The Bible says…

Homophobia isn’t in the Bible says Jason Davies-Kildea

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ome thoughts on using the Bible to maintain prejudice…

I love the Bible. I know how that sounds, but it’s true. In the first couple of years after I became a Christian, I read the Bible from cover to cover three times and the New Testament an extra four times for good measure.  I’m now quite a few years older, have studied the scriptures formally at a post-graduate level (in Greek and Hebrew) and I still immerse myself in the Bible for hours every week.

So, although I know that I shouldn’t, I can’t help but be somewhat annoyed when people try to tell me what ‘the Bible says’ - particularly when it’s to try and bolster their own prejudices.

Unfortunately, our holy scriptures have been used in this degrading way for centuries. The crusaders used them to justify violence against Muslims. The Bible was quoted to justify ‘divinely-appointed’ slavery for black people only a few decades ago.  Scripture is still used in many churches to keep women subordinate to men and to justify discrimination and vilification against gay and lesbian people.

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Incarnate Forum | Geoff Ryan #2

Part 2 of 2

The first part of this essay appeared on Tuesday.

Political Implications
“Politics is who gets what, when and how.”

“Politics is important in determining whether a people will be at war or in peace. It is fundamental in the distribution of economic goods, including the definition of property rights. Politics is basic to the definition of crime and the determination of how it will be punished. It affects the degree to which people will be free to speak, to write, to worship. It defines who will be accepted as members of the community, and who will be placed at the margins. It seriously influences the rearing of children by determining the circumstances of family life and establishing much of the subject matter of their education. It enters into the self-awareness of a people, their self-identity, and it projects in large measure their sense of historic destiny and accomplishment.”

“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.”

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ven the word, let alone the reality, of politics is toxic to many Christians, nevertheless it is unavoidable. The word idiot comes from idiotus, a term coined by the Greeks for a person who refused to involve themselves in public affairs. The Church, therefore, contains many idiots - those who believe that political involvement, indeed that participation in politics in any shape or form, is to compromise faith and that it is invariably detrimental to the church and its mission.

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Incarnate Forum | Geoff Ryan #1

Part 1 of 2

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he Incarnate Mission Forum was held at the Salvation Army Officer Training College in London, England this past January. The event was organized by the UK-based NEO network of urban expressions (ALOVE UK) and was a partner event to the Urban Forum 2007, held in Atlanta, Georgia. Delegates, attending from Canada, the US and the UK, were mostly practitioners from urban ministry settings. A number of papers were presented at the event, both by Salvation Army speakers and others. theRubicon will post selected presentations over the next few weeks.

Implications of a(n Intentional)
Theology of Christian Re-Incarnation
What are the economic and political factors and implications of incarnational mission?

by Major Geoff Ryan
Incarnation Mission Forum:
William Booth College, London January 29-31, 2008

Definitions:

• Christians: Western, Protestant, Evangelical.
• The Poor: Not an exclusively economic term; the last, lost and least; those marginalized; the oppressed; those excluded.
• Urban: Not an exclusively geographic term as in “inner city”; a community characterized by a mixture of socio-economic factors; poverty, crime, lack of opportunities etc.

All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise indicated

Defining Incarnational Mission

“The task of the Gospel is to bring humanity back into community.”

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Local mindset

major issue | lack of credible local witness

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or the majority of Jesus’ life, he lived in a small village called Nazareth. Other than an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover festival, the likelihood is that he would have not ventured many miles from his home. He lived, worked, worshipped and socialised in Nazareth. It was only when he started his itinerant ministry that he started to travel about a lot, and even then the geographical area he kept to was relatively small.

Today, many of us commute. We get in our cars or onto buses or trains and travel quite a distance to work, school, college, and of course to shop. It’s a reality in this modern world of ours. But at least we worship locally! Or do we? How many of us actually attend the Salvation Army corps nearest to us?

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We need heroes

Rob Perry on rescuing the Army’s
military metaphor from a
quaint historical footnote

Every member of every corps should understand the spiritual battle that rages in the world and the incredible real-life pain and suffering that lies in its wake

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ecently I came across a recruiting advertisement for Salvation Army officers in an American Salvation Army publication. It depicted five jackets hanging on a rack, each jacket a part of a different uniform. Moving from background to foreground was a paramedic’s jacket, a navy tunic, a camouflage army jacket, a firefighter’s coat, and in front of them all, a Salvation Army officer’s tunic. The caption at the top of the page read: “We need heroes! Join the mission.”

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An Army led

… or an organization managed?

