Holiness Remembered

An officer struggles to reconcile practical everyday living with a Wesleyan notion of holiness, by Grant Sandercock-Brown

A

long, long time ago when the Army and its people were young we longed for holiness. We were defined by a deep personal and corporate conviction that the Spirit of God could fill our hearts with ‘love divine’. We knew that we could be a transformed people. And we believed that through this transformation we would do great things for God

We would meet just to consider our holiness in a special meeting for the comrades. There was little show and performance but there was fervent prayer and waiting before the Lord. Many knelt at a holiness table, encouraged to come and seek an ever deepening relationship with God. They were infused with a longing for God that profoundly shaped this rag-tag Army of love.

Many knelt at a holiness table, encouraged to come and seek an ever deepening relationship with God.

And it was an odd young rag-tag Army, flawed in many ways but attractive in its quixotic-ness. Laughed at by the Doctors of the churches of course since there was so much that we hadn’t considered. I mean, how can one minister without a theology of ministry? (their mistake of course, theology is like grammar, you don’t have to know what an infinitive is to use one). Undaunted by their criticism a holy brave young army marched on.

The years have changed us (particularly in the West) as we have morphed into our middle age. Seasoned campaigners. More careful and considered. But not quite settled. We are somehow haunted by the wild success of our extravagant adolescence and the moderate gains of our middle age; struggling to understand why nowadays so many admire us and refuse to join us while in our youth they mocked us yet we recruited in droves.

We are somehow haunted by the wild success of our extravagant adolescence and the moderate gains of our middle age; struggling to understand why nowadays so many admire us and refuse to join us while in our youth they mocked us yet we recruited in droves.

We are still a holiness movement, we think (for our memory grows uncertain). And it must be said that we debate the language of holiness more often than we practice it. There is an uneasy feeling that at some point, somewhere, holiness was replaced by abstinence and burning love by best practice. We didn’t mean that to happen. But we assumed too much about holiness, left too many crucial things unsaid, forgot to explain it to our children and tell it to ourselves. And in not speaking our story its essence has slipped away.

We are still a holiness movement, we think…

Of course we are still people of faith. We haven’t forgotten the Cross of love for that would be foolish. But it perhaps matters less. We hunger after many good things but the burning love of holiness is no longer the first. We make good plans and we ask God to bless them. But we know that we are found together on our knees less often, both metaphorically and literally. Somehow, holiness became just a good habit that hardened our bones.

Somehow, holiness became just a good habit that hardened our bones.

And so at the back of our corporate mind our vague discomfort continues. This feeling that somehow in our growing up something really important has been lost. “They don’t preach holiness any more”, we cry. It’s true. But perhaps our children’s disinterest shows that we haven’t lived holiness either.

It may not be our fault. Maybe the malaise of apathy that dampens so many idealistic fires in the West has affected us too. Perhaps the age of the West is passing. Perhaps all our hungers are fulfilled, met by a sated consumer culture. Perhaps the longing for a transforming holiness can only really be found in beautiful but troubled Africa, India or South America. Perhaps their people feel their need of God more.

My corps is a metaphor for this change. The Holiness table is gone (there was no room for it when they built the new building). There is still a penitent form of course (we put our foldback speakers on it). Occasionally the kids are still told ‘don’t sit on the mercy seat’ by the old soldiers. But people so rarely kneel there that their concern has no context. So the kids just shrug and move on. Perhaps they needed to see that it meant something rather than just be told so.

Occasionally the kids are still told ‘don’t sit on the mercy seat’ by the old soldiers. But people so rarely kneel there that their concern has no context.

I preach God’s word and long for and pray for revival but the Spirit seems disconcertingly absent. Is it me? Did I not speak well enough? Was my exegesis faulty? Or were we too shy to seek God? Or worse still, did we doubt God’s ability to act? And so we meet. Again. And after a brief chat to our friends and a few joking criticisms of the meeting’s mistakes, the soldiers go their own way.

Why doesn’t the word of God burn in our hearts? Perhaps in such a grown up Army holiness just doesn’t matter and so the quixotic rag-tag Army of love can only be a fading memory from our enthusiastic youth.

Or perhaps the Spirit left our building a long, long time ago and we just haven’t noticed his absence.

A corps Officer at Chatswood Corps on Sydney’s North Shore, Grant Sandercock-Brown is 45 years old and married with three children. An associate lecturer (in New Testament) at the CoFE and President of the CoFE Association, he is also the editor of the Practical Theologian a twice yearly journal published by the CoFE. Having started writing after a fight with Hodgkin’s disease, he’s since been published in Pipeline, The Officer, The Salvationist (UK), New Frontier (USA West) and Horizons (Canada) and has been asked to be a regular columnist for The Officer.

