the Rubicon by request - Heaven without Hell

Andrew Bale on Sheol

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ll Salvationists publicly state at the time of their enrollment that they “believe and will live by the truths of the word of God expressed in The Salvation Army’s eleven articles of faith.” Cadets repeat this declaration when they are commissioned, and the statement is an integral part of their Officer’s Covenant.

However, the Army’s articles of faith, rather than being a set doctrinal meal, are viewed by many as a theological pick and mix counter where the easy-to-swallow Haribo and Honeycomb are quickly snatched up, while the less appetising aniseed balls and liquorice laces are passed by.

Most of the Salvation Army’s doctrines seem up for debate today, but none more so than Doctrine number 11:

We believe in the immortality of the soul; in the resurrection of the body; in the general judgment at the end of the world; in the eternal happiness of the righteous; and in the endless punishment of the wicked.

Words like “punishment,” “judgement” and “wicked” don’t slip easily off the tongue of a church that seeks to establish a compromised camaraderie with the world. It is difficult (and becomes even tedious after a while) to have to constantly reconcile the image of an angry God with one of unbounded compassion when we present the gospel.

Striking a balance between God the Judge and God the Father has been a challenge for the church since the crucifixion. However, the chief dangers which confront the world, as William Booth pointed out, are “religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

• “Heaven without hell” makes most (if not all) of the gospel irrelevant. After all, what is the “good news” that Jesus brought to the world if it isn’t the possibility of Salvation?
• “Heaven without hell” makes The Salvation Army obsolete. Without the possibility of damnation, who are we fighting and what are we trying to save people from?
• “Heaven without hell” makes the crucifixion an unnecessarily cruel act of divine self-harm. Why did Jesus have to die if there was no penalty hanging over us?

Throughout the centuries, the church has tried to settle this problem by reinterpreting the gospel in a fresh (less offensive) way. The most recent of these has been the much debated book by Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, The Lost Message of Jesus… and its significance for today. This book, in its attempt to make the gospel more palatable, completely denies any kind of penal substitutionary atonement:

“The fact is that the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse—a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed …The truth is, the cross is a symbol of love. It is a demonstration of just how far God as Father and Jesus as Son are prepared to go to prove that love.”

The quote above is well motivated and contains some truth. Of course the cross is a symbol of love - but it is the wilful and deliberate act of accepting our punishment that makes Christ’s sacrifice an act of such “amazing grace.”

Steve Chalke was recently one of the main speakers at the UK Roots convention, even though the gospel he presents in his book is clearly contradictory to The Salvation Army’s eleventh doctrine.

Why does deliberate punishment seem so at odds with love? Steve Chalke’s book was written in response to the exclusiveness which has developed in some quarters of the contemporary evangelical church, where a “them and us” situation has arisen. The authors set out not to knock traditional theology but to refocus the attention of the church on “love” - especially that divine love which is at the heart of the crucifixion. The book does not dismiss substitutionary atonement - merely penal substitutionary atonement. Chalke argues that a God who instructs his disciples to “love their enemies” cannot go on to punish his own.

I am not aware of any expression of Christianity that has vehemently pressed upon the world the impending punishment of God more than The Salvation Army. Nor can I think of any branch of Christianity that has been more inclusive or less prejudiced than the same Salvation Army.

It is an unpalatable truth, but a truth none the less, that when we die we will be judged according to the light we have received. If our lives have been motivated by selfishness, then we will be endlessly punished - t is not that God wills our punishment but simply that we have failed to grab hold of the lifeline he has thrown out. This is why Christianity that has done away with hell is lacking in zeal and urgency, because it sees no possibility of punishment and no time limit on reconciliation.

Would anyone complain if God took hold of and punished a pedophile that had abducted, repeatedly raped and then killed a child of two?

Would anyone complain if God took hold of and punished a human trafficker that procured prepubescent teens for European brothels?

Would anyone complain if Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Idi Amin or Pol Pot were taken by God and cast into hell to be eternally punished?

Yes, God would and does shed a tear over such people—that’s why he “gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life.”

Writer: Born in 1961 to Salvation Army Officer parents, entered training at 18 and commissioned as an officer in 1982, resigned in 1990, born again in 1994 and reaccepted into officership in May 2007. For the last 18 years Andrew has worked as an Environmental Strategist in local government. Married to Tracey he is the father of four children. Andrew will take up leadership of the Dartford Corps in southern England in July, 2007. Andrew believes that the restoration of personal holiness within the movement will prove to be the salvation of the Salvation Army. Andrew has a passionate interest in the history of The Salvation Army and the holiness movement. An aggressive evangelist Andrew believes that revival will hit the western territories of The Salvation Army within the next 10 years!

the Rubicon - BY REQUEST - The SA as a prophetic movement

What does prophetic ministry really mean? by Geoff Ryan

The terms “prophet” and “prophetic” are loaded terms. They are loaded with meaning often far removed from their original intention and divested of much depth and nuance and occasionally even integrity. They have become blunt instruments in the hands – or mouths – of whoever wants to use them. It is therefore important to clarify terms of reference right from the beginning.

I would like to suggest that there are two main ways by which “prophetic” is used in Christian circles these days. One is favoured by conservative evangelicals, particularly Charismatic/Pentecostal Christians and one favoured by the more mainline, what might be considered “liberal,” branches of the Church.

One conservative, evangelical view on the prophetic is that of the prophet as a future-teller, often reduced to the role of a fortune-teller. In such an understanding, the prophet is much concerned with the future and things to come, the end times and apocalyptic visions. The prophetic ministry is primarily concerned with what is to come to pass, what will be and what has not yet happened. The present is a concern only in so far as it impacts what is to come in the future, distant or close at hand.

Certainly there are aspects of “future telling” in the prophetic role, however, as Walter Brueggemann points out in The Prophetic Imagination: “While one would not want to deny totally those facets of the practice of prophecy, there tends to be a kind of reductionism that is mechanical and therefore untenable. While prophets are in a way future-tellers, they are concerned with the future as it impinges upon the present” (p. 13).

While prophets are in a way future-tellers, they are concerned with the future as it impinges upon the present

In this conservative understanding of the prophetic ministry, value is placed on the impartation of power – the prophet is “gifted” by God with special insight usually termed a “word from the Lord.” As Steve Thompson writes in his book You May All Prophesy!: “When I use the word prophesy in this book, I am describing receiving and giving a specific “word” to a person or group of people”(p. 9).

This understanding of prophetic ministry concentrates power in the hands of the prophet. With such insight from God, the prophet’s direct access to God provides a mandate to speak into anyone’s life and situation with impunity. Validation of authentic insight, or “second sight,” is largely subjective and often not held to the same standards of discernment that the Church has traditionally applied to such gifting.

While such a view of the prophetic does contain aspects of biblical prophetic ministry, there is an inherent danger, which lies in all branches of intense charismatic Christianity. Highly emotionally motivated and often accepting only of experiential validation, the Christian life can be reduced to the realm of feelings (“the worship was anointed today” or “God showed up”) and personal experience (“God told me…”). A high level of subjectivity is tolerated, in which people are loathe to challenge those in authority (those anointed as prophets) lest they are considered un-spiritual. The most troubling result of such an understanding of the prophetic is that issues that traditionally and biblically concerned the prophets, such as social justice, the poor and marginalized, economic inequity, etc. are not deemed priorities. To be “prophetic” takes on a new meaning and purpose that is almost entirely “spiritualized,” the majority of the time concerning itself with issues of personal piety and private sinning.

A high level of subjectivity is tolerated, in which people are loathe to challenge those in authority (those anointed as prophets) lest they are considered un-spiritual

Meanwhile, the liberals “settled for a focus on the present” (Brueggemann: p.13). The concept of the “prophetic” is reduced almost exclusively to righteous indignation at societal injustice and therefore, a response through social action. To be prophetic means to be a critical thinker, pointing out what is “not working” and what is “wrong.”

This understanding of the prophetic also contains aspects of biblical prophetic ministry and concerns itself primarily with criticizing and attacking and tearing down, rather than shifting perceptions. It is about revolution rather than revival. The great danger here lies in replacing a holy God’s concern for justice with human-centred social justice, good works and even social engineering. The destructive ideologies that characterized the twentieth century were all utopianisms that sought to improve the world through means that were justified by end results. This view of the prophetic flies dangerously close to this flame. True prophets also address the internal spiritual condition of people and not only the external social conditions of the society. They are grounded in God and his word and not political thought systems.

So, what does it mean to be a prophet and to have a prophetic ministry? How is this distinct or different in any way from priests and the priestly function? Why should it matter to Salvationists in the 21st century, living in an era long after the advent of Jesus, who resolved within himself this tension, by being both prophet and high priest?

In one very simple definition, a priest is someone who talks to God on behalf of the people; a prophet is one who speaks to the people (society, culture, the church) on behalf of God. In The Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann defines prophetic ministry in the following manner:

“The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us” (p.13).

“It is the task of prophetic ministry to bring the claims of the tradition and the situation of enculturation into an effective interface. That is, the prophet is called to be a child of the tradition, one who has taken it seriously in the shaping of his or her own field of perception and system of language, who is so at home in that memory that the points of contact and incongruity with the situation of the church in culture can be discerned and articulated with proper urgency” (p. 12).

Brueggemann’s definitions will be our basic construct for this discussion of the prophetic and its relevance to us today. I want to state at the outset that I believe The Salvation Army was raised up by God to serve a prophetic role in culture and in the Church. However first we need to look at the prophetic tradition in the Bible, commencing in the Old Testament, in order to give ourselves some background understanding and context.

The Prophetic Tradition in the Bible
As far as anyone can tell from the Scriptures, the first record of God endorsing “religion” is found in the book of Exodus (starting at chapter 19 until the end of the book and continuing on into Leviticus). Not long after Moses has led the people out of Egypt, he is summoned to Mount Sinai by God to receive the Ten Commandments, as well as a host of instructions regulating the separate life of God’s chosen people. While Moses is gone, the people, tiring of waiting and dealing with an abstract God that only their leader had access to, collected all their jewellery and, in imitation of the surrounding peoples, fashioned an idol and declared it their god (Exodus 32).

Up to this point, Israel had no formal religion. What they did have was a man who approached God on their behalf and approached them on God’s behalf. No rituals or traditions, no teaching, no system of observance – no religion, in short. This was in stark contrast to the surrounding cultures among whom they moved, the Egyptians and the other peoples they encountered as they fled Egypt. In these cultures, the gods had “incarnated” themselves in forms and rituals that gave structure and meaning to their adherents’ lives. Dealing with the pure abstract for any sustained period of time is virtually impossible for humans. We serve a God who is Spirit (ergo abstract) yet who defines himself relationally in reference to us as his creations. However, our need to codify things in concrete terms is too strong to deny. God acknowledges this right at the beginning in Exodus by providing a complex and all encompassing religious system in order to satisfy this need in his people and to provide a concrete way through which they can maintain a relationship with him and deal with their sins. God’s ultimate acknowledgement of this need in his creation is Christ’s incarnation several thousand years later. It began however with Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai.

God instituted all this for the benefit of his people. It was about us, not him. God is self-sufficient and self-contained and needs nothing outside of himself – he never lived in that golden box known as the Ark of the Covenant. These were all symbols whose function was to serve our needs until the time when the fulfillment of these symbols arrived.

“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ” (Colossians 2:16,17).

The Temple was built in Israel and a system of Temple worship instituted. The Temple became the focal point of the nation, the heart of the people – a permanent symbol of God’s accessibility. However, it was always intended to serve a symbolic function, as Solomon’s dedicatory prayer makes clear: “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27).

Over time, however, Temple worship became corrupted. The priesthood, a religious order whom God had called into existence starting with Aaron, was to serve the function of regulating and maintaining the spiritual life of the nation through the faith system that God had ordained. However, what was meant to symbolically represent and concretely contextualize a spiritual (abstract) reality became itself the focal point of people’s devotion and worship. The Temple and the worship centred in it, were idolized and subsequently became corrupted – the “means” became the “end.” This is one of the inevitable outcomes of faith and religion divorcing. One of them, generally religion, is elevated above and beyond the other. The history of religion through human history is a sad litany of this imbalance. Nearly all of the more unsavoury chapters in the history of the Church can be traced to moments when true faith and its helpmate religion, become disconnected. Religion assumes the dominant role in place of faith and a vital relationship with a living God. Once this takes place, anything and everything can be justified in the name of God. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the Nazis marching into war with “God with Us” etched on their belt buckles and more modern-day examples such as the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Nearly all of the more unsavoury chapters in the history of the Church can be traced to moments when true faith and its helpmate religion, become disconnected

To counter what had happened with the Temple worship and among the priesthood, God rose up a “second stream” or a second team – the prophets. Some of these men were themselves priests; many were not. To effect a “holy tension” in order to realign his people and refocus them on himself, God required that the prophets concentrate their message on areas neglected by the priests. The priests, perhaps inevitably, given our need for making the abstract tangible and our weakness for power, focused their efforts primarily on ritual and formalism, external observance and ceremonial religion. The prophets were tasked to go to the heart of things.

The prophets pretty much had one message: Get your heart right with God and everything else will follow. If the heart is not right, then everything else is becomes skewed and ultimately pointless in God’s eyes. If your relationship with God is not sorted, then your programs are empty; if your heart if not right (internal) then your worship (external) is unacceptable. They spoke of relationship, with God and with others. God speaks to his people through their relationships with others and their love and devotion to God are to be expressed by serving those whom they are in relationship with. True worship and religious expression are validated by a social imperative, and a person’s relationship to God is integrally linked to their relationship with others, in particular those whom God called “the least.”

“Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moon, Sabbaths and convocations – I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:13-17).

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood” (Isaiah 58:6,7).

“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you” (Jeremiah 7:21-23).

“For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6).

“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your song! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream” (Amos 5:21-24).

“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:6-8).

The tension created by these two “streams” was intense. The prophets felt compelled to denounce the false sense of security that the people had gained by trusting in the Temple and its service. They were speaking an often unpopular message that made the people uncomfortable and that challenged the religious (ergo State) power system.

The prophets did strange things in order to get the people’s attention and to get God’s message across. They were the original sensationalists (revivalists) and “out-of-the-box” thinkers. Hosea was told to marry the town whore; Ezekiel lay on his side for 390 days and cooked bread using human waste as fuel; Jeremiah invested in real estate in a city on the verge of capture. Saints and sinners alike misunderstood the prophets and, though meeting with some success, most met the same fate: “Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One” (Acts 7:52). Extreme counter-culturalism was met by death, more often than not.

As Israel came under foreign domination and lost control over the life of the nation, the prophets fell silent. Some scholars speak of the 400 years of silence when no prophet was heard in Israel

As we enter into the New Testament period in Israel, the priests had truly triumphed. During and after the exile years, the prophetic voice slowly died out. The prophets, concerned as they were with issues of true faith in a God of justice and equity and the implications of these ethically and morally in society, were linked to the periods when Israel was sovereign and had her own kings. As Israel came under foreign domination and lost control over the life of the nation, the prophets fell silent. Some scholars speak of the 400 years of silence when no prophet was heard in Israel. By the time the Romans arrived, the national power was concentrated with the Sadducees (priests) and the Pharisees (religious legalists). There was no one exercising a prophetic ministry.

Then John the Baptist appears (John 1:19-23), a prophet in the classic Old Testament mode, and speaking much the same message. John was followed by Jesus:

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied. “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (Matthew 16:13-14).

In their mission, both John and Jesus were firmly in the prophetic line, at odds with the religious establishment, in tension with the priests and seemingly dismissive of ritual convention. Both met the same fate as the other prophets.

Jesus’ most quoted Old Testament verse was Hosea 6:6: “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” A key passage to the understanding of Jesus as prophet is his encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 4:1-38. In this encounter, as with pretty much all his encounters with people, he drew them toward the centre, the essence of the law. He summed up the Ten Commandments, the heart of the Old Testament law, in a succinct way:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second one (commandment) is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no greater commandment than these two” (Mark 12:29).

Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees and teachers of the law in Mark 7:1-23 is paradigmatic, a pivotal encounter between the prophetic focus on the essential heart of things and the priestly obsession with ceremonialism. “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men,” asserted Jesus. “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean,’ he later states, clearing drawing the lines of perspective.

Jesus, however, was also a priest – the great high priest (Hebrews 4:14-16; 5: 1-10, 7:1-28; 8:1-6; 10:1-18). This tension between the inward and the outward, between relationship and ceremony, symbol and reality, shadow and substance, priest and prophet runs throughout the Bible, from the foot of Mount Sinai until the coming of Jesus who ushered in the new order (Hebrews 9:10) and who combined perfectly these two aspects of true faith and mission.

The Prophetic Tradition and The Salvation Army
God raised The Salvation Army up as a prophetic movement. Theologically and culturally we were positioned prophetically in contradistinction to the dominant culture, both culturally and religiously.

Our early theological convictions ranging from our non-observance of the sacraments (communion and water baptism), empowerment of women for ministry, our bias toward the poor, our use of non-sacred music and even our choice of venues in which to hold meetings (music halls, etc) can all be understood as prophetic in the context that has been defined here.

From early on, The Salvation Army viewed itself as a prophetic movement. The first Officers Training College in London was called “The School of the Prophets.” Booth was known as the “Prophet of the Poor” (the title of a 1905 biography by Thomas Coates). Samuel Logan Brengle’s official biography is titled Portrait of a Prophet. Booth’s favourite Scripture passage was Isaiah 58 – he referred to it as “The Charter of The Salvation Army.”

The Salvation Army viewed itself as a prophetic movement. The first Officers Training College in London was called “The School of the Prophets”

Our relationship to the other, established churches was initially one of great tension which, even though it has eased considerably through the years as The Salvation Army grew and established credibility, was defined by the prophetic stance we adopted in relation to the perceptions and practices of the other churches. We felt that we had something to say to the wider church; something to remind them about (the poor); something about which to bear witness (ritualism and the sacraments); areas needing challenging (female ministry). One could say that we viewed our Christian brothers and sisters as primarily priests, and ourselves as primarily prophets.

In time, though, we settled down. We “came in from the hills” and built Temples of our own. We hankered after the status of priests and the certainty of established ritual. Most denominations still tend to hold the Army at arm’s length, mainly due to our theological understanding of sacraments, and refuse to grant us the ecclesiastical legitimacy that many feel is important. Yet we continue to strive hard to establish ourselves as priests and, in fact, to function as priests. We have worked hard to throw off the “prophetic mantle” of our early years.

I believe that God called The Salvation Army into being for a prophetic purpose and that this is who we are – it is in our DNA. If the Army is to now to emerge into robust adulthood as a movement, 140 years after our birth, having moved from a glorious (and rambunctious) infancy and through an awkward adolescence, then we need to understand, accept and embrace our true identity as a prophetic movement.

But how is this to be expressed today, in the post-modern milieu of the early 21st century? What does God want us to say to his people?

I hold two convictions that shape my thinking theologically and my actions missiologically. One conviction is about the prophetic role of the Church in culture and society, and the other is more particularly about The Salvation Army’s prophetic voice within Church culture. Both, I believe, are convictions that strive to “evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.”

Speaking Prophetically in the World
I have a conviction that there is only one credible message left for the church to speak in the world today. That is, there is only one message that might capture the attention of the world, one message that the world might possibly listen to. That message can be encapsulated by combining Galatians 3:26-28 and Colossians 3:11:

“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Everything that the church has historically done, every good work, in order to make the Gospel attractive and to lend weight and credibility to our faith (which is dead without actions, as James said) can be, and has been, replicated by the world. Hospitals, schools, various expressions of social service and assistance ranging from shelter beds to counselling to addiction programs to youth centres – all such initiatives have their genesis in the Church.

Before governments realized their responsibility in these areas, before private charities and non-profits emerged, it was only the Church that educated children, took care of the sick, and helped the fallen

Before governments realized their responsibility in these areas, before private charities and non-profits emerged, it was only the Church that educated children, took care of the sick, and helped the fallen. While the church continues to do this (in particular The Salvation Army) and should continue to do such things, as expressions of Christ’s love, it’s capacity to enhance the Good News and it’s usefulness in giving credence to our mission, are diminished greatly from the time when we were “the only game in town.” The “competition,” for lack of a better term, is so intense in these areas that that the uniquely Christian aspect of practical, charitable service is all but lost.

Paradoxically, words have become increasingly emptied of meaning as well. The Internet and e-mail, globalized mass media and mass culture are all expressions of a world in which there is simply too much information for people to process. Too many words, in fact. The straightforward and unadorned proclamation of the Good News has never had it so bad. A post-modern, media and technology-savvy generation requires that in any presentation, content has to fight for attention against image and sensation. Experientially based, sensation driven theologies are a better draw than the dry, intellectualism of the rationalistic Christianity of the recent past. In the wider cultural sphere, anyone can say anything these days, with equal credence, given the context of a tolerant, pluralistic culture committed to moral relativism and ethical subjectivity. Words are cheap.

What remains that is uniquely Christian, that the world cannot replicate and that no one else is saying with any degree of validation?

So what we say – even if it is heard – will likely not be listened to. And if what we do –
even if it is noticed – will not be linked with our message, what is left? What remains that is uniquely Christian, that the world cannot replicate and that no one else is saying with any degree of validation? I believe it is that message of reconciliation that Jesus left with the church:

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20).

In a world that is fractured along a thousand fault lines of ethnicity, religion, racial and tribal loyalties, nationalism and economics; where in a thousand villages and cities around the globe the juggernaut of Globalism meets the backlash of Tribalism; where skin colour, tribal affiliation, religious practice or geographical happenstance are determining factors in whether or not a person will live to their 21st birthday; where over thirty wars are raging at present globally, each because of seemingly non-reconcilable issues of race, religion or economics – what is the message that needs to be spoken prophetically into such a world?

I like to think that a typical Sunday service at my church, 614 Regent Park, in Toronto, implicitly embodies something of this message of reconciliation. Our neighbourhood, our “parish,” is the rough part of our city – challenged economically, struggling with social problems and crime and containing about 100 nationalities within a 15-minute walking radius. Regent Park itself, the oldest and largest housing project in Canada, covers 69 acres – about one square mile. Running east to west, is Dundas Street, the only through street in the whole neighbourhood. It divides north Regent from south Regent, or “Northside” from “Southside.”

In the spring of last year, a young man was shot and killed on a Friday evening, a half a block north of where we hold our Sunday services. The family had an Army connection through an uncle in another city so I was asked to conduct the funeral. At the uncle’s request this was a private family affair, with no friends or acquaintances from “the Park” invited. However, we were asked to organize a memorial service to which his friends from the neighbourhood could be invited and so we planned one for the following Saturday. The only building we had available to hold the memorial service was the city-owned community centre that we rent each week for our Sunday meetings (we have no building of our own). The community centre is situated half a block south from the site of the shooting.

The boy was shot about three yards north of Dundas Street, just inside north Regent. He was a “Northside” boy, as the tattoo emblazoned on his lower stomach proudly proclaimed. The community centre we use is situated half a block away from where he was gunned down, about 20 yards south of Dundas Street, just inside south Regent. Nobody showed up for the memorial. It seems that we had disrespected the memory of this boy by holding a memorial for him on the Southside. This situation would seem ridiculous if it had not involved the death of a young man.

In such a context, add to the mixing pot of ethnicities in our community, who often continue to grind their tribal and political axes here in their new home, the pressure from the increasingly gentrified adjacent communities, where a trendy, upscale housing market has emerged from the ruins of the old slum community, and the potential for conflict and the need for reconciliation quickly becomes obvious. Our neighbourhood is, in many ways, a microcosm of the larger world.

Yet, each Sunday evening at 4:30 p.m. our mongrel of a church meets and worships and fellowships. One hundred plus people of all ages and different skin colour. It is a veritable polyglot of racial backgrounds, all babbling different languages and dialects and representing all strata of society from wealthy professionals through middle-class and petit bourgeois to working poor, welfare Moms and the homeless. Straight and gay, addicted and abstinent, profane and pious – I am convinced that Sunday church at 614 Regent Park represents the most disparate and eclectic group of people gathering anywhere in our city of Toronto.

And so it should be. Commissioner Phil Needham, explaining of true community, true church, writes in his book Community in Mission:

“The Church is not a grouping of individual Christians; it is a community in which Christians share in one another’s struggles and hopes. In the fellowship of believers, Christians bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), weep together, rejoice together (Romans 12:15), lift one another up in prayer (Romans 1:9; 2 Corinthians 9:14; Ephesians 1:16; Philippians 1:4; Colossians 4:2; etc), and love one another as Christ loved them (John 13:34). There is togetherness in this fellowship that goes far deeper than mere camaraderie. The pledge which the Spirit empowers the Church to carry out is the pledge of members of the community of faith to be with one another in every circumstance” (p. 15).

This was the message of the early church. This, I believe, lay at the heart of what Jesus was getting at during the Last Supper, Passover meal. This is why Paul was compelled to traverse the ancient world planting churches and instituting “Love Feasts” in order to get the message across about the reconciliation that Jesus had effected through his crucifixion.

When relationship with God is ruptured, then we cannot sustain relationship with each other because the two are inexplicably linked

In reconciling man to God and man to man, Jesus reversed the effects of the Fall, the moment when our relationship with God was severed (Genesis 3:1-24) and the subsequent murder of Abel by Cain (Genesis 4:1-16). When relationship with God is ruptured, then we cannot sustain relationship with each other because the two are inexplicably linked. Jesus’ last command to his church was intentionally this: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another” (John 13:34,35).

If The Salvation Army is called to be a prophetic presence in the world, then this starts with the recognition that our world – both our individual Monday-to-Friday-to Sunday-morning worlds as well as the larger global family – is profoundly conflicted and deeply divided. From this starting point, we must speak and act a biblical reconciliation that transcends the boundaries and barriers that not only plague the world, but those also bind us in the church.

One American preacher remarked that 11 am on Sunday mornings is the most segregated hour in American life. Though we live in apartment buildings with people of different race and ride elevators with people of colour and work in workplaces with people of various ethnicities, every Sunday morning when we go to worship God, people divide into their own particular racial groupings. We build black churches, Hispanic churches, Chinese churches, churches for the wealthy, churches for youth – all sorts of mono-cultural churches, some ethnically based, other based on age or interests or income and status. By so doing, we model ourselves after a world in which people only associate with people “like themselves” and we fail to model the Kingdom of God, an inclusive Kingdom of the whosoever, where differences are cause for celebration, not division. In today’s world, the mission statement of every Christian faith community should be: “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

For example, Kentucky, located on the edge of the American south, is a place where the black-white issue has never been truly resolved, either in society or within the church. In spite of the great strides made by the Civil Rights movement over three decades ago, the tensions run deep and hard. In the words of a friend of mine who is a Salvation Army officer born, raised and presently serving in the Southern Territory, the “spell has never been broken.” Do Kentucky Salvationists racially and economically reflect their cities and towns? Or do they reflect that statistic that says that less than 1% of churches in North America are reaching people “unlike themselves.”

