Evolving spiritual concepts?

Have we seen, within the ‘movement’ an evolution of thought regarding the Holy Spirit?

The classic ’second blessing’ of holiness, a process we’ve believed to commence with regeneration by the Holy Spirit, purported that there was to be a big Cecil B de Mille moment . The penitent would be spiritually zapped and come to a fuller, deeper state of holiness when the Holy Spirit ‘fully entered’ a person’s life.

I would suggest that a more recent Salvationist process of thought, perhaps not formally recognised as a theological school, but influenced by more recent theological expressions, has seen the Holy Spirit’s indwelling as a gradual, constant process. That process is not necessarily accompanied by ecstatic, epiphanal visitations, or Hollywood-intense realisations of the Spirit’s presence and power. (Pundits may want to consider Seven Spirits, perhaps pp 30, 95.)

In the 1960s, debatably, Salvationists began their first efforts to recapture the mission and urgency of the Army. At the risk of ‘Founder worship’, writers such as Barnes examined Booth’s writings and recorded his convictions of the Spirit’s empowering: in the assurance of salvation brought by the ‘witness of the Spirit’ in our lives.

The purity of living we pursue can be experienced through the empowerment of the individual by the Holy Spirit. The spiritual training we can give our children and fellow Salvationists through Spirit-led ministry can be effective beyond our subcultural comfort zone and our rite of passage conga lines. We can have a genuine effect and impact on the ‘unchurched’, genuinely befriending them and sharing their lives, while remaining true to God. (Consider The Founder Speaks Again, pp 25, 30, 135 and 71.).

In 1986 John Larsson, feted and fated to become the Chief of the Staff /2IC and then most ‘empowered’ person in the Army as General, wrote a slim volume about Jesus entitled The Man Perfectly Filled With The Spirit. Importantly, Larsson reaffirmed the indwelling of the Spirit as ‘the birthright of every Christian’ (base of p 6). In the Church fathers’ footsteps, Larsson goes so far as to try and quantify the veracity of Christian experience in terms of whether or not they possess God’s Spirit (p 7).

We have always recognised God the Holy Spirit’s mystery (the “old” Handbook of Doctrine, p 130). Perhaps at times we have come close to grieving the Spirit corporately (ibid, pp 65, 74)

What’s the current perspective on the Spirit and our place under the Spirit’s leading and conviction?

The Salvation Army’s Australia Southern Territory, for example, tries to do four things (not necessarily in this order): make disciples, reform society, care for people and transform lives. Big, worthy goals; ideas that need God’s power. The territory used to, in a more longwinded and less ambitious expression, aspire to: ‘[seek] to be a growing, loving community of people dynamically living God’s mission in a broken world’.

The call to its soldiers was ‘to be: wholly devoted to God; obediently responsive to the Holy Spirit; powerfully committed to each other; passionately engaged with people in need; and totally dedicated to reaching people with the good news of Jesus Christ.’

Modern approaches by many Salvationists attempt to look at life, ministry and mission in more holistic terms, balancing (as did pioneer Salvationists) a desire to communicate God’s plan of redemption with a temporal redemption from the miseries that bind us to self-medicating or damaging situations, lifestyles and behavioural patterns - things that hurt ourselves and others. Those harmful things may include unemployment and poverty, spiritual and physical hunger, substance abuse or addiction, loneliness, anomie and apathy.

The books of the New Testament and the experience of committed Christians since Pentecost suggest to us that the Spirit can work in all situations, through his own intervention and through the lives of Spirit-filled believers.

As the early Salvationists taught and believed - and professed to experience - God the Holy Spirit makes us able to live holy lives. The telling aspect to this is what we mean by the word ‘holy’ (we do, after all, identify ourselves as a somewhat activist expression of a holiness movement). Perhaps the best understanding of a state of holiness could be described as ‘loved of God but not yet fully of God; perfectly forgiven but not perfectly empowered’.

Our mortality gives God the Holy Spirit the capacity to indwell, and a fair amount of work to do when He does so!
Some modern Salvationists point out that God’s mission, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is always in play, always at work in the church and in the world beyond the church (indeed, sometimes in spite of the church). One deep thinker in the Australia Southern Territory, Dr Craig Campbell, once suggested that mission, understood as being God’s prerogative and occurring in God’s timing, ‘flows naturally from who we are in God’ (the defunct Pulse magazine, Autumn 2000, p 5).

Thus, if Brengle’s spiritual successors have it right, the Spirit is at work in the lives of all people everywhere, but specifically the Spirit moves and breathes His will and power into willing, obedient Christians. Campbell urged Salvationists at the time - and I believe the call is still valid today - to discern ‘where God is inviting us to be with Him, discern the points of shared value with the cultures that surround us and the “grace experiences” where He is already at work’.

That perspective, pursuing the mission Dei (mission of God) as already present in God’s creation, takes the theological heat and mystical perplexity out of any discussion of the extent and nature of the Spirit’s presence (to what extent does the Holy Spirit visit us at conversion, how does our spirit commune with the divine spark of the Holy Spirit, how can ’self-control’ be a gift of the Spirit, is there a second blessing etc?) and points us to God’s will for us and his purpose for our lives.

