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The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (5)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:55-05:00January 25th, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Prayer, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

I end, today, a series of five posts on the history and development of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I do so with an earnest and heartfelt invitation to you to join us in prayer for the work of the ACT3 Network. I humbly, yet boldly, ask you to help us advance the work of unity as widely as possible. We do this mission with very little money. We could do more if the Lord provided it and we can do it even more efficiently and simply with more help, both from people who help us as partners and through financial sacrifices for our work.

Chiara Lubich, the founder of the Focolare Movement which I’ve mentioned several times this week, has inspired me in numerous ways over the last twelve months. I expect that she will continue to inspire me as an agent for unity throughout this new year. As I work on a book that I am writing on Christian love I find myself drawing heavily from Chiara’s life and witness. She was […]

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (4)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:55-05:00January 24th, 2013|Categories: Biblical Theology, Missional-Ecumenism, Prayer, The Church, Unity of the Church|

The representative worshipper that we’ve seen in Micah 6, the person I wrote about yesterday, is actually trying to buy God off, even as cheaply as possible. What an effrontery to such a mighty and gracious God. We see this when we come to Micah 6:8:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Up to now Micah has accused Israel’s leaders but now he accuses the people themselves. “He has told you.” Micah reports the stipulations in order to reopen the door of hope, to bring them back. There are three central elements to his appeal.

The prophets had referred to the covenant’s stipulations/requirements with a shorthand word that is the word “good.” Then these three central elements explain the core of what good means. The God of the covenant is a faithful God of love. Before such love Israel is not free to grab what she can out of life and then be indifferent to others.

“Justice” refers here to delivering the weak and wronged by […]

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (3)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:55-05:00January 23rd, 2013|Categories: Biblical Theology, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Prayer, The Church, Unity of the Church|

Last Saturday evening I preached at the Focolare Movement’s gathering in Hyde Park (Chicago) from the theme text for this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Micah 6:6-8. This gathering was held in the gorgeous main sanctuary of the KAM Isaiah Israel synagogue, right across the street from the home of our president, Barack Obama. (He is hardly ever home in Chicago since the White House is his present “main” address but the Secret Service were in clear evidence, protecting the Obama’s home.)

Each year a different Christian culture is chosen by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity for this week. This year, the Student Christian Movement of India was invited to fulfill this purpose of choosing the text. The students in India chose this text because they believe the search for Christian unity must be associated with the dismantling of caste systems and allowing the contribution to unity by the poorest of the poor. Having made two long mission trips to India I was delighted to preach from the text knowing how it […]

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (2)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:55-05:00January 22nd, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, Prayer, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

At his traditional Sunday message in Vatican Square Pope Benedict XVI gave a short address about the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Once again the Vatican has underscored her commitment to the doctrinal reforms of Vatican II and to the hard work of praying and working for unity among all Christians.

Here is the major part of what the Pope spoke on January 2o:

Dear brothers and sisters!

Today the liturgy proposes the Gospel passage about the wedding at Cana, an episode narrated by John, an eye witness of the event. This episode is part of this Sunday that immediately follows the Christmas season because, together with the visit of the Magi from the east and with Jesus’ baptism, it forms the trilogy of the epiphany, that is, of the manifestation of Christ. The manifestation at the wedding at Cana is, in fact, “the first of the signs” (John 2:11), that is, the first miracle performed by Jesus, with which he publicly manifested his glory, awakening the faith of his disciples. Let us […]

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (1)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 21st, 2013|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, Prayer, Unity of the Church|

In 1740 a Pentecostal movement, that predates modern American Pentecostalism, arose in Scotland. There were several clear links to America. This message of revival, however, was unique from other Protestant movements of the Holy Spirit. In this season of spiritual renewal prayers were raised for, and with, the various churches for Christian unity. I am not entirely sure about this but this element was not common in previous movements within Protestantism. Similar stirrings had happened before but no discernible connection between revival and Christian unity seems to have developed until the 1820s. In the year 1820 James Haldane Stewart published a work titled: Hints for the General Union of Christians for the Outpouring of the Spirit. Now revival was clearly being associated with “the general union” of all Christians. This was still, however, a Protestant phenomenon. In 1840 God moved Rev. Ignatius Spencer, a Catholic convert, to suggest a “Union of Prayer for Unity.” In 1867 the First Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops emphasized prayer for unity in the Preamble to its Resolutions.

