Holiness and politics

Political theology in The Salvation Army | Geoff Ryan

“When Christians seek to exclude politics from their thinking they are bound to distort their theologies, for politics is an inescapable aspect of human existence, with direct relevance to the divine/human encounter.” Philip Wogaman

“… I have often been told that The Salvation Army is ‘apolitical.’ At best, this means that we do not engage in partisan politics. At worst, it means that we are unwilling to engage prophetically with the world around us or to challenge the unequal distribution of wealth and power in our society. Unless we see the implications of our faith for society at large, we risk becoming, as one author described Wesleyan Methodists, “a religious order of political eunuchs” that teaches obedience to governing authorities, offers no political interference and would never countenance revolution.” Dani Shaw

A

s I watched the documentary on the screen, a vague uneasiness crept over me. At first it was hard to define, but the more I thought about it in subsequent days, the more I gradually understood what it was that niggled at me, causing me such unease.

The documentary was about a relatively well-known revival that took place in 1970 at a Bible college in the United States. Theologically, this college is in the same neighbourhood as The Salvation Army and in fact, there is a strong relationship between our denomination and this institute. A number of people who later grew to prominence as Army leaders were educated there.

The film chronicles an event that started during a 10 a.m. chapel service in the college’s main auditorium on a February morning of that year. There was a visitation of the Holy Spirit that morning, and apparently he decided to stay for a while. What was scheduled as a 50-minute chapel service turned into 185 hours of non-stop days and nights of weeping, repentance, singing, testimonies and prayer. The revival spread, and by summer it had hit more than 130 other seminaries, Bible colleges and churches.

The video I watched consisted of a montage of clips and interviews shot at the time of the revival (even back then, it seems, evangelicals had the presence of mind to have a camera on-hand) as well as more recent interviews with participants who recounted their reminiscences of what took place and what they believed it meant. Faculty members and students weighed in with their opinions and testimonies. There was a well-modulated soundtrack.

This revival video was being used across our Territory that year. It was shown at a number of annual officer retreats as well as the Training College, where it seemed to have the effect of initiating a small series of mini-revivals with an emphasis on personal confession and repentance. It was shown, from what I could gather, in order to demonstrate what the Holy Spirit can really do when he takes over. To show, in fact, what true revival is. It was used in conjunction with teaching on our doctrine and tradition of holiness, namely our second-blessing view of holiness that was championed and codified (possibly apocryphally) by Samuel Logan Brengle.

At the time I viewed the film at retreat, I had coincidentally visited that very same college in the United States a year prior. Therefore I watched it with a point of reference in mind, albeit one that was 30 years after the event. Hence the uneasiness, I suppose.

You see, when I visited the college, I found everything to be nice and polite, clean and organized. My hosts were courteous and hospitable to a fault, and sincerity abounded. The initial “flagging” came as it dawned on me that the student body was about 98% white, overwhelmingly middle- to upper-class, and culturally - and by conviction - conservative (if not fundamentalist).

So why the problem? Surely these students and faculty merely reflected the demographic make-up of North American evangelicalism in that particular part of the world. But what I noticed as I watched the revival video was that the people on the screen were exactly the same people I had rubbed shoulders with the year before. The hairstyles and clothing fashions were a bit different, but otherwise it was like a time warp, and this caused me to lean forward and watch and listen very intently to what was being presented.

It is difficult to explain, but it needs to be explained because, for me, it strikes at the heart of our present understanding of holiness and, by extension, the issue of faith and politics. In the evangelical/holiness tradition, the tension lies smack in the middle between the exaltation and practice of personal piety and the Biblical imperative for social holiness - for a holiness too large and restless to be contained solely in individual human hearts.

Revival, or at the very least renewal, has to do with the business of holiness - that is, the holiness of God descending and making holy his people. But does it stop there? Does this imparted holiness primarily even reside there, content in the diminished role of simply burnishing up the hearts and rebooting the minds of the saints? If ultimately holiness and revival (a kind of cupid-and-arrow relationship) confines itself to a privatized paradigm, effecting little more than the sorting out of the personal and private sins of the saints - oftentimes the pale half-sins of generational Christians who have never really done anything particularly evil, nor anything spectacularly good, either - then how easily satisfied must God be? Frankly, I believe, he has bigger fish to fry.

Yet, this is certainly what the “revival video” seemed to be about, from what I could gather. It was about former students telling how, prior to the revival, they had been burdened with sins such as lying and pride; about former faculty members confessing that they had been recalcitrant in adequately preparing for classes and thereby guilty of disrespecting the calling God had given them, of a lack of love for their students, and of a lack of commitment to the task at hand. There were scores of people confessing a cavalier attitude toward worship and prayer and the things of the church. That sort of thing.

Though only an infant at the time this revival took place, I know enough to understand that at that time in American society, as the turbulent 1960’s moved into the 1970’s, the old mores, customs and constructs was being challenged, fought and often mortally wounded. Old ways of “doing business” were being trashed by a restless and discontented youth, and this upheaval was being expressed - politically - through primarily two events: the escalating war in Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement, as epitomized by Martin Luther King Jr., who had been shot and killed two years previously.

