Head or heart

David Witthoff on the battleground of mind and soul

Where are past and current trends in The Salvation Army leading us? I’ve found that the more I read history, the more I understand the Army. Understanding history makes me think “Oh, that’s why we’re like this!” or “That’s why we do that!”

History does not repeat itself though. People are never the same. Situations are never the same. Culture is never the same. However, certain trends in history can inform our thoughts on the future. Let’s talk about history for bit. This article has been strongly influence and inspired by my reading of Mark Noll’s book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, which I highly recommend.

The historical traditions that the Army has been a part of have made some incredible accomplishments. We’ve been a part of a Movement that has gotten the gospel into the hands of the masses. We’ve been a part of converting generations within Britain and the US during the past revivals. While these endeavors have been largely successful in getting people saved, what is said by silence is often subtly destructive to a culture. The cultures of revivalism, holiness theology*, and Pentecostalism have tended to skew the vision of the Church and evangelical thought into only saving souls. Such thoughts press in hard and develop an ecclesiastical culture in which the only way to glorify God is through saving souls.

The damage that such a culture produces is one in which millions may come to Christ only to be sent into the world which Christian thought has abandoned. We have shot ourselves in the foot, pulled the rug out from under ourselves, and only now, 120 years or so after these cultural traditions developed, we fall. This is what I want to talk about. But allow me to backtrack a bit and cover the history so that you see the context and how these traditions developed.

When the Enlightenment came across Europe and North America, it resulted in two different outcomes. In North America, the Christians throughout the land grabbed on to the anti-traditional idea of the enlightenment. It fit so well with starting over in a new land and a new country. They ignored the past in an attempt to come to the Word of God without being hindered by other peoples’ thoughts. This was part of the democratization of Christianity. Because the anti-traditionalism was led by Christians, they formed the mind of the culture in America. This is why so many new denominations started in America as well. This is why so many stripped down their theology and understanding of the gospel. When things became simpler and combined with American democratic ideas, the result was an individualized gospel that would be preached to everyone. Thus we had the revivals of the early 1800s and late 1800s. In Europe things happened differently. There Christians did not lead the way in anti-traditionalism. While it was good that Christians did not ignore their traditions, they did not feel the same individualism that Americans did. Thus, without Christians leading the way out of old histories and without connecting the gospel and democratic individualism, Europe left Christianity as it progressed in reason.

The result for American (and here more specifically the USA) Christianity was a gospel that everyone had heard. The trouble was that such an individualistic and anti-traditional gospel had no foundation. And even worse, anti-traditionalism fosters the idea that we don’t need to think about what others have thought about concerning an object of study. Combine this with a new hermeneutic that the “simple” meaning of scripture should be the true meaning, we are left with the assumption that we don’t need to think about scripture. All that is necessary is that we get the “simple” meaning. But what scripture is ever simple? Even beyond that, could we ever assume a passage is simple? Revivalism in this sense did much to get people saved, but it strongly damaged the life of the mind. It gets worse as well.

With the advent of such a gospel-centered mission for life, we came upon a version of docetism. Docetism was an early heresy in which it was believed that Christ was not human, but only appeared to be human. These early heretics had a strong dislike for anything physical or material. They thought that the physical was bad and evil, and therefore Christ could not have been physical. While such a wrong view of Christ has not returned, the idea that the physical world is bad has returned in full force. Holiness theology teaches us to “just give up more of ourselves,” or “to surrender more” to Jesus to fix our problems and better our lives. While these encouragements aren’t bad in and of themselves, they divert our attention away from any attempt to come to terms with our problems by using our own minds, minds which God has given us. In addition, when it is stated that “holiness is the answer for everything” it dismisses every opportunity for using our minds as unnecessary and frivolous. Holiness is not the answer, for example, to how creation and evolution are related, or to how the two natures of Christ exist in one person. We need to use are minds to understand the good world that God created (1 Timothy 4:1-6). Pentecostalism likewise stressed that we should just get the Holy Spirit, get baptized in the Spirit, or such things as a solution to spiritual problems.