The first major […]

Living as Aliens in Post-Christendom Culture (5)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 18th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Christ/Christology, Culture, Current Affairs, Emergent Church, Ideology, Lordship of Christ, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Postmodernity, Renewal, The Church, The Future|

Christian sociologist James Davison Hunter has written one of the most important studies of what it means to be faithfully present in the modern, increasingly post-Christendom world that I have been describing over the last two weeks. His magisterial book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford, 2010, has helped many of us think about how to live faithfully in the modern context. Perhaps the most important question that Hunter asks, and answers, is: “How might Christians in the 21st century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative?” I have attempted to provide some response to this same question by writing about living in a time of cultural and spiritual captivity as “a colony of heaven,” or as “aliens.”

Hunter suggests that what is really needed is a different paradigm of Christian engagement with the world, one he calls “faithful presence”–an ideal of Christian practice that is not only individual but institutional. His model works out both in relationships […]

Living as Aliens in Post-Christendom Culture (4)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 17th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Emergent Church, Ideology, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Separation of Church & State, The Church, The Future|

Since the time of Constantine (4th century) the church has been enabled, in various forms and expressions, to “share” power with the state. This was not all bad. As a result of Constantine the church was allowed the protection of law and the opportunity to create new institutions of learning and charity, to give but one grand example of a positive outcome. The church could also prosper in ways early Christians could never have understood. This may indeed be a double-edged sword but it has an edge that has done great good in the world in which we live. The result of this process was Western culture, a culture blessed with all of its art, education and growing prosperity. Personally, I think the anti-Constantinian argument is much too simple to conclude that this shift was an entirely bad one. Yet the Constantinian change allowed the church to share power without the church becoming a serious problem to those who used power, whether it was in the church or in the state. It wasn’t long until this great victory brought with it a host of deep and […]

Living as Aliens in a Post-Christendom Culture (3)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 16th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Emergent Church, The Church, The Future|

Because the church now resides in a growing state of exile, from both Christendom and a sympathetic host culture, I have suggested that we need to adjust our thinking and mission to this new reality. I believe this requires a whole new way of thinking and believing about who we are and what we should be doing as the church.

Not If We Believe, But What We Believe

When I was a young man, in college as well as in graduate theological study, the assumptions behind my training were fairly obvious, even though I did not understand them at the time.

The modern assumption was that the primary challenge to Christian faith was intellectual. My professors taught me how to have answers to those ideas that opposed the faith. The old, faithful expressions of Christianity were under attack and I needed to know how to answer this assault and make disciples who could do the same, at least in simple, workable ways.

The famous existential (liberal) theologian, Paul Tillich, believed the greatest challenge was to create a new and […]

Living as Aliens in a Post-Christendom Culture (2)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 15th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Discipleship, Emergent Church, Faith, Ideology, Kingdom of God, Lordship of Christ, Love, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Religion, Renewal, The Christian Minister/Ministry, The Church, The Future|

If living the Christian life as “aliens” really describes Christian community/church then we can understand why we are a “colony of heaven” in a “strange” land. The biblical portrait of the Christian church is one in which the church “exists for mission as fire exists for burning” (Emil Bruner). This gives us our clear identity. The DNA of such “aliens” is mission precisely because God is missio Dei. God, the Father, is a sending God who goes out into the broken land with good news by sending his Son (John 20:21). We are not drawn together simply for ourselves but rather to be the people of God engaging in Christ’s mission together. We do not do this simply as individual projects or programs that we contribute our money to but remain personally detached from. Even local congregations are not meant to do this all alone but as part of the Church in their city or area, the whole body of Christ living out their alien status in partnership and deep love.This is one reason why our divided state is such a serious scandal to the gospel.

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Living as Aliens in a Post-Christendom Culture (1)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:56-05:00January 14th, 2013|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Church Tradition, Culture, Current Affairs, Discipleship, Emergent Church, Gospel/Good News, Ideology, Kingdom of God, Lordship of Christ, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Postmodernity, The Church, The Future|

I suggested in my series last week, “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” that Christians were called by God in Christ to live as “a colony of heaven” (Philippians 3:20). Because of this calling we are to live as God’s new creation, thus as “aliens and exiles.” This is clearly the same point made by the apostle Peter when he writes:

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. [ Live as Servants of God ] Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge (1 Peter 2:10-12).

I decided, upon further reflection, to look at the primary uses of the English word “alien” in our modern context to see how we use this word and to see […]