Contemporaries of these revivalists were getting themselves shot-up and shipped home from southeast Asia in body bags. They were taking to the streets to question and protest the fundamental justice of this conflict; within three months the infamous Kent State riot would take place on another campus, resulting in four dead students. Peers of these college kids had marched beyond their fears to fall in-step behind a charismatic preacher who led them into the maw of generations of prejudice and dehumanizing hate. Injustice, poverty, class, race, war, oppression - and the place of a holy God amidst all this very human mess.

Here it was, all the truly vital Biblical themes being played out on the streets and through the recruiting offices of that nation… but no mention of any of this even ghosted across the video coverage of the revival. No mention of actually anything outside of themselves was recorded by any of the students or faculty - either at the time of the event or three decades later. And here I had been, in the very same institution, in the very same auditorium at a morning chapel service, looking around and seeing something that should not have been. In a country that remains fractured largely along racial lines, it seemed to me that the negroes who followed Martin Luther King had become first blacks and then African-Americans, but had still apparently not made it as far as the auditorium of this Christian institution. Neither had the poor. Reconciliation and inclusiveness seemed distant and alien concepts.

So, I wondered in my mind (perhaps unfairly and unduly polemically, as I am prone to do) why the Holy Spirit would choose to come and hang out with the Christians in order to give them what - based on what I could see and hear - amounted to little more than a seasonal, spiritual tune-up? Why had not this revival become the impetus for these students to move beyond the walls of their college chapel and into the fray with their black Christian brothers and sisters? Why had this convicting and purging presence not bivouacked down in the steamy jungles of Vietnam and spiraled out of the megaphones of the protestors as they were fired-on by national guardsmen at Kent State? Why had he not bridged these worlds? Why had he not brought them together? Why confine himself to this auditorium, to the resaving of people already fairly-well saved?

This revival became a seminal event in the lives of hundreds of future pastors and preachers - to the degree that it was memorialized on film and employed three decades later as tinder to spark significant spiritual experiences for a number of my fellow officers. Did it move any of those students or faculty out of that auditorium and into the streets alongside their black brothers and sisters, or into the maelstrom of the Vietnam conflict, or into the corridors of political power in order to confront hate and injustice? Did holiness stream down, imparted from God into their hearts, causing “justice to roll on like a river” in order to engage with, change and transform a society with its hands at its own throat? It seems not. Maybe I am judging too hastily and overstating my case. Possibly I am being unfair and overly-skeptical. But I think I was onto something when I watched that video. I believe that I was one of the very few - possibly the only one - who noticed the disconnect.

Is this really what holiness is about? Is this what revival means? Did not John Wesley, the spiritual father of the Holiness Movement and of The Salvation Army, claim that there is “… no holiness apart from social holiness”?

During his years of active ministry, William Booth evolved from a fairly one-dimensional evangelist, interested in little more than saving souls in a spiritual sense (heavily influenced as he was by American revivalists such as Charles Finney and James Caughey), to an awareness, and then conviction, of the need for a hand-in-hand approach to evangelism and social services, for a holistic salvation (“No one gets a blessing if they have cold feet and nobody ever got saved while they had a toothache”). Further, he moved to an eventual social ethic, exemplified in his In Darkest England and The Way Out, to what Dr. Roger Green has termed a “later theology of redemption.”

By the time In Darkest England was published in 1890, the 61-year-old Booth had undergone a definite paradigm shift. He had moved beyond social action into social reform and therefore, of necessity, into politics: Booth’s cab horse charter, overseas farm colonies, legal aid offices, employment agencies; the Army’s engagement with the poor laws and with the change in legislation regarding the age of consent; the “Lights in Darkest England” match factory which resulted in changes to labour laws and workers’ rights legislation. This was all ultimately political stuff. It was about challenging unjust laws, changing legislation and assailing structures that crippled and shortened lives and warped and twisted souls.

The infamous “White Slave” scandal is axiomatic. In 1885 Bramwell Booth, then the Army’s Chief of the Staff, in conjunction with W.T. Stead, editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, conspired to purchase a thirteen-year old girl, one of the thousands of girls sold annually in London into prostitution. The Pall Mall Gazette then published a series of exposés on the “White Slave Trade,” and the resulting scandal threatened the very existence of The Salvation Army and of the Gazette. Most of the people involved in the plan paid for their actions - some by serving time in prison.

Bramwell, however, did not serve time in jail, and The Salvation Army’s prestige soared as a result of this incident, strangely enough. Riding the tremendous publicity generated by the case, the Army presented Parliament with a petition of 393,000 signatures demanding that the age of consent be raised to sixteen. Within two weeks, the government had bowed to the pressure and voted to raise the age of consent. Booth stated in the War Cry: “We thank God for the success he has given to the first effort of The Salvation Army to improve the laws of the nation.”

As far as I am concerned, that is playing at politics. Maybe these days we would more accurately describe this as “direct action.” Certainly it moved well beyond the bounds of advocacy or lobbying. Just the same, the end result was an involvement with the political process that resulted in change. It was involvement due to a pressing social injustice; the motivation was to right a wrong. This pattern subsequently repeated itself in Army operations in various countries in the world. In 1900, Colonel Henry Bullard and Captain Gumpei Yamamuro forced the Japanese government to sign legislation crippling the slave trade in women prostitutes in the walled city of Yoshiwara in the middle of Tokyo. In 1938, due to the efforts of Ensign Charles Pean, the French authorities closed down the notorious prison colony known as “Devil’s Island.” Numerous similar stories could be told.