Now I’m not advocating a humanistic philosophy for solving the problems of our lives. What I advocate is that we lose anti-intellectual theologies and exchange them for a life of the mind that works in harmony with the Spirit to search and study the scripture for the truth that God has for life and how we should live. It is not about “giving up” or “letting go” but rather sitting down to take a serious look at the Word of God and to think long and hard about sin, forgiveness, life, sanctification, and the life of Christ. Cheap Biblicism and spiritual catch phrases teach poorly and develop a culture where we don’t need the Bible for sermons, we don’t know what our gospel is, and we don’t even know that we have scandalized the mind that God has given us.

The reason I write this is that the negative aspects of the traditions of revivalism, holiness theology, and Pentecostalism have not passed in the Army. And that scares me. While a number of evangelical groups have moved beyond an individualistic and docetic gospel, we continue to assert in meetings and conventions that all we have to do is “give up more of ourselves” and “save the world for Jesus.” Good things, but when that isallwe advocate, we develop a skewed theology that leads to a decimated intellectual mind.

You might say though, “who cares about an intellectual mind, people are going to hell!” But there’s more to it than that.

Through all these traditions the overwhelming truth that comes through our culture is that the only way to glorify God is through saving souls. This is the docetic idea that turns Salvationists off from influencing the world around us. If we continue to ignore the natural world we will continue to leave the world to the non-Christian scholars. Who teaches the world how to think? Not us. We left that area of life. But the truth is that God’s creation is good. We can glorify God by studying His creation. By understanding creation we understand more about God, and that is glorifying to Him. So if a person wants to study some aspect of the natural world, that study is glorifying to God even without the possible ministry that that scientist or scholar might have with his co-workers. It is glorifying to God because it is learning about God. In addition, that person can also teach people how to think christianly about the world. This is what it will take to have a reformation.

If we continue towards the future unchanged, we will have more revivalism that will perpetuate the anti-traditionalism and anti-intellectualism that so permeates our Army. Why do you think the Training College is only two years long? This facet of our ecclesiastical culture implicitly says that the mind doesn’t matter; only the soul does. If we continue to advocate a simplistic holiness and Pentecostal theology, we will continue to perpetuate a Biblicist mindset and a de-emphasis on using the mind to really learn how to live and think. We will continue to develop a Christian community that cannot influence the world in how it thinks.

If you want a reformation in our Army, then value the mind God has given you, and use it to study the Word of God and the world of God. Keep your mind open and observe the culture that is our Army. When you hear the same messages of “just giving up,” and when you listen to sermons that quote scripture in a simplistic fashion, and when you come up against the pressure that only spiritual things matter, consider using the wonderful mind God has given you to search deeply into the issues at hand in scripture and the world.

* I know that Holiness Theology is close to our hearts and tradition. Please understand that I am not arguing here against Holiness Theology, but against the Biblicist and simplistic way it is often explained and propagated.

Writer: David Witthoff is a Salvationist from the Oakbrook Terrace Corps. He recently graduated from the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago with a BA in Pastoral Ministry. Currently he lives in Hamilton, Massachusetts, USA where he is working towards a Master of Arts in Old Testament and a Master of Arts in Biblical Languages at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. David enjoys writing music, exegeting, sci-fi tv shows, running, soccer, languages and talking about the Army with his friends. His hope is to be the best soldier, officer, student and teacher of the scripture that he can be.

2 Comments to Head or heart

1. Nice article. Its interesting that the the Wesleyan theological tradition from which TSA emerged, has four elements to its theological reflection process - Scripture, reason, tradition and experience. It seems to me that along the way a few of these have dropped off…

   Stuart
Stuart Glover on November 19th, 2008

2. Thanks for your article. I could not agree more.

   The first and greatest commandment (as recorded in Matthew) is `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Matt 22:37 (NIV). The synoptic gospels all include loving God with our mind.

   Seems like we give preference to loving God with our strength - to our own detriment.
Graham Roberts on November 23rd, 2008

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