Blog - Page 62 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Learning the Mystery of Contemplation

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:40-05:00May 1st, 2013|Categories: Contemplation, Mysticism, Prayer, Spirituality|

St. John Vianney (1786-1859), a French priest who is widely respected for his pastoral work and parish ministry, once noticed an elderly man visiting his church every morning before work and every evening after work. One day, out of profound curiosity, he asked, “What do you say to the Lord during your twice-daily visits?” The old man responded, “I say nothing to him, Father. I look at him and he looks at me.”

It is sound for us to think of prayer in a number of ways but this way, called contemplation, is one that I did not learn until later in my life. If I am asked what happens when I pray I answer, “I pour my heart out in words of gratitude and intercession. I express words of confusion and perplexing doubt deeply joined with resurrection hope.” God responds by his word and his Spirit and gives consolation and a fresh reminder of his love in the very silence of such an intimate context.

But St. John Vianney is right. Prayer includes just being in God’s presence […]

What Does God Require of Us?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:41-05:00April 30th, 2013|Categories: Discipleship, Faith, Kingdom of God, Lordship of Christ, Spirituality|

What does God ask of us? God asks that Christians be true disciples. If you are a disciple you will follow Jesus with your heart, mind, soul and strength. And you will not “just do it” as Nike famously says. This cannot be done all alone by your hard work. You were not redeemed to pursue God’s kingdom alone. You were made for God and God is a community of persons in eternal oneness. You were redeemed to grow and develop within a community of faith set apart by this relational God. This, it seems to me, includes both formal and informal expression. Baptism and the eucharist are more formal times and places for discipleship. Corporate liturgy is the same. Scripture reading, a wonderful private exercise, should also be a part of your public life with others. (Sadly, this has been all but lost in some of the most conservative evangelical Protestant churches where very little of the Bible is public read.)

When we became disciples we were invited to walk on a journey. We entered a road, a pathway, that leads us somewhere if we will […]

On Losing Weight: What Truly Profits the Mind, Body and Soul?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:41-05:00April 29th, 2013|Categories: Discipleship, Personal, Spirituality|

I’ve recently given special attention to my physical well-being. I did this, so far as I know, not because I face a major health crisis and a doctor ordered me to do it. I just felt very strongly that I was long overdue to lose some unnecessary weight and, in the process, get my body into better condition. I adopted a plan (Weight Watchers), thanks to the inspiration of my wife. I stuck to this plan (especially because of a very good app on my iPhone) since the middle of last September. Many plans work, I’m quite sure, but too many of them are faddish and nutritionally unbalanced. They also fail to build in accountability along with the science of the program. I chose one that took me a lot more time to reach my goal (seven months) but it taught me how to eat healthy food and how to make wise choices when I am away from home. (As some of you know I travel a good deal and eat a lot of meals with friends in various social contexts.) When forced to make choices about […]

Final Reflections on Our Lausanne Conversation – Is It "Springtime" for Ecumenism?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:41-05:00April 26th, 2013|Categories: Uncategorized|

In this final blog on the Lausanne Catholic-Evangelical Conversation in Mundelein last week I want to draw attention to what I have called (in my blogs last week) “the springtime of ecumenism.” There is, as I’ve written, a variety of opinions about this interpretation so I would like to explain why I adopt this response. My reasons are not rooted in pessimism or optimism. They are grounded in what I’ve seen, read and heard. They are also rooted in Christian hope, a gospel reality that has little or nothing to do with optimism or pessimism.

Let me give you several reasons why some believe that we are in the “wintertime” of ecumenism. First, groups like the National Council of Churches (NCC) are failing and faltering. Related structured movements are aging and financially declining. The energy of younger Christians is almost entirely absent from these movements and institutions. The World Council of Churches is doing slightly better, mostly due to the vision it draws from the global south and east, but it also faces major challenges in the next […]

The Lausanne Catholic–Evangelical Conversation: Does Talking & Praying Make a Difference?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:41-05:00April 25th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Current Affairs, Evangelism, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Prayer, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Southern Baptists, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

From the beginning of the ecumenical movement in the 19th century each of the churches involved in this growing quest for local and global unity brought their respective gifts and backgrounds to an ongoing search for common mission. This quest has clearly been fueled by the prayer of Jesus in John 17:20-24 more than by any other biblical text. Our Lord prayed, the night before he went to the cross, that we would all be one so that the world might know that the Father had sent the Son. All efforts to understand these modern historical developments must be understood in the light of how churches and leaders have worked out the implications of this amazing prayer.