Martin Luther King Jr. made the case that while it’s all well and good to constantly be the good Samaritan - always willing to stop and pick up the wounded, to look after them, get them better and save them - after the tenth robbery victim is picked up, maybe it is time to see what can be done about making the road from Jerusalem to Jericho a bit safer. The smart thing, ultimately, is to move from reactionary, band-aid solutions to proactive, preventive strategies that of necessity deal with structural and often legislative injustices, from charity into justice. Inevitably there comes the time to engage with the political system that permits, and often facilitates, such wrong. This was the journey that I believe Booth underwent from “pure” evangelist to redemptive theologian.

The holiness doctrine that was being preached in the rented music halls and borrowed stables and tents that were home to our Salvationist forbearers was understood from the beginning - initially instinctually, then progressively philosophically and theologically - as having import for the whole person and, by implication, the whole of society. Whatever spin on the gospel these “corybantic Christians” were putting on matters, it was definitely not the espousal of a privatized religion. The early years of The Salvation Army, with their hard and unflinching holiness apologetic, constituted a true revival. It was counter-cultural to the accepted wisdom of western Christianity of that time and place, which practiced a privatized and individualistic religion (a notion that would see its full flowering in late-twentieth-century evangelicalism). Those early Salvationists would have been in agreement with the views of George Lyons in his lecture “Is Holiness Contagious?” delivered at the Northwest Nazarene College on April 4, 1995:

 

“We have conceded to the non-biblical view that there are some areas of life that are not God’s concerns, that there are sacred and secular realms of life. Jesus rejected the notion that any area of life was outside the sovereignty of God. But we have privatized holiness so that Christians have increasingly lost influence in the political, economic, scientific, and moral spheres of human life. We have relegated holiness to our private inner lives. Wholesome intentions matter more than holy living.”

The Bible is a political book. Christianity is a social faith. The Salvation Army was conceived as an urban, social justice movement. Any expression of spirituality manifested by any people of God which avoids political engagement, that is excessively privatized and inwardly-focused, that operates without an intentional activism and keen awareness of the essential injustice of the world - is a betrayal of Biblical Christianity. For us it is also a betrayal of our Salvationist heritage. Any such expression of holiness is bound to be but a pale shadow of God’s intentions, if not full heresy.

Mainstream evangelicalism is generally content to view charitable acts, social assistance and the fighting of injustices (and, by extension, engagement with the political realm) as adjuncts to holy living. They are things we do, rather than core aspects of God’s nature and thus our attempts to conform to him. In conventional belief and practice, the main game is played out between God and us - within our hearts and souls and minds, and the benefits that might be passed onto someone else due to our personal journey of faith is, at best, a by-product. No more than an incidental thing effected primarily to prove to God our love and devotion. We practice a vertical relationship, when in fact true holiness is a Trinitarian construct. As Commissioner Phil Needham once stated, “We tend to see the relationship between holiness and community as one-directional… I am convinced that the key to our wholeness as a salvation people is the marriage of holiness and community.”

Needham cites the privatization of holiness as one of the main obstacles to a true understanding of holiness and asserts that sanctification involves the restoration of community (Ephesians 2:13-17; 3:2-6, 4:12-16). If holiness is to be viewed as a personal journey, it is only insofar as it is seen as part of a journey in fellowship with other believers (Ephesians 2:19-22, 1:4-5, 10b). Brengle himself taught that holiness is meaningless without its corporate expression (Ephesians 4:1-6), and General Coutts asserted that holiness can only be realized in and through relationships (Ephesians 4:25-32; 5:21ff). The key, according to Needham, is the integration of holiness and community as found in the doctrine of the Trinity.

Politics are, as Philip Wogaman states, “…an inescapable aspect of human existence, with direct relevance to the divine/human encounter.”

The Evangelical Revival that took place in England in the first half of the 1700’s, under George Whitefield and John Wesley, has been credited with saving England from the same tumult of revolution that France had just undergone. Whether this is really the case will remain a matter of debate and speculation for historians. Indisputable, however, is the fact that this revival cut across denominational lines and touched every class of society. It took a stand against slavery and supported Wilberforce in his crusade. Out of the revival sprung numerous agencies promoting Christian charitable work - antislavery societies, prison reform groups, relief agencies for the poor. Hospitals and schools multiplied. The social, cultural and political impact of the holiness theology that Whitefield and Wesley preached is inestimable (Brengle once said that he always carried a mercy seat in his heart, but did he know that the altar call was originally conceived by Charles Finney as a way of getting his listeners to enroll in the abolitionist movement?). It did not confine itself to Christian churches and institutions alone, and it did not confine itself solely to the private spiritual struggles of individual Christians. It engaged with the toughest issues of the day and transformed a nation. It seems to me that this is the mark of true revival, and this must be the legacy that holiness would leave.

Without engagement in the lives of people and the affairs of government that directly affect the lives and destinies of people, our holiness will only ever be a distorted theology and a spiritually stagnant pool. The inevitable end of excessive pietism is to end up something like the Amish - rigorously holding onto what we believe to be the ordinances of holiness in order to keep our own selves unspotted and pure, and in the meantime moving so far outside the pale of relevancy that we become a historical curiosity at best, an irrelevant oddity at worst.