If the church – the church “large C” and the “small c” local congregation – is meant to be an outpost of the Kingdom of God, reflecting what heaven is like, then what vision of heaven are we speaking of? What vision will capture the imagination of a weary and divided world unable to rise above its irreconcilable differences? The book of Revelation gives us a vision worth striving for: “I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9).

The Salvation Army is complicit, both at national and international levels, of not speaking this message clearly or distinctly enough. We need to change and strive to “encircle the world with our arms,” in the words of William Booth, and challenge the Church to do the same. As we have entered the new millennium, the witness of the church is lost in the babble, one voice among a myriad, all speaking much the same thing, as far as Joe Public is concerned – one great choir of cacophony.

Can we sing a different song, though? Can we sing a new song in this strange land of the 21st century even though we are a church in exile? Apart from the Roman Catholic Church, the Salvation Army is virtually the only truly international church that benefits from a centralized authority. Can our voice sound in the halls of ecclesiastical authority? Can the witness of our internationalism be used of God to speak prophetically to the Church and the world beyond our church walls? We are, after all, an Army that numerically (statistically) is overwhelmingly brown and yellow and not white, based on soldier and officer strength. We have a hope to offer and it is a realistic hope to counter the Bosnias and Rwandas and Middle East of the world. It is the hope that in Christ we can truly be reconciled with our Creator and his other creations. It is a message that the world should be able to come and see how this works every Sunday.

The last time I was at Asbury I heard the venerable John M. Perkins speak. He told a story of an Indian friend of his who is a Christian and a philosopher. Speaking of the church and its present fascination with power and experience, the friend told Dr. Perkins that anything that a Benny Hinn or an Oral Roberts or any other Christian miracle-worker can do, he can find a “Fakir” (a local Indian holy man) who can do the same thing. Pretty much everything – except one thing, that is. There is one thing the holy men cannot do. They cannot make a high-caste Indian love a low-caste Indian. That takes the power of the Gospel!

Speaking Prophetically in the Church
I have a conviction that the other main reason God had in raising up The Salvation Army was as a prophetic voice within the church – to live and speak as constant reminders to the Church of Jesus Christ not to forget the poor. I believe that the only true theological distinctive of The Salvation Army is our calling to the poor. From the outset of our history, this was the motivation for our mission and today it is the only raison d’etre for our continued existence. William Booth’s personal convictions on this matter are quite clear.

“God shall have all there is of me. There have been men with greater brains than I, even with greater opportunities, but from that day when I got the poor of London on my heart and caught a vision of what Jesus Christ could do to change them and me, on that day, I made up my mind that God should have all of William Booth that there was.”

“To help the poor, to minister to them in their slums, to sympathize with them in their poverty, afflictions, and irreligion, was the natural outcome that came to my soul through believing in Jesus Christ.”

Why was God moved to rise up The Salvation Army? There were two main determining factors. The state of society (the world) and the positioning of the churches relative to society. Booth was shown a London where a full one-tenth of the population was “submerged” in poverty, vice and sin. His subsequent efforts through mission stations and corps and social endeavours ranging from the “Cab Horse Charter” to his treatise In Darkest England and the Way Out, focused on this submerged tenth. The churches of the day had no interest in reaching them and left to themselves, they would never darken the door of any place of worship. This was Booth’s world. The question for us is that 140 years later what, if anything, has changed?

Dr. Jonathan Raymond, writes in Word & Deed that:

“Throughout the twentieth century…War, civil strife, genocide seemed ubiquitous and normative simultaneously…Today, the asset of 358 people (billionaires) in the world is greater than the combined income of 45% (2.6 billion) of the world’s people. The share of the global income of the poorest 20% of the world’s population has dropped from 2.3% to 1.4% since the late 1960’s. Booth’s “submerged tenth” is now nearer a third” (“Creating Christian Community in a Fragmented World,” Word & Deed, 2002).

Submerged tenth to a submerged third – hardly an improvement! If the needs of the poor and marginalized, locally and globally, are greater now than they were in Booth times, what about the “positioning” of the churches? By this I mean, the Church’s capacity and willingness to engage with the poor?

A quick perusal of any Christian (evangelical) bookstore will reveal that the vast majority of resources on offer in the areas of evangelism, mission, church planting, church models, children’s ministry etc are not dedicated toward ministry with the poor and marginalized, urban or otherwise. Browse the web and research the major conferences to be held this coming year in “evangelicaldom” and note their subject matter and the demographic they appeal to. Who are our “heroes” in the realm of Christian leaders? Which churches do we read up on and seek to imitate as models of ministry? What do you think the percentage split is among Salvation Army officers who, in the past five years have visited either Saddleback or Willow Creek Community Churches versus those who have checked out the Sojourners Community in Washington or JPUSA in Chicago? Apart from a few Catholic orders and independent missions, I cannot name one evangelical, protestant church that is focused on and committed to reaching the poor.

If the needs of the poor and marginalized, locally and globally, are greater now than they were in Booth times, what about the “positioning” of the churches? By this I mean, the Church’s capacity and willingness to engage with the poor?

I have two quotes on the wall of my office at 614, and they serve as constant reminders to me of the mission of the church as I understand it:

“Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves on the town garbage-heap; at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew, Latin and Greek; at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died and that is what He died about that is where the church should be and what the church should be about” (George MacLeod).

“Meanwhile our churches, like secular associations, are concerned with fund-raising, beautiful buildings, large numbers, comforting sermons from highly qualified preachers, while they display indifference to the poor, and to the pariahs of society – drunks, whores, homosexuals, the poor, the insane, and the lonely. Jesus himself would find no place in our all-too-respectable churches, for he did not come to help the righteous but to bring sinners to repentance. Our churches are not equipped to do that sort of thing” (John White).

The “dominant culture” of the protestant church in North America is one inextricably linked to wealth and power. The gospel of prosperity, preached so explicitly on TV screens, is ubiquitously present throughout modern-day North American evangelicalism. For years evangelicals have lauded Paul (David) Yongi Cho for having the largest church in the world (Full Gospel Central Church in Seoul, Korea). We read his books and invite him to speak at mainstream, evangelical conferences. Yet Yongi Cho is a proponent of this theology. We all sing songs from the Hill Song conglomerate out of Australia and read books by Darlene Zschech, the high profile worship leader of Hill Song. The Hill Song organizations are proponents of the prosperity gospel. Even Bruce Wilkenson’s Prayer of Jabez that swept through the evangelical world like wild fire a few years ago, is essentially implicit prosperity teaching – asking for God’s blessing, something most easily quantified in material terms.

This has always been an underlying dynamic in North American Protestantism, woven into the fabric of the stories of our culture – the “great American dream,” driven by the Protestant work ethic, singing as we worked: “I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop / In that bright land where we’ll never grow old /And some day yonder we will never more wander / But walk on streets that are purest gold” (Ira Stamphill).

Implicit in the assumptions of our model churches (such as Bill Hybel’s Willow Creek Community Church or Rick Warren’s Saddleback Community Church) are a corporate ethos that views the pastor as CEO (there is a book on the market by a Laurie Beth Jones entitled Jesus CEO) and that elevates success indicators such as rapid growth and size, quantifying “success” in the same way, and using the same terms, as any corporate structure. The Church Growth Movement and more lately, the Natural Church Development method, are examples of business tools, backed by sociological methods, applied to the Church. The meta-narrative, told countless times, is of a small group of friends who gathered together to start a new kind of church, usually in someone’s living room and within eight years it has grown to several thousand members and… The narrative is interchangeable with Apple or Microsoft or any number of the dot.com enterprises that sprung up starting in the 1990s.

According the Brueggemann: “The contemporary (American) church is so largely acculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or act…our consciousness has been claimed by false fields of perception and idolatrous systems of language and rhetoric” (p.11).

Not long after returning from almost a decade of service in Russia, while holidaying at a Salvation Army facility, I overheard some friends talking about a corps sergeant-major in a local corps who drove a new Mercedes-Benz. I joined in the conversation by asking why would a Christian be driving a Mercedes? Further, I wondered why would a Salvationist Christian be driving a Mercedes? My question was met with a combination of annoyance, anger and eye-rolling sufferance at the recently returned, self-righteous missionary. You see this local officer was seen as an example of success. He held a relatively powerful position in a relatively powerful corps in the city. He came from a well-known Army family. His possession of a luxury car such as a Mercedes-Benz was somehow seen as a validation of The Army and a kudo for the corps that he attended. I viewed the situation as incongruous with my understanding of the Gospel and more particularly, the calling of The Salvation Army, but I was alone in holding this opinion.

Wealth and power go hand in hand. Attending a Christian conference in the southern United States last year, I was struck by how many of the songs used in the contemporary worship had the motif of Jesus as King. Along with this, the lyrics were rife with allusions to war, battle and conquering. They seemed full of imperialistic imagery. Many of the prayers offered up were those in which we were “taking back what is ours” and “claiming places that we could put our foot on.” As an aside at the end of one fervent prayer, a friend leaned over and remarked that in the course of the weekend he had heard more references to Satan than he had over the past year. Intentional and deliberate? I do not believe it was. If anything is to be read into it, it possibly represents an unconscious reaction to the ethos of projected power, connected with the war that the United States is presently engaged in – a war that has been couched in theological language and rooted in deeply religious worldviews.

If nothing else, 9/11 has put religion firmly back on the map in the increasingly secular West. An act of terrorism that was profoundly religiously motivated was met and matched with a theological rhetoric (examine President Bush’s speeches immediately before and after 9/11) and two action-orientated responses: a military action and an urging for us all to “go shopping” to help stimulate the economy.

In their attacks, Al Quaeda targeted political (military) and financial symbols. The White House, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Centre. The effects of what happened on that day continue to reverberate in The Salvation Army. A financial crisis was precipitated in all the American Territories and in my home Territory of Canada and Bermuda. In the few short years since 9/11, we have been plunged into a financial crises that has so far seen the amalgamation of six Divisions, the closing of one of our Training Colleges, the selling of three Divisional camps, budget cuts across all Divisional and Territorial Headquarters Departments by up to 30%, the closing of numerous corps, and it is not finished yet.

In a church that is strives for success, hungers after power and can never get enough money, what happens to the poor, to the “last, the lost, the least”? There is an adage that that “terrorism is the war of the poor and war is the terrorism of the rich.” The “wretched of the earth” (Franz Fanon) seem to be aligned with Al Quaeda, the PLO, and the popular people’s movements. The church seems to be aligned with the globalism, capitalism, consumerism, materialism and military might. Something is very wrong.

God did not come into the world in general – which would itself have been an ‘emptying’ – but into the world of outcasts. He chose that social level: on the margins, among the oppressed, with the poor

In their book Political Holiness: A Spirituality of Liberation, Pedro Casaldaliga and Jose-Maria Vigil, make the following case for an alternative view of the mission of the church:

“In Jesus, God emptied himself in kenosis. God did not become generically human, but specifically poor, ‘taking the form of a slave’ (Philippians 2:7). He ‘lived among us’ (John 1:14), among the poor. He did not come into the world in general – which would itself have been an ‘emptying’ – but into the world of outcasts. He chose that social level: on the margins, among the oppressed, with the poor. The kenosis of the ‘in-carnation’ did not consist simply in taking on ‘flesh’… but also in taking on ‘poverty’, the poverty of humankind.

The church, as a whole, if it wished to be increasingly evangelical and more effectively evangelizing, will have to go through this exodus and into this emptying process. It will have to insert itself - with its human and material resources and all its institutional weight - into the social situation of the poor majorities, among the greatest needs of the poor, on the periphery of this human world divided into rich and poor. The mystical body of Christ has to be where the historical body of Christ was.”

Conclusion
Brueggemann concludes that the church’s loss of identity through the abandonment of the faith tradition is the internal cause for our enculturation and acquiescence in the face of opposing values of the world. Consumer culture is “organized against history… there is a depreciation of memory and a ridicule of hope, which means everything must be held in the now, either an urgent now or an eternal now.” Any community that is “rooted in energizing memories and summoned by radical hopes is a curiosity and a threat in such a culture.” The Salvation Army is definitely a curiosity, but are we a threat? “When we suffer from amnesia, every form of serious authority for faith is in question, and we live unauthorized lives of faith and practice unauthorized ministries,” concludes Brueggemann.

The question is are we as a people of God living “unauthorized lives of faith” with reference to the life of faith and the journey of mission that God planned for us? Are we practicing “unauthorized ministries,” away from the poor, in ghettos of our own sociological and cultural comfort zones – playing at being priests, when we should be shouting as prophets?

Do we, within our ranks of missionaries, “nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us,” or do we acquiesce and sing the songs scripted for others in the church and not our own songs, even in exile?

Do we truly understand who we are as a people, and whom we are called to as a church? Are we truly children of the tradition in the Army who have taken seriously the prophetic calling of our movement in the shaping of our own fields of perception and system of language? Can we, with proper urgency, discern and articulate the points of incongruity of our church in the culture of society and the culture of the wider church, regardless of the cost?