We recognise that his omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent sovereignty is far beyond our capacity to fathom. Ultimately, the kinds of introspective theological questions raised above are not the questions we need to address. God’s wisdom from above, his higher ways, are beyond us. But, thank the Lord, He promises to give us His grace through the Spirit. And He expects us to share it with others.

Booth’s grasp of the doctrine of atonement (a doctrine he took quite literally with fulfilled expectations of biblical promises of heaven’s storehouses being opened) relied on the Holy Spirit acting through human agency (The Founder Speaks Again, p 14).

Do we still feel a need to atone? Do we struggle to explain the need for redemption to people outside of the church’s walls? Or do we share as the Spirit leads, pointing to life’s hurts, disappointments and crises as proof of the need for a loving saviour?

Writer: Barry Gittins is a Melbourne-based writer, lifelong Salvationist, husband (to Trudy) and father(to Emily and Benjamin) who seeks God in everyday encounters. A frustrated poet and playwright, he has worked for the Salvos’ Australia Southern Territory in various roles since 1991: as a journalist (for Warcry, The Young Soldier/Kidzone, The Musician),technical writer and CD-ROM author in corps program (mission development), senior review editor (Warcry) and editor (On Fire). He currently works as a social program and policy consultant (writer/researcher) for the social program department.

Earthen Vessels

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

When the new Handbook of Doctrine came out, I was interested to see what had been done with Salvation Story’s appendix on the sacraments.  While neither book spends much time on the topic, the 2010 Handbook offers an expanded and revised discussion of the Army’s sacramental theology.  Since both texts are available as pdfs, I was able to easily construct the following chart, which places the two texts side by side, and shows where material has been removed, changed, or added comparison-of-salvation-story-and-handbook-of-doctrine-on-sacraments. I put the chart up on my blog , and got back some interesting comments.   

I’m not going to make note of every way in which Salvation Story’s text was changed (you can see that for yourself if you look at the chart), but I’d like to highlight two very significant overall changes.   I’m going to look at questions of divine and human agency in this post, and then move on to discuss the question whether or not TSA can claim a divine calling for its non-sacramental worship in my next post. 

A SHIFT FROM DIVINE AGENCY TO HUMAN AGENCY 

The new Handbook definitely shifts the emphasis from divine agency to human agency in its discussion of sacraments.  Salvation Story is almost enthusiastic in its discussion of the potential sacramentality of all of life.  When reading Salvation Story’s brief appendix, you get the impression that God’s grace is just “out there” in the world - and not in a passive sense. You get the sense that God is searching for us via his creation in ways that we don’t expect.  A sacrament, Salvation Story says, can “overwhelm us with the surprising grace of God;” it “brings the Incarnation to our doorstep”, it “invites us” to encounter the living God in “the ordinary, the common stuff of human existence.”   

As you can see from the attached chart, these phrases were removed from the text of the 2010 Handbook. In place of this dynamic emphasis on God’s agency, the 2010 Handbook emphasizes believers as bearers of sacramental grace to the world.  While Salvation Story says a sacrament “brings the incarnation to our doorstep,” the new Handbook  says a sacrament “enables the believer” to set aside their caution and allow themselves to be transformed.  Instead of stating that Christ “invites us to the sacrament of his life,” the 2010 Handbook says that Christ invites us to “apprehend the ordinary events of his life…in the light of eternal and invisible grace.”   

Maybe the most telling indication of a switch from divine to human agency comes in the sentence where Salvation Story speaks of how our everyday lives “keep stumbling onto unexpected grace.” In the new Handbook this was changed to “our everyday lives reveal and offer unexpected grace” (my emphasis).  Although only three words were switched, the new words completely alter the meaning of the sentence. Salvation Story emphasizes how God finds us in the midst of our lives, and the Handbook emphasizes how we, in our living, display and bring grace to others. 

This shift is capped off by the addition of an entire paragraph which brings home the emphasis on our role as bearers of sacramental grace to others:

“We also recognise that God uses human beings to bring grace to each other. In a similar way to the prophets and apostles, all believers are called to speak on behalf of God by their words and through their lifestyle. The call to holiness of life is a call to sacramental living - demonstrating the grace of God in the ordinary.” 

The new Handbook’s affirmations are certainly true.  God uses his people to bring grace to one another, though acts of service, generosity, and hospitality, through words spoken to one another, through creative arts - in all sorts of ways.  

However, I liked the way that Salvation Story placed the primary emphasis on God as the one who is acting to bring his grace into the midst of human life.  Sacramentality is not primarily about grace’s “demonstration” and “offer” by Christian believers, but about the mysterious way in which God condescends to work through fragile created instruments - not necessarily human beings. When he does demonstrate his grace in our human lives, it may happen in spite of our “lifestyle,” rather than because of it!   

People may think I’m splitting hairs, but I believe we always ought to place a heavier emphasis on God’s giving to us, rather than the ways in which believers embody and bring grace to others.  Our holy living is nothing other than our (grace-enabled!) responsiveness to God’s prior gracious action. God’s grace is made manifest in midst of our world because God is at work, continually intruding upon our daily lives, in spite of the fact that our response to his grace often leaves much to be desired. When our lives do demonstrate his grace, we need to be sure to give him all the glory.