The purity and holiness we are exhorted to seek throughout the pages of Scripture is primarily for the sake of others. It is not for God’s benefit; he is complete and self-contained and needs nothing from us. It is not for the church’s benefit; the church exists for those outside the church (The Salvation Army more?). It is not for our personal benefit; if we seek to save our lives, we will lose them - we are told this clearly by Jesus. We are to be holy for the sake of an unholy world, for the sake of a lost, hurting, dying world. “Down these mean streets must come a man who himself is not mean, neither is he tarnished nor afraid,” wrote the novelist Raymond Chandler. This is as good an argument for the necessity of God’s people seeking holiness in - and for the sake of - the world, that I have ever heard.

“We are so used to thinking of spirituality as withdrawal from the world and human affairs that it is hard to think of it as political. Spirituality is personal and private, we assume while politics is public. But such a dichotomy drastically diminishes spirituality construing it as a relationship to God without implications for one’s relationship to the surrounding world. The God of Christian faith created the world and is deeply engaged in the affairs of the world. The notion that we can be related to God and not to the world - that we can practice a spirituality that is not political - is in conflict with the Christian understanding of God.” (Glenn Tinder, “Can We Be Good Without God?” Atlantic Monthly, December 1989)

Traditionally, The Salvation Army has posited an apolitical stance. This is a nod to expediency more than anything else. In Orders and Regulations for Officers, the section on “Governments, Public Authorities and other Societies” is fairly sparse and rather vague. The essential tenets are a neutrality in matters of party politics (which might mean one thing in benign and politically comatose Canada and quite another in the deadly turmoil of eastern Africa, for example) and an implicit understanding that the Army enters politics only with regard to matters of social need and the welfare of people. Our non-partisan policy is a good thing. Legally as a charity, we are bound to such a course. Ethically, we realize that no one political party or persuasion has a complete handle on the truth, and so for us to throw our lot in with one party over and against another would be limiting and foolish. We would quickly lose our ability to speak prophetically. When, however, this “non-partisan” clause becomes an apolitical refusal to engage with the issues of the day and the political processes that order such issues - then it is not a good thing.

I understand that the decision the Army made to embrace such neutrality was not originally theologically motivated, but an organizational and, in fact, political, decision. It became practiced policy not fundamentally out of conviction but out of structural and managerial necessity (read: risk management and damage control). I also believe that it was a concession that our Founders felt they needed to make for the sake of the movement’s growing internationalism. This was one of the prices to be paid if the Army was truly to circle the globe, as Booth’s vision demanded.

As more countries came under the yellow, red and blue, the implications of overt political allegiance and engagement in any localized context became increasingly seen as a liability with unacceptable consequences. The stand that the Army might take in one country could make it worse for Army personnel and operations in another part of the world. I ran into this dilemma numerous times while serving overseas in Russia, where we often found ourselves in delicate situations as a foreign organization, usually on the defense against the culturally dominant expression of faith (the Russian Orthodox Church) who wielded tremendous political power post-perestroika. Like falling dominoes, it often seemed that any move made anywhere would have a repercussive effect, usually negative, in other places in Russia, not to mention in the surrounding countries of Georgia, Moldova and the Ukraine. The political winds needed to be tested daily.

As with The Salvation Army’s position on the sacraments, most of the “policy” decisions that have shaped our modus operandi as a church and mission have eventually required theological justification and rationale, and these were generally sought as post facto qualifiers. The motivating impetus for the change of our positions and practices was often mitigating circumstances, operational expediency and “real politic.” The question that needs to be asked, therefore, is whether or not the time has come to make a change, both in policy and practice, with regard to our apoliticality? Should The Salvation Army become more politically active at local, national and international levels? Should officers be permitted, for example, to run for political office? Should we employ the cachet that we accumulated over the past 140-plus years of existence and place it on the line - if need be, regardless of consequences - if the cause is right? Will we be the religious Levite on that road to Jericho, the good Samaritan… or someone else altogether?

When Jesus shied away from political involvement, the examples usually cited are when Satan tempted him on the mountaintop, when the jubilant crowd would have made him king, when Pilate questioned him and he stated in reply that his kingdom was not of this earth. In each case, it was power that Jesus was rejecting, a power that was being falsely offered on the premise that it be misused.

Malcolm Muggeridge wrote: “I’ve never really been able to understand how anyone can believe in the possibility of compromise in matters of power, which is an absolute passion”. And yet power always comes into the dynamic when we speak of politics. This seems at odds with our Christian sensibilities, yet the power to do good is a necessary tool in a fallen world. If power is going to be wielded (and it is), would it not be better for it to be wielded by holy people in the service of good? If holiness in its essence is a community affair, a matter concerned with relationships both within the family of God and to the world that God “so loved” (John 3:16), and if the political structure is the primary means whereby order is established and maintained in society, then cannot the absence of God’s people (of Salvationists) in this landscape be construed as a gross sin? Can we afford to remain “non-partisan” in the midst of a war? Can we claim to be a holy people at all?

Writer: Major Geoff Ryan is co-founder and publisher of theRubicon and co-ordinator of the 614 Network. Geoff and his wife Sandra minister in Regent Park, a social housing project in downtown Toronto, Canada.