I believe that if the Salvation Army is not willing to re-engage the world prophetically and speak prophetically within the Church, then there is no practical use for us as a distinct people of God and no compelling reason for our continued existence.

May we heed the words of the Spirit to the Churches in Ephesus and Sardis: “You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first…I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God” (Revelation 2:4,5; 3:2).

May God challenge The Salvation Army to live up to our founding vision as prophets!

Writer: Major Geoff Ryan is co-founder of theRubicon and was publisher for three years. He is co-ordinator of the 614 Network and organizes the bi-annual Urban Forum. His interests include writing, politics, coffee and his children. Geoff and his wife Sandra minister in Regent Park, a social housing project in downtown Toronto, Canada.

End Notes
Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination, Fortress Press, 1978.

Casaldaliga, Pedro and Vigil, Jose-Maria. Political Holiness: A Spirituality of Liberation, Orbis Books, 1995.

Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Oxford University Press, 2002.

Needham, Phil. Community in Mission: A Salvationist Ecclesiology, The Salvation Army, 1987.

Ortberg, John. “Why Jesus’ Disciples Wouldn’t Wash Their Hands,” Christianity Today, August 15, 1994.

Ryan, Geoff. “The Mission of The Salvation Army,” The Officer, January/February 2003.

Thompson, Steve. You May All Prophesy! MorningStar Publications, Wilkesboro, NC. 2000.

ORDINATION #4 - Does anyone care? (Gordon Cotterill)

Where has the debate gone?

I

t seems interesting to me that within TSA we are keen to maintain a certain line that causes frequent periodic debate when it comes to our non-sacramental stand with regards to baptism and communion. Battle lines drawn between those that both argue that ‘to’ or ‘not to’ is essential to our essence of church.

I’m not sure if I have come across the same rigour of debate with similar issues. While the more contemporary sacramental debate seems more black and white - it is interesting that the whole emphasis of ordination of officers doesn’t receive the same intensity of attention.

Recently as I watched the Commissioning of the latest session I was struck by how far our language has moved. It seems to me that the euphemistic use of ordination to explain commissioning has made quite some journey where now a given Territorial Commander declares to each cadet “I commission and ordain you…” (or words to that effect). It seems interesting to me that a choice of language to protect the kudos of officership with our ecclesiastical cousins has become so mainstream as to now even infer a supposed ‘higher calling’ of officership.

But no debate, no walk outs, no resignations, no battle lines, no edicts from International Headquarters, no articles, no letters looking at such an impact on SA views on the ‘priesthood of all believers’ . Nothing to question the language of ordination as it, like a cuckoo, surreptitiously kicks out the centrality of dedication. I might be missing something, but essentially any discussion here would share something of the same root as that within the well-worn conversation around that of our sacramental position.

So why the lack of debate in one area and intensity in another?

Writer: Capt. Gordon Cotterill lives in London, England, is married to Kate and has two daughters Bethan and Eryn. He has been a Salvation Army officer for ten years and ‘cut his teeth’ in ministry with his wife as the corps officers at Poplar in the East End of London. The lessons he learned there in his day-to-day ministry, amid the chaos of the inner city, continue to shape his understanding and passion for biblical and grace-centred mission. His latest appointment as Spiritual Programme Director at the William Booth College, London now offers him the opportunity for the fusion and exploration of ‘mission’ and ’spiritual formation’ while trying to inspire a new generation of Salvation Army officers as to their role in God’s plan for His creation. Gordon keeps a blog where he mulls over themes of mostly, mission and spiritual formation.

the Rubicon - BY REQUEST- Is The Salvation Army Pentecostal?

H

ere is a description of an early Salvation Army meeting recorded in General Bramwell Booth’s autobiography Echoes and Memories:

‘At night Corbridge led the hallelujah meeting till 10 o’clock. Then we commenced an All-Night of Prayer. Two hundred and fifty people were present till 1am; two hundred or so after. A tremendous time. From the very first, Jehovah was passing by, searching, softening and subduing every heart. The power of the Holy Ghost fell on Robinson and prostrated him. He nearly fainted twice. The brother of the Blandys entered into full liberty and then he shouted, wept, clapped his hands, danced, amid a scene of the most glorious and heavenly enthusiasm. Others meanwhile were lying prostrate on the floor, some of them groaning for perfect deliverance ….’

This happened in 1878 - 22 years before the official start of the Pentecostal movement. Was The Salvation Army Pentecostal, or did it at least begin that way?

Here is another classic, this time from Samuel Logan Brengle:

‘But we cannot have what Peter obtained on the day of Pentecost’ wrote someone to me recently. However, Peter himself, in that great sermon which he preached that day, declared that we can, for he says: ‘ Ye shall receive the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you’ - Jews, to whom I am talking - ‘and to your children,’ and not to you only, but ‘to all that are afar off’ - nineteen hundred years from now - ‘even as many as the Lord our God shall call,’ or convert (Acts 2:38, 39).’

In recent days, some people have challenged The Salvation Army by referring back to its early days and suggesting that it has moved away from its Pentecostal roots. Are they right? Was Brengle really a Salvationist Pentecostal?

Let me suggest that Pentecostalism isn’t determined by the way people act under the influence of the Holy Spirit. At the heart of Pentecostalism is a theology and interpretation of Scripture that then manifests itself in various forms of behaviour.

When we look at these theological and interpretive issues, we discover differences between The Salvation Army and the Pentecostal Movement.

Let me make it clear right at the start of this talk that this is not a Pentecostal bashing exercise. Quite the opposite – although we in The Salvation Army do not embrace some of their theological positions or many of their practices, we do admire their passion for the Lord and the spreading of the gospel. They have in fact been a ‘wake up call’ for the whole church (including the Army) challenging us regarding our own dependence on God and effectiveness in our ministry. We must both honour and respect our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Pentecostalism
The modern Pentecostal Movement has a specific point in time when it commenced.

‘It all began at 7pm on 31st December 1900. 40 students at a bible college in Topeka Kansas, had come to the conclusion that the biblical evidence of baptism in the Spirit was speaking in tongues, and they were now praying for the experience. When the principal of the college … was persuaded to lay hands on one of the students, a ‘glory fell upon her, a halo seemed to surround her head and face’ and she began to speak in tongues.’

This began a movement which has changed the face of the church through the 20th century and into the 21st century. Although its development has tended to ebb and flow, over the past 30 years there seems to have been a consistent growth in this movement.

Peter C. Wagner has described the major stages of this renewal as three ‘waves’.

1. The first wave - The rise of Pentecostalism is that described by John Larsson (above). It really emerged from the 19th century holiness movement in North America and for much of the first half of the 20th century was on the fringe of the church and seen as a deviation from mainstream Christianity – “too much experience, and too little in theology”.
2. The second wave was the charismatic renewal of the 1960’s and 1970’s - described by some a neo-Pentecostalism. This time it was based in a mainstream church - the Episcopal (Anglican) Church at Van Nuys, a suburb of Los Angeles. Far from being on the fringe, this ‘charismatic’ renewal took place in a well-established church with a long tradition of conservative worship and orthodox theology.
3. The third wave - the renewal movement in the 1980’s and 1990’s was associated with people like John Wimber, Peter C. Wagner, Jack Deere and others. Again they were ministering and teaching in mainstream denominations. It spawned the Church Growth movement and had a focus at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena.

In each of these waves, the principle characteristics were: speaking in tongues (glossolalia), an interest in healing, ecstatic worship, interest in prophecy (particularly in the third wave) and spiritual warfare (also the third wave). Also common to all of the waves is the experience described as ‘baptism of the Spirit’ and it is this description of the action of the Holy Spirit that provides the common link throughout the history of the movement.

‘The distinctive teaching of Pentecostalism is the emphasis on the second crisis experience subsequent to conversion which is called the baptism of the Spirit. This experience is seen as giving power for witness and releasing gifts of the Spirit within the personality and increasing the fruit of the spirit. Speaking in tongues is considered by most Pentecostals to be the necessary sign that the blessing has been received.’

The fourth wave?
In 1999 the writer R.T. Kendal in a book called The Anointing speculates about a fourth wave of Pentecostal renewal. He sees a coming together of the conservative evangelical and charismatic groups that will have an influence which will cross denominational boundaries.

Although this ‘wave’ has not yet fully formed, there are things happening that seem to be indicating that Kendall might be right. The characteristics of the ‘fourth wave’ he has observed are:

• A particular pattern of worship – 20-40 minutes of chorus singing; then prayer (often in small groups; or everyone speaking out loud); then a 35-45 minute sermon, followed by ‘ministry’ (often laying on of hands).
• Some slaying in the spirit
• Some speaking in tongues (although not overt or public)
• Fervent ‘supernatural’ believing prayer
• An expectation of signs and wonders

Is this ‘fourth wave’ already happening? In our own Territory, we seem to be seeing some of these characteristics. Some corps and even some larger events (such as Unlimited) express a strong dependence on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with an emphasis that is more along the lines of the Pentecostal tradition than the Holiness tradition from which The Salvation Army comes. But this is not limited to Australia. Major Ian Barr of the UK territory says this:

‘… it is difficult to gauge the accuracy of Kendal’s thesis, but there is no shortage of evidence even in the Army. The UK Territory’s annual Roots convention, started in the early 1990’s by a group of officers and soldiers with charismatic leanings, has grown to accommodate a diverse range of Salvationists. It bears all the hallmarks of the fourth wave - a coming together of charismatic and evangelical conservative Christians for worship and study with a strongly prophetic and missiological agenda.’

Whether it is a ‘fourth wave’ or simply an awakening of the Spirit, we should rejoice in the new enthusiasm for the mission and a new passion for the things of God that is being displayed in our present generation.

The big question is however – can we embrace this awakening without embracing Pentecostal theology? There is a difference in our theologies. How do we respond to the Holy Spirit without getting caught up in the trappings of another denomination?

Holy Spirit dependent without being Pentecostal (Acts 2)

The Salvation Army is not a Pentecostal movement (in spite of the influences). Our interpretation of Act 2 leads us to a different understanding of ‘baptism of the Spirit’, and thus sets us aside from our Pentecostal friends.

Let me take a moment to look at Acts 2 and then highlight two theological differences between The Salvation Army and Pentecostalism.

Acts 2 and 3 (selected verses)

2/1 ‘When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say…”

40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

3/1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer–at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.

6 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. 9 When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

12 When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed ….”’

The first difference – Understanding Acts 2.

What is Acts 2 all about? Is it about the Holy Spirit (and the signs and wonders associated with him), or is it about what the Holy Spirit did? Pentecostals celebrate the first – the coming of the Holy Spirit, and their worship re-enact the signs and wonders of Pentecost (talking in tongues, exuberant behaviour etc.)

The Salvation Army (along with mainstream non-Pentecostal churches) celebrates what the Holy Spirit did … and that is the creation of the church. Described theologically as ‘Christ’s last act of creation on earth’, it was on the day of Pentecost that the church was born. Because of this belief The Salvation Army celebrates the purposes of the church that the Holy Spirit created.

What are these purposes? Acts chapters 2 and 3 tell us …

The first activity the church under the direction of the Holy Spirit was to preach the gospel … verse 14 onwards records the first sermon of the church by Peter. It was a mission sermon (kerygma). It had a challenge with an appeal and 3000 people were saved

The second activity of the church was to gather the new believers together for teaching, friendship and the building of a community. They did ‘fellowship’.

Then in chapter 3 we see a third purpose: a suffering man was given physical help. In this case he was healed. We saw this happen often with Jesus himself, but here we see that it is also to be part of the church … involvement with society at the most basic level.

Proclaiming the gospel (saving souls); sharing and teaching in fellowship (growing saints) and caring for the sick (serving suffering humanity).

It is interesting to note in Chapter 3 that immediately after the healing of the lame man, Peter goes back to the first thing the church did. He again uses this opportunity to preach. The mission of the church to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ is always part of the narrative of Acts.

Some may argue that this is a primitive ecclesiology and that history has advanced the idea of ‘church’ well beyond these three basic functions. Is the church of Australia today as dynamic as the Acts church? I am suggesting that the church of today (including The Salvation Army) could do well to re-visit its New Testament roots, certainly in regard to understanding its reliance on the Holy Spirit.

The second difference - understanding ‘baptism of the Spirit’.

The Salvation Army used the term ‘baptism of the Spirit’ for many years, as did the Wesleyans and many of the Holiness movements of the 19th century. The intention of this phrase ‘baptism of the Spirit’ was to describe the cleansing that comes to the person who is being fully sanctified – made holy.

In early Salvation Army teaching the baptism of the Spirit was associated with ‘second blessing’ theology – that Christians were saved, and then in a subsequent experience (baptism of the Spirit) were cleansed of their sin and fully sanctified. Although The Salvation Army has now moved away from the ‘second blessing’ teaching, it still declares that when a person is saved, they are cleansed of their sin through the baptism of the Spirit. We can be saved and sanctified – and it is all the work of the Holy Spirit. It won’t happen without him. For The Salvation Army, and for the whole holiness movement, the focus the baptism of the Spirit was on ‘power’ (exousia) for ‘moral authority’ and evidenced though the life of love and purity.

When the Pentecostals came onto the scene, they too began to use this term ‘baptism of the Spirit’. But theirs’ was a different meaning. For them, the focus was on the ‘power’ (dynamis) for the purpose of supernatural giftedness and evidenced in the signs and wonders.