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

HOD Chap 7

… by Jason Davies-Kildea

One of my first tasks in academic theological study was to mark up the Synoptic Gospels, underlining in different colours the corresponding words and phrases in Matthew, Mark and Luke.  I got a Synopsis, a book with the gospel passages reordered and placed side by side to aid comparison, and enthusiastically set to work in order to decode the secrets of the ancient texts.  After time and with practice, patterns began to emerge as shared content, adaptations and additions came to light.  I could see how Matthew had copied and extended Mark’s work and how Luke had edited the material known as ‘Q’ that he shared only with Matthew.  The distinctive ‘voices’ of the individual writers came alive in a new way and revealed new understanding of their own historical contexts.

These days, we might just ask the Gospel writers to use the ‘Track Changes’ feature in Microsoft Word so that their editing processes would be easier for us all to follow.

So, it was with similar enthusiasm that I took to investigating the differences between the new Handbook of Doctrine and its immediate predecessors Salvation Story and the associated Study Guide.  In order to complete my personal historic and hermeneutic circle, I chose the chapter relating to the seventh doctrine and the subject of my Master of Theology thesis, Salvation.

At a structural level, Chapter 7 of the new Handbook of Doctrine extracts and combines material from Chapters 5, 7 and 8 of Salvation Story and then in a separate section under the heading ‘For Further Exploration’, does the same thing with the study guide.  There’s a new introduction and conclusion, as well as a number of changes which generally reflect updates and improvements in the language used.  Have a look at the following paragraphs for example:

Now, clearly we need to be careful not to read too much into the changes.  For example, I don’t think that the removal of the phrase ‘The Holy Spirit gives wise counsel’ symbolises a repudiation of that truth.  I suspect it was just seen as redundant in the immediate context and perhaps old fashioned in its phrasing.  Similarly, the removal of the word ‘precious’ is unlikely to be intended to diminish the example of Jesus.  The substitution of the word ‘bestows’ with ‘gives’ is a helpful move.

So let’s focus on some things that might represent more substantial and meaningful changes.  I approached the passage on Liberation Theology that used to be in the Salvation Story Study Guide with a little trepidation.  Liberation Theology has had more than its fair share of critics but I’ve found much spiritual nourishment and missional inspiration in this theology rooted in the experience of the poor and grounded in hope for their liberation from poverty and oppression.  There seem to be some obvious correlations with the mission of The Salvation Army and I would have been disappointed to see the previous references disappear (minimal though they were).  So, I was pleased to find that not only does this passage still exist in the new Handbook of Doctrine but it contains some helpful clarifications and generally shows clearer phrasing.  An illustrative quote from Leonardo Boff has been substituted with one from Gustavo Gutierrez, but nothing is really lost here.  In fact, Gutierrez’ words about “liberation from sin and from all its consequences: despoliation, injustice, hatred” reminded me of a list penned at the inception of The Salvation Army proclaiming “the salvation of others from unbelief, drunkenness, vice and crime”.  It’s the wide scope of this salvation ‘matching the breadth and depth of human need’ that continues to be rightly emphasised in the updated Handbook.  “Salvation is an individual reality but also has a social context.  It relates to wholeness of life and well-being.  It has to do with material freedoms as well as spiritual ones.  It relates to the healing of communities as well as of individuals.  Jesus came to set us free from all that binds us.” (p.159)

I was also pleasantly surprised to find what seems to be a wholly new paragraph on ‘feminist theological concerns’.  It’s probably too short and therefore overly simplistic, but it’s a start and hopefully we’ll see more on this next time around.

My only real concern is the preponderance of proof-texting.  Almost every sentence in the first section of the chapter has an accompanying Scripture verse to back it up.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for looking to the Scriptures for inspiration and understanding and I do it often.  But pulling individual verses out of context from all over the Bible to illustrate diverse points that have nothing to do with their original meaning doesn’t seem helpful to me.  If there’s one thing I learned from that first colour underlining exercise in the Synoptics it was that context matters.  When we take a verse from one place and put it somewhere else, it can end up looking like it means something quite different indeed.  I understand that the motive behind this is one that deeply respects the words contained in our Scriptures, but the methodology doesn’t reflect anything we’ve learned from critical Biblical studies in the past century or more.

The biggest question about the new Handbook of Doctrine is perhaps the meaning behind the change in structure.  There’s no doubt that the re-ordering of chapters and the combination of materials from previously separate volumes does simplify the task of studying the doctrines.  It may be that some people were confused by Salvation Story as a tool for this kind of study because in some sense it started with Christian theology and then showed how our doctrines fitted in.  It’s because of this that material relating to doctrine seven, for example, appears in three separate chapters in Salvation Story.  I know a number of people that appreciated this approach, which at the time seemed to herald a more progressive way of exploring what Salvationist believe and why.  The new Handbook of Doctrine clearly places our doctrines first and foremost at centre stage.  This very act will open up discussions, like this one, about what this means and the nature of Christian belief today.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s not a bad thing at all.