19 Comments to Holiness and politics

1. I was a student at Asbury Theological Seminary when that revival hit. The story that the video does not tell is the number of those students who committed themselves into full time ministry as pastors, missionaries and Salvation Army officers. Many have poured our their lives, to preach the gospel and heal hurting humanity in cities, nations and cultures far removed from that small college in a small town in Kentucky. One of the things that was continually taught in that culturally isolated setting was that Christ poured out his life for the salvation of the world, and he desired that his followers do the same.

   At the front of the chapel at the SA Star Lake Camp are these words: “I come here to find myself; it is so easy to get lost in the world.” While there is a vast world of difference from the streets of downtown Vancouver to the streets of downtown Wilmore, holy living is best cultivated in holy community. When God showed up and stayed for a week, we were forever changed by his presence in that place. Do not be so hasty to establish your straw man that you limit the power of our God who loves to do impossible new things with highly improbable people.

   Thank you for gracious tolerance of my rant. Your words on social justice and holy living are both insightful and powerful - thank you!
Lt. Col. Howard Burr on January 3rd, 2008

2. Geoff

   I enjoyed your comments this morning and fully agree with you that holy living and social justice will have a political component. Where we may disagree would be in suggesting that the proper political stance for a Christian is left leaning or right leaning (if I may use this concept).
   On many issues I personally am more conservative than most while on others I am a raving socialist.

   I think that a proper understanding of Scripture will create Christians who are not easily labelled. In some areas we will lean left, in some lean right and on some be in the center.
   It is when we think we must be wholly one way or the other that we find ourselves in great disagreements. So many today do not understand the razor’s edge we as Christians walk on, truly an Occam’s Razor issue.

   Thanks again for chalenging us.
John Stephenson on January 3rd, 2008

3. Geoff:

   From the looks of it, if all the causes you’ve cited had been taken up by those revived, they would have cancelled each other out!

   Andrea
Andrea614Regent on January 3rd, 2008

4. Geoff, thanks for this timely article. I think one of the things we are lacking is dialogue on what holiness really means for us in the 21st Century! Maybe this can be a start of the dialogue on this particular issue.

   How do we engage in the political arena in the light of our holiness? I think we need to do this thoughtfully and competently ensuring, as in all things, that we are constantly keeping our hearts and minds to the Lord’s leading. Partisan politics is a dangerous game to play simply because it means putting one parties policies ahead of the others, and no one party is able to truly represent a just God in the political arena. All parties are products of humanity tainted by the fall, just as all human endeavour without God is.
Graeme Smith on January 3rd, 2008

5. Let me add my thanks to Geoff and the Rubicon for publishing this piece.

   I seem consitutionally unable to muster Geoff’s passion, but I am onside with the general argument.

   I must say that the idea that love for others is at the heart of holiness has always been so obvious to me that I can’t imagine what people think holiness without neighbor-love is.

   I also think that Gods calls us not only to be holy individuals but that God calls the church into existence to be a holy community.

   It’s not a big step to say, then, that both I as an individual and the church of which I am a part should be prepared to try to effect political changes when such changes would redress injustice.

   The fact that The Salvation Army as a community (a “polis” of a kind) lacked the structures by which to deliberate the questions of the justice of World Wars I and II, and to decide on principled responses, is one of the key arguments made by now-General Shaw Clifton in his Ph.D. dissertation (The Salvation Army’s Actions and Attitudes in Wartime–1899-1945). Because I think this is a fine piece of academic research, addressing just the same sort of concern Geoff voices (and not because SC is now General–honest!), I have had the Ethics Centre get permission to prepare a pdf’d version of the dissertation. It’s available for the asking. visit: salvationarmyethics.org.

   Jim Read
Jim Read on January 3rd, 2008

6. Nice piece. I enjoyed reading this in New Love the first time I read it.

   There is a good book the Army published in 1954 by Carvosso Gauntlett entitled Social Evils the Army Has Challenged. It includes some of the battles you mentioned, as well as a few more.

   Another book worth reading is Strong Doctrine, Strong Mercy by the then Captain Shaw Clifton. Chapter 15 is particularly relevant.

   The Army has often been successful and very active in a political, social, and ethical sphere without having to align itself to any governmental ideology. We align ourselves to Christ. When we (that’s you and I) do this, and remain under His feet then we cannot go far wrong. He’s the authority to which we refer when we act upon particular convictions.

   In the UK, the Army has contributed to Theos, the public theology thinktank. (www.theosthinktank.co.uk) A recent publication through them by Stephen Backhouse proposed that the ideal society can be achieved by being a good neighbour as opposed to being a good patriot. It sounded a lot like a pragmatic approach to holiness. The debate included a Muslim (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown), a theologian (Dr Luke Bretherton) and a politician (Dominic Grieve MP). Salvationists were on the front row. Shouldn’t we have them at the discussion table?

   I’d say one of the problems is that we have a shorted-sighted view to our public affairs involvement. One man cannot possibly do all the legwork for the many existing issues, however in many territories this is the case. How about hiring Soldiers with the necessary research capabilities (Masters/PhD), presentable on camera, articulate, and active in their local corps. Get them on radio, get them on TV, get them publishing research papers, get them writing newspaper articles. Make them household names. Shape peoples’ outlook. Get into a situation where it takes less than years for MASIC to write a response to an ethical issue. Dedicate time, money, resources. If we invest, we’ll become heavyweights in that arena, dragging society and government back towards Christ.
John Clifton on January 3rd, 2008

7. Thanks for your feedback, Howard. I admit to often being guilty of polemics when I write…it is useful in getting a reaction.

