Bang Bang You’re Dead

An Army that shoots its wounded won’t survive, says Captain C.

I had the pleasure of conversing with one of the Army’s world renowned brass band composers this last week. He is a very clever man who has written some of the best music of the past forty years but he is no longer a salvationist. You see he made a mistake, quite a big one I suppose by some people’s standards, but certainly not a hanging offence by any means, and he has made amends in every way possible.

While many corps are happy to play his music and others are happy to “own” him as once one of their own, noone is ready to fully forgive him and welcome him back into the fold.

We reminisced about what we loved about the Army and how sad it was to see it “going to the dogs” in so many areas. When he asked me why I thought that was the case I blurted out “Because just like what has happened to you my friend, we are an Army that shoots its own wounded”. Whoops.

But the problem is … it’s true.

So many of our great thinkers, managers, theologians, spirit-filled leaders, innovators, teachers, preachers, musicians and young people have copped a bullet right between the eyes. OK OK … I hear you and your pleas for a need for discipline and standards and …. (insert sanctimonious excuse here …) but we have missed so many opportunities to grow as an Army because we have chopped people off at the knees just as they were getting into their stride.

I’ve heard my Australian friends refer to it as the “Tall poppy syndrome” where people with outstanding talents who stand head and shoulders above the crowd are brought down to size. Mediocrity then reigns.

Tell me that’s not the case now?

 Writer: Captain C is an officer in a Territory far, far away. He has a few “difficult” questions to be asked and some obscure observations to share. Some people are happy to hear what he has to say even though they may disagree. Other people wish he’d just go away. 

Taking what’s offered?

Rescue the perishing, prey on the dying? asks Captain C.

Iremember my officer Grandfather’s outrage at a colleague accepting a house from one of his former corps parishioners via their will. It wasn’t that there was anything un-toward happening but it just wasn’t acceptable, according to the regulations for officers. Then again this particular officer was from a “good army family” (read “connected”) and seemingly operating under a different paradigm. Some people like Gramps were rude enough to see this all as being simply unjust, wrong and letting the side down.

I was reminded of this situation when a friend recently told me of how his family were passed over in the inheritance of a maiden Aunt. Instead of leaving anything from her vast accumulated earthly fortune to her flesh and blood she had instead left it all to an officer and his family who had befriended the hapless old soul. That’s her choice I suppose, after all it is her “will”, but aren’t there rules about this sort of thing? My friend complained to people in authority, but to no avail. To say he is a little bent out of shape is an understatement.

So does that mean it’s now open slather as far as being a benefactor of dead people’s money? If that’s the case the upside maybe more officers getting out of their offices and away from their computers to visit the sick and dying in their homes and hospitals. With the pathetic level of officer retirement allowances can one be blamed for taking what’s offered for services rendered? Or is this just an example of downright, flesh-driven greed?

This is a dangerous area that can mean that fellow officers and comrades who have faithfully and selflessly served have their work somewhat cheapened when one person is chosen over another as benefactor.

Maybe it’s time to get a few things out into the open and clarify what is indeed kosher? What say you?

Writer: Captain C is an officer in a Territory far, far away. He has a few “difficult” questions to be asked and some obscure observations to share. Some people are happy to hear what he has to say even though they may disagree. Other people wish he’d just go away.

Living Right

Before a candidate is accepted for training college they must be interviewed by a divisional board.  This can be quite intimidating as it usually includes the Divisional Commanders, the 2IC, the DYCS, a representative CO and a representative soldier.  In my case I’m sure there was another person present but I can’t remember exactly who they represented.  The purpose of the interview is for the DC to access the suitability of the candidate for training as a SAO.  The questions were prepared in advance and the interview went pretty much to script (although the DC threw in a curly question about baptism). 

One of the questions I was asked was, “Which doctrine do you believe is the most important?”  I had been given the “heads up” that they may ask that one so, I was not entirely unprepared to answer the question.  Confidently I announced that doctrine six was of most significance (it happened to be my favourite too).  I quoted, “We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has by his suffering and death made an atonement for the whole world so that whosoever will may be saved”. 

I reiterated that, the whosoever was most important to which I received numerous non-verbal encouragements - for the words demonstrate our (Arminian) roots and theologically they maintain the universal character of the atonement.  Of course none of this was clearly within this candidate’s consciousness at the time, but I just knew that we did not subscribe to the Calvinistic doctrine of limited atonement and predestination.

Reflecting back now, I still see doctrine six as central and important, however, I cannot separate the atoning work of Christ on the cross from his faithful obedience within the incarnation.  Within the evangelical tradition we have often focused on the cross at the expense of the word becoming flesh and living among us.  We have highlighted the passion narrative and minimized the faithful obedient life of Jesus of Nazareth.  I believe that we have been guilty of emphasising the sacrificial death and overlooking the sacrificial life.

The consequence of this is that we understand salvation more from the perspective of reconciliation rather than equally emphasising the sanctifying work of Christ.  Within our contemporary definitions of salvation we often speak of the forgiveness of our sins and being justified by God at the expense of also speaking of the transforming work of the Spirit that begins by grace through faith.  Jesus’ birth, obedient life of suffering, his death and resurrection cannot be separated out without the danger that we will stress one aspect of salvation at the expense of another.  Jesus’ incarnation and subsequent holy life was as significant as was his sacrificial death.  Jesus did not come simply to save us from our sins but he also came to transform us into the holy people of God.  If we focus on the sacrificial death at the expense of the sacrificial incarnation then we may overemphasize the benefits to believers through Jesus work on the cross and in doing so we lose the broader purpose of the work of Christ within the doctrine of salvation.

John Wesley correctly related our sanctification to our justification.  In his sermon on The Scriptural way of Salvation he states, “At the same time that we are justified, yea, in that very moment, sanctification begins”[1].