16 Comments to Holiness Remembered

1. once again Grant you put into words what i know and feel all too well, yet am unable to put into words myself…ive asked the question, “where is the spirit?” a hundred times over, and can’t quite seem to find the answer…i’ve asked the question “where has holiness gone?” and am terrified by the answer i’ve found in what has taken the place of holiness…i only hope that this line of thinking and brutal questioning will begin to challenge us to re-think our holiness tradition, or perhaps more accuratly renew our holiness tradition…thanks again for this…
Chris on August 17th, 2006

2. Grant

   Thanks for your honesty! This leaves me feeling very sad and I’m not sure how to respond. Your thoughts echo those I’ve had over the years about some of the places I’ve worshipped. It feels as if they are spiritually dead and that the Spirit has left.

   However, I do know that no situation is impossible for the Lord we strive to follow. I know nothing about your situation, or indeed about you, but I feel that I should remind you of 2 Chronicles 7:14 “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” Here the Lord is speaking to Solomon about His promises to bless the Isrealites use of the Temple.

   If we want to see God’s blessings we need to come before Him in a spirit of humility and repentance. We need to pray and seek for His face.

   I’m convinced though that it isn’t sufficient simply for the leadership of a church to do this. The Lord was speaking through Solomon to all His people and it was people who had to fulfil His requirements before He would bless them.

   Prayer is the key Grant. But prayer that goes beyond the surface and results in real deep communion with the Lord. It is this that is the root of true holiness. Without it we are like chaff in the wind being blown this way and that!

   Grant I pray that you can lead your people to the place they need to be! Call them to prayer and then let God do the rest!

   God bless

   Graeme
Graeme Smith on August 17th, 2006

3. Grant,

   Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant…you are one of the best writers in the Army world, for my money. Thank you.
   Geoff
Geoff Ryan on August 17th, 2006

4. In the Army’s sea of hollow rhetoric, this article is an island of reality. I am deeply grateful for this piece and will circulate it to many friends in the UK who feel the same pain.

   The piece is all the more powerful for your restraint in leaving the questions hanging, not attempting an answer.

   Your island of helpless honesty is the only ground we can build on. I think of the way similar honesty was forced upon Judah as exile loomed, given stark voice through Jeremiah in particular. Graeme’s words above are also wise in terms of forming the only legitimate, biblical response. God’s Word ministers directly to our anguish, and we must respond to it with fierce resolve.

   Heartfelt thanks once again,

   Matt
Matt Clifton on August 17th, 2006

5. I just want to encourage you, hubby.
   Keep on looking to God and don’t be distracted by others.
   God has called us to lead… so let’s refocus His people through the Spirit.
   From your ever optimistic wifey.

   PS Your article writing is coming along very nicely!!
   That trip to America was well worth it.
Sharon on August 18th, 2006

6. Thank you for this article and to Matt who passed it on to me. My officership has really only just begun passing the 5 year point this year - (A late starter!). Sadly the five years have brought litte more than dissolutionment. In my naivety as a young person I believed I could change the world. Many years later I still believe in that possibility but this time by God working through me. However, despite all efforts to inspire, enthuse, educate and change the complacent, and sometimes downright disrespectful attitude of soldiers towards God I haven’t seen it happen yet so am I still naive or am I the one that is failing?

   It is good to know that others are struggling with these issues if only to be reassured that our Western Army has not completely died. The obvious metaphorical reference here is to the glowing embers that remain after a great fire. May the Holy Spirit breath on those embers and set us on fire for God once again.

   Thank you again,
   Gaynor
Gaynor Mulryne on August 20th, 2006

7. Good and honest piece.
   I see in Joel 2:12-17 a call to prayer that leads to an awakening of the sleeping people of God. But even then the people needed to be in pain and agony before they could weep and mourn and fast.

   The more I think about it, the more I long for an event of catastrphic porportions (like a total collapse of the market) to wake people up. No rhetoric from the pulpit or on a blog can lead people to the pain we need to feel in order to be brought to our knees.

   So maybe we begin praying for a (earthly) curse rather than a blessing!?
   Dion
Dion Oxford on August 21st, 2006

8. Goodness, gracious Grant, Thanks so much for a great chat yesterday, not to mention the fish and chips. Not much to add to what’s already been said but this I will say: Your article reinforces my concern that our notion of holiness is often quite de-contextualised. This is obviously the subject of another piece and can say how much I am looking forward to you writing it. The experience of holiness shared by our founding brothers and sisters was intrinsically tied to a C19th theology, culture and context. It was the fact that it matched the hour that made it so powerful. The challenge for us C21st Salvationists is to pursue a C21st holiness theology. While theologians outside of our tradition have made bold and imaginative attempts in this direction (Hauerwas, ‘Resident Aliens’; Bretherton, ‘Hospitality as Holiness’; Willis ‘Notes on the Holiness of God’, to name but a few) we could do with some new ideas from the next generation of SA theologians.
Russ on August 22nd, 2006

9. Excellent, as always, friend. I’m especially struck by the pictures you create. I’ve seen those teens - and the old soldiers - in so many Corps.