   “Straw man”? Possibly. I wasn’t suggesting that God hadn’t shown up at Asbury that week nor that a good work wasn’t effected in the lives of numerous people. Nor am I disparaging the fact that the energy of this week propelled yourself and others out into the world for years of fruitful ministry. It was an example that for me, bore certain hallmarks of a brand of holiness thinking that I struggle with.

   In spite of my family pedigree of four generations in The Salvation Army, the Brengle-second-blessing party line thinking has never sat well with me. As I suggested in the article, I reckon it has more to do with a particular strand of historical American revivalism, than with fundamental Wesleyan thinking. It too easly degenerates into piety and then, often, legalism. “Micro-ethical holiness” a friend of mine termed it.

   At the end of the day, I not only think that, as Jim Read has here suggested in his comments, holiness divorced from any relationship with other people is an anomaly, I further believe that holiness is not at the end of the day, about us at all.

   The navel-gazing, “rooting-out-sin” type of holiness focuses way too much on us - humanity - and not on God. In fact, some days I think that even the concept of a “holy person” might be a red herring. I think that holiness, as a topic/concept/ideal/goal is primarily about God and not us. It is about the holiness of a holy God and how much we choose to participate in this (or not). Not really much to do with our efforts at achieving something - an ethical standard or code of beahviour or moral equanimity. The focus is God, who is alone holy and not on me - what I do and don’t do, not even on who I am…but on God.

   I find it amusing that it seems that half of the (evangelical) church is trying hard to be holy as in separated from all worldliness and all sin (ie set apart)…while the other half is trying their hardest to engage the world by being relevant and understandable and “emerging”.

   Honestly, we really can’t make up our minds what we want to do with unbelievers - spank them for their bad habits or woo them with suger-coated truth pills. How confusing it must all be for people… it certainly is to me.
Geoff Ryan on January 3rd, 2008

8. Well Geoffrey,

   I don’t think that holiness = social action. Nor do I think that Wesley’s comment on social holiness meant social justice. Needham’s observations on holiness and community are essentially about the Christian community rather than Christians engaging the world.

   But … having registered my small objections there is something very important in what you say. Wolterstoff expressed exactly how I feel on this issue:

   “The word of the Lord and the cries of the people join in calling us to do more than count our blessings, more than shape our inwardness, more than reform our thoughts. They call us to struggle for a new society in the hope and expectation that the goal of our struggle will ultimately be granted us.” (Until Justice and Peace Embrace)

   The question I have been musing over all night is about our holiness expressed in engaging the world. Specifically, how is social action by a Christian better or different to that of the non-Christian. I am sure that in Regent Park somewhere there is an atheist/Buddhist/new ager who does splendid work in the community offering people significant help and advocating on their behalf. How is what you do better than what they do?
   Imagine God as an ordinary father who needs some gardening done. He could do it himself, or he could pay a professional gardener or one of his children, out of their love for their father, might offer to do it. If the professional does it, it may get done very well and indeed the professional may love their work – a good outcome all around. But if the child does it because it is their father’s garden and they know the father loves it and they love their father there is a whole other dimension. Not only is the job done and the father pleased but the child is changed.
   And there is where we arrive back at holiness. The question is not (or at least shouldn’t be) does God make me holy in a moment or over a long time - as if the debate was merely abut the length of the holiness event. When we, out of love for God, engage the world he loves we are changed. Christian doing transforms us. Little bit by bit by little bit we are polished in the process. I’m sure Geoff, that you are a nicer, holier person because of your work in Regent Park. When we commit ourselves to doing the work of God we are being made holy. And we can look back and say, “I’m not what want to be, I’m not what I ought to be, but I’m not what I once was either”. And in the divine economy that is better than the same thing being done by the aetheist/Buddhist/new ager.
   Holiness does not equal social action but it is expressed and grown in social action. The rough and tumble of the political arena is an area of the garden that desperately needs tending by committed and passionate Christians advocating on behalf of the marginalised and dispossessed and getting holy by doing so. And, God knows, some of those may well be middle class white guys who had a profound experience of the Spirit one day in seminary.
Grant on January 4th, 2008

9. Thanks Grant…your comments were discerning and eloquently put. And I mostly agree, although you kind of lost me during the gardener metaphor, which seems to suggest that the difference in the quality of holiness (Christian versus Buddhist, in this instance) lies in it’s motivation - love or duty?