If we are to better understand the person and work of Christ then our soteriology (doctrine of salvation) must proclaim both the doctrines of justification and sanctification.  Dr Skevington Wood in his summary of Wesley’s teaching on sanctification is helpful, stating:

Whereas justification may be defined as ‘what God does for us through his Son’, sanctification is ‘what he works in us by his Spirit’.  The distinction lies in the fact that sanctification has to do with the ongoing life of the Christian, while justification is primarily a matter of initial status.  Hence, for Wesley, sanctification is more properly linked with new birth in which this life begins[2].

Jesus faithfully lived and died to restore us into right relations with God and to transform us into the very people of God.  The salvific purpose of Christ is the ‘bringing together’ of the human to the divine that God the Father effects in Christ the Son through the power of the Holy Spirit”[3].

So this year if someone was to ask me which doctrine is the most important one, I would have to answer that it is the doctrine of salvation which is expressed in, The Salvation Army Handbook of Doctrine[4], chapters 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10, because to give emphasis to the atoning work of Jesus on the cross is to risk selling short the gospel of salvation.  It is important that we proclaim salvation through Jesus as more than simply the status of being right with God and include the more challenging relational aspect between the creator and the created of right living.

 [1] Edward H. Sugden, The Standard Sermons of John Wesley (Epworth Press: London, 1921), 2.446.

[2] Skevington Wood, Love Excluding Sin: John Wesley’s Teaching on Sanctification  (Wesley Fellowship, 1986).

[3] Robert Sherman, King, Priest and Prophet; A Trinitarian Theology of Atonement (New York: T&T Clark International, 2004), 10.

[4] The General of The Salvation Army, Handbook of Doctrine (London: Salvation Books, 2010).

Writer: Capt. Brett Mitchell serves along side his wife Louanne, at the New Life Community Church & Centre in Manly, NSW.  They have three fantastic children who share in this awesome ministry.  In his spare time Brett enjoys running, “Master Chef” and reading theology.  Brett is currently completing a MA in Aspects of Christian Holiness at Nazarene Theological College, Manchester.

I am [NOT] Holy

                                                                                                                                                             “Holiness is not a state” says James Pedlar
 

In my opinion, the main problem with Wesleyan/Holiness understandings of sanctification is their attempts to define a “low water mark” of holiness, by which I mean, a line in the sand - a threshold which we can identify as the indication that someone has experienced holiness or been made holy.  This whole idea is built upon the presupposition that “holiness” is a state, a status, or a place where one can somehow arrive.   Some of the “second blessing” holiness teachers (such as Samuel Logan Brengle) explicitly define holiness as a “state,” and then go about the process of trying to identify the ways that one can arrive at this state, by God’s help.

If we look back further, John Wesley’s famous definition of “sin properly so-called” as “a voluntary transgression of a known law of God” was part of his attempt to define the “low water mark” of Christian perfection.  Wesley would never say that anyone could reach a point in their Christian life where they did not constantly need the atoning blood of Christ.  While, in certain contexts, he used the above definition, he also believed in total depravity, which means that he believed that, as one journeys deeper into holiness of heart and life, one continues to find that sin “cleaves to all our words, and actions.” (Sermon 14, The Repentance of Believers, §I.11)  Indeed, Wesley says of the children of God,

“They are daily sensible of sin remaining in their heart, - pride, self-will, unbelief; and of sin cleaving to all they speak and do, even their best actions and holiest duties.” [Sermon 13, On Sin in Believers, §III.7, emphasis mine]

This is classic protestant teaching on total depravity, though I think later Wesleyans have, at least on a popular level, not always followed Wesley in maintaining this point.  The bottom line is that even our “holiest” actions as Christians remain tainted by sin, possibly in ways we are not conscious of and don’t even understand.  However, Wesley felt that one could reach  a point of not voluntarily sinning, by becoming so overwhelmed by the perfect love of God that the intentions of one’s heart is made pure.   This was his “low water mark” of Christian perfection, though he never claimed it for himself.

It seems to me that this “low water mark” issue could be avoided if we simply made clear that holiness is not a state.  There is no line in the sand of the Christian life which marks off “the holy” from the rest of us.  Holiness is a relative characteristic which all believers possess, to a greater or lesser degree.  From the moment of conversion we are being transformed, made responsive to the grace of God in our lives, and conformed to Christ’s likeness.   That is why Paul can address the Corinthians as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be holy” (1 Cor. 1:2).

From a Wesleyan perspective, we can still maintain that it is not right for us to put a priori limits on the sanctifying grace of God.  That is, we cannot, in advance, say that any aspect of our lives will surely remain corrupted by sin.  What we can say, however, is that, as a relative characteristic, our transformation will always remain relative. Only God is absolutely holy.
Perhaps part of the problem is that later Wesleyans conflated Wesley’s category of “Christian perfection” with “holiness.”  While Wesley seems to fall into this “low water mark” trap I’m speaking of in relation to his discussions of Christian perfection, he nevertheless recognizes the fact that “holiness” is a relative characteristic shared by all believers.

“Every babe in Christ is holy, and yet not altogether so. He is saved from sin; yet not entirely: It remains, though it does not reign.” [Sermon 13, On Sin in Believers, §IV.3]

Even further,  Wesley describes how those who are living examples of Christian perfection continually transgress God’s law, and are therefore constantly in need of the atoning blood of Christ (from Sermon 76, “On Perfection,” §I.3):

“The highest perfection which man can attain, while the soul dwells in the body, does not exclude ignorance, and error, and a thousand other infirmities. Now, from wrong judgments, wrong words and actions will often necessarily flow: And, in some cases, wrong affections also may spring from the same source. I may judge wrong of you: I may think more or less highly of you than I ought to think; and this mistake in my judgment may not only occasion something wrong in my behaviour, but it may have a still deeper effect; it may occasion something wrong in my affection. From a wrong apprehension, I may love and esteem you either more or less than I ought. Nor can I be freed from a likableness to such a mistake while I remain in a corruptible body. A thousand infirmities, in consequence of this, will attend my spirit, till it returns to God who gave it. And, in numberless instances, it comes short of doing the will of God, as Adam did in paradise. Hence the best of men may say from the heart, “Every moment, Lord, I need The merit of thy death,” for innumerable violations of the Adamic as well as the angelic law. It is well, therefore, for us, that we are not now under these, but under the law of love. “Love is” now “the fulfilling of the law,” which is given to fallen man. This is now, with respect to us, “the perfect law.” But even against this, through the present weakness of our understanding, we are continually liable to transgress. Therefore every man living needs the blood of atonement, or he could not stand before God.”