Writer: Captain Jason Davies-Kildea is currently serving as Social Programme Secretary of the Melbourne Central Division in Australia. He received a Churchill Fellowship in 2006 and travelled to the US, UK and Kenya to look at “models of holistic service, for highly disadvantaged people, which have been established in faith-based communities”. He recently graduated with a Masters in Theology and is now pursuing a Masters in Social Science (Policy and Human Services).  Jason writes periodically on his own blog, which you can find here.

Pastors as “wannabe executives”

by James Pedlar 

One of my favourite contemporary pastor/theologians is Dave Fitch  http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/ who teaches at Northern Seminary and pastors a church plant in Chicago called “Life on the Vine.”  He’s a theologian who’s got his feet firmly planted in the day-to-day realities of church life, and he often provides insightful critiques of contemporary evangelical culture and practice.  

In his book The Great Giveaway, he includes a chapter on “Leadership.” The thesis in this chapter is that the contemporary pastorate has capitulated to models of leadership found in the business world, which are fundamentally oriented toward “effectiveness” in getting results, rather than on faithfulness to Jesus Christ.  This leads to conflict resolution strategies that are high handed and autocratic.  The pastor needs to decide on a solution in order for the ministry to maintain its effectiveness (which usually means numerical growth).   If people don’t get on board, they are standing in the way of the “success” of the ministry. 

I’m really connecting with what Fitch has to say, as it sums up and connects some ideas that have been rolling around in my head for some time.   Most books on Christian leadership are simply parroting the latest trendy ideas from the world of management.   What’s worse is that they throw in the odd scripture verse and “spiritualize” the ideas they’re selling, which means that the pastors who buy this stuff are taking that back to their churches believing that they’ve got divine authority on their side as they try to implement these so-called “biblical” strategies.    

This is an evangelical issue, not just an Army issue, but it seems to me that the Army is as vulnerable as anyone else to being swept away by the latest business trends. Army officers have, on average, a greater responsibility for financial administration than your average evangelical pastor, so they are justified in drawing on business trends in some aspects of their work. 

In fact, I wouldn’t want to say that insights from the business world have absolutely no value.  They might be helpful as tools to aid in Church leadership, if used selectively within a larger biblical and theological framework.  But they should not have the defining role that they have in the contemporary evangelical world.  So whether it’s “mission statements,” “visioning,” “strategic planning,” or more recently, “branding,” churches are embracing contemporary management techniques wholeheartedly as if they were gospel truth.   People who don’t get on board then are “problems” to be managed (at best), or (at worst) hinderances to the Spirit.   If it seems like I’m exaggerating here, I’m not.  I know a person who was told that their practical questions about church finance were “of the devil.”  

For all the diversity of contemporary Western societies, it seems like we’re getting worse at handling conflict in our churches.  Everywhere you look there is a local congregation that is being torn apart by some scandal or another.   Perhaps it is (as Fitch suggests in his book) connected to the individualistic outlook  of modernity, which encourages each one of us to think that we are completely autonomous centres of decision-making power, and that each one of us must arbitrate for ourselves between competing truth claims.   The locus of authority, for modernity, is the reasoning self, and the presumption is that “reason” will lead us to the truth through the exercise of our intellectual faculties.  Of course this is a bit of a caricature, but it pretty much sums up the way things work on a practical level.  And perhaps that has something to do with the interminable splintering of denominations and congregations in modern protestantism.   If we all believe that we ourselves are the final arbiters of truth in matters of dispute, then why would we back down when faced with an opposing view? 

The question is whether postmodern understandings of self, truth, and knowledge move us any closer to a more healthy resolution of these problems.   It would seem that postmodern sensibilities are helpful in de-bunking the conflict-ridden assumptions of modernist epistemology, but not as helpful in offering constructive solutions.    

From most postmodern perspectives, no one person can claim a certain enough hold on truth to impose it upon an entire community.  This means that people of my generation are less likely to get hot under the collar about a dispute within our local church, thinking that we’re the ones who’ve got the “true” answer.  But then again, we might just stop caring at all, and become apathetic in the face of conflict, as it would seem as if no final resolution is possible.  What is needed is a normative standard to replace the reasoning autonomous self.  The standard may not be “universal” in the way that some moderns claimed “reason” was universal, but it can nevertheless be authoritative within the community for whom it is adopted.   

What I like about Fitch’s approach is that he always finds his way back to biblical depictions of church life as the normative standard.   So in this post:  http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/stuck-between-mohler-and-mclaren-the-incarnational-approach-to-leading-in-our-disagreements/ which covers some of the same ground as the chapter on leadership in The Great Giveaway, the answer to conflict in the Church is based on Matthew 18.    

What is shocking about this biblical model is that so few churches actually try to live this out.  We turn instead to the world of management theory and dress it up in spiritual language as if that were the “biblical” way of being Church.  Why is this?  Has the model that Fitch upholds been tried and found wanting?  Not in my experience.  More likely it is the fact that is just plain messy and “inefficient,” and therefore doesn’t fit with the corporate approach to leadership that we’ve embraced.

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

Jesus = God?