For Pentecostals the baptism is a ‘doing’ thing. For Salvationists, it is a ‘being’ experience. Salvation Story is helpful here.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a way some have used to describe the holiness experience. Baptism is a symbol of dying to ourselves and emerging as new persons in Christ. It was used in the Early Church as the receiving of the Holy Spirit at regeneration which was the requirement for membership in the body of Christ: ‘We were all baptised by one Spirit into one body’ (I Corinthians 12:13). The ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ may therefore be considered as distinct from being ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’. Baptism happens once at the beginning of Christian experience, while infilling happens repeatedly throughout the Christian life.

The impact of the Pentecostals was such that because of confusion over the meaning of ‘baptism of the Spirit’, The Salvation Army (and the holiness movement generally) moved away from this terminology in the early 20th Century.

The problem of experience
It is at this point that we come face to face with the one of the most problematic aspects of the Holy Spirit - experience, and the problem of experiential theology.

Let me divert briefly.

• Biblical Theology is the development of theology based purely on what the bible says (eg. Creation). This theology forms the foundations of the doctrines of the church.
• Systematic Theology collates and organises the Biblical concepts and moulds them into rational ideas, especially the theology that is not clearly spelt out in scripture (for example the Trinity).
• Experiential Theology is theology that expresses itself in the human’s response to God. It adds the ‘flavour’ and colour, but is affected by interpretation, bias, pre-conceived ideas, and individual experience (for example, slaying in the Spirit and the ‘second blessing’).

Whenever we discuss the Holy Spirit, we become affected by ‘experiential theology’. It is how people experience God and because we are all different, the experience will be different for each one of us. This is why there are so many diverse opinions regarding the work of the Holy Spirit. If we are going to avoid error, then we must always return to scripture.

It is the question of ‘experience’ that presents the most contentious issues related to Pentecostalism. The ‘doctrines’ of the General Council of the Assemblies of God (USA) states “We believe … the initial physical evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is ‘speaking in tongues’ as experienced on the Day of Pentecost and referenced through Acts and the Epistles”. To speaking in tongues we also add ‘slaying in the Spirit’, ‘prophecy’ and ‘healing’. It is these things that cause most of the arguments.

Each of these expressions falls into the category of ‘experiential theology’ and must be tested against ‘biblical theology’.

Speaking in tongues – from the Greek word glossolalia meaning ‘unknown tongue’ The interpretation of this word in scripture is hotly debated. Dr Roger Green, head of NT studies Asbury College, argues that this term always means a language that is known, but unknown to the speaker. Acts 2 for example indicates that all those from foreign countries could understand what the disciples were saying even though the disciples had not learned their language. Other scholars on the other hand, argue for a spiritual language that is only known to God. Whatever position is taken, it is still qualified by Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians that discourages this language being used in public (1 Cor. 14:19 and 28) and is one of the lesser gifts. (1 Cor 12:28-31). There is no suggestion in scripture that this is a gift given as one of the evidences of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Slaying in the Spirit – there is no equivalent experience described in scripture.

Prophecy – in scripture it is primarily the proclamation of the word of God. Very little is involved in telling the future or forecasting events. Almost none of it is prophecy over individuals.

Healing – is evidenced in scripture and although there are some accounts of the apostles’ healing people following the resurrection of Jesus, they are few, and usually in the context of a larger evangelical purpose. What is never present in scripture is the idea that the ‘faith’ usurps the sovereignty of God. Healing cannot be demanded and is not equated with salvation. Fullness of life (John 10:10) is not a physical reference, but a spiritual one.

The Salvation Army celebrates the purpose of the church, which was created in Acts 2. The re-enactment of Pentecost through the signs and wonders is therefore not our tradition and in our opinion cannot be fully substantiated by scripture.

This does not diminish the experiences that some people have. Many have been blessed through the ecstatic experience of signs and wonders. But it is largely ‘experiential theology’ and therefore not the basis of doctrine or biblical interpretation.

Experience and Scripture
This does not mean that experience is not indicated in scripture, in fact, quite the opposite. In the 1930’s, the theologian Rudolph Otto explained the two particular types of experience that can be identified in Scripture and was evident in the life of the Church.

The first of these experiences he describes as the ‘Numinous’ - an intense experience and near physical encounter with God that is characterised by fear, fascination and mystery in the almost tangible presence of the divine.

Biblical examples of intense experience are found in the story of the transfiguration of Jesus in which Peter speaks for James and John in Mark 9:6 and says ‘Rabbi it is good for us to be here’. They were really so frightened that he didn’t know what to say. The Old Testament story of Moses at the burning bush is another example of this intense type of experience. These occurrences are very rare, yet nonetheless real to the participants, and throughout the centuries a relatively small number of Christians have given testimony to such near-physical encounters with God.

The second type of experience Otto describes as ‘ecstatic’ – a joyful experience, a sense of release from one’s normal inhibitions, often evidenced by speaking in tongues, and other ecstatic manifestations. Acts 2:2-4 is such an example.

It is this second type of experience that has become more commonly expressed in the modern church and has been fundamental to the various manifestations of Pentecostalism and charismatic renewal in the twentieth century. There is no question that ‘experience’ is part of the biblical tradition and therefore to be expected as part of the church tradition.

Experiencing the Holy Spirit without being Pentecostal
However, a person or a church doesn’t have to be Pentecostal to acknowledge or experience God through his Holy Spirit. They are Biblical experiences, not ‘Pentecostal’ experiences.

The Swiss theologian Emil Brunner makes the point:

‘… we ought to face the New Testament witness with sufficient candour to admit that in this ‘pneuma’ (Holy Spirit) which the Ecclesia was conscious of possessing, there lie forces of an extra-rational kind mostly lacking among us Christians today.’

Experiencing the Holy Spirit should be a part of who we are as the ‘ecclesia’, the church. But I suspect that Brunner’s suggestion that the modern church is ‘lacking’ in its acceptance of the supernatural is partially right. The rationalism of Modernity has created many Christian cynics who are skeptical to anything supernatural. Maybe scientific rationalism has had a ‘dampening’ effect on the church, and The Salvation Army.

I believe that God has used the Pentecostal movement to challenge The Salvation Army to a new awareness of our need to be Holy Spirit dependent. Even though The Salvation Army has constantly acknowledged the importance of the Holy Spirit, it has not always acted that way. We are not Pentecostal, but the Pentecostals can teach us to be more expectant of the supernatural workings of the Holy Spirit.

I personally believe that God has brought into existence The Salvation Army and given us our emphasis for a specific reason… the world needs a church of holy people who are mostly on their knees before God in humility and brokenness. God has called us to a broken world. How better to reach a broken world than through the awareness of our own brokenness, and the reliance of his perfect grace and love. Our baptism of the Spirit is ‘power’ (exousia) for the life of love and purity.

There is no question that early Salvation Army teaching advocated an experiential type of Baptism of the Spirit. Certainly, early leaders encouraged Salvationists to fervently pray for the blessing.

The emphasis however, was not the ‘signs and wonders’ or the experiential nature of the ‘blessing’. The result was always for the experience of holiness – that state of ‘perfect love’, ‘full salvation’, entire sanctification. It was always for ‘what it meant’, not for ‘what was to be ‘experienced’.

The historical records show little evidence of people speaking in tongues; there were accounts of people falling down and lying one the floor in an trance – but this appears to have been spontaneous, and not encouraged by a mediator ‘slaying’ in the Spirit. There are certainly accounts of laughing, joyous behaviour, but the focus was always on the life change that followed – the life of holiness that was a foundational doctrine of our early Salvation Army.

Conclusion
General Clarence Wiseman wrote:

‘The New Testament does not teach that Christians need a new baptism in the Spirit, for they already possess the Holy Spirit, otherwise they would not be Christians. What is required is an awakening to the necessity for an utter and complete surrender to the Spirit.’

The Salvation Army is not Pentecostal. But it is ‘charismatic’ because it is absolutely dependent on the Holy Spirit and the gifts he gives to enable us to be his servants in the world.

Our challenge is to pray more expectantly for the beautiful Spirit of Jesus to transform the whole world and to use The Salvation Army as one of his tools in this mission.

Note: The original version of this article contains numerous endnotes. Unfortunately such notations are not supported in the software used to create theRubicon. If you wish to see the original piece you can download a pdf by clicking here.

 
 
Writer: Following seven years as a high school teacher Lieutenant Colonel Philip Cairns was commissioned as a Salvation Army officer in 1982. His ministry has included twelve years as a corps officer (pastor), appointmnetsat the training college and in the pastoral care department. He has also been involved in corps (church) programme work at both the divisional and territorial levels. He was previously the training principal and the principal of Booth College,and has recently taken up his current appointment as Secretary for Personnel,  Australia Eastern Territory. Philip is married to Jan and has three children and six beautiful grandchildren.

the Rubicon - BY REQUEST - Reaching the digital generation

We could learn a lot from Mr. Gutenberg and by that we don’t mean Steve Guttenberg of Police Academy fame. The year was 1450 and the man was Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith who invented the movable printing press. This man imagined life differently, invented the most significant gadget of his day and transformed the world, almost in an instant.

It was with his truly remarkable movable printing invention that Gutenberg made his name. Until this point in time, every book in existence was the work of a scribe, usually a monk, who had painstakingly etched each and every word by hand onto expensive parchment and bound the copies between wooden boards. The end result: it took years to copy out a book, and that was without the illustrations. Illiteracy was the norm, accuracy was dubious and mistakes were handed down and multiplied throughout the generations. Gutenberg changed all this - with the power of the printed word, he lifted his culture from the dark ages and watched as a world of new possibilities sprang into life.

His predecessor of the photocopier was so revolutionary, its significance mirrored the invention of the alphabet and the development of language. As it sparked a cultural revolution, it radically transformed the way people worked. By 1501, there were more than a thousand printing shops in Europe and more than 20 million books were circulating and in the hands of the masses. All of a sudden, knowledge came closer to the hands of the people as printed books were sold for a fraction of the price. Previously, those dedicated scribes in the Church had held the keys to learning, but now study was accessible, ordinary folk no longer relied on being read to, but learned to read instead. Education was revolutionized; inventors could share discoveries, doctors could circulate their case-histories in books and the scientific revolution was unleashed. The doors of social debate and critical thinking were flung open as books became part of people’s lives. The press marked a paradigm shift in the way that information and news was transferred in Europe. The fields of science, art, religion, politics and literature were all transformed by printing and a new democratic world was born.

Mr. Gutenberg is a role model for us all, particularly when it comes to the power of imagination and the courage to pursue a dream. Perhaps the inklings of such an invention are not resting at the end of our finger-tips. Men and women like Mr. Gutenberg are once-in-a-generation, dare we say once-in-a-century phenomena. However, for the purpose of this article, the real hero of the story is the church… and yes we did say “church”.

The Church and the Printing Press
It was the followers of Jesus that grasped the potent possibilities in Gutenberg’s device. The church did not stand back aghast and denounce the new technology as demonic. Agitated monks did not form threatening bands of flying pickets, or travel throughout Europe to protest outside the continent’s printing presses. Our predecessors were not luddite technophobes helplessly ordering the reversal of this industrious tide. On the contrary, these early adopters waded into the wash and rode the wave of innovation towards a whole new day. And what’s more monks rested their weary hands, recovered from their repetitive strain injuries and invested their spare hours elsewhere, more prayer anyone?

So what does this history lesson have to teach those of us in the digital generation? Well firstly without this invention, you and I would be in a different place today. Prior to Mr. Gutenberg gaining his patent, books were expensive and a scarce resource - it was said that ‘man would give a cartload of hay for a few sheets by St. Paul’, but within 50 years of Gutenberg’s machine going into production, almost 40,000 editions of the Bible had been printed throughout Europe. Indeed, and here’s the crux of the matter, Gutenberg’s press put the word of God in to the hands of the people like never before. Martin Luther, John Calvin and their followers embraced and used Gutenberg’s gadget for all of its worth. The Reformation spread with the same astonishing rapidity as printing itself -it could not have done so without it. As their ideas and works were re-produced at high speed, so their thinking and following could gather momentum, escalating into the single largest revolution of the means by which we know and experience God and His Church. As these theologians seized their own day, they changed the Church and transformed the future.

The digital generation - an opportunity for the church to take hold of God’s future
In the past, some Christians have waved red flags of caution as technologies flash into new corners of being. The emergence of rapid cultural shifts combined with a suspicion of the unfamiliar has left the Church fearful that the innovative threatens a religion rooted in tradition. Or rather, as new trends explode around us, we develop an arrogant indifference and insist that a transcendent message needs no assistance in its delivery, especially from worldly mechanisms or methods which might detract from our message. Of course, the downsides of technology are real - progress and danger often walk hand in hand and we cannot be ignorant to these. Yet, we live in the communications revolution. We can either seize the opportunities ahead of us, or stubbornly protest and call for our quill so we might scribble out another tract. You see, it’s not just that the digital generation calls us to speak to them in a new language. More than this, these first generation millennials are the way in which God will reform the church, reach the world and renew creation.

It sounds simple, but the essence of our job is communication. To see young people won and re-captured by the Church, we need to use the language of today. We hold bridge-building tools to join God’s dynamic truth with the fluctuating, moving landscape ahead of us. As young people take their communities beyond buildings and into the virtual world of internet networks, new Church movements are imagining experimental forms of social activism, neo-monasticism and new types and styles of community and worship. Gutenberg’s spirit lives on in our 24/7 media culture of broadcasts and pod-casts, uploads and downloads. And while people access information, knowledge and community through mediums unimagined 500 years ago, through it all they continue to search for an authentic reality in a virtual world. One question remains: will we take hold of the unimagined possibilities of our time in the same way as those Christians who came after Gutenberg?