Therefore, I think the best and truest answer the answer to the question, “are you holy?” will always be both “Yes” and “No.”  There ought always to be ways in which our lives reflect the holiness of God; and yet, on this side of the new creation, there will always be ways in which they do not.

Writer: James Pedlar is a doctoral student at Wycliffe College, in the Toronto School of Theology, and  Assistant Coordinator of Faith & Witness at the Canadian Council of Churches.  His main interests are in ecumenical ecclesiology, Wesleyan theology, and the theology and practice of worship. James is married to Samantha and they live in East York.  You can read his blog here.

The Next General (Redux)

Geoff Ryan provides a job description for the “top job”

O rganizationally The Salvation Army is closer to the Roman Catholic church than most other Protestant denominations, the majority of which are governed according to a congregational model while we are structurally a hierarchy. We are a particular expression of the church militant and our ecclesiastical head is our only elected position. The Army’s High Council is analogous to the Catholic College of Cardinals which convenes when electing a new Pope.

The strange land of the 21^st century - to which many feel the church has been exiled - is one of complex challenges which differ significantly from those of the twentieth century. Any General of The Salvation Army will need to be able to first recognize and then, vigorously address these challenges. This essay identifies four major challenges. Two of them are ‘internal’, that is - specific to The Salvation Army. The other two are ‘external, and more general in nature.

In spite of the rather inclusive promise held out by the “leadership industry” that has taken root throughout the evangelical church in recent years and, while acknowledging that certain leadership skills can be nurtured, I believe that leaders are born more than they are made. The Salvation Army as it exists today is a vast global organization with thousands of senior executives (Divisional and Territorial leaders) and tens of thousands of line managers (active officers). We are an internationally recognized NGO with a presence in 109 countries of the world. It is an unstable and dangerous world which, in the coming years, will produce more Bosnia’s, Rwandas, Sierra Leone’s and Afghanistans. It is a world that is highly complex and nuanced and so in need of canny and worldly, statesmen/women to guide movements such as ours.

Historically, the Army culture promotes performers: composers/musicians, preachers/Bible teachers and from time to time, public relations/editorial people. With reference to our choice of General, we have primarily looked for personality, profile within the movement and Christian character. Yet, personal holiness may not necessarily be the only, or even the defining, characteristic of a great leader. It was Teresa of Avila who advised that it avails little to have a holy man in a position that requires good judgement and leadership if he has neither. The history of the Church shows that there were many who were holy but ineffective, and sometimes the contrary is also true as well.

The Generals who are to lead The Salvation Army forward in the 21^st century have to be more than simply good preachers or Bible students. They will need to possess skills and abilities needed by the world we minister in and not simply those valued by the Army’s particular subculture. They will need to be generalists, with the charisma needed to attract and deploy (and not be threatened by) the numerous specialists needed to get the job done. They will need to be persons of courage, decisiveness and possessing a measure of the iconoclast.

Internal Challenges

Structural reform

The Salvation Army is in need of organizational restructuring and ultimately this can only be comprehensively carried out from the top. The centralized command-and-control bureaucracy that has developed over the years is increasingly unworkable and simply not elastic enough to be effective in a world in which the information revolution has flattened lines of authority and post-modernity has irrevocably altered the way upcoming generations respond to authority and leadership and view their own autonomy and independence. Our whole organizational culture needs to shift, but this can start with structural reform.

Our Headquarters at all levels - International, Territorial and Divisional - need to re-imagine themselves into resourcing hubs and not first-and-foremost command centers. They need to understand that The Salvation Army is primarily an idea and not an institution. They need to understand that to lead in the 21^st century means to understand the subtle but vital difference between power (as conferred by an institutional structure) and influence (as granted to a leader by those who choose to listen to him/her and to follow him/her). This is all dependent, however, on local units being self-sustaining, innovative and not in need of the micro-managing that many DHQs and THQs are forced to undertake at present.

As strange as this may sound, the structure of al-Qaeda is instructive. Al-Qaeda functions as a pre-modern group whose methodology appears at times to be quite post-modern and who seem equipped to deal with the post-modern context better than many of us moderns (and sometimes with far more impact). Like The Salvation Army, al-Qaeda is an idea. Bin Laden and others provide the inspiration for the troops. They embody the idea, cast the vision and set the mission. They resource the cells - autonomous units operating subversively and deep within a generally hostile environment. They are connected like nodes to the centre (the vision) while retaining a large degree of independence and decision-making ability. They are in relationship with the centre and this provides accountability - not to a structure or institution - but to the vision. In reality, they constitute a network of local missions with an intense global focus. In no way am I suggesting that al-Qaeda is a positive or worthy idea, but simply that structurally and organizationally there are parallels here to be drawn.

Hand in glove with any restructuring is the need for leadership to “please stay still”, to quote an Australian officer friend of mine. The Army is doing better of late in allowing corps officers to remain in their appointments longer. But this paradigm shift is needed even more at the Territorial, Divisional and International levels. Leaders can no longer expect to achieve anything significant or be taken seriously or quite frankly, even listened to and obeyed, if they are remain unaccountable to those they lead. And this accountability means sticking around long enough to follow through on any vision they set, any strategy they devise and all promises they make. If leaders are not required to face the consequences of the policy decisions they initiate, then neither should the officers they presume to lead. Pope John Paul II had a tremendous impact on his church and the world - but he had 26 years to do it.

