Blog - Page 71 of 318 - John H Armstrong

The Spiritual State of the Nation (11)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:58-05:00December 31st, 2012|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Renewal, The Church, The Future|

Over the course of several weeks I have sought to give an overview of the spiritual state of America, particularly the state of the church in America following our November general election. The November 6 national election prompted me to reconsider these deeper concerns and the Spirit has prompted me to write about issues that I believe are central to the future of the church in our ever-changing nation.

Good News, Bad News

By analyzing cultural trends and religious demographics I have shared a bit of bad news. I would like to stress, at least briefly, that there is a lot of good news as well. In fact, this good news gets me up each day to lead a mission that is laser-focused on missional-ecumenism, or relational partnerships committed to the mission of Jesus to make disciples.

Here is some good news:

1. American Christians have pioneered and genuinely supported missions for centuries. Though the number of missionaries might be in decline the presence of schools that teach mission, and qualified seasoned missiologists who mentor many students, is still strong.

2. Every nation on the earth has […]

My Theology is Getting More Complex – My Faith Is Growing More Simple

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:58-05:00December 29th, 2012|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Church Tradition, Creeds, Emergent Church, Postmodernity, Religion, The Christian Minister/Ministry, The Church, Theology|

On Thursday evening I engaged with a long thread of discussion on my Facebook page about a post made by a popular author by the name of Jim Palmer. Jim lives in Nashville and is a former evangelical pastor who left the pastoral ministry several years ago. He writes some helpful and genuinely provocative stuff. I have not read his three primary books, two published by Nelson and one by a private publisher, but I have read a number of reviews of them. Most comments on Amazon are glowing and demonstrate his popularity. A few come from the far right and talk about “new age” tendencies and other such nonsense. I have honestly sought to get a handle on what he, and his particular writing, is about. I’m still not quite sure what Jim is doing but I am getting a clearer sense over the last 48 hours or so. From what I’ve read, at least up to this point, Palmer mixes his painful experience of the religion of “ought and should” (my words) with his very bad experience of church. In the process […]

Les Misérables: A Film That Reveals What True Faith Looks Like

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:58-05:00December 27th, 2012|Categories: Faith, Film, Forgiveness, Gospel/Good News, Love|

Victor Hugo’s epic story, “Les Misérables,” is set against the backdrop of 19th-century France, times of revolution and upheaval aimed at a culture dominated by the Catholic Church for many centuries. As most readers already know “Les Misérables” tells a moving story of broken dreams and unrequited love, of passion, sacrifice and redemption. It is a classic novel for a very good reason.

In the film version, released widely on Christmas Day, Hugh Jackman (photo) plays the central figure of the story, ex-prisoner Jean Valjean. Valjean was hunted for decades by a ruthless, but morally scrupulous policeman, by the name of Javert. Javert is played by the brilliant and much praised actor Russell Crowe. When Valjean breaks parole, after serving nineteen years in slavery for stealing bread for his starving family, Javert makes it his mission to find him and bring him to justice. In Hugo’s account Javert encounters Valjean on several occasions over a period of several decades, each time failing to secure his man. For those who have never read the book, or seen […]

The Global Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:58-05:00December 27th, 2012|Categories: ACT 3, Personal, Prayer, Unity of the Church|

The Annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is held in January. Until a few years ago I knew nothing about this amazing global prayer movement. I first heard about it by visiting the Center for Unity in Rome in March, 2011. I then learned even more by a visit to the Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute in Garrison, New York in June of 2011. Through Graymoor I learned of a publication that I read with great joy called, Ecumenical Trends. You can find the magazine and the work of Graymoor at www.GEII.org.

For those who live in Chicago I would like to personally invite you to celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity with me on Saturday, January 19, at the K.A.M. Isaiah Israel Hall, which is adjacent to the Focolare Center, 5001 S. Greenwood, Chicago. The program begins at 7:00 pm at K.A.M., which is located in Hyde Park in Chicago. (This is near the residence of President Obama if you are not aware of the location.)

The theme the international commission chose for this year is: “What does God require of us?” (cf. Micah […]

The Spiritual State of the Nation (10)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:58-05:00December 25th, 2012|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Leadership, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Renewal, The Christian Minister/Ministry, The Church, The Future|

Church Leadership

For my entire lifetime we have stressed the role of a few well-educated leaders, or more recently of a few talented speakers, who give life and vision to the church. As megachurches developed more and more these leaders were not even deeply trained in the Bible, worship and theology. They could have been successful in almost any marketing-related endeavor. This does not disqualify these leaders but it should give us some pause.