Jesus being God has always been a topic of discussion in the world after Jesus. It’s interesting to note that, as a Jewish rabbi, Jesus was accepted as an exceptional teacher by his fellow-Jews. But even those closest to him, including his closest disciples did not fully understand him. This helps us to understand how this subject could be one of serious debate three hundred years after his death and resurrection.

In the fourth century A.D., after Constantine gained power and allowed for Christians to assemble and work out their beliefs, they began to debate the nature of Jesus, his identity, and his connection to God the Father.

There were apposing views and beliefs about the deity of Jesus that actually brought Christians to the point of verbal and physical fights among one another.

To the Jew, the Messiah would not have to be God, but only a person anointed and chosen to lead God’s people. For Jews, King Saul and King David were two messiahs, for they were anointed and chosen to lead God’s people. This should help us to understand why this issue was not a topic of debate until Christianity was firmly in the depths of Western thought (modern scholars are discovering that the deity of Christ was actually accepted even in th first century A.D.).

As differing opinions of who Jesus was as the son of God began to surface, the universal church knew that there was a need to bring a systemized understanding among believers; this task was accomplished through councils. The first council was the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, the second was the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381, the third was the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431, and finally the Council of Chalcedon was held in A.D. 451.

The major subjects of discussion among these councils included their understandings of the Trinity and Christology.

Christ’s deity was a matter of many discussions as some thought Jesus to be subordinate to the Father, while others thought of him as only appearing to be a man. Still others believed that the Christ came upon Jesus at his birth and left him before his death.

In the end, it was decided that God is One in those distinct and separate persons as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

God revealing himself to the world in the form of His son gave the world an opportunity to experience His word clarified through Jesus; God’s ways and will were exemplified as God himself called the world to follow him here on earth.

Jesus says to us,”Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). In this passage Jesus uses the terms “abolish” and “fulfill”, which are used idiomatically in Hebrew as words meaning to “misinterpret” and “clearly interpret”. Jesus came to “clearly interpret” the Word of God, according to the Kingdom of Heaven. There is no clearer interpretation of God’s word lived out than for God himself to live it out before us in the form of his son Jesus.

The four councils from A.D. 325-451 allowed for the leaders of God’s people to articulate the truth of Jesus’ divinity for all of the ecclesia, which was justified by Jesus himself when he gave Peter the “Keys to the Kingdom” and the ability to “bind” and “lose”, more rabbinic idioms, which mean the leaders of the Church have Christ’s support in how they define the rights and wrongs of the Church (see Matthew 16:19). To “bind” and “lose” is literally translated, “to forbid and permit”. The leaders of the Church were given the authority to choose what would be forbidden and permitted as practices of believers; this would include the decision to form a canon (the books that would be included in the Bible).

Understanding that Jesus is God, just as the Father and the Holy Spirit are persons of God, gives us an understanding that the Messiah was more than just a Jewish man anointed and chosen to lead God’s people, as many had been before. But Jesus is God personified, calling himself to the task of leading His people into His Kingdom.

During the councils there were those who relegated Jesus to being less than God or a part of God, as Dr. Garth Rosell says, somewhat like an egg with three distinct parts, which are all part of an egg, but under close scrutiny the different parts of an egg are very different. Jesus is exactly God; He is the perfect image and form of God, not simply a part or portion of God.

He is God incarnate.

In His dust,
Johnny

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.

Officer Morale - What’s wrong?

… asks James Pedlar

For two years I studied the issue of young adult attrition in the Canada and Bermuda Territory. Officership was a frequent topic of conversation as I engaged with current and former young adult Salvationists about challenges that the Army faces in keeping younger people involved.

The young adults I interviewed were issuing a clear call for changes to officership, and it centred around three issues:

First, many were less-than-enthusiastic about going to Training College, based on their impressions of the training experience. The general impression they had was that Cadets were treated like children.

Second, there was a lot of scepticism regarding the effectiveness of the appointment system. People who were potential officers were usually somewhat nervous about entrusting their gifts to the discretion of headquarters.

The third area of concern was the example of officers themselves. These young adults often heard officers complaining about their lives as officers, and it had the effect of giving officership a bad reputation. I don’t think this is unique to young adults. The fact that officers often seem unhappy and frustrated is having a “trickle-down” effect upon the general Army population. If officers are mostly unhappy, who would want to join them? One person I interviewed put the issue in a nutshell: “You don’t hear a lot of officers talk about how wonderful the Army is.”

My study focused only on Canada and Bermuda, but I’d suspect that the situation is quite similar in other Western Territories. Although it is clear that officer morale is a problem, I’ve struggled to put my finger on the real root of the problem. What is it about officership that seems to leave people so frustrated?

Is it the same issues that young adults identified - training and appointments?

I have met a few officers who were, in all seriousness, scarred by their training experience. I met one young officer who compared training college to a concentration camp, where they try to break you down and re-mold you from scratch! I know that this is an extreme description, but on the other hand, it is consistent with what other people say in less sensational ways about officer training.