Theological Clarity

There is a need for theological clarity in The Salvation Army. Depending on your viewpoint, the Army is either in its adolescence and so cannot make it’s mind up who it wants to be when it grows up; or alternatively the Army is approaching a mid-life crisis and cannot decide who it really, secretly, thought it wanted to be all along. Either way, we seem continue in this interminable identity crises about who we should be. But, it all starts with what we truly believe.

Most of the arguments we engage in with each other are about ecclesiology, but such arguments are useless. The Australian theologian Michael Frost has said that Christology precedes Missiology, which precedes Ecclesiology (XME). Who we think Jesus is, will drive what we think he has called us to do and therefore how we do it. The “identity” issue needs to be solved before the “function” is clarified.

At this point in our history, the Army has opened itself to a vast array of theological influences. What was once a monolith in the Army: one order of service, one style of worship, one set of core beliefs, one mission - has now become a veritable smorgasbord of at time complementary, at times contradictory, ideas and theologies and “stories”. These range from a revisionist history of the Army that credits our emerging years with a late 20^th century/early 21st century Pentecostalism and prosperity-gospel; to the dualistic expressions of syncretistic spiritualism endemic in much of the Army in the Southern World; to the highly rationalistic, liberalism of parts of the Western Army; to the peculiarly American conservatism of the ‘Holiness Movement’ that owes little to true Wesleyan and much to mid-nineteenth century revivalists such as Charles Finney. I could go on.

Yet we do have our story. It is deeply rooted in our Wesleyan Heritage and tradition. It is not the same story as other denominations and movements. We need not be ashamed or embarrassed, nor do we need to become proud and arrogant. We just need to grow up and accept who we are. Someone needs to stand up and articulate clearly and intelligently who we are and what we believe. This someone needs to embody and explain the idea that is The Salvation Army. The only person who could do that is the General, but it will not happen with the way the position is presently structured, unless the new General changes things.

As with leadership at Divisional, Territorial and International levels, any General exists in that tension between the need to function as an executive and the call to shepherd the flock. We explain to outsiders that our Divisional Commanders are analogous to Bishops. However, as soon as an officer attains any degree of even middle-management leadership, they are divorced from their pastoral function and structurally disconnected from local community. The Catholic Archbishop of Toronto, for example, will be found in the pulpit of Toronto’s Cathedral every Easter and Christmas, whatever other administrative responsibilities he has. Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, Charles Swindoll - local church leaders all. When they err, it is on the side of pastor. Cannot all our DCs, TCs, IHQ Commissioners and the General, also be given pastoral responsibilities in a local corps and in this way remain permanently linked to those they would lead? This may  work out as primarily as a symbolic gesture, but symbols are important and the office and person of our General is nothing, if not a symbol.

It was as a shepherd that Pope John Paul II became the main theological driving force in Catholicism over the last quarter century and the most influential religious figure in the world. He issued his encyclicals, defining with crystal clear intent the theological identity and hence the missiological function, of his church. Because he remained at his post long enough, he was able to get to know his leaders and could therefore appoint to pivotal positions, those he trusted to share his vision. It has been said the power of the General’s office is the power of appointment. However, in a three or four year tenure, how is it possible for any General to get to know his/her international leadership sufficiently? Sadly, too often, the role of General is perceived as little more than ‘international cheerleader’.

The Salvation Army needs a theology adequate to face the challenges of the 21^st century. The office of the General, if it can be re-imagined and redefined, is the only one that can give it to us with consistency, clarity and authority.

External Challenges

Islam

In the closing years of the twentieth century all the theologians who mattered were saying that the issue for the church in the coming millenium was Islam. This was before 9/11, which simply proved that they knew what they were talking about. So what does The Salvation Army have to say to Islam? Theologically, I believe that with our holistic understanding of full salvation and our redemptive theology, we are positioned better than many expressions of the church to engage Islam with credibility. Structurally, however, we have to admit that as a quasi-military Christian organization, this is going to be difficult. If we choose to adopt an adversarial stance against the “threat of Islam”, as many of our evangelical brothers and sisters have, then business as usual will suffice. If we wish to be a little more realistic and effective and, frankly Christ-like, then we need to re-examine our presentation of ourselves.

In his book, The Next Christendom, author Philip Jenkins maintains that conflict in the twentieth century was defined by ideology, but in the 21^st century “the prime animating and destructive force in human affairs” will be religion. And the touch point will be where Christianity and Islam intersect - a battle for the hearts and minds and souls of millions of Africans, Asians, Europeans and North Americans.

To date the Salvation Army has largely ignored Islam, refusing to engage thoughtfully and strategically and really only addressing Islam reactively, when it has moved into “neighbourhoods” in which we already have a presence. We can no longer afford such naivety.

Globalism

There now exists “a new and aggressive secularization, borne into the heart of modern societies by the dynamics of globalization”, contends R. Scott Appleby, a history professor at the University of Notre Dame. “In traditional as well as developed societies, increasing materialism opens the way to a form of secularism that is indifferent or hostile to religious faith.” It is the notion that the human experience can be understood through criteria that give no reference to our transcendent origins and orientation. It is characterized by the reduction of human beings to objects whether through abortion, euthanasia, genocide and war or the social inequalities of the last century. All this we have carried over to the brave new world of the 21^st century. “A robust new form of globalism now dominates economic, political and cultural interaction among peoples. The commodification of social relations that turns individuals into cogs in the wheels of industry and politics now shapes virtually all forms of human interaction - even religion”, contends Appleby.

The next General will inherit a Salvation Army that in the West is awash in materialism and the attendant “commodification” of faith. We are an organization deeply compromised by the power structures of the day - political and particularly, economic. Walter Brueggemann states that: “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… 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.” The Salvation Army is definitely a curiosity in the 21^st century, but are we a threat? Have the accommodations we have made over the years with these systems led us to live unauthorized lives of faith and to practice unauthorized ministries? Has the Army forgotten who we were called to be and for whom we were called into existence for? Have we completely lost the ability and freedom to speak and act prophetically on behalf of those excluded by the aggressively secular globalism of the 21^st century?