When Vatican II changed how the Catholic Church related to the world, as well as to the proclamation of the gospel, things really began to move in a new direction. The now popular Catholic commitment to the “New Evangelization” entered the Catholic missiological vocabulary in the 1980s but found its first prominent expression in 1992 at the Council of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) […]

Day Two of the Lausanne Catholic-Evangelical Conversation in Mundelein

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:41-05:00April 24th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Evangelism, Missional-Ecumenism, Mysticism, Roman Catholicism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

On the second day of our Lausanne Catholic-Evangelical Conversation last week we spent Friday morning sharing, praying and seeking to love one another as new friends in Christ. In a group of twenty-five people, many of whom only met the day before, this is not easy to do. Indeed, at one level this effort can only go so far. But we began to sense the presence of the Spirit in our deliberations as time went along. The night before many of us had shared with one another until late in the evening over food and drink. (Some of the Protestants were amazed that a bar was a staple in this Catholic retreat context!) This beautiful evening of conversation helped to get us talking. This conversation clearly carried over into Friday morning. After we shared another meal at breakfast we went into our large circle. We then had a long break at 11:00 a.m.

Before lunch we were all invited to chapel for a Mass led by Francis Cardinal George. It was a twenty-fifth anniversary celebration for the class of 1988. The chapel was packed with students, faculty, […]

Talking Points from Our Catholic-Evangelical Conversation in Mundelein

By John Armstrong|2013-04-23T04:00:36-05:00April 23rd, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Current Affairs, Discipleship, Evangelism, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

In our Catholic-Evangelical Conversation at Mundelein Seminary last week Doug Birdsall, the former chairman of the Lausanne Movement, helped us to focus our attention on the major purpose of our gathering by reiterating the six core principles of the Lausanne Movement that came out of the global Cape Town gathering in October, 2010. These six are:

The uniqueness of Christ and the Holy Scripture in a growing global context of pluralism.
Seeking Christ’s way of reconciliation in a broken world.
Unity and partnership between all Christians.
The great need for Christian humility, integrity and simplicity (H.I. S.)
The reality and power of globalization.
Our response to other faiths as faithful witnesses to Christ as Lord.

Doug reminded us that when these six principles were shared with Catholics, and leaders from the Orthodox Church, at Cape Town again and again they spoke of their agreement. Cardinal Kasper made it clear these were his priorities as a Catholic leader.

One of the major things we discussed in Mundelein was what we called “The Christian Moment.” We believe that the church faces a series of challenges like never before yet we also believe the opportunities we have […]

The Lausanne Catholic-Evangelical Conversation: A Report

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:41-05:00April 22nd, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Current Affairs, Evangelism, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

Many of you prayed for me and the twenty-four people who shared with me in our first ever Lausanne Catholic-Evangelical Conversation on the campus of Mundelein Seminary held last week, April 18-20. I begin today’s blog with a huge, heart-felt “thanks” to everyone who interceded for me, and this event, during recent days. Your prayer was truly important. I do believe that God did bless us with his presence.

We began this unique “first-ever” Lausanne meeting on Thursday, April 18, at 3:30 p.m. We faced a huge problem before we even began. Storms had begun to hit Chicago the day before creating major flooding throughout the region. This changed thousands of flights into Chicago for more than 24-hours, starting late on Wednesday evening and lasting all day through Thursday and into wee hours of Friday morning. Because of this huge storm center we began our meeting with about half of the people who had planned to attend. By the evening about twenty of our group were present and by the next day, at breakfast on Friday, we were […]

"The Landscape Has Forever Changed"

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:41-05:00April 19th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Church Tradition, Current Affairs, Homosexuality, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

On Wednesday, April 10, I slipped out of the National Workshop on Christian Unity (NWCU) in the morning in order to visit the campus and faculty of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus. One of my roles, in partnering with Acton Institute, is to meet faculty and seminary leaders in various contexts. I visited three seminaries on this recent trip to Ohio. At Trinity I met the dean, several faculty members and some students. I also enjoyed worship at the eucharistic chapel service at 10 a.m. The campus is attractive and the school’s worship had a very positive sense of community about it. Sadly, Trinity’s enrollment is in decline like that at most mainline seminaries. It faces some serious challenges in the coming years. It seems likely that several ELCA seminaries will need to close. Trinity is engaged in a full-court effort to find a new president by July. (I met the interim president who is actually a member of the faculty at Hope College, the Michigan school connected to my own denomination, the Reformed Church in America.)

When […]

Mary in Ecumenical Perspective

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:41-05:00April 18th, 2013|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Church History, Church Tradition, Creeds, Liturgy, Missional-Ecumenism, Orthodoxy, Patristics, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

I mentioned yesterday that I attended two seminars at the National Workshop on Christian Unity (NWCU) in Columbus, April 8–11. The second was titled: “Mary in Ecumenical Perspective.” It was taught by one of the leading liturgical scholars in North American Christianity, Dr. Maxwell Johnson, Professor of Liturgical Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Johnson was marvelous. He was engaging, interesting, lucid and very funny. No one seemed bored for one moment and the room was alive. When he was done the questions flowed out of his outstanding presentation. Let me explain, very briefly, his thesis.

While many Protestants believe Mary presents a rather significant barrier to Christian unity Dr. Johnson believes the exact opposite is the case, both in our respective church traditions and in a growing awareness of Mary’s role in Christian life and devotion. A major source for Johnson’s argument was rooted in Martin Luther. This was the strength of his paper since he is a Lutheran himself. He showed, quite plainly, how Luther honored Mary and retained all the ancient-faith […]