Biography
James Armstrong has had a long and distinguished career in the ministry. As a pastor and Bishop in the United Methodist Church, he was a national leader, serving as President of several boards and commissions. In 1982 he was elected as President of the National Council of Churches and served for one year. Today he is a Visiting Professor at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.

James Armstrong is a strong voice for peace and human rights around the world and a frequent lecturer on subjects related to moral theology and the practice of ministry in today's society. The author of nine books and a contributor to many more, he has also written widely for Christian journals and periodicals. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Spirituality in a Real World" 
 

"Those who live on the level of (a) lower nature have their outlook formed by it, and that spells death; but those who live on the level of the spirit have the spiritual outlook, and that is life and peace.  ...You are on the spiritual level if only God's spirit dwells within you."

                                                                                                Romans 8:5, 6, 9a 

I want to talk about spirituality in a real world.  The world is real, you know, and real is not necessarily good. 

We live in a world of street gangs and drug busts -- of battered spouses and neglected children -- of homelessness and poverty -- of sleazy sex and "skinhead" violence -- of Iron-Contra super-patriotism, S & L criminality and war games on distant burning desert sands -- of shattered dreams and broken promises; of loved ones who no longer love. 

But that's not all.... 

We live in a world where babies are birthed and youngsters are nurtured -- where spirits are generous and minds are alive -- where fidelity, honor, truthfulness and integrity are reflected in all walks of life -- where gaiety and laughter punctuate the stuff of every day -- a world of mountain streams, rolling hills and oases in the midst of burning desert sands -- a world where lives like yours and mine can find joy and know fulfillment. 

There are many worlds around us, real worlds, "good" and "bad" worlds, some filled with wonder, some filled with dread.  The apostle Paul with his unusual capacity to draw sharp contrasts called one a world of death; the other a world of life.  What makes the difference between the two?  Spirit.  The Spirit of God.  The human spirit.  A spirit that transcends and permeates all things good. 

When we talk about spirituality we are talking about a quality of life that separates light from darkness and that overcomes those specters of death that threaten us on every hand. 

When properly understood spirituality is not a dirty or outdated word.  Spirituality is not gushing sentimentality or pink-cheeked piosity, not a fuzzy, snug escape hatch designed to remove us from reality.  Spirituality is the essence of being.  It can shape reality.   

This summer I led a man's spirituality retreat high in the mountains of Colorado.  Our first session in an old rustic lodge was devoted to film-watching.  We saw "Romero," the story of the heroic archbishop of El Salvador who was assassinated by a death squad while celebrating Mass.  Later one of the men would ask, "Why a film like that when we're supposed to be talking about 'spirituality'?"  But, that was the point!  Oscar Romero demonstrated the power of Spirit in a very real world. 

On February 3, 1977, the Vatican named Romero archbishop of El Salvador.  At the time he was called "churchy, (a) lover of rules and clerical discipline (a) friend of liturgical laws, he was convinced that 'the most important thing (was) prayer and personal conversion.'"  He was known to be honest and wanted to be faithful but that was about it. 

Three years later, on March 24, 1980, he was gunned down at the altar of a hospital chapel run by Carmelite nuns.  Fellow bishops from across Latin America, those who knew him best, wrote:  "We were not surprised by (his assassination).  His fate could not have been any other:  he was faithful to Christ and had truly incarnated himself in the suffering of (the) people."  From a preoccupation with prayer and personal conversion to a life immersed in the needs of his people Archbishop Romero had walked in the Spirit each step of the way. 

What had broadened his understanding of life in the Spirit? 

He had moved among his people in their poverty. 

He had seen idealistic priests and innocent women and children shot down by cold-hearted national police and death squads. 

He had seen the rulers of the land pad their own pockets and shore up their power while trampling on the heads of the poor. 

He became one with those who were sick and imprisoned -- beaten and tortured. 

Selected as a leader who would not "rock the boat" he became a disturber of the peace, a radical voice of conscience and judgment, one who offered hope amidst despair. 

He had always lived in a real world, but his grasp of reality, his experience with reality, had dramatically changed.  Earlier he had insulated himself in the rooms of the chancellery (just as some of us tend to insulate ourselves in our business offices and classrooms and suburban homes).  Oh, Romero studied, he prayed, he did the work of his "office," but he didn't venture out to mingle with the underside of reality. 

The spirituality so desperately needed in the church and the world today is open-eyed, open-minded, open-hearted, embracing everything that touches upon the human promise and the human struggle. 

Now for the hard part: 

How are we to cultivate this quality of life, this spiritual maturity, within ourselves? 