Writers:  After 18 years working with TSA, Russell Rook recently started work with Chapel St a change agency working with churches and communities to bring about regeneration through the delivery of community services and social enterprise. He also works as a writer and speaker and is the chair of the Spring Harvest theme group. Russell helps to lead his local corps, Raynes Park Community Church, is married to Charlotte, a professional cellist and has two sons Joe and Toby.

Sarah Doyle is a journalist for Youthwork magazine, a writer for The Church Urban Fund and a volunteer youth worker at St. Andrew’s, Chorleywood.

the Rubicon - BY REQUEST - Rooted in Mission not Maintenance Part#3

 Rob Perry says The world needs the Church to roll up its sleeves and re-enter abandoned communities - Part #3

3) Religious Phase – Towards Mission

Kierkegaard’s third sphere is the religious sphere. This existential realm goes beyond the ethical. This stage is only discovered by faith. Kierkegaard examines the religious phase in his book Fear and Trembling. In this study, Kierkegaard looks at Abraham’s (near) sacrifice of Isaac. He examines the motivation and the horror behind this humbling and confusing story. It is here that we enter the realm of faith. Kierkegaard said:

“But what did Abraham do?… He mounted the ass, he rode slowly down the path. All along he had faith, he believed that God would not demand Isaac of him, while still he was willing to offer him if that was indeed what was demanded. He believed on the strength of the absurd, for there could be no question of human calculation, and it was indeed absurd that God who demanded this of him should in the next instant withdraw the demand. He climbed the mountain, even in that moment when the knife gleamed he believed – that God would not demand Isaac. Certainly he was surprised by the outcome, but by means of a double movement he had come back to his original position and therefore received Isaac more joyfully than the first time.”

Nothing but faith could have sustained Abraham through this trial. The trial itself seemed ludicrous and paradoxical. Abraham was required to suspend the ethical and proceed on belief in God only. He did not believe that God would violate the ethical, but he carried on in faith that God would rectify the paradoxical command with morality. Faith sustained him, and God delivered Isaac. Abraham lived in the strength of the absurd.

The third sphere of our lives as Christians is when we surrender fully, and in faith allow ourselves to be led by God wherever and however he wills

For our purposes in examining mission, I would say that the third sphere of our lives as Christians is when we surrender fully, and in faith allow ourselves to be led by God wherever and however he wills. We are no long confined to our own wisdom. Instead we are called and commissioned to go wherever, and do whatever God commands.

God commanded Jeremiah: “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.” This encapsulates the essence of mission. Although we feel inadequate, we go wherever God commands and do whatever he commands. Faith replaces fear, for God will protect and deliver us. If God calls us to a personal Jubilee, instructing us to give up our possessions, we need not be afraid, he will rescue us. If God calls us to leave our homes and move into the poorest area of our city, we need not be afraid, he will rescue us.

To go into the unknown involves an intense trust in God. It truly does require a “leap of faith.” The rich irony is in the fact that on the other side of the leap of faith, we find a fulfillment and joy that is indescribable to those who have not yet leapt. Frederick Buechner said that a person’s place “is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” I, and countless others, can only testify that this is true.

Some years ago I led a team that took a group of community children from Toronto to a camp during the spring break. For seven days, 60 loud and hyperactive six- to 12-year-old residents of the urban jungle descended upon the wilderness campground. Due to some miscalculation and a lack of volunteers, the staff was drastically outnumbered and the children smelled blood. I lost my voice on the first day, and by the third, we were all exhausted and beginning to be afraid of total collapse. Kids were fighting and threatening each other, some were continually trying to run away, while others would barricade themselves in the cabin to avoid going to programs. Between replacing broken property and cleaning lice out of hair and clothes, I found a new depth to my prayer life, as I pleaded God not to allow any kids (or staff) to get damaged by the end of the week.

In the midst of the turmoil, God’s Spirit descended upon camp. As day seven approached, we had a night in which we gave the kids an opportunity to accept Jesus as Saviour. Slowly one by one, kids came forward to the Mercy Seat – girls mostly. The boys were still feeling out the situation, sitting at the back, acting cool. That is until Jamal made his move. Now Jamal was never the most popular kid. He was a bit chubby and he was awkward in basketball. He always tried just that little bit too hard. He was too influenced by other kids, and would follow whoever happened to be around. But here he was, the first boy standing. Jamal stood up at the back and made the trembling journey to the front of the room where he knelt and prayed with a leader. Who should follow but his whole crew. The five or six other boys with whom Jamal had spent the week filed in line behind him and almost inexplicably found themselves kneeling at the front of the room as well. It was a beautiful moment.

But that’s not even the best part. Later that night in our cabin I recounted the day’s events with the boys. “I am really proud of you guys,” I said. “Today you made some very important decisions.” Just then another leader came in, and I told the guys to share with her the good news from the day. All at once they started to share the story of decision day. Andrew, an especially enthusiastic young man, spoke up and said, “Yeah it was great! I got up first and went to the front, and then all the others followed…” It was at that point Jamal sat up stiffly in his bunk, and indignantly interjected, “F___ off! I accepted Jesus first!”

As long as I live I will never forget those six words!

When I was in the southern part of Russia, I visited some refugee camps that tented hundreds of families who had fled from the Chechen war. In a couple short weeks I had become attached to a wonderful group of children who lived there.

I happened to be visiting during their annual festival, a competition in which children from different refugee camps presented songs, artwork and dance. In the days preceding the festival, I sat in on the kids’ rehearsals as they tried their best to put together what would be the best possible presentation for the day. For hour upon hour I sat and listened as they practised. To this day, these are only the Russian phrases I have memorized: “Hello” “How are you?” and “It’s cool that you got on TV” – the repetitious line from the chorus of the pop song the kids sang in their presentation.

When the day finally came for the competition, I sat beaming with paternal pride (as if I had anything whatsoever to do with their presentation). The kids sang, danced, displayed their artwork and generally had a great time. A group from another camp got up and put on a stunning display of their national dance. It was a close race, but when all was said and done, there was something far more important going on than song and dance. For those few days, in that refuge far away from demolished homes, bombs and gunfire, hundreds of children displaced by war came together. And for a short time they were centre-stage; the kids were the singers, the dancers, the artists and the musicians. They were the stars and they shined!

In two weeks that seemed like two years, I got to know a small group of kids who had lived through horrors I cannot imagine. I got to see them at their very best. And, in case you are wondering, yes, they won! But truly, that’s not important. What matters is that in those moments those children felt like the most important people on earth, not forgotten victims of an often-ignored war.

After my two weeks were finished, as I was preparing to get in a taxi and leave, Khavazh, one of the boys who I had spent the most time with came to me, and through a translator asked me a question… another phrase I will never forget: he simply said, “When are you coming back?” Of course I had no answer for him. The kids in my community were waiting for me. But at that moment, how I wished I could stay. And in that moment, as it has so many times before and since, the Scripture resonated in my heart, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” If only my fellow Christians knew the riches they were missing. If only the Church could understand the depth of joy and meaning found on the other side of mission. John Ortberg wrote:

“Jesus took a little child in his arms and said, in effect, ‘Here’s your ministry. Give yourselves to those who can bring you no status or clout. Just help people. You need this little child. You need to help this little child, not just for her sake, but more for your sake. For if you don’t, your whole life will be thrown away on an idiotic contest to see who is the greatest. But if you serve her – often and well and cheerfully and out of the limelight – then the day may come when you do it without thinking, ‘What a wonderful thing I’ve done.’ Then you will begin to serve naturally, effortlessly, for the joy of it. Then you will begin to understand how life in the kingdom works.’”

It is through mission that we express perfect love for Jesus Christ. This outpouring of love is costly. It involves a terrifying leap of faith to go wherever God sends you. But the good news is that after that initial leap, the adventure is only beginning. To maintain a mission focus is not easy, but to do so is to be significant. Mission is the key to the meaningful life we have all been called to.

Conclusions
Kierkegaard’s three spheres are mere guidelines. No one person or congregation fits perfectly into any sphere; I am sure that we can identify personal areas of selfish motivation as in the aesthetic sphere, rigid adherence to the rule of the law, as in the ethical sphere, and moments of unselfish obedience and faith, as in the religious sphere. However, if we are Christians, we are called to mission. There is no escaping this reality.

Todd Gitlin, an old time 1960s protestor, posits three complementary motivations for anyone who wants to wade into political activism. Adventure, duty and love. I believe he has hit on something that goes beyond politics, and takes us into the realm of mission. The fact is that God understands people, and when we make ourselves available to him, he meets us where we are.

If our main motivation is fun and adventure, we could become downhearted, wallow in our selfish nature, and do nothing. Or, like Samson, God could use our flamboyant nature and our desire for fun and new experiences as our motivation to go places no one else would ever dream of going. Shock rocker Marilyn Manson once bemoaned the fact that there were no new adventures out there. He said, “What other violence can you show? What other drug can you do? What other thing can you get pierced? It’s all been done.” There are no new adventures out there. We keep attempting to create the fastest roller coasters, the highest bungee jumps and the wildest parties. The one true adventure that is left is simply to fearfully and courageously follow wherever God leads – to the darkest places on earth, or to people in our own apartment building. God, as Redeemer, seeks to redeem our natures, not destroy them.

What about duty? I believe there are two ways to look at the word duty. We can look at it as a strict adherence to a set of rules, which is very limiting. Our other option is to confront our responsibility to the world. Mother Teresa once said that, “If there are poor in the world, it is because you and I don’t give enough.” This is a stinging indictment from a woman who lived her life among the poorest of the poor. However, we must take our duty to love and care for others seriously. This is not legalism, but responsibility. We are comfortable and well fed while elsewhere people are dying of starvation. Yes, we have a duty. We have a God-given duty to care for others.

Adventure, duty and love, but the greatest of these is love.

Love is God’s defining characteristic and our highest aim. At the end of the day, we may live among the poor, give up our possessions, preach the Word and feed the hungry, but if we don’t have love, we are nothing. Eternally, our lives count for nothing. Maintenance takes root when love becomes distorted, and love for self replaces love for God. Mission is the pure expression of our love for Jesus Christ and for others.

Someone wrote: “Pity sighs, and says, ‘how awful.’ Compassion weeps, and says, ‘I’ll help.’” The world needs people who will help. Much more than that, the world needs the Church to roll up its sleeves, re-enter abandoned communities and help. Because, like Jesus, we weep when we gaze upon fallen Jerusalem. We weep when we see empty monuments where life-giving inner-city churches once were. We weep because all around the world mothers are weeping for lost children. We weep because every day people die without a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. We must weep. And from that place of brokenness, with our hearts firmly set on God, it is time for us to take that courageous leap of faith and to respond to God’s call to go wherever he tells us to go and do whatever he tells us to do.

Writer: Rob Perry works with children and youth at 614 Regent Park, Toronto, Canada.

Photo: John McAlister

the Rubicon - BY REQUEST - Rooted in Mission not Maintenance Part#2

Rob Perry says The world needs the Church to roll up its sleeves and re-enter abandoned communities - Part #2 

2) The Ethical Stage – Maintaining Legalism
Those… who are tied to blind dogma, perfunctory ritual, and institutional self-preservation, those who see God as guardian of the status quo (no matter how oppressive it may be), have so institutionalized God in their thinking and feeling that they are unable to see Him at work outside their narrow – and usually self-serving – perceptions. – Phil Needham from Community in Mission – A Salvationist Ecclesiology (36)

During the roughly four centuries between the Old and New Testaments, pagan cultures influencing Jewish life became a significant problem. In response to the corrupting pressure of Greek and Roman culture, new politico-religious factions began to appear within Judaism. Over time, the most influential of these sub-sects became the Pharisees. Initially, the Pharisees were pious Jews who chose to turn their backs on a world that was increasingly contrary to the laws of God, and to separate themselves from corrupting influences.

They started well. The Pharisees were a lay-holiness movement dedicated to protecting Judaism from outside influences and creating righteous followers of God, commendable goals. However, their good intentions were not enough. By the time of Christ, the Pharisees had generated 613 different laws pertaining to the minutia of Jewish life. Maintaining strict rules of conduct had become the reason for their religion. The end result of the Pharisee’s movement was a rigid adherence to the letter of the Mosaic Law; to the point where today to call someone a Pharisee is synonymous with charging him or her with legalism.

Kierkegaard’s second “existential sphere” is the ethical stage. Our churches are jam-packed with people who subsist in the ethical sphere. The ethical stage is the moral stage, the dutiful life. The ethicists are convinced that obedience to duty, structure, and rules will bring happiness.

The search for greater meaning begins when an individual despairs at the limited nature of temporary pleasure

There is something to be said for the ethical stage. The search for greater meaning begins when an individual despairs at the limited nature of temporary pleasure. A person comes face to face with the reality of his own sinfulness and need for God.

Leviticus 25:18 says, “Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land.” It was this type of directive that consumed the Pharisees, and is the same kind of directive that consumes many churches. It has become many believers’ goal to live in perfect obedience to the law. While this is a commendable and biblical aim, it is the motivation behind the goal that we must examine.