   Thank you for speaking the truth with a great deal of love.
Lisa Van Cleef on August 22nd, 2006

10. Excellent article, good definition of the problem. Few I think realise that in our traditions we fall into the Holiness Stream as much as the Social Justice stream of the Church.

    Fewer still I believe recognise that our relinquishing of (big “H”) Holiness may well be the cause of most of our identity issues, and the reason our justice work suffers.

    This is not to say we have to merely rediscover what holiness meant in our past, (though I do believe that is a necessary part of the equation, as is understanding where we received that experience / theology of holiness in teh first place.) As Russ says, we need to understand holiness in this context. All prophetic announcements - which is in part what TSA’s Holiness was about - require context. It is God’s word spoken into the world, not into the void.

    Some may think it ludicrous to even talk about a contextual holiness, and they are partly right. It cannot be wholly new or different, and should probably look (or better “smell”) not dissimilar to what it looked like for the early Salvos, or the Franciscans, or the Moravians etc… There is surely something eternal about holiness, as it is a gift from God. I think there will be something recognizable about it when we see it, though it may play out practically very different (I would like to continue going to the movies, is all I’m saying).

    Hopefully we are not so arrogant as to think that we will now begin the process of the creation of a new Holiness. Much work has already been done, and there is much from the past we must not throw out. All is not lost, even within the SA holiness stream. But it is good to add to the discussion, to help re-create for our time.

    Grace,

    Aaron
aaron white on August 24th, 2006

11. Your article reminds me that it is brokenness that leads to holiness. The altar at the corps (a place of brokenness) has grown cold, therefore there is little internalization of what you’re preaching. My blood ran cold when I read that the holiness table had been omitted from your building. I know the real altar is within our hearts, but I would also say that our priorities are reflected when we equip our buildings.

    Dear friend, please don’t forget there are still many Salvationists in many corners of the world who still burn red-hot. Even in the Western world. You, for one. Loads of young people, but also some who aren’t so young. Oh, the Spirit has not been exiled from the Army! But as we know, he shows up as invited, he does not force himself. I wonder…if one or two in your corps beg the Holy Spirit to manifest himself in a meeting - and the rest are apathetic - will he answer that plea? How long will he wait?

    Press on, Grant, and remember that this is war.

    Thank you for your writing ministry. It means so much to so many of us.

    Long live the peeps.

    Amy
Amy Reardon on August 25th, 2006

12. I’m currently stationed in Eastern Europe Territory. The mercy seat is still there, but, it often seems to me, that the way it;s used and holiness is taught create barriers for people to experience relationships with God that grow. As a new Salvationist, mostly experiencing SA in Eastern Europe, I don’t know what happened in the West….

    Here I see that coming forward to the mercy seat is a a bit of a show. Who went and why did they go? Expectations that you go forward. Especially if someone of high rank is preaching, or calling forward again and again and again, til everyone starts hoping somebody goes up to make the caller stop or the caller gives up. Expectations that you can evaluate the preacher on the number that went forward. Calls to holiness that are general - you got it or you ain’t got it… so that going forward looks like you’re saying to yourself and all those watching and keeping track … that you’re a total mess-up (generally true in a manner of speaking).

    Actually, though, I find the “generalized” call to holiness much like the “generalized” confession. It is easy, safe. Useless.

    For me, preaching on “living the holy life” is far more likely to impact than generalized holiness pep talks or shame talks. It can be specific. It can illuminate concrete stuff happening in your life, rather than make you wonder if you’re missing some ephemeral something. Or worse, make you think you’ve reached some state of holiness and it’s all chill from there… albeit, one could lose it. But how? And so on. Specific, concrete examples of holiness can help us to avoid circuitous discussion.

    Even though I am not living in the West now, being from here and being human, I am quite convinced that if people do not admit to a hunger to be holy, it is because they do not know how to name the grumbling that identifies it.
Maureen Diffley on August 25th, 2006

13. I have mixed feelings about that essay. Don’t get me wrong- it was written well and it was helpful, but in the main It just makes me feel sad.

    I’m no theologian - so thinking pragmatically - why, in the main, do our congregations not care less about holiness?