It begins, as most things Christian begin, with surrender.  We don't grunt our way into the realm of the Spirit with fists clenched and nostrils flaring.  We don't batter down the doors of the spirit-world.  We simply open ourselves --whoever and whatever we may be -- and welcome Spirit in. 

            Spirit of the living God,
            Fall afresh on me.
            Melt me, mold me,
            Fill me, use me.
            Spirit of the living God,
            Fall afresh on me. 

Here am I, Lord, take me, wherever You will. 

Surrender -- and discipline.  There are the customary disciplines that spiritual guides have always talked and written about.  I would not downplay their fundamental role in nurturing and strengthening the spiritual life.  "Take time to be holy, speak oft with the Lord."  Meditation, reflection, study, prayer, the arts of discernment -- encourage and cultivate these basics in your most personal worlds.  Just as physical health is impossible apart from physical exercise so spiritual health is unthinkable apart from spiritual exercises.  The "practice of the presence" is the air we breathe, the blood that courses through our veins, the essence of the spiritual life. 

But, Christian discipline is more than setting time aside (important as that is), more than drawing apart for personal enrichment (important as that is).  Jesus was never more disciplined than when he "set his face steadfastly toward Jerusalem."  The gentle hillsides and seashores of Galilee were a part of the real world Jesus encountered.  So, too, were grasping tax-collectors, power hungry politicians, hypocritical religious leaders and people who seemed possessed by demons, who committed adultery, who married too often and drank too much.  Reality comes in many forms and must be dealt with in its native habitats.  Disciplined living leads to intentional involvement in particular times and places.  The Jesus of the stained glass window and the little black prayer book won't make much difference in a world like ours.  It is the bloodsweating Jesus of Gethsemane ("Not my will but thine be done") that saves human life and shapes reality.  Oscar Romero, just days before his death, said in a newspaper interview: 

"If God accepts the sacrifice of my life, my hope is that my blood will be like a seed of liberty and a sign that our hopes will soon become a reality." 

The same Paul who wrote, "You are on a spiritual level if God's Spirit dwells within you," writing in the same book of the Bible in the same chapter said, "I reckon the sufferings we now endure bear no comparison with the splendour...which is in store for us.  For the created universe... 

            - the universe of Iraq and the Persian Gulf,
            - of El Salvador and South Africa,
            - of Cheyenne and Denver and Chicago and New York,
            - of slums, suburbs and rolling farm lands,
            - of your world and mine, 

(... the created universe) awaits with eager expectation for God's (people-of-the-Spirit) to be revealed."  (Romans 8:18, 19). 

We are, each of us, called to be those people-of-the-Spirit in these frightening, wondrous worlds of ours.  

            Spirit of the living God,
            Fall afresh on (us).
            Melt (us), mold (us),
            Fill (us), use (us),
            Spirit of the living God
            Fall afresh on (us), - today.

Interview with James Armstrong
Interviewed by Orley Herron

Orley Herron: Jim, you have been doing some interesting work with transcontinental corporations. You have been teaching the leadership and working with those leaders regarding corporate ethics in the Third World. Tell us about that.

James Armstrong: Many years ago I was deeply involved in the resolution of the Nestlé boycott. I had been involved in conflict resolution before that and served as the executive vice president of a conflict resolution firm in Washington, D.C. after that. In those roles I became well acquainted with corporate leaders and founded a group called the "Center for Dialogue and Development" which was designed to bring the transnational corporate executives together with voices representing the Third World. These are people who kind of pass in the night. The presence of the transnational corporation in the Third World is with us; it is here to stay. How that transnational presence functions, how it is able to relate to the harsh realities of that world, will determine in many respects the well-being of the people who have long been victims of life itself.

Herron: Is there any formula you follow in working with those people?

Armstrong: Listening. There is no formula beyond listening that can be improved upon and, on the one hand, to realize that you are dealing with power and on the other hand, the powerless. The people of the Third World are basically powerless. To be able to bring them together, in a sense as equals, is something that simply has not happened.

Herron: Have you found corporations very open to your work?

Armstrong: Some. Unfortunately, I think corporations tend to respond when their backs are against the wall; when activists or other groups appear to be criticizing their methods and their posture in the Third World. At the same time, you have some unusually sensitive corporative executives who realize that they must be a part of the future of humankind if that future is to be worth having. You have people like J. Irwin Miller with Cummins Engine. He emerged long ago as one of the outstanding lay Christians of this century, and wove into the corporate structures of Cummins someone who was responsible primarily for advocating the ethical position and practice.

Herron: Thank you, Jim.