Why do some “follow (God’s) decrees?” So they will “live safely in the land.” It is an insular, self-protective desire that drives them, and it inhibits mission. The irony is that the context of this command is the Year of Jubilee, an excellent Old Testament concept that is ripe with implications of social justice and self-sacrifice. It was during the Year of Jubilee that people were commanded to lend freely to those in need, to free their servants and slaves, and cancel debts. God did promise that he would protect and look after his people. In essence God says, “Sacrifice. Give to the poor. Free your servants. And, once you have given more than you dreamt you could, do not worry, then I will take care of you.”

Moving Beyond the Ethical Sphere
Some want to live within the sound of church and chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. – C.T. Studd

The author Elie Wiesel, a Jew who lived through WWII concentration camps, once reflected on one of the great evils in the world: He said, “The opposite of love is not hate – it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness – it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy – it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death – it’s indifference.” In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees had become absorbed by the rule of the law, which became a hindrance to them living God’s will. We must not become indifferent. If we are apathetic and indifferent, we are useless to God.

The old maxim is true; sometimes we can be so godly minded that we are of no earthly good. We become so focused on having sanctified souls and spotless congregations, that our churches are frightening to anyone who does not follow our strict codes of conduct. When a genuine “sinner” enters our sacred doors, everyone is uncomfortable. The church members are uncomfortable, because suddenly an outsider is among them who does not fit into their rigid norms. She may look different, smell badly, or have poorly behaved children. The visitor also feels uncomfortable. The moment she enters the church she sees a congregation of people who look the same, dress the same, have reserved pews and condescending stares. She knows this is not a place of refuge for her. John White wrote:

“Meanwhile our churches, like secular associations, are concerned with fund-raising, beautiful buildings, large numbers, comforting sermons from highly qualified preachers, while they display indifference to the poor, the insane, and the lonely. Jesus himself would find no place in our all-too-respectable churches, for he did not come to help the righteous but to bring sinners to repentance. Our churches are not equipped to do that sort of thing.”

Jesus himself would find no place in our all-too-respectable churches, for he did not come to help the righteous but to bring sinners to repentance

Jesus was the embodiment of what it means to live beyond the ethical sphere. Did he obey the law? Yes. He fulfilled it by living beyond legalism, traditionalism and ritualism, choosing to dwell in the dirt, grime and hilarity that is found in relationship with people who were lonely, despised, liars, fornicators, cheaters, alcoholics, failures and losers. This is the believer’s mission, to carry on this great work of Christ! The mission will be accomplished only through relationship. The method is simple. Love your neighbour; get to know the people near your home or church, be their friend, pray for them and love them.

Just before his ascension Jesus commanded his followers to, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” As in the Year of Jubilee, when God’s people step out in faith, his promise is that “surely [God is] with you always, to the very end of the age.” Jesus’ command to his disciples is to “go.” It is not a command to necessarily pack up everything and go to a far off land, as it is a reminder that wherever you are, it is your duty as a disciple to make other disciples. It is for us to live the Christian life, not just to visit it. We are to proclaim Jesus and make disciples in his name. Wherever our homes and churches are, that is where we fulfill mission.

A poster in my office has a quote from an anonymous missionary, “I have but one candle to burn, and would rather burn it out where people are dying in darkness than in a land which is flooded with lights.” Jesus preached the kingdom of God, a place where the King reigns. It is the place where tears are replaced with laughing, darkness with light, sickness with healing, loneliness with community and death with life. Where Jesus is, his Kingdom is. Where his people are, there also is his kingdom. If we believe the Holy Spirit is alive in us, and that with his power we can live out the ‘God with us’ vision of Jesus Christ today, we must ask, where would Jesus live now?

Conquering Legalism in the Church
True disciples focus is beyond themselves and their own personal piety. They seek holiness with a burning passion, so that they may shine an even brighter light in the dark places where they bring the Kingdom. The key to overcoming legalism is to roll up our sleeves and get dirty. Relationships are dirty. To live incarnationally is messy and sometimes difficult. However, when we are in our glass palaces miles away from the realities of life, indifference is too easy an option and adherence to legalistic ritual too readily replaces sacrificial mission.

Relationships are dirty. To live incarnationally is messy and sometimes difficult

In order to help congregations move beyond the ethical sphere, a few things must happen. We must protect our churches from becoming ignorant of the outside world. Here, discipleship is key. The sad reality is that many people in our congregations are not passionate about mission because they have not been properly discipled. I will never forget the day when one of the key elders at the church I grew up in stood in front of the entire congregation and made an off-hand comment that John 3:16 was the only verse in the Bible he had memorized. This is unacceptable. We must ensure that our congregation understands the Bible. This includes mission.

Prayer is essential. It ignites and maintains the believers’ missional focus. At our church, we leave our building and pray in our neighbourhood at least once a week. This allows us to keep the reality of our community constantly before us. Being in the neighbourhood helps us to pray effectively about the specific needs of our community. Also, praying in the community is a prophetic statement. It tells our community that God’s people are present and that someone is “standing in the gap” on their behalf.

We also do our best as a church to ensure that our mission focus is international, not just local. For example, we have united prayer for issues such as the persecuted church, child soldiers or the AIDS epidemic in Africa. I remember hearing people from the streets of Toronto, many of whom have been affected by AIDS, praying for the victims of the African AIDS epidemic.

During appeal times in church we have opportunity to sign petitions regarding international social justice issues. We give opportunity for people in our congregation to write letters overseas. Despite the fact that our church is comprised largely of people from one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Canada, we focus for weeks on the annual offering for our denomination’s overseas mission work.

It takes hard work and creativity to maintain a mission focus for a church body. However, if the vision is not clear, and the focus is not continually targeted towards mission, it will wind up in the minutia of legalistic irrelevance.

Writer: Rob Perry works with children and youth at 614 Regent Park, Toronto, Canada.

the Rubicon - BY REQUEST - Rooted in Mission not Maintenance Part#1

The world needs the Church to roll up its sleeves and re-enter abandoned communities by Rob Perry

It is called “The Church,” which is what it once was. It still looks like a church, a brown brick building, with a church steeple, even a cross on top, but people don’t worship there. Around a decade ago the small congregation moved out, and the building was sold. Now it’s a trendy downtown club, home to a variety of local jazz and classical performers. Its name is a sad testament to what once was.

Two blocks away, at the top of another brick building with a steeple, is a large sign. Spanning the width of the church, written in chipped blue paint, it reads “Salvation Army Citadel.” This church moved in around 1904, and moved out in the 1980s. It’s an apartment building. The sign remains as a faded reminder of the past.

Less than a block up the road are two impressive works of architecture that stand almost side-by-side. These church buildings exist as a remembrance of what were, a century earlier, two of the most influential denominations in the east part of downtown. In fact, people still do worship at both. In the past number of decades as other Christian denominations were on their way out, these massive church buildings acted as anchors. Even though they have little or nothing to do with their environment, they remain; large buildings, tiny congregations, locked doors. Monuments.

The saddest part of the situation is that, as when they were first constructed, these buildings stand in some of the neediest areas of their city. Gangs, crack prostitutes, poor families and homeless addicts pass by their doors every day, and sleep in their stairwells every night. Social problems still remain. In fact, they have increased, but God’s people have left.

The prophet Ezekiel says, “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD” (Ezekiel 22:30-31). In a very real sense, it is the Church’s responsibility to “stand in the gap” on behalf of our communities. But, unfortunately, for neighbourhoods across North America, the on-site intercessors are gone. One morning, the community woke up, and its prophets, evangelists and priests had disappeared. In a twinkling of an eye, the neighbourhood was abandoned. There was no one to stand in the gap anymore, because the intercessors had moved to the suburbs.

It is the Church’s responsibility to “stand in the gap” on behalf of our communities

You can almost read the congregations’ stories in the bricks on the church walls. Around 80 or 100 years ago, new churches formed mostly around immigrant populations that inhabited the community. The churches were the most important landmarks in the neighbourhood. Everyone was affiliated with one or the other, whether they attended on Sundays or not. The children attended the Sunday Schools. When they became teenagers, many stopped going, only to find themselves back in times of crisis or when they were a little older, sending their own children to Sunday school. In communities filled with poverty and crisis, the churches were the safe places, the houses of refuge, the sanctuaries.

In many cases, small congregations inhabited these buildings, meeting faithfully week after week, year after year. But generations passed, children grew up and had children; they got better jobs, and moved into “nicer” areas of town. Their children in turn grew, got degrees and careers, and with them, families, larger incomes, bigger houses and fancier cars. With every succeeding generation, love for the community diminished. Churches lost their mission focus, and as their children became adults, the thought of remaining in the neighbourhood as a witness of hope, was not a consideration. The church was no longer their sanctuary. Those who still attended commuted. Gradually, the churches stopped owning responsibility for their communities and began focusing on insular details such as sermons, traditions, rivalries and maintaining programs that had been running since the church’s inception. At some point, the desire to maintain defeated the impulse for mission. Inevitably, eventually the church itself “graduated” to the suburbs, where its members lived. All that was left in the urban centre was a monument; a reminder of what was once the gathering place for a community.

That is the past; the question for the present is how the Church can regain its lost sense of mission? After decades, and even centuries of maintenance focus at the expense of our communities, how do we turn our hearts and minds towards mission again?

One of the most succinct descriptions of mission in the Bible is found in Jeremiah 1:17: “But the LORD said… ‘You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you… ’” It is a very simple, yet profound command, with massive implications: Wherever God sends us, we go; whatever he tells us to say or do, we do. Mission encapsulates not only the far corners of the earth, but also our own cities and communities.

Upon receiving God’s call, Jeremiah’s natural inclination was to look inwards: He said, “Ah Sovereign LORD, I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.” Astounded by the awesome task set before him, Jeremiah was forced to face his own inadequacies. Today, in order for the Church of Christ to regain a vision for mission, we need to examine ourselves as Jeremiah did.

In order for the Church of Christ to regain a vision for mission, we need to examine ourselves as Jeremiah did

There are many motivations for mission, with love being the highest. What is mission after all, if not love for God expressed through service to the poor (see Matthew 25:31-46)? Let us examine a few things that keep us as people and congregations from attaining a missional existence. From there we will look at how to overcome these barriers, to move beyond maintenance, and achieve authentic mission.

Soren Kierkegaard specified three stages of human existence; reflecting a person’s attitude and motivation towards themselves and the world around them. The three spheres include the aesthetic sphere, the ethical sphere and the religious sphere: selfish motivation for pleasures, a strict adherence to rules and duty, and a higher calling towards God, respectively. Any group of Christians has believers who fit into one of these three stages (not everyone experiences each stage; neither is any stage exclusive of the others).

1) The Aesthetic Stage – Maintaining the Trivial
I say that I know life has gotten so boring so quickly in so many ways – and that neither of us planned for this to happen. I never thought that we would end up in the suburbs with lawnmowers and swing sets. I never thought that I’d be a lifer at some useless company. But then wasn’t this the way of the world? The way of adulthood, of maturity, of bringing up children? – Douglas Coupland from Life After God

What are we living for? What is most important to us? What drives us? According to Kierkegaard, the aesthetic sphere is the pursuit of pleasure. During this stage, self is the focus. Hedonism, materialism and other pursuits to do with personal gratification characterize this sphere. I believe that there are many people in our churches who have not graduated from this stage of development. When a believer sits in church week only for “personal blessing,” or when service to God is focused more on what “I get out of it” than on personal submission to the will of God, or when self-gratification is the benchmark of a religious experience, it is a safe bet that the believer is still living in the aesthetic sphere.

When we choose to avoid mission, our focus shifts elsewhere. And, when the most important thing in life is taken away, only trivialities remain. In the movie The Untouchables, the main character, Eliot Ness, faces the disparity between the urgent and the trivial. Eliot Ness is the leader of a group of incorruptible crime-fighters during the time of American prohibition. These “untouchables” had one goal: to bring Al Capone to justice. Towards the end of the movie we see Ness come face to face with life’s priorities. One of Ness’ men has just been murdered. The remaining three ‘untouchables’ are in hiding, hopelessly trying to figure out a new plan of action. Their case against Capone is in shambles, their comrade is dead and they are physically and emotionally drained. Just then Ness’s wife phones. There is silence in the room until his short conversation is over. After getting off the telephone, Ness turns to one of his partners and says, “She’s sitting in some room surrounded by people she doesn’t know going over kitchen colour charts or something.” And then he says with bewilderment: “Some part of the world still cares what colour the kitchen is.” To Ness, the colour of his kitchen walls was irrelevant.

Is it wrong to paint the kitchen? Of course not. However, when your life is mission focused, you gain a different perspective. Viewed in the light of a world filled with loneliness, disease and violence, does the colour of our kitchens really matter? What about the colour of the kitchen cupboards at church, or the carpet in the sanctuary, or the type of clothes the choir wears? Certainly these things need to be taken care of, but how many hours have we spent in committee meetings looking at colour charts while the battle rages outside our doors?

The Cure for Personal Aestheticism
The Jewish mystic Abraham Heschel once said, “We should not spend our life hunting for trivial satisfaction while God is waiting.” God is waiting. But where is he waiting? He waits for us to turn to him in prayer. He waits for us to seek him and fulfill the most important command, to “Love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, and all our minds. This is the first and greatest commandment.” However, we must not forget the second commandment, for “the second is like (the first); love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). And so, who are our neighbours? Christoph Blumhardt writes:

“Do we want to follow Jesus on this way? Then we must accept him in this company. Then the call comes to us to set to work wholeheartedly, for here is Jesus. He himself, speaking about the time of his absence, does not say, “I was rich and you respected me.” He says, “I was poor, I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was imprisoned, and you came to me, to the poor Saviour. You came to me, who sat as a guest at the table of the lowest men. There you came to me.” Here must be your whole heart; here you must do the deeds of faith; for it is from here that the power comes which will overthrow the world, the wretched, unhappy world.”