   For the record, only my mother really calls me Geoffrey (smile)
Geoff Ryan on January 4th, 2008

10. pastor G,

    thanks for the perspective.

    my 2cents: engagement in the formal political process is just one way to be politically active, and depending on the state and type of regime, may only have marginal effects on actual justice. the political power-holders and decision-makers of our day are more and more giant multi-national corporations that will do all kinds of heinous things (including topple elected governments), all for the sake of raising profits. actually, that’s not news. money talks. the poor are politically dispossessed because they have no money, and it’s been that way for so long that we don’t even find it absurd anymore, even when it plays out on a global scale, with corporations trampling on developing states.

    as the Church, especially in the West where we overwhelmingly “have,” we need to seriously consider how we can be non-partisan in this globalized, economized reality. we cannot ignore that how we spend our money and who we get money from are political acts with social justice implications.
grace on January 5th, 2008

11. Grace (”…the name of a girl, an idea that changed the world…”),

    You’re right, of course - there are various ways to engage politically. In the West it is about money, which many Christians really don’t seem to cotton onto. We want to do “advocacy” work at the various levels of government, but they don’t really pay too much notice or care overly much. Advocacy is Christianese for lobbying and if you want to lobby, you need to have deep pockets and be willing to spend money. It’s a fairly simple equation (if a little cynical) - you get what you pay for. Ditto, even more so, for the multi-national corporations.

    If we want to ensure justice and save the planet, then it really all comes down to our lifestyle choices and most of us are not willing to compromise on this. Apparently if everyone in the world lived the lifestyle of the average middle-class Canadian family (we’ll take the heat for this one), it would take five more earths to sustain us all.

    Its comparatively easy to rail against the political system or rush to the barricades at a G8 summit. It’s harder to turn the laptop off (says he, typing away on his) and resist buying that new IPOD Touch.

    Could this too be holiness?
Geoff Ryan on January 5th, 2008

12. Geoff,

    It’s not the deed that is holy but the ‘doer’ of the deed. And its not motivation that transfornms but the relational context that surrounds God honouring action. The child of God who acts out of obedience to their father is the better for it and God is delighted.

    In my opinion anyway.
Grant on January 7th, 2008

13. About ten years ago, I moved back to the town I grew up in. The city was in rough shape and I was really alarmed, so I and some friends started a political “watchdog” group, wrote articles, lobbied successfully for changes to the urban renewal program that was revving up. I was asked to run for office; friends of mine started a local Green Party and are still active in various civic groups here. My point, I guess, is that it is easier than you think even with no money or experience to have at least a modest impact politically. So don’t be so cynical!

    I will say, though, that having been through all that, I ultimately walked away from politics. Instead of lobbying for a better city, we committed the holy(?) act of moving downtown. So, 614 or whatever your house is called, we traveled a different road but have arrived here together to say: hello!
Catherine W on January 8th, 2008

14. Catherine,

    Pardon my cynicism…it is a besetting sin.

    Having said that I’m quite politically involved here in Canada. I do some strategy and policy stuff for one of our parties and am engaged both provincially (state) and federally (nationally). As an Salvation army officer, however, I try to keep these works separate.

    The problem is that, like many people, I am dissatisfied with the present party system. In Canada I vote Conservative, though there are many things under that umbrella that I’m uncomfortable with. Were I living in your country, I would likely be a Democrat (I kind of miss, Bill).

    So what does a guy do when he’s leftish as regards poverty and social justice, fairly green in his sentiments, functionally pragmatic and therefore understands that politics is about money and the Conservatives (in my country) understand money better than anyone else… but philosophically probably more a libertarian than anything else.

    Several years ago in an issue of “Foreign Policy” magazine, a Mexican writer (whose name now escapes me) posited the idea that soon political parties as we know them will no longer exist (in the liberal democracies of the West, that is). His idea was that historically parties have existed along lines of class and ideology, but now class distinctions have all but been erased and ideologically, people cobble together their identities from a disparate variety of beliefs and causes, which often contradict each other. So, to find a unified political ideology in which, for example, to be Democrat means to be pro-abortion, anti-social conservatism, pro-social liberalism etc…this no longer necessarily holds true. Therefore, people find it increasingly difficult to align themselves with any one party that might represent their views over a consistent range of issues.

    I think he might be onto something… this is certainly my experience of late.
Geoff Ryan on January 8th, 2008

15. Geoff,
    Your point about the nature of politics and the place of the Christian (Salvationist) response is good and important for our day. You get to this good point through [since you like generating reactions] a misleading rant about the nature of the 1970 Asbury revival. You also keep attacking “2nd work” holiness talk. You said something to Matt Clifton this past summer, in a response, about saying the same things many times, you might be doing the same thing with your “non-brengle-2nd blessing-party-line.” I am not going to convince you, however there seems to be nothing wrong theologically with offering Christians (people who have already experience forgiveness and regeneration) 2nd opportunties to give all of themselves to Jesus (it’s not just a 2nd work, but a 3rd, 4th and 5th, etc.).

    When you implicitly speak of Asbury (by the way it is not a Bible College, it is a Christian Liberal Arts College—there is a difference) and the revival; you seem to be judging the institution by this video. Maybe you could talk to Howard Burr, Sue Swanson, John Needham (maybe your present TC), and other people who were there. Talk to them in person. I am sorry that the video gave you the impression that you rant about. I know of people who left Asbury right after the revival (leaving classes and all) and went to work with the people like David Wilkerson (The Cross and Switchblade) in NY City, my Aunt graduated and went and opened a home with the Army for run away girls, lilley because of her experience in this holy community (yes, I too agree with brother Read). In my estimation this was a time spiritual renewal and awakening that brought a genuine and authentic witness for Christ in troubled times. People in that revival did and are affecting politics. For instance Diane Knippers (who past away two years ago, led the institute for religion and democracy), and the current governor of Ohio (a democrat by the way).

