Aaron Armstrong

bloggingtheologically.com

Politics

Links I like (3/22)

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Links I like (2018 edition)

A Pastor Opens Up About His Struggle with Depression

Daniel Hyun:

In more recent years, there were times when I felt that maybe I was past my depression. Most people who know me might have been surprised to know this was part of my life. As a pastor who had aspirations to get a new church off the ground, there was not much room for my depression. Especially as I encountered so many broken people, I internalized a need to be strong for their sakes and felt like I always needed to be “on.” Of course, I believed that part of being on was being real but depression didn’t feel like an appropriate expression of honesty. The truth is that as I became more competent as a pastor, I also became more proficient in functioning outwardly at a relatively high level even when my soul was being crushed internally. For me to get where I wanted to get, weakness was not an option and depression felt like a liability that needed to be hid away.

Why Mister Rogers (Still) Matters

Russell Moore:

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of public television’s Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The milestone will bring with it a major book, a feature film (starring Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers), and even a U.S. postage stamp. When one considers all the ephemera of children’s programming, the ongoing cultural resonance of this show is staggering. Fifty years from now will anyone note the anniversary of Gumball or Clarence? I doubt it. So why does Mr. Rogers, even long after his death, still beckon us into his neighborhood?

How The Internet Can Help Us Model 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Mike Leake:

As I preached through 2 Corinthians a few weeks ago I made the point that it is non-redemptive to not share in our suffering. That cuts both ways. It not only means we need to be there for folks a they are suffering, but we also need to share our stories. Consider all of those grieving fathers who wouldn’t have been helped had Eric decided his story was too personal, too gritty, to share. Consider all the ways God has comforted you. How might He use your story to comfort others? It’s wrong for us to withhold this opportunity to give comfort from others.

Unjust and Unconstitutional

Andrew Walker:

The deeply pro-choice California legislature wants pro-life organizations and citizens to do free advertising on its and the abortion lobby’s behalf. Only a movement as insidious and overreaching as the sexual revolution would insist on drafting dissenters into its ranks. This episode also demonstrates the unmasked hypocrisy at play in the abortion movement: it is hard to imagine a scenario where progressives would adopt the position of forcing Planned Parenthood, for example, to advertise on behalf of pregnancy care centers. This law is deeply biased toward abortion at the expense of sound public policy and human dignity.

When Did Evangelical Christianity Begin?

Thomas Kidd:

Although many people associate evangelicalism with modern religious leaders like Billy Graham and Rick Warren, its roots can be traced back to the eighteenth century. In response to social, political, economic, and intellectual transformations that were transatlantic in scope, eighteenth-century Protestants throughout the Atlantic world gradually created a new kind of faith that we now call evangelicalism. The word itself was not new, and its roots stretch back to the Greek evangelion, meaning “gospel.” The sixteenth-century Protestant reformers used evangelical to emphasize their reliance on the gospel message they found in scripture.

A Guide to the Music of Andrew Peterson

Trevin Wax:

In recent years, I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with Andrew here and there (including an unexpected lunch one afternoon in Cambridge!), and even though I’ve expressed to him my gratitude for his musical labors, I’ve long wanted to pay tribute with words of my own, in hopes that I might introduce others to his work.

So, in this guide I walk through each of Andrew’s albums, providing a brief overview and some thoughts on each offering.

Creation and the Trinity stand together

A favorite from the archives:

One of the most shocking things to me is how little Christians are encouraged to think deeply about creation and the Trinity.

I’m not talking about all the various arguments for methods of creation, views on the age of the earth or anything like that. Nor am I referring to attempting to understand the complexities of what Scripture reveals of the equally divine natures of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and how we can have a God who is three yet one. No what I’m referring to the central reality of creation being a divine—and more specifically, a Trinitarian—work.

Links I like (3/15)

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Links I like (2018 edition)

Is there a biblical defense of free speech?

Paul D. Miller:

Free speech is a hotly debated topic in America right now. There are growing concerns that appreciation for it is in decline. Would you say there is a biblical defense of free speech that should motivate Christians to defend such a principle? Second, why would you argue for the legitimacy of free speech against concerns that free speech may harm the dignity of individuals in society?

Why Suicide Is Everybody’s Business

Joni Eareckson Tada:

The vast majority of suicides of elderly or terminally ill people or those with disabilities occur quietly within homes and institutions, far from the media, the courts, and the public eye. These are hurting, despondent people who never make the news and only rarely appear on your Facebook feed. These are the ones living a quiet desperation: The woman with cancer, seesawing in and out of remission. The young boy in a semi-comatose condition, making eye contact, half smiling, and then drifting away again. The carpenter who broke his neck falling from a second-story window and now, abandoned by his wife, lives in a nursing home.

Earthly Risk, Eternal Reward

JD Greear:

It reminds me of the words of Jim Elliott, the missionary to Ecuador who was martyred in his late 20s: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

What you cannot keep is your life. But what you cannot lose is whatever you have staked in God’s eternal kingdom. The one thing you can be certain will happen is that you will stand before God and answer as to whether or not you have lived out his purposes and leveraged your life and resources for his kingdom.