Every person is Christ for me and since there is only one Jesus, the person I am meeting is the only person in the world at that moment

Mother Teresa said, “I believe in person-to-person contact. Every person is Christ for me and since there is only one Jesus, the person I am meeting is the only person in the world at that moment.” When we enter into relationship with the outcast and unwanted in our society, this is reality. We are in the presence of the divine. We must not lessen this by demystifying it. It is mysterious, and strangely humbling. To love Jesus by serving others is the essence of mission. And, when we replace mission with trivialities, it is we who miss out.

Battling Corporate Aestheticism
Joy and perfect communion with God can only be found in mission. When we are serving sacrificially and completely, we become partners with Christ in his redemptive work. When we exist in the aesthetic sphere of Christian life, it is easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we are fulfilling our destinies as followers of Christ, when we are only living to indulge our comfort zones and fulfill our selfish desires.

How much time have we spent debating what kind of music is to be played during worship? There are passionate Christians who will fight to defend their style of music. However, if we desire to recapture mission, we must enter into the “worship debate” only by examining our position through the lens of mission. Through a missional lens, the worship question is pragmatic: what kind of music will most effectively speak to the hearts of my church’s surrounding community?

We had to address this question when beginning a new church in urban, multi-cultural Toronto. In the neighbourhood surrounding the church, you will hear as many as 100 languages spoken. The residents of our community come from nearly every culture and tradition in the world. So, what music is right for this church?

On Sunday, we may sing songs in French, Mandarin, Spanish, Zulu and Russian. We use a “worship band” style including keyboards, guitars, bass, drums, and vocals – because it is the nearest we have to what most neighbourhood people listen to on the radio. As a mission-focused church, the principle here is that every congregational decision must be mission focused.

This principal carries over to other areas of church. For instance, our church meets on Sunday at 4:30 pm. Why? Because people in our neighbourhood like to sleep in on Sundays. Decisions are based on the needs of the community, not the desires of the believer.

Mission involves sacrifice and a focus on others. It means being not only comfortable, but joyful when people who look differently enter our churches

I am sure we know people in our congregation who may be mired in the aesthetic stage. Unfortunately, sometimes these people are pastors, or hold places of authority. However, until such people are ready to move on in maturity, mission is too high a calling. Mission involves sacrifice and a focus on others. It means being not only comfortable, but joyful when people who look differently enter our churches. Mission necessitates a passion and love for God’s fallen creation, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to be a transformative influence in the world. However, as long as we are content to live a self-absorbed hedonistic religion, our goal will be to ultimately maintain a church that makes us happy and comfortable.

Top photo: Timothy Samoff, Bottom photo: John McAlister

Writer: Rob Perry works with children and youth at 614 Regent Park, Toronto, Canada.

the Rubicon - BY REQUEST - The Problem of Holiness

The Problem of Holiness by Grant Sandercock-Brown ( September 2007)

Since General Coutts wisely and gently steered us away from our “second blessing” theology, Salvationists have not spoken with one voice on holiness.  Some think Coutts was wrong; some said “OK, but what now?”; many had lost interest in the whole issue.  Unfortunately, we didn’t (or couldn’t) replace our simple second blessing theology with a new, personal, one-sentence definition.  Maybe what we miss most is not our second blessing theology but its simplicity and clarity.  What we can say is that we threw the baby out with the bath water and have been bemusedly holding an empty tub for rather a long time.

 That doesn’t mean that republishing Brengle is the answer to our holiness confusion.  Surely we should be able to articulate a fresh understanding on this, to speak to our times in a biblically authentic way about holiness.

And not as a sect with some sort of triumphalist world view. What we have to say about holiness applies to the whole church.  Surely the body of Christ should all understand holiness the same way.  That is, we believe that “the privilege of all believers” means all believers everywhere-not just those in the Army.

A Caveat

“When the people called Salvationists cease to be a holiness people they will not be a people at all-certainly not a people of any consequence.”  (John Gowans) 

I suspect that the General’s observation is correct.  We need a re-connection between a practical understanding of holiness and our mission and its trappings.  We somehow need to weave these unravelling (or unravelled) strands together again.  But here’s the rub: we cannot come up with a new version of holiness merely to help us survive as an Army.  Holiness cannot just be a strategy for church renewal.  It is far more profound than that.  That is why people have not responded to “if we don’t have holiness, the Army will die.”  It is not enough.  It is my clear conviction that we will convince people of the desirability of holiness only when we live it, teach it and breathe it.

Yes, holiness may well be the answer to our decline in the west.  But our first longing must be for the holiness of God and the power of the Spirit, not merely a longing to see the Army renewed and holiness as a strategy to do so.

When all is said and done regarding holiness (and there has often been a lot said and very little done), at the core of our holiness problem there are two crucial holiness questions to be answered: how do you get holy, and how do you live holy?  And at the moment, that is something that we are unable to do.  Or, perhaps more accurately, something that we are unable to do with any sort of consensus.

Social Justice as the New Morality? 

In our search for a new understanding of holiness, some have taken on board social justice.  Wesley’s “There is no holiness but social holiness” is taken to mean that we are called to work for a just society.  Morality is sidelined, and welfare, i.e. helping needy people, is not enough.

Holiness, apparently, has always meant social justice via activism.  We are told to rethink our history, to look at the Maiden Tribute campaign, that’s what we should be about.  And so we read Brueggemann and we delve into the Old Testament prophets and do word studies on “righteousness”.  And perhaps this is a place to start, and it is certainly better than doing nothing.

However, regarding holiness, if all we do is replace our parent’s quest for moral purity (work hard at not sinning) with a quest for social justice (work hard at changing the lives of the less fortunate), while it is an improvement, we have still missed the point.

For one thing, it’s not clear to me that this is a balanced New Testament theology.  It somehow ignores the parable of the Good Samaritan as well as ignoring Paul’s ambivalence to slavery, for example. We need to be careful about saying, “sure you can stop to help the wounded traveller on the Jericho road, but the better thing to do is to work for bandit-free travel on the Jericho-Jerusalem highway.”  Some of our rhetoric regarding justice owes more to the liberal social gospel than we perhaps admit.

But the main problem is that it is not personal enough.  While holiness is more than a personal opinion, it is still a personal thing.  Remember that we could once say “after you are saved, if you seek a second blessing from God you will be filled with the Spirit and be able to live free from sin.”  What do we replace that with?  A generalised “after conversion you should be working for social justice”? Why not just join Amnesty international and skip the conversion thing altogether. The end result is the same.

Yes, working for bandit-free roads and making poverty history are good and righteous things to do, yet there is something missing here.  There is a personal, relational dimension absent in this view of holiness.

Towards an Answer

In the first instance, holiness does not begin with us and what we do.  Holiness and righteousness begin with a holy and powerful God, a God who does something in us.  It is not a strategy to renew the Army (although I believe it could); it is not working for a just society (although that is a necessary outcome); it is not morality (although that too is an outcome).

A Lesson from Pentecostalism

 Alister McGrath discusses the Pentecostal revival in The Twilight of Atheism.  Here is an experiential world view that ignores “I want to believe what they believe” in favour of “I want to experience what they experience.” God is not the God of ideas; rather, “God is experienced and known as a personal, transformative living reality.”

 500 million people who are now Pentecostals have just sidestepped nearly all the debates that consume the time of Protestant academics.  What Pentecostalism offers is an immediate and intimate connection with God.  ”You will feel him in your heart, you will see him at work in your life and in your friends’ lives.  He will change the way you live.  People will be healed, your life will be better.  Now!”  And so it is no surprise that Pentecostalism has ousted Marxism and is rapidly replacing liberation theology in South America; that it is sweeping through Asia and Africa.

 We have nothing to match this practical, transformative Christianity unless we too can live out a biblical, practical, experiential, exciting, one-sentence definition of what holiness means for us.

 It’s not that all of us suddenly becoming Pentecostal is the answer (there is, after all, some problematic theology to deal with).  But what the Pentecostal revival reminds us is that holiness is vitally connected to the work of the Holy Spirit-how he works in our hearts and what that means for our living.

 Paul, in Galatians 3, gets stuck into the “foolish Galatians” for forgetting this very thing.  For Paul, the Spirit was the single and sufficient sign that they were God’s people.  And he poses the question: “Are you so foolish?  Having started with the Spirit, are you ending with the flesh?”  Well, are we?  A definition of holiness that has no reference to the Spirit of God at work among us and in me is doing just that!

 All power to the push for social justice as an (not the) authentic outcome of holy living.  But remember, when Jesus quotes Isaiah on social justice in Luke 4, the quote starts: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to…” (Luke 4:18).

Further Towards an Answer

Because holiness is God’s idea and God’s doing, what I think holiness is actually doesn’t matter.  But of course, since holiness is expressed in my own individual relationship with God, how I understand holiness has practical implications for my praying and my living.

Too often in the Army, the debate about what holiness means has centred on questions of sinlessness.  And honestly, we still haven’t agreed on that (remember that Wesley himself said, “it is not worth contending for the term,” not that that stopped us doing so).  But it seems to me that we are missing the point here by time and again focusing our discussion on the “negative pole” of holiness.  Rather than argue what we don’t have or won’t do when we are holy, we should focus on what we can have and what we should do.  And what we can have is the love of God in our hearts, and what we can do is express that love.  The “positive pole” of holiness is the love of God filling our hearts and transforming our living, so that we can love him and love others as we ought. I’m not sure if I can live the rest of my life without sinning, but I’m sure that God has called me to and will help me live a loving, holy life.  A life filled with loving thoughts and actions towards God and others.

 “Do not let anyone lead you astray.  He who does what is right is righteous, just as he (Jesus) is righteous.”  (1 John 3:7)

What an extraordinary verse!  And yet, Paul would have agreed whole-heartedly with John.  Holiness in practice was simple.  Paul was in Christ and Christ was in him, and for that reason he was compelled and enabled to live righteously.  The Holy Spirit transformed his motives and guided his actions.  When Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit to the church in Galatia, you can be pretty sure that he believed he lived that fruit.  All the way through Thessalonians he says “you know how holy, righteous and blameless I was among you.” 

Perhaps this side of Freud and psychoanalysis, we cannot recover the simple, practical New Testament concept of holiness expressed in right action.  Perhaps we will always be worried about mixed or sullied motives.  All I know is that Jesus never debated “sinlessness” with his followers, but time and time again, through story and example, he called them to be doers of the word-to speak gently, to bring healing, to be compassionate.

Holiness is not just about us and our inwardness.  It’s not just about our not sinning or what we have given up for God.  It’s not just a strategy for church renewal.  It is about what we are willing to do for him.  “Take up your cross and follow me” is a personal call to action, not contemplation.

But not on our own.  I wish our holiness doctrine was longer, took in the next phrase from Thessalonians.  ”The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”  It is the power of God at work in every aspect of our lives.  You see, those of us who read too many theology books may smile indulgently and disbelievingly at the prayer “I’m running late Lord, please help me find a car park.”  Here is a worldview that is diametrically opposed to the liberal or conservative evangelical view of an absent God about whom we theorise and who we use as a basis for our propositions.  Childish prayers for parking spaces are unworthy of the “wholly other” and the “ground of our being.”  And so we dismiss the prayers whispered at a thousand mercy seats.  ”Help me give up swearing, gambling, pornography.”  ”Help me love Mrs. Grumpy.”  But at the end of the day, I suspect that I would much prefer to hang out with the prayer for a car park people! 

We must, somehow, start living out holiness.  A new orthopraxy precedes any new orthodoxy, just as it did for the 19^th century second blessing proponents.  All knowledge is abstract unless you have experienced it, lived it.  We can talk about and theorise on holiness all we want but I have no doubt whatsoever that unless significant numbers of influential Salvationists speak with one spiritual voice on holiness while living holy, Spirit-filled lives, our steady decline will continue, and probably rightly so.

 Conclusion

 “When the people called Salvationists cease to be a holiness people they will not be a people at all-certainly not a people of any consequence.”  (John Gowans)

Which brings us back to Gowans’ confronting thesis, where the real problem for me is that I cannot imagine our much-needed spiritual revival.  That’s not to say it couldn’t happen; I just don’t know how it would.  Where will it start?  Is it actually possible that we could speak with one voice on any issue-ranks, clergy/laity, mission, worship-let alone holiness?  The discouraging part of thinking through this whole process is that I can’t see it happening.  I cannot imagine what a dramatic holiness renewal would look like in our fragmented Army.  My sincere hope is that that is just the failure of my imagination.

 Ultimately, the problem of holiness we face, particularly in the West, may be that while all of us desperately need holiness, not enough of us desperately want it.

And so the two crucial holiness questions remain, how do you get holy, and how do you live holy?  If we are, in any meaningful sense, a movement in which holiness is important, we need to be able to answer those questions clearly and simply.  And above all, we need to live our answers.

Writer: Captain Grant Sandercock-Brown is a corps officer at Chatswood Corps in Sydney, Australia. He was a secondary school music teacher for 10 years and loves theology, rugby and golf. His first book From a Middle Aged Dad to a Teen Aged daughter has just been published. His claim to fame is that as a singing telegram man he once sang to Elton John. He and his wife, Sharon, have three children.