CONCLUSION

So here are the challenges before any General, as I see them anyway. It is quite a handful. So, what sort of person is needed?

Well, a General with a razor-sharp intellect formed by disciplined reading and study of philosophy, theology, politics, economics, and science; a natural leader who understands how to motivate and inspire people; a visionary who can think strategically and who understands organizational theory and the zeitgeist of post-modernity; a person rooted in the experience and understanding of the Wesleyan tradition - who knows exactly who they are and what our story is; a thinker with a deep knowledge and, if possible, personal experience of the languages, cultures, religious laws and customs of Islam; a tough-minded but tender-hearted follower of Jesus with a burning concern for the excluded and marginalized of the world, who would be a shepherd of those sheep who have no shepherd.

So  … who wants the job?

Writer: Major Geoff Ryan was co-founder and publisher of theRubicon 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.

The Next General is featured in Geoff Ryan’s book  “10 on the Army” and was previously published in “Horizons” magazine (Canada)

Unsafe God

by James Pedlar

I was preaching on Isaiah 6 a while back and a passage from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe came to mind.  It’s the part where the children find out that Aslan is a Lion, not a man. 

 “Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man.  Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”  “That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” siad Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” “Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy. “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver.  “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.  He’s the King, I tell you.”  

It got me thinking about the images of God that are popular in our culture, and if we are honest, in the Church as well. Sometimes people imagine God as an angry punisher, ready to annihilate anyone who doesn’t measure up by hurling lightning bolts down from the sky.  But I don’t think there’s much of a danger of that image of God prevailing in our culture today.  Maybe in the middle ages, when people were fascinated with hell and purgatory, but I don’t think there are many people today who imagine God in an overly wrathful way.  I think the opposite is more likely the case.  We tend to think of God as completely tame, endlessly tolerant, and entirely safe. 

I think sometimes we imagine a domesticated God.  Of course domestication is a term we use in relation to animals.  We domesticate our pets.  In other words, they are house trained, so they can fit into our lives and our routines and our homes, without causing too much of an interference.  Our pet dog stays on his leash.  He stays behind the fence.  He is safe.  He brings us comfort when we need it but at the end of the day, we are the master, we are the ones in control.   We imagine a domesticated God when we think that God can be kept, safe and contained behind the fences that we have built for him. 

Another imagined God that we encounter today is a Santa Claus God.  You know Santa Claus only exists for the purpose of bringing us gifts.  That’s the sole reason for his life.  All year long everything he does is oriented to that one special night when he jumps in his sleigh and flies around the world, eating cookies and milk and making little boys and girls happy by bringing them the things they asked for.  Yes, it is true, he’s making a list and checking it twice, but it seems to me he is pretty indulgent, and brings nice gifts even to kids that you would think would be on the naughty list.  We imagine a Santa Claus God when we think that God is only there to give us what we want.   When we think that the fact that we’ve been good little boys and girls means that we should get everything we ask for. 

We could probably think of many other “imaginary Gods.”   One more that I’ve seen is the personal assistant God. A personal assistant’s role is to help their boss get through their day.  They might go for coffee, they might pay parking meters, do dry cleaning, do secretarial work - and if you are a very busy person then I can see why a personal assistant would be of great value.  Their job is to make your life easier.  Sometimes we put God into that box.  We think he is there to “help get us through our day,” whatever that means.   I heard someone once saying that they were praying to God for help because they were having a “bad hair day.”  I think they wanted a personal assistant God. 

These are all safe gods; they are tame, they are domesticated, they are always pleasant, friendly, and unobtrusive.  These tame gods are not the God of the Bible. They are not the God of Isaiah chapter six.   

1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: 

       “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty, 

        the whole earth is full of his glory.” 

 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 

 5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” 

 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” 

 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” 

 Who said anything about safe?  ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.

James Pedlar is a doctoral student at Wycliffe College, in the Toronto School of Theology.  He specializes in the study of the Church - especially questions involving reform movements, Christian unity, authority structures, and ecumenical dialogue.  He is also interested in Wesleyan theology, Salvation Army theology, and the theology and practice of worship. James works part-time as Assistant Coordinator of Faith & Witness at the Canadian Council of Churches.   He recently completed a two year research project on young adult attrition for The Salvation Army in Canada and Bermuda, which you can read about here.   Before that he was Community Ministries Director for The Salvation Army in the Quinte Region of Ontario, Canada.  James is married to Samantha and they live in East York.  You can read his blog here

Moralistic Therapeutic Deists

 by James Pedlar

C hristian Smith, Notre Dame sociologist and author of some significant books on youth in North America’s churches, uses the term “moralistic therapeutic deists” to describe the default religion of our time.  Christianity Today had an interview with Smith in their October 2009 issue, in which they discussed his new book on “emerging adulthood,” Souls in Transition.  He’s got some really interesting things to say about young adults and the Church.

I think “moralistic therapeutic deism” is a brilliant description of the default religion of our day. While Smith’s research indicates that some young adults are beginning to question the moralistic therapeutic deist framework, it still remains the dominant form of religious practice:

With Soul Searching, you found that most U.S. teens are Moralistic Therapeutic Deists (MTD). They believe in a benevolent God unattached to a particular tradition who is there mostly to help with personal problems. Are emerging adults still MTDs?

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is still the de facto practiced religious faith, but it becomes a little more complicated for emerging adults. They have more life experience, so some of them are starting to ask, “Does MTD really work? Isn’t life more complicated than this?” MTD is easier to believe and practice when you are in high school.

It’s good that today’s young adults are questioning popular religion, but the majority still practice their faith within a moralistic therapeutic framework.  By “the de facto practiced religious faith” Smith means the “cultural Christianity” of North America - the pop Christianity of both Church and culture - not found in all churches but certainly preached and practiced in many.  Moralistic therapeutic deism is the default framework through which Christians interpret their lives and their faith.

So what is “moralistic therapeutic deism”?  (These are my thoughts, not Smith’s; I’m trying explain his terminology in terms of what I see in the culture.)

