christians who need to grasp the centrality and importance of Jesus and his kingdom. It could not be more timely given the abysmal absence of kingdom theology in most American churches. Pastors would also profit from this book and could easily build a study around it. (Elders, deacons, councils, etc. could all read and discuss it very profitably.) But I’ve also said that ordinary Bible readers, people who want to better understand the central message of the Bible, would genuinely benefit from this book.

Only twice, in the written record of the New Testament, does out Lord Jesus Christ speak about the church by name (cf. Matthew 16 and 18). Any serious Bible reader will soon discover that Jesus spoke about his kingdom far more than about his […]

Christ Our Center – The Lausanne Conversation at Mundelein Seminary

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:38-05:00June 3rd, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Christ/Christology, Incarnation, Jesus, Missional-Ecumenism, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Unity of the Church|

The past two Monday blogs (May 20 and 27) have included information about our April 18 public meeting, “Christ Our Center.” This event was held at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary. This event was a small part of the first ever Lausanne Catholic-Evangelical Conversation, a private dialogue between twenty-five leaders. ACT3 Network worked with our partner, the Lausanne Committee, to jointly host and sponsor this event. This video gives you the opportunity to now join with us in hearing and following what transpired that historic Thursday night.

Today I post the third, and final, video of that special evening. This is a dialogue with all four of us participating: Fr. Edward T. Oakes, Dr. Hans Boersma, Fr. Robert Barron and me. It also includes responses, comments and a discussion of some of the topics and questions of that evening. The audience also asked questions. Some of these questions were asked by participants from the private conversation and some by guests who were only present for this evening meeting.

Again, I hope the work that we put into making this video available proves to […]