Blog - Page 99 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Justice, the Kingdom of God and Reading the Bible

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:08-05:00October 25th, 2011|Categories: Biblical Theology, Ethics, Kingdom of God, Politics, Poverty, The Future|

A recent article on the Christianity Today web site brought considerable surprise to many. The article revealed that a recent poll sponsored by LifeWay Research found that owning a Bible is quite different from reading it. Most polls, surveys, and studies that have examined the Bible's influence in America have looked at views of its inspiration and various methods of interpretation. Gallup, for example, has routinely asked Americans how literally the Bible should be taken. But almost no research has looked into what happens when people actually read the Bible. This new research, conducted by Baylor University, indicates that reading the Bible on one's own makes a real difference but the difference is one that some did not see coming.

First, frequent Bible reading does have some predictable effects. It increases opposition to abortion as well as to homosexual unions. It also boosts a belief that science helps reveal God's glory. It also diminishes hopes that science will eventually solve humanity's problems. But unlike some other religious […]

What Andreas Widmer Learned About Business and Entrepreneurship from the Pope

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:09-05:00October 24th, 2011|Categories: Acton Institute, Business, Poverty, Wealth|

Business entrepreneur Andreas Widmer has a truly great story to tell. His new book, The Pope and the CEO, tells this story and makes a hugely valuable point about both business and poverty. Widmer says, “The pope showed me what real leadership looks like. He modeled for me how to pursue our God-given potential. Not coincidentally, this also makes us and those around us better employees, more capable of and more willing to work hard at building a stronger company. That is something that makes both good human sense and good business sense.” Amen!

Andreas Widmer served as a member of the elite Swiss Guard for two years. The guard is a security detail that protects the pope. (I had the opportunity to talk to some members of the Swiss Guard at the Vatican in March and find their work very interesting.) In this new book Andreas Widmer gives us a behind-the-scenes look into the life and thinking of Pope John Paul II, “the most authentically human person […]

How We See One Another

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:09-05:00October 23rd, 2011|Categories: Humor, Unity of the Church|

A major contributor to our disunity can be seen in how we view one another as Christians. Because we hold differing perspectives on doctrine and practice we tend to become suspicious of each other. These stereotypes are real. Today I put them under the lens of humor. I suppose some might be offended but the purpose here is not to offend bur rather to prompt you to laugh at yourself and at how we maintain our dislikes and personal disdain for one another on the grounds of how we view one another, for better and often for worse. The source can be seen in the graphic I’ve borrowed but if you want to see more similar material check out www.thomasthedoubter.com. It is an interesting blog.

The Increase of Other Faiths and the Future

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:09-05:00October 22nd, 2011|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Current Affairs, Religion|

Kevin M. Schultz, in his insightful social history of religion in modern America, notes that “a final factor changing America’s religious sociology, one that has yet to supplant the liberal-conservative divide, has been an increase in the number of faiths practiced in the United States. Changes in immigration law since 1965 have allowed a variety of new immigrant populations to come to the United States, especially from Asia, Africa and Latin America” (Tri-Faith America, 202). Each of these new immigrants brings with them their own religious traditions. These include Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and many, many more. These simple facts make it increasingly difficult to talk about a “Judeo-Christian” America. President Obama, in a April 2009 statement at a press conference in Turkey said that the United States did not consider itself “a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens bound by ideals and a set of values” (cited in Tri-Faith America, 202).

Now it seems quite obvious to […]

How Shall We Deal with Our Religious Identity Crisis?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:09-05:00October 21st, 2011|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Civil Rights, Culture, Current Affairs, Missional-Ecumenism, Religion|

The success of what Professor Ken M. Schultz has called “tri-faith America” there remain problems. One is the identity crisis I wrote about yesterday. Catholics and Protestants are no longer sure why they are Catholic or Protestant, at least to a significant degree. Few understand the theological debates and most do not live in the tensions of the past. How do Catholic and Protestant institutions self-identify when they have been so successful that they are losing their way? This question is as old as antiquity if you know the Old Testament.

The religious right has posed serious opposition to this new version of public expression Schultz calls “tri-faith.” But, he rightly concludes, “the success of the tri-faith idea shaped American life during the second half of the twentieth century and has continued to do so well into the twenty-first” (Tri-Faith America, 208).