    Your argument essentially is: (A)The revival happened and the video didn’t mention social implications of holiness and there were no minorities, (B) 30 years latter nothing has changed, consequently (C) there is a problem with their socio-political- theology. In logic, a Straw Man Fallacy is occurs when “the arguer attacks a misrepresentation of the opponents view”(Layman, The Power of Logic, 124). I believe brother Burr is right on this one.

    There have been many attempts to change the lack of racial diversity at Asbury College. Almost every Asbury Graduate wants this to get better. General (Dr.) Rader tried very hard to make the campus a better reflection of the Kingdom, no person’s theology stopped his efforts. Here is the basic problem—the campus is located in rural Kentucky. It is hard to get people from Urban environments to go to a school in Wilmore, KY. Of course there are much more complicated sociological reasons to accompany this challenge, but I’ll spare you.

    If you think Asbury hasn’t been trying, might I remind you that John Perkins (maybe the strongest saint/proponent of racial justice alive) was the guest speaker when you were there. I guess I should take it as a compliment that you found your hosts (since I was a student there) to be “courteous and hospitable to a fault, and sincerity abounded.” I’m not sure what could have been done to change your perspective. We tried to show the holy love of a community (I think courteously, hospitality, and sincerity are Christian virtues).

    Your point was made without the attack on Asbury.

    I would love to see you write an article on “joy.”

    Your Friend,
    Andy Miller III
Andy Miller III on January 9th, 2008

16. Andy,

    I’m not sure that I would characterize my essay as a rant (a phrase you used twice). As I pointed out to Doug Burr, I was merely using the Asbury revival - both the 20-year on video that was shopped around our Territory as few years back and my visit there - as “cases in point”…an illustrative launchpad to make my larger point about a political theology.

    I was subsequently invited back to Asbury to speak after my first trip and after the publication of this essay as a chapter in Shaw Clifton’s book “New Love”. So, I’m thinking that people weren’t overly upset by what I had to say.

    I find that tough discussion and debate and even disagreement seem to be handled differently in North America than, say, Europe (as a generalization).

    In Europe people still engage with ideas. Therefore you can have a couple of Frenchmen arguing for all they are worth in a cafe in Paris, gesticulating and raising their voices…and then five minutes later walk away the best of friends. The reason for this is that they are arguing about a concept, an idea - an entity separate and removed from their persons. All the passion and fervour is directed toward the idea.

    We North Americans deal more with opinions than ideas, I have found. Opinions which are often served up to us by the media or the educational system or the religious communities that we are a part of. When we argue an opinion (vs an idea) then it always gets personal - feelings get hurt, offence is given and taken, defensiveness ensues… because an opinion is a personal thing, rather than an objective entity like an idea.

    Do keep in mind that the tagline for theRubicon is: challenge, contradict, confirm, converse. It is intended to be a forum for the discussion of ideas. And a place to disagree and provoke..hopefully without getting too personal.

    In truth, the only reason we keep pulling old material of mine, such as this particular article, is because we are always in desperate need of fresh material and on most days are only about a week away from having nothing at all to post. So…maybe you could write that article on joy?

    Bless you,

    Geoff
Geoff Ryan on January 10th, 2008

17. O.K. “rant” was not the best word. I am sorry. I probably felt hat way because you kept hitting Asbury.

    I have never seen “New Love,” (I will look for it now), you weren’t invited because or in spite of this article. I don’t think there is a relationship. I believe you came at the request of the Southern territorial education department, who coordinate the Andrew S. Miller lecture (what a great name–ok I guess it is personal). No one at Asbury had anything to do with it. You would have heard from me and a host of other people who are “hospitable to a fault.”

    If I had read it I would responded like Frenchman, we would have went about our way as friend. Regarding the tagline, I am challenging your use of Asbury as a launch pad.

    I am also challenging you to write an article on joy.

    I will take a challenge from you to write an article on the topic of your choice.

    Thanks, Andy III
Andy Miller III on January 10th, 2008

18. …and will no one stand up for the poor Amish?

    Generations of children scrubbing out oil lamps, women cooking from scratch, men planting and sewing with actual real live animals, hauling manure instead of driving off to the local Agway for a bag of petro-fertilizer?

    While liberal Americans slap “Save the Farmland” bumper stickers on their cars and boast about their recent purchase of locally-grown honey, Amish families buy up the farms, raise their families there, “localize” everything, and you laugh?

    The Holy Spirit may call some to run for office, others to feed the urban poor, still others to care tenderly for the sick and dying, but I believe the Amish farmer, his hand faithfully on the plow — in modern parlance, practicing sustainable agriculture — is as surely listening to the faint whisperings of the same God.

    Read the fine print of the environmental movement: The carrying capacity of the planet without petroleum-based fertilizers is probably about what it was before the fertilizers were in use, or about 2 billion people. We have overshot that by a wide mark, and environmental apocalyptics are predicting a long, ugly ride down.

    Mocked like Noah, endlessly faithful to an apparently absurd and anachronistic way of life, it’s hard for me to think of any group poised to be historically more relevant. Light of the world, indeed.
Catherine W on January 11th, 2008

19. Never have I been more gracefully - and thoroughly - rebuked, Catherine. Thank you…and sorry (my regards to the Amish, the next time you see them).

    Geoff
Geoff Ryan on January 11th, 2008

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