Moralistic: religion is basically about being a good person.  This could be taken in a number of directions. For example, a moralist religion might envision God as rewarding “good Christians” for their good actions.  Moralism might support the popular notion that people who are basically good are going to go to heaven.   This doesn’t mean that young adults believe in absolute moral standards.  They are more likely to think of morality in relative terms, as this recent Knights of Columbus poll of Catholic millenials shows (82% say morals are relative).  Yet somehow “being a good person” remains the foundation of religious practice, even while a plurality of competing moral visions are accepted.

The problem with moralism is not that it supports a moral vision, but that it makes morality the foundation of religion, rather than the saving action of God in Christ.  Salvation includes transformation, and of course it includes moral transformation.  But our moral behaviour is the result of God’s action. God’s action does not come in response to our moral behaviour. 

Therapeutic: religion takes on the form of pop psychology.  In other words, God is there to “help me get through my day.”  Or, God is there to help me “reach my potential,” and “become a better me.”   Religion as therapy is about personal fulfillment, and having “my needs” met.   God is domesticated and placed “at our service” as we journey on the road to personal “success” - whether that be in business, family life, or becoming a good religious person.  This kind of therapeutic Christianity often takes the form of psychological strategies or practical “life skills” by which we can attempt to manage our personal lives.

As an aside, I should say that I do think salvation has a “therapeutic” dimension, but not in the contemporary psychological sense of therapy.  John Wesley’s soteriology is often described as “therapeutic” as opposed to merely “forensic.”  This means that he saw salvation as entailing a process of healing as well as a declaration of justification.  Salvation is not simply about being declared righteous in Christ, but about being conformed to his likeness and renewed in the image of God.  This includes the re-directing of our desires toward their intended godly ends.   The key difference here is that the “therapy” in this case is christologically determined, and not based on a program of “self-fulfillment.”  In fact, “self-fulfillment” would be the opposite of the divine therapy that the Spirit works in conforming us to Christ’s likeness.  My daily “needs” are not necessarily right and good.  The things I think I “need” may in fact be deadly poison.  So the gospel doesn’t meet my pre-conceived needs; the “medicine” it provides also tells me what my true sickness is.  God’s mercy never comes independently of his judgment.

Deism: Moralistic therapeutic deism involves a “generic” concept of God, unattached to a particular religious tradition (this is not the same as the deism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries).  MTDs believe there is a God, and he is benevolent and involved in creation, indeed he’s involved in the everyday ins and outs of our lives.  But he’s a bit fuzzy around the edges.  He’s the nice old guy in the sky. In other words, this deism is a far reach from the historic Christian proclamation of the particular God revealed in Biblical history.

I think we need to be constantly challenging this framework. Precisely because moralistic therapeutic deism is “the de facto practiced religious faith,” we need to hear again and again that it is not the historic Christian gospel.   People come to their faith with this basic framework already in place, and if it isn’t challenged it will remain in place.  If we know that moralistic therapeutic deism is the default religion of North Americans, and we know that it is contrary to basic aspects of the gospel, how can we not respond by challenging these default assumptions? Worse, if we tailor our preaching to moralistic therapeutic deism (which I think we often do, unwittingly), we perpetuate a vision of Christianity which is, in my view, foreign to the biblical message.

James Pedlar is a doctoral student at Wycliffe College, in the Toronto School of Theology.  He specializes in the study of the Church - especially questions involving reform movements, Christian unity, authority structures, and ecumenical dialogue.  He is also interested in Wesleyan theology, Salvation Army theology, and the theology and practice of worship. James works part-time as Assistant Coordinator of Faith & Witness at the Canadian Council of Churches.   He recently completed a two year research project on young adult attrition for The Salvation Army in Canada and Bermuda, which you can read about here.   Before that he was Community Ministries Director for The Salvation Army in the Quinte Region of Ontario, Canada.  James is married to Samantha and they live in East York.  You can read his blog here

The Saddest Thing I’ve Ever Heard

by Geoff Ryan

When the news first broke in the press it was as if a scab had been ripped off society’s façade, exposing the raw and rotting flesh just underneath. It was one of those moments in which we found ourselves face-to-face with the sordid tackiness of popular culture and its perverse craving for recognition and fame. God allows these moments so we can see clearly, if even for a minute in time, through the darkened and cloudy glass.

The shamelessness of a culture without shame who, unlike Adam and Eve, don’t know or care enough to cover up when God comes around (or anyone else for that matter) all the while standing in the middle of the paved parking lot of a Wal-Mart believing it is paradise.

We all somehow understood that the protagonists had acted instinctively, in reflex obedience to their baser natures - like animals that rut in season, drink out of any old water hole when thirsty and kill unreflectively when hungry. In their indifference to depth and substance and headlong embrace of everything shallow, in the violations they visited on their bodies in the pursuit of beauty….where were their souls?

He was Canadian, another unusual twist as Canadians rarely ever get the “hardcore” thing down, congenitally shying away from excess, held back by a historical residue of British reserve. He had been an entry level minor celebrity, “starring” in a couple of low-budget reality TV shows, something to do with money and marrying, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. He was also rich, a millionaire’s son from Calgary, a recent boomtown of oil and construction money that spawned a new generation of nouveau riche elevated up the food chain by the sweat of brigades of Newfoundland serfs.

She was American, meaning she could get as down and dirty, tacky and classless as possible and as Canadians we would have no problem believing such debasement (one manifestation of our national insecurity complex is to always believe the worst of our neighbours to the south). She had been working in a strip club when they met, aspiring to be an actress, model and movie star…this century’s banal trinity of insignificance. Cosmetically she had put herself through numerous alterations, rebooting her body and features so frequently she ended up looking computer generated. Whatever the childhood abuses, insecurities and genetic fault lines of character that drove her in this direction, when looking at her the one word that would not come to mind is “natural”. I found it near impossible to see her as someone’s daughter or even a real person.