As for the appointment structure, everyone knows of stories of appointments that were a less-than-ideal fit for both officer and local ministry. Becoming an officer means saying that you’re willing to serve wherever “the Army” sees fit (for “the Army,” read “the appointments board”). This is becoming a tough sell in cultures like Canada, where anything “institutional” is viewed with extreme scepticism. And one can see how resentment and frustration could build in those who feel that they’ve been given the short end of the stick, appointment-wise.

Maybe it’s the compensation system? I know officers in Canada are well cared for, but they don’t have the same kind of freedom as the rest of us do to spend our money as we see fit. Their lifestyle is fixed at a decent level, but they don’t have much disposable income. Does this make people bitter?

Some have suggested that many officers feel trapped - that they get to a certain point in their life and they’d really like to do something else, but the financial and personal costs of leaving are too great, so they just stick it out. Because they’ve got no equity, changing careers in mid life can be difficult, especially if your training is not recognized outside of the Army and/or church world. If it is true that there are officers out there who are just “sticking it out” because they feel trapped, then it’s not surprising that they’d be generally unhappy.

Is it the paperwork? I’ve heard lots of officers complain about the number of forms they are made to fill out by DHQ and THQ. And sometimes these administrative processes can be a bit insulting, as, for example, when an officer who runs a million-dollar a year operation has to get approval for a new stove or couch for the quarters.

Perhaps it’s got nothing to do with the Army at all. Maybe it is the general stresses of ministry that people face in any denomination - unrealistic expectations from their congregations, working long hours, putting up with abuse from people who complain about insignificant issues, and so on. Maybe we would find the same kind of dissatisfaction and frustration among the Methodists or Pentecostals.

Whatever the cause may be, poor officer morale is a serious concern in this Territory, to the point that I’d suggest that any attempts to help improve officer recruitment need to start with improving morale among current officers.

What do you think? Why don’t we hear more officers talking about how wonderful the Army is?

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 Un-Churchable”

St. Patrick’s ministry was considered an outreach to “barbarians” by the Roman Church leaders of his time. To be worthy of receiving the Christian faith, a people first had to be considered civilized to some degree, and upon receiving the faith, they had to be willing to accept “the Roman way” (Hunter, The Celtic Way, p. 17).

The ability to be welcomed into the Kingdom was expected only of the non-barbarians of the world. The Irish who were believed to be uncivilized by the Roman wing of Christianity were considered, to coin a phrase, “Un-Christianable.”

Most established denominations come from Roman or European roots, and most have trouble reaching today’s barbarians. There continues to be a lack of willingness to welcome those who are considered uncivilized and not willing to take on “the Way of the Church.” To be sure, there are some denominations who boast that they are different, and provide a home to those who have no church that will accept them, but in my opinion, that is more lip-service than reality.

Most denominations have trouble welcoming homosexuals (who would come to Church with their ‘mates’), prostitutes (who have no plans of quitting their night job), couples who live together (and have no plans to get married), and, let’s not forget those who come for no other reason than they like the practical teaching of Christianity (but have no plans to “join” the Church).

There are many “barbarians” in our world today, who are not civilized enough, nor are they willing to become “Denominationized” and make themselves able to fit in with the predictable behavior of those to whom the Church finds easiest to minister.

So what to do?

Recognizing that we are all “barbarians” is probably a good beginning (s. Romans 3:23). Secondly, the Church would do well to remember who Jesus spent much of his time with-the twelve not-good-enough’s that no other rabbi would take the time to teach (disciples), and people whom very few, in his time, would even consider inviting to worship (barbarians).

“While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the ‘sinners’ and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and ’sinners’?’ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners’” (Mark 2:15-17 NIV).

Denominational leaders are expected to spend the majority of their time with the “church folk”, as if he or she is the matradee of the civilized and churchized, while the barbarians are ostracized until they are ready to be assimilated into “the Denomination way”, like good little boys and girls.

I know my words may come across as a bit negative, and my intention is not to offend the establishment, but to bring recognition to the truth that many Christians could stand to hear God’s warning and promise in Ezekiel 34:4: “You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally” (NIV).

As George Hunter says so clearly, “…as in the case of the ancient Roman wing of the Church, denominations are still substantially in the hands of the less apostolic wing of the Church, which works overtime to gain and retain institutional control; which assumes it knows best; and which works persistently to impose Roman, European, or other culturally alien forms upon the more indigenous and growing movements within the denomination. This pathology is observed today, for example, in most of the denominations in the United States that were ‘imported from Europe’” (pp. 95-96).

In His dust,

Johnny

Works Cited:

George G. Hunter III The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West… Again (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000).

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.

The Holy Spirit and The Salvation Army

  What, if anything, do Salvationists think or feel about God the Holy Spirit?

Let’s consider the historical roots of Salvationists’ theological grasping after the Holy Spirit. The Salvation Army has always believed in and preached on a personal relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit (p 40, the old Handbook of Doctrine). But we have no specific doctrine addressing the person of the Holy Spirit.

The Salvo doctrines touching on the Holy Spirit, as with all Salvo doctrines, are highly evident as being theologically sound and hailing, via Wesleyan and Arminian lineage back to orthodox Christianity’s origins. 

