Our first love

… have we forgotten it, asks Matt Kean?

W

e talk a lot.

We also write a lot, argue a lot, and complain a whole lot. We are the Salvationists.

We’re petty, bitter and always right. There are countless articles, essays, magazines and websites (including this one) authored by equally countless officers, soldiers, adherents and drop-outs, all focused with reckless abandon upon the cause of fixing, improving, or progressing The Salvation Army.

To all of us, I write the following:

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Supper Club Series #3: Barr

Salvation Army Identity Crisis: Stories of an organisational adolescence?

The Supper Club: see the end of this article for an introduction to this section of theRubicon.

Is The Salvation Army still a holiness movement?

By Major Ian Barr

I

n what sense is the Army a holiness movement in terms of its teaching, testimony and practice? What have Salvationists understood by the terms “sanctification” and “holiness,” and how is this expressed in contemporary teaching and testimony?

Of course, this all hangs upon how we define and distinguish the term “holiness movement.”

› Continue reading

Are you serious about God?

Areopagus #17

I

f all we had to judge God on was sex… what does this tell us about Him… and why is a new gnostic heresy on the loose in the church…? Intruiged? So was everyone else at Missionfest Manitoba, an annual tradeshow of ministry opportunities for young people held earlier this year in Winnipeg, a city in the centre of Canada. Aaron Roberts is a fulltime student studying theology at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. Before returning to university, Aaron was one of New Zealand’s busiest youth communicators, delivering around 200 presentations a year.

His Missionfest talk is funny, profound and challenging… don’t miss it. Click on the arrow below to listen (Runs: 27:47) or click here to get this episode from theRubicon’s iTunes podcast.

Resurrected writers: Muggeridge

The dead still speak:

An occasional series by Maxwell Ryan

T

he trouble with many contemporary Christians is that they’re so intellectually locked into their time frame. They never seem to have heard of, let alone read, authors who were giants in their time and whose elegant and fiery prose still stirs the imagination, informs the mind and fires passion. For intellectual rigour, for clarity of thought, for a well-turned phrase that says it just right – read the old authors, and some who are not that old.

In this brief essay I have in mind Malcolm Muggeridge, colloquially known as “Saint Mugg” by his admirers, of whom there were, and are, many. He was a British journalist, author, satirist, media personality, soldier-spy and Christian scholar whose dates are March 24, 1903 – November 14, 1990. Muggeridge was born in Croydon, England, into a highly political middle class home where the faith was socialism. › Continue reading

Rejected and Abandoned

Glimpses over the beige painted wall by Yuri Zelentsov

The wall

Walls have different purposes. Most commonly, they protect, hide and block away. We see the mighty walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, and they remind us of that. These walls were built to protect the city from invaders 300 years ago, to hide the treasures of the king’s family 200 years ago and to block away those who were different, those who for various reasons did not agree with the ideas of those in authority. Now these walls serve as a reminder. But there are others that do exactly the same kind of work.

The beige-painted wall
It looms as you cross the city limits. Outside it there is a busy and “buzzy” highway—cars, trucks, buses, people, huge river boats floating up and down the Neva river. Inside it is a totally different world. › Continue reading

Areopagus #16: Strickland & Court

A closer look at the Trinity

F

rom Roots South in Atlanta, USA, Captains Danielle Strickland & Stephen Court examine the personality, diversity and unity of the Trinity. In a high-energy tag-team speaking session this couple - at the time both stationed at Corps 614 in one of the roughest areas of Vancouver, Canada - bring a tough theological concept to a point most of us find easier to understand.

To listen, click on the arrow below (runs 41:40):

Or click here to download this Areopagus episode from theRubicon podcast section on iTunes.

Shannon’s Treasure

Dion Oxford on true value

I

t was early in January when I was asked to cover an afternoon shift on our outreach van. Our outreach workers scour the city every day of the week in hopes of finding someone who is living in the Don Valley [an undeveloped river valley running through downtown Toronto] or other remote areas. Their goal is to build trusting relationships with individuals living outside, in hopes of walking alongside them towards a healthier living situation.

A few of our staff had traveled to Atlanta for a conference, and we were left short-staffed. As I hadn’t done street outreach in a very long time, I happily agreed to do it. I felt I really needed a dose of reality after being holed up in my office for so long and that an afternoon of trudging through the Don Valley might do the trick.

I also felt that it would be a perfect opportunity to get to know our newest outreach worker better. Shannon had once lived on the street himself and had, at one point in his life, lived with an addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol. He is one of the fortunate ones who managed to kick this addiction and has chosen to give back to the community. › Continue reading

Is God poison?

John Norton stirs it up

Macleans is Canada’s weekly news magazine (similar to Time or Newsweek). It is a bit of an icon in Canada, being in continuous publication in some form for over 100 years. Every so often, as is customary with news magazines, it publishes an article on religion and spirituality. In the April 16, 2007 issue, it ran an article by Brian Bethune entitled “Is God poison?” The article is a review of several contemporary atheist authors who have stated that God is a delusion and that religion is the source of most of the world’s problems, from child abuse to war. Bethune notes that atheists tend to blame almost everything on religion.

You can read the article online by clicking here or

download a pdf of the article by clicking here

theRubicon decided to join the debate started by Macleans in the April 16th cover story,  so we asked long-time reader John Norton to take on the task. John’s observations on atheism’s criticism of religious fundamentalism appear below… and we hope his views will be joined by yours. Let’s get a discussion going - is God poison? And what can we learn from atheists? To be a part of the fray we suggest you read the Macleans piece first. › Continue reading

Areopagus #15: artist profile

Phil Laeger speaks to Bramwell Ryan

H

e’s like a young Billy Joel - a piano man who goes it alone with hard-wrought songs about love, faith, questions and actions. Phil Laeger, 29, is not only studying music in Boston, he’s making it and people throughout The Salvation Army and elsewhere are listening and paying attention. Bramwell Ryan, editor of theRubicon, recently interviewed Laeger about his music for this Areopagus episode. The focus is on three songs that best capture how Laeger is trying to shape the world through his craft. To listen to this mix of music and words, click on the arrow below. Or click here to download this episode from the Areopagus podcast section on iTunes. A pdf with the lyrics of the three profiled songs can be downloaded here. Runs: 12:15

A note about the audio quality - this interview was conducted using VOIP (i.e. over the internet). As is often the case, the technology didn’t work as well as it should and accordingly there is some line noise - sorry.

Album review: A Hundred Highways

Jamie Howison on the man in black

O

nce again, the legendary Johnny Cash is selling records. Some three years after his death, there is a new album in the Rick Rubin-produced “American Recordings” series, and as has been the case with its four predecessors, this one is making serious waves with a generation of listeners many of whose parents weren’t even born when Cash first arrived on the scene way back in the mid-1950’s. Rolling Stone, that iconic magazine of the world of pop culture, gave American V: A Hundred Highways a solid four out of five stars, describing it as “a hard record to bear,” and then adding “but it’s a deep one.” “A deathbed benediction” the reviewer called it, and this is meant to be high praise and a solid recommendation to potential buyers. › Continue reading