He looked handsome in a bunch-of-guys-in-a-sports-bar kind of way. Thick hair, full lips, the hooded eyes of a spoiled child who made the football team at high school but warms the bench more than he plays. Had he lived, he would have run to fat. There was nothing kind in his face, no impulse other than getting his share, little of anything beyond himself.

The World, in a manner of speaking, first became aware of this Greek tragedy when it came out that she had disappeared and he was on the lam, suspected of visiting foul play on her.

They found her in a dumpster and him hanging in a motel room. He had killed her and then himself. Her body was so badly mutilated the only way she could be identified was because of the serial numbers on her breast implants.

That is the saddest thing I have ever heard.

You can’t make this stuff up. The myriad metaphors jostle for a place amid the subtexts. Even the dullest mind can connect the dots on this one and recognize the parallelisms and analogies. Referencing the dark side of the American Dream is clichéd, but that’s OK because we understand this story to be a series of poorly acted out clichés. Though it is unkind to speak ill of the dead, and certainly of the living, the lives of these two were clichés. Their short lives were so poorly lived they can’t even be used as a cautionary tale to warn teenagers. Not even an eight year old would be so seemingly unwise.

All I know is I can’t get the image of those serial numbers out of my mind. A young woman, a girl a few years older than my daughter and yet someone’s else’s daughter, a person created in the image of God, marked with a divine spark, known and loved even as she was being created in her mother’s womb….put out with the trash, left in a dumpster.

Jesus called Zaccheus by name as if to say: “I see you, I recognize you, I know who you are”. This girl was so disfigured and damaged that a positive identification could only be made by the serial numbers printed on the pieces of plastic she implanted in herself to make her breasts bigger. That was what the man who killed her saw when he looked at her. It was what every man saw when they looked at her. In life she wanted her name to be known, in death she had to settle for a number. A Jew in an oven with a number on her arm, a faux Barbie doll in a dumpster with a number on her breasts - are such tragedies equal in the mind of God? Without diminishing the horror of the Holocaust, can one speak of a new Holocaust quietly, but no less systematically being visited upon the girls and women of the world?

Is this what we do to our women in this culture? We pride ourselves on our enlightened attitude over those who insist their women cover their God-given appearance…all the while cutting open, rearranging, modifying and then fully unclothing and uncovering and exposing our women to everyone who wants to gawk at them.

I try to think of what I was like on the day she was born, her Point A. The dumpster and the coroner’s cutting table was her Point B. How does a child of God get from Point A to Point B, in this case? Did she start out much like my daughter? I see my daughter in this girl, forcing myself to do so. Do I see myself in this man? How culpable am I, how complicit, how compromised by accepting the quiet depravities that subtly erode a healthy perspective on women?

Am I too just following orders?

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.

An Earth-Shattering Event

After hundreds of years of removing the apocalyptic genus from some of the obvious apocalyptic teachings of Jesus, it can be difficult for some Christians to accept correction. But, regardless of one’s personal sensitivities, placing Jesus’ words within their proper Jewish type is important and must be exercised by those who are given the purpose of breaking the bread of life.

Jesus’ own understanding of the end of the world was undergirded with an eschatology that expected an immediate change in the worldview of Israel that would come about within a generation (s. Matthew 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32).

Scholars, in the past, have made the claim that, because the universe did not experience a cataclysmic change, Jesus was proved to be wrong about his apocalyptic prediction. Others have claimed that, because Jesus’ prediction did not come true, his reference to “this generation” must have had a different meaning. But the apocalyptic language, which Jesus used, was not literal: it was highly figurative as is common within apocalyptic genres of speech.

Mark 13:24-6 exemplifies Jesus’ Jewish use of just such a genre. Jesus says that after the tribulation, ‘the sun will be darkened, the moon will not shine its light, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers in heaven will be shaken’. As is the case in many teachings of this passage, many assume an “end-of-the-world” eschatological reference. But in this passage, we are actually reading the words that were typical among ancient Jewish teachings when referring to a horrible event. As N. T. Wright states, it is the same kind of reference that Americans may use when we say an event is “earth-shattering.”

Jesus is predicting the end of the common understanding of Israel’s role and worldview within their own time. The destruction of the Temple and the coming slaughter of the Jews by the Romans, which will include a change in the mindset of God’s children from those who destroy their enemies with the sword to those who love their enemies into God’s Kingdom through peace and community, will indeed be an earth-shattering experience for the Jewish leadership.

The Babylon of Jesus’ day is not Rome, but the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. The enemy of God’s people is not a nation, but its own hard-hearted, blind, and def priestly class. It is not an enemy outside of the people of Israel, but Israel itself who is the enemy of God’s purposes in Jesus’ day. To learn that a nation is the enemy of itself is undeniably a cataclysmic awareness when that kind of knowledge is discovered.

The leaders of the Temple could not hear Jesus’ warnings, nor were they able to see that God had revealed His plan and persona in the form of a Jewish Rabbi whose message was insulting to those who had placed their confidence in their own wisdom and the swords with which they trusted to free themselves from their current exile.

Upon Jesus’ resurrection, the son of man did come (or go, as is the dual meaning of the Greek word ἔρχομαι) in clouds with power and glory. Here again, the clouds are not meant as the literal, physical gathering of condensation in the atmosphere that surrounds the planet. Such pictures were used in times before aeronautics to refer to unreachable heights that exemplified the positions of royalty. Upon Jesus’ resurrection God was pleased to give him the Throne of Heaven.

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phi 2:9-10 NIV).

When Jesus was seen, after the resurrection, as the One who had risen from the dead, he was being seen as sitting on the highest place of honor, the throne of God.

It is comforting to know that Jesus is the God of the universe, who is revealed by his faithful followers as higher than any current position of authority in our known world. No national leader can claim the clouds, the highest throne in the universe, as his or her seat.

May we all recognize, like the blind and deaf of the leadership of first century Israel, that we can easily become our own enemies. And may we not resist this awareness, but escape the exile of our own imprisonment, be free from the tyranny of self, and give ourselves to the sovereignty of Christ’s Holy position as God of all.