There is the third doctrine: ‘We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead - the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, undivided in essence and co-equal in power and glory.’ 

The seventh doctrine: ‘We believe that repentance towards God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and renewal by the Holy Spirit, are necessary to salvation.’ 

The eighth doctrine: ‘That we are justified by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and that he that believes has the witness in himself.’ 

The Spirit has particularly been sought through prayer; we plead with the Spirit to ‘indwell’ Salvationists both in their platform/pulpit ministry and in their daily lives.  

William Booth, no scholar but a great ‘practitioner’ who knew how to work a room, sought to establish a vital and compelling ministry that would work on people’s hearts and minds and compel them to make peace with God (General Booth by Railton: pp 40-43).  

He would consequently act like a spiritual berserker at times (ibid: p 42), his outlandishly demonstrative preaching style breaking through people’s formal and respectable ‘defences’.  

Booth believed he was empowered by the Spirit and acted with the strength of that belief. A committed belief in the indwelling of the Spirit, Booth taught his officers, would mean ‘you are full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost, you will have a full measure of salvation’ (Seven Spirits, p 88). That would affect the outcome of public and personal ministry. 

Booth taught his officers that they themselves were responsible for the outcomes under God’s steam, as ‘all this is in harmony with the law laid down by Jesus Christ when he said, “According to your faith be it unto you”‘ (ibid). 
 

Consider Commissioner Brengle’s classic if daggily-titled Love Slaves (for example, pp 70, 71). Brengle was of course one of the Army’s most prominent damage control experts (a ‘putter outer’ of internal arguments and ‘friendly fires’) and perhaps our most respected holiness teachers . To a certain extent we enjoy a legacy of ’seeking after’ holiness - we persist in this organisational quest and conversation - because of Brengle and his peers. We should all doff our caps at the Army’s remaining/surviving (?) spiritual retreats known as ‘Brengle fellowships’. 

Brengle emphasised the need for personal purity (Love Slaves, p 72) and also wrote against the dangers people in ministry encounter from wrongful expressions of their sexuality (pp 61-67, particularly the prophetic example given of the silver-haired American evangelist, p 62). 

Salvationists have traditionally been more comfortable pursuing the fruits of the Spirit rather than the Spirit’s gifts. But there have been experiences of signs and wonders that defy rational thought or conjecture. In particular the supernatural power of the Spirit has been attested to by Bramwell Booth, the Founder’s oldest son and the second international leader of the Army (see Echoes and Memories, p 50). 

I want to put the possibility of levity at ‘witnessing levitation’ aside (one of the high points of Bramwell’s memoirs), and add this disclaimer: I don’t want to sound disrespectful of the guy and his grasp on reality (not intended). But we should be aware that, as well as the reality of political payback on the part of his relative/s and his leadership peers, the second General’s mental and physical health was one of the reasons the High Council got rid of him some few months before he was ‘promoted to glory’  

Salvationists have occasionally issued criticism of other churches for lack of an authentic conversion experience of their congregations. This has been, it has been suggested, due to a lack of pursuing, wrestling and submitting to God the Holy Spirit (see These Fifty Years, pp 64,65). 

But no less an authority than the Founder himself attested to the fact that the gifts of the Spirit, including physical healing, had been enjoyed intermittently ‘in the Army throughout its history’ (Larsson, The Man Perfectly Filled With The Spirit, p 70). 

Obeying the Holy Spirit’s prompting was part of the way Salvationists were taught they would prevail in prayer. Catherine Booth urged her comrades to live in union with Jesus, obey the teaching of the word and the urging of the Spirit, and rely utterly on God (Practical Religion, p 211). 

Perhaps sailing a little close to the notion of a ‘magical formula’ for answered prayer, the historical record of the Army reveals that Salvationists did catch the wind of the Spirit in their sails. 

Evaluating the growth and sustaining work the Spirit undertook in the life of the Army, these words of Catherine Booth ring true for the Army of her day and challenge Salvationists in this era: 

‘God must be true; and if your experience contradicts the sure word of promise, you may be certain that it is your experience [read personal experience here] which is at fault. Examine yourself. Repent, and do your first works. He is faithful and just to forgive the sins of His people, and to cleanse them from all unrighteousness. 

‘And then bring all the tithes of a whole-hearted, loving, and believing service into His store-house, and prove him therewith, and see if He will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out such a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.’ 

Do we put up our hand and accept culpability for a perceived lack of spiritual success?  

Are our expectations of God too small?  

Or do we fail to back them up with genuine faith and works? 

Writer: Barry Gittins is a Melbourne-based writer, lifelong Salvationist, husband (to Trudy) and father(to Emily and Benjamin) who seeks God in everyday encounters. A frustrated poet and playwright, he has worked for the Salvos’ Australia Southern Territory in various roles since 1991: as a journalist (for Warcry, The Young Soldier/Kidzone, The Musician),technical writer and CD-ROM author in corps program (mission development), senior review editor (Warcry) and editor (On Fire). He currently works as a social program and policy consultant (writer/researcher) for the social program department.

Scary Statistics and Terrifying Trends!