A revolutionary shift is now needed. What we need is more organic expressions of spiritual life and practice. We need leaders (pastors and non-pastors) who function not so much as CEOs but as real shepherds who know and love real (known) sheep. We need to move away from the “important person” who preaches as the singularly important leader to a shared pastoral process of care and share. I believe that a shift toward the importance of friendships, and away from organizational expressions of glitzy marketed spirituality, is called for in almost every evangelical church I have known. Much of what passes for worship in the largest Protestant churches is really performance, not congregational worship […]

The Spiritual State of the Nation (9)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:58-05:00December 24th, 2012|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Discipleship, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Renewal, The Church, The Future|

I ended my Monday-Tuesday blogs last week, December 17-18, by saying that the American church needs true revival. I sought to qualify this term by explaining what I meant by it. Now I would like to expand on this idea that the American church needs real revival. If you do not believe this to be true then I submit that you are in a deep spiritual coma, or willfully blind to what is happening to the churches of America, at best. My purpose is to bring you out of this coma and then to feed your faith with profound hope.

The End of Self-Help Philosophy

The gospel we have become accustomed to in popular American church culture is a message of self-help. We believe the good news is about us when it is first about Jesus. The reason why our sins can be forgiven is because Jesus died for us and rose for our justification. This has little or nothing to do with “self help” philosophy, a deeply American phenomenon.

Scores of books and articles have been written to demonstrate that my concern is not ill-founded. This point has […]

How Reason Can Humble You in Your Faith

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:59-05:00December 21st, 2012|Categories: Apologetics, Faith, Reason|

Christians have always struggled to understand the role and place of reason in faith. The central problem is not whether or not reason is important but what reason can and cannot do. This reminds us of Plato’s warning about the danger of “misology.” Plato felt this was a great danger to man, in fact one of the worst things that could happen. The misologist is a person who has become discouraged by certain inabilities in the capacity to reason and concluded that careful reasoning is no longer relevant at all. To a large extent much of modern society has, at least popularly, fallen prey to this problem. Since we cannot be sure of some things we decide that it is pointless to attempt to reach any reasonable conclusions. Plato put this problem well: “Let us then, in the first place, be careful of allowing or of admitting into our souls the notion that there is no health or soundness in any arguments at all.”

Though reason is important to Christian faith most people are not drawn to Christ by reason. T. S. Eliot, and from what I […]

Have We Really Lost Faith in God?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:59-05:00December 20th, 2012|Categories: Faith, Missional Church, Postmodernity, Religion, The Church|

Barbara Bradley Hagerty is the religion correspondent for NPR, reporting regularly on the intersection of faith and politics, law, and science and culture. Her New York Times best-selling book, Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality, was published in May 2009. She has received the American Women in Radio and Television Award, the Headliners Award and the Religion Newswriters Association Award for radio reporting. Barbara Hagerty, who is now in her early 50s, graduated magna cum laude from Williams College in 1981 with a degree in economics. She also received a masters in legal studies from Yale Law School in the 1990s. Her first job in journalism was copyediting at The Christian Science Monitor. From there she covered a number of major stories, both overseas and in the U.S. She joined National Public Radio in 1995. In 2003 she married and moved to the religion side of NPR.

On her personal website she describes how she moved away from her Christian Science background, which makes the title of her book all […]

The Alpha Journey

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:59-05:00December 19th, 2012|Categories: Evangelism, Missional Church|

I am not sure when I first learned of the Alpha course but I do remember when I began to see its impact on reaching people with the gospel of Christ. In the early 1990s I began to travel all across the United States. As I did I met leaders and churches of all kinds, especially Protestant mainline churches. Wherever I witnessed a vital mission and growth in a mainline church I asked, “Do you have an Alpha course?” The answer, eight times out of ten, was affirmative. I then began to take note of the power of this simple course, a course that brought so many people to living faith. I then saw the Alpha course begin to enter Catholic churches, both in the U.S. and abroad. It was delightful to see people coming to personal faith, again through a simple course that used human relationships as a strength and brought people into a direct encounter with the gospel and the living Christ. Before long I met missionaries in Europe who were using Alpha in Catholic settings to win many more people to Christ. When […]

The Spiritual State of the Nation (8)

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:15:59-05:00December 18th, 2012|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Discipleship, Evangelism, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, Politics, Religion, Renewal, The Church, The Future|

The Spiritual Heritage of the United States

Make no mistake about this one fact. America does have a great spiritual legacy. We might not be “the city set on a hill” but we have been wonderfully blessed. We still have so much to be thankful for as a people. But an unholy alliance of secular humanism, atheism, and New Age agendas are changing us rather profoundly as a people. Add to this the radical sexual agenda of the 1950s/60s and you have a mixture that threatens to divide us even further.

The struggle for freedom of speech and the true separation of church and state must continue. Freedom is a precious gift and is increasingly threatened by our changing landscape. The question is not about defending these most basic rights but rather about how to do it while we still give faithful witness to Christ and the gospel. My deep concern here is not that we should not engage in battles about defining our national future but rather that the way we engage in them will become something far less than Christlike.

Freedom of religion is fast becoming freedom […]