In His dust,
Johnny

Works Cited:

N. T. Wright Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).

Richard Bauckham Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008).

Writer: Capt. Jonathan Gainey was born in Jacksonville, FL in June, 1969. He has been married to Staci, the daughter of retired Salvation Army officers, for twenty years and they have four children ages 18, 16, 12, and 4. Jonathan was commissioned as an officer in June of 2002, and is currently serving in his third appointment in New Bern, NC, USA. He is working on a Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is the creator and manager of the Flocks Diner website, where his passion for learning and teaching is expressed and shared through writing and a weekly podcast.

© 2010 Jonathan P. Gainey and Flock’s Diner.  All Rights Reserved

With God on our side

 Part two of a look at the Handbook of Doctrine’s teaching on the sacraments by James Pedlar 

A second, more obvious change in the 2010 Handbook is the addition of a claim that the Army’s non-observance of sacraments is the result of a specific, divine, prophetic calling.  For the most part, this change was accomplished by simply adding material that wasn’t included in Salvation Story (see the chart Comparison of Salvation Story and Handbook of Doctrine on Sacraments).   

The only existing sentence from Salvation Story that was altered to reflect this idea of a divine calling is the following (my emphasis): 

Salvation Story: “Early in our history, The Salvation Army chose not to observe specific sacraments as prescribed rituals.”

Handbook of Doctrine: “Early in our history, The Salvation Army was led of God not to observe specific sacraments, that is baptism and the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, as prescribed rituals.”

The significance of changing the wording from “chose” to “was led of God” hardly needs to be pointed out.  It follows from this that the Handbook stresses the permanence of this decision as a matter of obedience to God:

“The Salvation Army is a permanent witness to the Church as to the possibility, and practicability, of sanctification without formal sacraments…This ongoing commitment to model the conviction that ‘no particular outward observance is necessary to inward grace’, demonstrates obedience to a specific calling to a distinctive and prophetic role within the Church.” 

This is an enormous claim, and it needs to be thought through carefully.  In the spirit of furthering discussion on this topic, I’d like to raise a few questions that come to my mind when considering this idea that Salvationists have a divine vocation to non-observance of the sacraments. 

1.  On what ground can a claim to a specific divine calling to non-observance of the sacraments be established?  If God’s name is going to be invoked as a support for the Army’s position, the Army should have some clear and decisive authority on which to build its case.  According to doctrine #1, scripture is the only such authority.  Salvationists cannot directly support this claim with scripture (recall that the specific claim we’re discussing here is that Salvationists have a special divine calling to non-observance). To put this matter in a nutshell: If the Army’s position is biblical, then it is not specific to the Army, and no one should observe sacraments.  If it is not biblical…well then we’d have to look at other sources of authority.   

What does tradition say?  Again, there is little support there, unless you are talking about “Salvationist tradition” only (or appealing to the Quakers, as Salvationists sometimes do).  But we can’t restrict “tradition,” as a theological authority, to our own denominational history.   

What about Christian experience?  Perhaps this is where the strongest case might be made for the Handbook’s claim, but it would really be a claim which rested on experience alone. I think this is what Shaw Clifton means when he appeals to “God’s ways and dealings with us.”  He is talking about the Army’s “collective experience” - the fact that God has been present and blessed the Army in its history of non-observance - and using that as a support for the Army’s practice and theology.  So the question becomes, is the Army’s collective experience a sure enough footing on which to lay claim to a specific divine calling to non-sacramental worship?  If our answer is yes, that leads to my second question. 

2. Can other Christian traditions use the same logic to justify their positions on the sacraments?  To take an extreme opposite case, can Roman Catholics justify their own sacramental theology on the basis of their history - their “collective experience” - and the ways in which God has been present amongst them in their spiritual practices?  If God’s presence among us, and God’s blessing of our ministries, is taken as an indication as to the correctness of our theological convictions, then we end up in the awkward situation where God is simultaneously affirming contradictory sacramental theologies (unless we want to be sectarian and deny that God is blessing others who have differing theological convictions - but the Army has always opposed sectarianism).   

3.  How do we account for both the divine and human elements at work in the history of the Army?  Salvationists are not shy about claiming that “God raised up the Salvation Army.”  In my opinion, the Handbook’s treatment of this issue highlights the theological questions that arise when we start to apply this idea to specific issues.  I believe that The Salvation Army was “raised up by God.”  However, I believe there were a lot of human forces at work as well! Sometimes we can’t completely disentangle the two, and this is reason to be modest in making claims about the specific ways in which God was at work.  My final question follows from this:  

4.  What does it mean to say that the Army was “led of God” to not observe the sacraments?  I mean, what kind of historical evidence would lead us to this conclusion?  Most of us are aware of William Booth’s seemingly provisional and tentative statements on this matter. It seems to me that the idea of a specific divine calling was something which emerged later in Army history - a gradual realization, over time.  And if so, we are back to the question of the weight of “collective experience” as a theological authority. 

I don’t doubt that God has been with the Army throughout its history, but personally, I don’t believe that this is a sure enough footing on which to make the claim that the Army’s non-observance of the sacraments is the result of a specific, divine, prophetic calling.  In my opinion, bringing God into the debate in such a direct way requires more substantial, authoritative support.

James Pedlar is a doctoral student at Wycliffe College, in the Toronto School of Theology.  He specializes in the study of the Church - especially questions involving reform movements, Christian unity, authority structures, and ecumenical dialogue.  He is also interested in Wesleyan theology, Salvation Army theology, and the theology and practice of worship. James works part-time as Assistant Coordinator of Faith & Witness at the Canadian Council of Churches.   He recently completed a two year research project on young adult attrition for The Salvation Army in Canada and Bermuda, which you can read about here.   Before that he was Community Ministries Director for The Salvation Army in the Quinte Region of Ontario, Canada.  James is married to Samantha and they live in East York.  You can read his blog here