This new public expression of faith in America helped to formulate new principles of group communalism, group rights, and religious privacy. While some conservatives debate the ultimate value of these principles I am one that welcomes them as a better way than that of our pre-civil […]

Putting America’s Religious Change Into Perspective

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:09-05:00October 20th, 2011|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Religion|

Yesterday I gave a few observations about a new book, Tri-Faith America: How Catholics and Jews Held Postwar America to Its Protestant Promise (Oxford, 2011). Author Kevin M. Schultz has done a major new analysis, as well as a critical update, of the thesis religious sociologist Will Herberg wrote on the impact of religion upon American culture.

Schultz demonstrates that religious pluralism and civic secularism were increasingly being wed before and after World War II. By 1962, when the Supreme Court outlawed prayer in public schools, Protestantism, and religion in general, was being disestablished in American life. This decision formalized that which had already been taking place for decades. Following this decision very conservative Protestants wanted to take back what they saw as “their country.” At first this response came from fringe voices but before long it became a vital part of Protestant evangelical Christianity in America. In 1963 Jerry Falwell got the idea to build a Christian school after the Supreme Court ruled against enforced Bible reading […]

Exploring Catholicism

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:09-05:00October 19th, 2011|Categories: Roman Catholicism|

My good friend Chris Castaldo, author of Holy Ground, is hosting a special event at Wheaton College next Tuesday evening, October 25th. The subject is “Exploring Catholicism.” If you are in the Chicago area I encourage you to consider attending. It will be well worth your time I am quite sure. Chris is a former Catholic who does not represent the far too common anti-Catholic spirit of many evangelicals. You may disagree with him, especially if you are a devout Catholic, but you will still love him as a brother filled with Christ’s Spirit. I hope you will check this out and/or follow Chris on his blogs and teaching. Few evangelicals can express their differences with Rome as well as Chris and in the spirit of genuine love and respect.

Tri-Faith America

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:09-05:00October 19th, 2011|Categories: America and Americanism, American Evangelicalism, Culture, Race and Racism, Religion|

Kevin M. Schultz, assistant professor of history and Catholic studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, demonstrates in his newly published study, Tri-Faith America (Oxford University Press, 2011), that the central drama of twentieth-century American religion was a tense, complex and successful course of change that ultimately led to mutual accommodation between America’s religious traditions. Schultz follows the lead of Will Herberg (1901-1977) that was popularized in his famous book, Protestant, Catholic and Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (1955). Herberg, who was brought up in a secular Jewish family and became a communist, eventually turned away from Marxism and became a religious conservative. During the 1960s Herberg became the religion editor of the National Review, the conservative magazine begun by William F., Buckley (1925-2008), a devout Catholics. (I prize a small signed photo of Buckley, taken with me outside Edman Chapel at Wheaton College, when we met at a event to honor and study Malcolm Muggeridge.)

In Herberg’s most famous aforementioned work, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, […]

Peron’s Argentina or Ancient Rome: How Should We Respond to Time’s of Great Unrest?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:09-05:00October 18th, 2011|Categories: Current Affairs, Economy/Economics, Politics|

The more I watch the young idealists (yes, some of them are my age for sure) who occupy Wall Street in protest the more I “listen” to their cobbled together assumptions about life and modern society. This supposedly spontaneous movement, now four-weeks old, continues to grow in other major cities around the world.

One of the striking facts about this movement was recently heralded through its occasionally published newspaper, the Occupied Wall Street Journal. (The irony here is delicious I know.) The paper said, “In the great cathedral of capitalism, the dispossessed have liberated territory from the financial overlords and their police army.” Who are they kidding?

Gordon Crovitz, writing in the Monday (October 16) Wall Street Journal, seriously asks, “How did protestors manage to take over Zuccotti Park, a half-acre plot a few blocks from Wall Street?” (This is where they camp and live.) It seems that this land-use by the protestors came about through old fashioned crony capitalism, not the social media. The occupiers selected a park […]

The Debt: A Sobering and Tense Thriller

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:10-05:00October 17th, 2011|Categories: Film, Forgiveness|

Each of us has secrets that we keep to ourselves. We know this even though we often try to avoid it. Some of these secrets haunt us profoundly. Sometimes we are able to make a semblance of peace with them over time. This is why confession is so vital to true spiritual and emotional health. The ancient traditions of Orthodoxy and Catholicism have an established means for direct confession that involve a spiritual guide who hears and responds to our sins with a word of grace. Still, many of us act as if sharing our secrets will destroy us. The truth is the exact opposite.

This reality came home to me rather powerfully as I watched the new film The Debt. Based on an acclaimed 2007 Israeli film called Ha-Hov [The Debt], this new film—directed by Oscar-winning director John Madden, is a taunt and suspenseful story that will go deep into the mind and soul of the viewer who has a conscience.

In The Debt the viewer […]