The Authentic Narrative of the Remarkable Life of Chris Armstrong (well, at least a brief bio)
I’ve realized that other than the brief standardized “profile,” I really haven’t posted much on this blog about myself. Here’s my late attempt to fix this. The following is the brief bio printed in the bulletins for my recent “presentation service” here at Bethel Seminary:
Chris Armstrong came to the faculty in December, 2004 from the position of managing editor of Christian History & Biography magazine, a publication of Christianity Today International. He continues to write articles for Christian History & Biography, Christianity Today, Leadership Journal, and www.christianhistory.net.
Dr. Armstrong completed his masters and doctoral degrees focusing on Pentecostalism and the Wesleyan Holiness movement at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Duke University. His undergraduate degree is from Saint Mary’s University (Nova Scotia), where he did an honors thesis on Jonathan Edwards.
Dr. Armstrong’s research foci include religion and emotion, Christianity and literature, and the Christ-and-culture conversation. His favorite century to study is the 19th. He has also begun to read on the 20th-century British Christian literary revival, of which G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis are representatives. He is currently writing a book for IVP with the working title Patron (amd Matron) Saints for Postmoderns. The “saints” are Antony of Egypt, Gregory the Great, Dante Alighieri, Margery Kempe, John Amos Comenius, John Newton, Charles Simeon, Amanda Berry Smith, Charles M. Sheldon, and Dorothy L. Sayers.
Dr. Armstrong’s church experience is richly varied. He attended a liberal, mainline denomination as a child (the United Church of Canada), came to faith within a Pentecostal church, and has since attended, with his family, congregations in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Presbyterian, and Episcopal traditions.
Chris and his wife Sharon and children Kate (16), Caleb (14), Grace (11), Anna Rose (9) and John Allen (5) now attend Woodland Hills Church in Saint Paul [well folks, we’re really still on the church search]. The Armstrongs are delighted to be living in Shoreview, five minutes from Bethel, the better to fellowship with students and colleagues.
An amateur cellist and would-be jazz pianist, Chris’s interests include listening to jazz (especially live at Twin Cities venues), reading the books of ’s “Inklings,” and playing “Euro games” such as Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne. Chris sees all of these interests as sharing a holistic emphasis on logic, the imagination, and the heart that has also marked evangelical Christianity at its historical best.