Are You a Contender?

Rebecca Stark:

When Jude wrote his New Testament letter to one of the early Christian churches, he urged the members to fight to protect and defend the faith—or, to use his language, he called them to contend earnestly for it. “Certain persons” who claimed to be believers, had “crept” into the church. They looked like ordinary Christians, and they settled into the body like ordinary Christians did, but they had joined the group for shady reasons.  We don’t know the details, but it seems that both their actions, which were immoral, and their teachings, which were false, attacked “the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.”

3 Ways to “Hate” Your Family When You Love Your Family

Michael Kelley:

Jesus’ point here is one of allegiance. When we are following Him, then everything else not only takes a back seat; everything else is irrevocably changed. All our priorities. All our expenditures. And, yes, all our relationships. Our allegiance to Jesus is of the highest order so much so that everything else revolves around it.

What, then, does it look like to “hate” our families in this sense, especially when we love our families? Let me offer three suggestions.

The Call to Repentance and the Championing of Grace

Trevin Wax:

Here’s where we so easily take a wrong turn. Wherever did we get the notion that the call to repentance is opposed to the championing of grace? When did truth and grace get separated? Or repentance and faith?

Every breath is a gift of immeasurable grace

A favorite from the archives:

It’s easy (and tempting at times) to look at the world and consider a “hunker down in the bunker” mentality. The world, after all,  is a pretty messed up place. Western nations seem to be racing back to the decadence and depravity of 1st century Rome. Terrorists are destroying cultural artifacts and murdering people throughout the Middle East. It’s no surprise that there are some who are fully expecting God to rain down fire any moment—and even more who are surprised that he hasn’t already!

Links I like (1/18)

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Links I like (2018 edition)

Lord, Help My Stupidity

Jeff Medders:

When the Bible talks about stupidity, it’s not merely addressing book-smarts or street-smarts, I.Q. or knowing lots of information about a lot of things. You can be really smart and still be super stupid. Knowing the superfluidity factors of quantum mechanics pales in comparison to knowing how to live wisely before the Lord.

When God is addressing our stupidity, he’s talking about our lack of wisdom—a kink in our walking in holiness before the Lord.

You Can’t Have Ethics Without Stories

Russell Moore:

Russell Kirk spoke of this as the shaping of the “moral imagination.” Stories, rightly told, shape us, almost always unconsciously at first. We vicariously are delighted or surprised or disgusted or outraged. It’s not just that we cognitively connect the dots but that, at some level, we actually experience these things. That power can be used in terrifying ways—see the use of Germanic volk myths in the rise of Hitler—or in life-giving, redemptive ways.

When Our Heroes Don’t Live Up to Their Theology

Thomas Kidd:

For someone who specializes in 18th-century history, the question of slavery is an ever-present problem. As an evangelical, I deeply admire the work of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, but I can’t get around the fact that they both owned slaves.

What do we do about flawed historical heroes like these? Christians are hardly unique in having to deal with the issue; it’s also an American problem and a human problem. It’s American in the sense that America was founded on the fundamental tension between liberty and slavery. Thus, we have a panoply of historical heroes in America (George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Robert E. Lee, and many more) who were also slaveowners.

Dead Heroes Tell No Tales

Aaron Earls:

We recognize the inherent dangers in quoting someone still living to support your ideas.

They could change their mind, say something idiotic to destroy their credibility, or explain how your quoting of them misunderstands their point. In other words, they could stop being useful to us.

We like our heroes dead and their quotes out of context. That way we can sand off rough edges that are abrasive to us and our preconceptions.

I Would Never Write a “Thank You” Note to Cancer

Michael Kelley:

It happens around this time every year now. It’s part of our regular family rhythm, so much so that it doesn’t mean as much to us as it used to. Today is the day our son, Joshua, visits the Survivor’s Clinic for childhood cancer survivors.

Joshua was diagnosed with leukemia when he was two, and we walked through three and a half years of chemotherapy treatments with him. Those were hard years. Years of hair loss. Of painful sores. Of all night stints in the hospital. But looking back on those years now, they were also the most formative years of our lives.

After 950 years, major artwork returns to England

This is pretty neat:

The Bayeux Tapestry may leave France for the first time in 950 years, as the country considers loaning it for display in Britain.

French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce the historic loan at a meeting with UK Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday.

The artwork depicts the Battle of Hastings and the events leading up to William the Conqueror’s Norman conquest of England in 1066. Embroidered onto a series of 20-inch-tall linen panels, it concludes with the death of King Harold and the retreat of his army.

Never make peace with death

A favorite from the archives:

Meaning, simply, nearly 40 percent of the world’s population can have an abortion at any time, for virtually any reason. And it’s most likely paid for by your tax dollars. In fact, Canada, where I live, has no standing abortion law whatsoever, despite several failed attempts to place limits over the last 30 years (here’s a timeline of abortion laws in Canada for those interested).

All but one of the major political parties in this country are staunchly pro-abortion. One of these parties requires all of its members of parliament to vote in line with this stance on any bill being considered, regardless of personal conviction. But its not as though the remaining major party is pro-life; they simply allow party members to vote according to conscience.

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