If you always do what you always did,
You always get what you always got.

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onald Reagan, while President of the United States, said that “status quo is Latin for the mess we’re in”. We cannot afford to be satisfied with the status quo. We must be open to deep change.

Over the past twenty-five years The Salvation Army internationally has made numerous changes organizationally, but without the hoped for and needed results. Take my home territory, Canada & Bermuda Territory, as an example. In 1980 when the Canadian population was 24,350,000 the Army had a membership of 99,127, an average of 4.1 per 100,000. Just over twenty years later, membership stood at 85,500, an average of only 2.8 per 100,000 given the rise in Canada’s population to approximately 30,750,000. This translates into a 32.5% per capita membership decline over the last twenty-five or so years. A similar tale can be told in virtually every Salvation Army territory in the west. What is at the root of this decline?

The problem goes deep into the fundamentals of our leadership base, steadily eroding our influence as a Movement, preventing us from accomplishing the mission to which we have been called, reiterated by General Gowans as “…to save souls, to grow saints and to serve suffering humanity”.

I believe that at the centre of our leadership crisis in The Salvation Army is the system of organizational leadership we deploy, namely an antiquated command and control model based on position and maintained at a distance. More and more organizational entities have moved to a networking model built around relationships, where power and authority are derived from being accessible.

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The line of demarcation

… the line is invisible says David Hammond

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ugene Peterson in his book The Jesus Way points out the importance of metaphors in scripture: “There are two worlds that co-exist; the two worlds are the same world. Metaphor is language that in a single word conveys the indivisbility of visible and invisible;  of seen and unseen; of heaven and earth. A metaphor is word that carries across the abyss separating the invisible from the visible”

“The dividing  line between God and the world goes through each man’s heart. The worldly man is one whose heart is so earthbound that he has forgotten that he is made for heaven,”  wrote John Henry Newman.

Malcolm Muggeridge had the eye of the prophet when  he spelled out in eloquent language the two Kingdoms with which we have to deal. “The prevailing impression I have come to have of the contemporary scene is of an ever-widening schism between the fantasy in terms of which the media induces us to live, and the reality of our existence as made in the image of God, as sojourners in time whose true habitat is eternity.  The fantasy is all-encompassing;  awareness of reality that requires the seeing eye which comes to those born again in Christ”  (Christ and the Media).

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Losing our religion?

by Larry Ashcraft

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ith all due respect to the R.E.M. song from the early 90’s, it would appear that the Western world is leaving its religious roots.  Recently, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a study indicating that up to 44% of Americans have left the faith tradition of the families in which they were raised.  Further, 51% of the population claims to be Protestant, as compared with over 70% of 20 years ago.

It is not that people are necessarily leaving Christianity; it is that they are leaving the tradition of their families.  In fact, the fastest growing churches in the US seem to be non-denominational.  Time was that if you were born Methodist, Lutheran, Nazarene or Salvo, you stayed that way.  Not so now.

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Subverting the Salvo Empire

“… what you are describing is idolatry.”

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hey sat there attentive, engaged, and intrigued.  The teacher spent hours unwrapping themes and nuances from a book only four chapters in length.  Many lingered close to the storyteller afterward, insatiable in their appetite to digest the Word.  The speaker – Brian Walsh – skillfully painted a complete picture of the radical call from Paul to the church at Colosse.  This treasonous call to subvert the Roman empire and its marked implications for today inspired, challenged and provoked.  What is the empire, though?  The question hung in the air with a certain tension and silence.  Nobody wanted to immediately out themselves as an imperial conspiracist.  Then slowly and tepidly answers were offered:  the media, America, culture or Wall Street.  Later a young person, with all the sensitivity in the world, gently asked “Is The Salvation Army an empire?”

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The value of going to church

by Amy Reardon

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t was only a few minutes before Sunday morning worship would begin, but I stood alone in the Fellowship Hall of my corps. I had to linger there; the presence of God was pulsating throughout the room. Just a few more moments and I would go, and I would feel God in the sanctuary too, but for now I was enjoying him in the spot where I usually enjoyed our monthly potluck potato casseroles.

Barbara, a woman about 20 years my senior, entered the large room. “Barbara,” I called out to her, “I feel God in this room.” She replied, “When I came in the building and was greeted by so many friendly faces, I felt such a feeling of love and acceptance. It was overwhelming. Is that what you mean?” “Yes,” I affirmed. It was a little different from what I was sensing, to be honest, but her experience was surely just another manifestation of God’s presence.

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