    I’ve have one idea. Wesley believed Holiness was the solution to every problem. Well, if you’re not aware of the problems, if you’re not upset about injustice and poverty - then why would you care about the solution? At my corps - the more our soldiers encounter needy people and start to feel love and compassion for them - the more they are concerned about their own role in fixing their problems. And Richard Foster writes - when we love people, we realise that we alone can’t fix all their problems - and that leads us to prayer.

    Dion wrote that “No rhetoric from the pulpit or on a blog can lead people to the pain we need to feel in order to be brought to our knees.” I agree. Hearing about it is not enough. We need to see it.

    We need to be meeting normal, broken, needy people with messy lives, be willing to be upset and then be willing to accept that our personal holiness may well be the answer they need.

    Man - I need to pray today!
Will Pearson on August 30th, 2006

14. Since I assume nobody will read this old post any more, for my own benefit I will add a postscript. Holiness is not hard to understand. It is about being humble, gentle,patient, forbearing and loving (see Ephesians 4), believing that God wants you to be all of these and through his spirit will help you be all of these. Whether it is crisis or process or either order of both is irrelevant. If strategies, programs, history, visions and habits have priority over these attributes of holiness we are missing the point. If my corps has lots of grumpy, self focussed people who are unkind to each other, what on earth would make people wish to join us? What in Heaven’s name do our songs about glorifying God actually mean? I just want people to be nice to each other for Jesus’ sake.
Grant on August 30th, 2006

15. Dear Grant -

    This is is an excellently written piece - no doubt about that - and there is truth within it. However, as I read it I kept thinking, this isn’t the whole picture. God is still very much at work in His Army - the Holy Spirit often moves in Salvation Army meetings - people are found to be kneeling at the Mercy Seat on many occassions all around the globe and members of the Salvation Army are seeking to live holy lives empowered by the Holy Spirit. Let us not lose touch with the reality of God’s presence in our organisation just because there are some Corps and some people who lack holiness. I know it can be disheartening when we find ourselves in such a Corps and we are working with people who just don’t seem to ‘get it’ but it is not the whole picture. Being a Salvation Army officer is an exciting life and seeing people’s lives transformed through the power of Jesus is amazing. Journeying with them as they (and you) endeavour to live the holy life is hard and painful at times but it is still a fulfilling and wonderful experience. God is amazing - there is nothing He cannot do. My own experience of the Army is very different to what you describe in your article - I grew up in Basingstoke in Hampshire and was converted at the age of 12 years. As I wasn’t from a Christian family attending church was probably my kind of rebellion! I received teaching on holiness and watched as the leaders and soldiers in the Corps endeavoured to live out holiness in their own lives - although they were not perfect by any means! As an officer I have had the privelege of leading two church plants and seen many lives transformed by the power of God. I don’t want to preach but one thing I will say is that I have found whenever I have hit a stronghold within my own life or in the life of the corps I have found that having 40 days of prayer has always enabled God to break through - something has changed in the situation and sometimes the answer itself has come. Gather a group of like minded people - it may only be two or three but even more would be terrific - and start praying for something in particular to happen. After 40 days there will be some break through - sounds like a formula but it’s not - it’s just about prayer as others have already mentioned in their comments above. I’ll give you some examples; we had a building project that wasn’t moving forward because we hadn’t received planning permission - on the 40th day of our 40 days of prayer (which the whole Corps was involved in) we received an e-mail from THQ saying that planning permission had just been given! We were incredibly relieved! On another occassion we prayed for 40 days for our own fellowship and we prayed for people by name. Not everyone joined in but a group of people did. After the 40 days an older lady who had fallen out with a younger lady in the Corps spontaneously hugged her the following Sunday and suggested they put the past behind them and become friends again. The younger lady was convinced it was because she had prayed for the 40 days. On that occassion there were numerous other breakthroughs.
    It is tough, it is hard, I want to acknowledge that, especially when things seem to stay the same for such a long time but it is also exciting and fulfilling when the breakthroughs come and when people’s lives are transformed.
    Perhaps we should promise to pray for Grant and his Corps for 40 days (or longer!) because you know what Grant, you are not on your own.
Paula - England on September 16th, 2006

16. Grant,
    I am very behind in my blog-reading, but this was worth the wait, in particular the postscript. We’ve had a variety of corps experience, and currently find ourselves in a small, rather rural setting in the worst facility in the division. What I realized last Sunday is that we’ve got mostly “the woman in Simon’s house” kind of people. They know what they’ve been redeemed from, and their desire for holiness is palpable. See how they love each other . . .

    We also have the crisis (danger and opportunity) of being designated to be Kroc’d - we are one of the recipients of the Kroc millions - our pitiful little building will soon be a Crystal Cathedral. Your post reminds me that we must be very deliberate in making room for the holiness table - and a people hungry for the holiness of God.
JoAnn on October 8th, 2006

Leave a comment