Steve Court posts some scary statistics and terrifying trends over at http://www.armybarmy.com/blog.html (Aug. 9, 2010). And his accompanying challenge is not only courageous; it’s spot on!

His concluding comment: “The Army is better than this. It deserves better than this. God certainly deserves better than this. If you aren’t uncomfortable reading this post, you should be, so ask the Lord to make you uncomfortable (and to show you what you should do to help)”. Click on over there, check out the numbers, and test your own personal comfort level. 

If you go back into the archives of my blog, “Slightly Irregular” (www.joenoland.blogspot.com), you’ll find posts on this theme, ad nauseam. So, I’ll spare you further comment on my part and share some outside, intelligent, authoritative voices. 

Anne Rice, on her Facebook page, recently announced that she is quitting Christianity. Interviewed, she says in part: “I’ve also found that I can’t find a basis in Scripture for a lot of the positions that churches and denominations take today, and I can’t find any basis at all for an anointed, hierarchical priesthood. So all of this finally created a pressure in me, a kind of confusion, a toxic anger at times, and I felt I had to step aside. And that’s what I’ve done.” The entire interview is worth a read: 

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs-anne-rice-20100807,0,5152082.story 

Leonard Pitts writes brilliantly in his Miami Herald column: “According to a 2008 study by Trinity College, religiosity is trending down sharply in this country. The American Religious Identification Survey, which polled more than 54,000 American adults, found that the percentage who call themselves Christian has fallen by 10 since 1990 (from 86.2 percent to 76 percent) while the percentage of those who claim no religious affiliation has almost doubled (from 8.2 to 15) in the same span…Organized religion, Christianity in particular, is on the decline, and it has no one to blame but itself: It traded moral authority for political power.”

He concludes, “But what of those who are not atheists? What of those who feel the blessed assurance that there is more to this existence than what we can see or empirically prove? What of those who seek a magnificent faith that commits and compels, and find churches offering only a shriveled faith that marginalizes and demeans?

Its response to those people, those seekers, will determine the future of organized religion. And it might behoove keepers of the faith to keep in mind the distinction Anne Rice drew in her farewell: Christ didn’t fail her, she said. Christianity did.” Read more:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/04/1760058/keeping-faith-losing-religion.html 

Phil Wall, insider-outsider, writes in his book I’ll Fight…’ Holiness at War’,

“Secondly, the nature of leadership is changing dramatically in the Western world. To say that top-down hierarchical leadership is dead is an understatement. Current specialists in leadership such as Charles Handy and Professor John Hunt of London Business School, suggest that linear and relational leadership will shape future organisations, and emerging generations will have little attraction to heavy authoritarian institutions.” 

Notice a unifying theme here? 

Can’t resist it. Here’s my slightly irreverent insider’s take (perhaps not as intelligent and authoritative) on it all: http://slightlyirreverent.blogspot.com/2008/12/i-had-dream.html. 

To nudge you over there, here’s a question asked within the post: “Were Jesus here in the flesh today, would He even entertain taking on a title: General Jesus or Pope Jesus or Archbishop Jesus?” 

Writer: Commissioner Joe Noland’s ministry can be summed up in three words: chaos, creativity and controversy - three elements implicit in any successful innovative endeavor. Cecil B. DeMille, renowned producer of Biblical epics, once wrote, “Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.” Joe’s mantra reads, “Creativity is my drug of choice.”  Access Joe Noland’s complete bio, among other things, by clicking into his website.

The Hospital (A parable)

Once upon a time, a group of doctors moved into a new town. They had heard that people were getting sick and no-one would help them get better. ‘This will never do!’ they said, and off they went.

When they got to the town, they realised how big a job they had. There were sick people everywhere-in the streets, in the parks, in the shops, in homes. Concerned, they went to the local hospital, but the doctors there didn’t seem the slightest bit worried about the
situation. ‘No,’ said the Chief Administrator. ‘There aren’t as many sick people in this town as you might think. And anyone who does get
sick wants to be that way.’

Unperturbed, the young group of doctors went out into the street looking for sick people to heal.

At first, people weren’t very happy. ‘If we want to get better,’ they’d say, ‘we’ll come and see you.’ Others would say, ‘I already have my own doctor, thank you very much. I have a check-up every month and everything seems to be okay.’ Yet others would say, ‘I’m not sick, and I would appreciate it if you stopped talking like that around my children!’

Yet the group of doctors worked diligently, and many people were healed. Some of the people who got healed wanted to help other people
who were sick. So they were trained in different jobs. Some became health educators, teaching people how to stay healthy. Some became
nurses. And some even dreamed of becoming doctors and enrolled in the big university in the city.

However, there was a problem. The doctors could only do so much working in people’s homes and in the streets. The health educators
needed a room to put their flip-charts. The doctors and nurses needed private rooms where they could do their consultations. And everyone
agreed they needed a tea room where they could eat their lunch.

After much discussion they realised that what they really needed was a clinic. So they started a huge fund-raising campaign so they could
build one. It wasn’t hard to do-all the people they’d healed were willing to help. A big hospital in another town sent them some money,
and before they knew it, they had a lovely clinic with a big waiting room, a tea room for the staff, and enough stethoscopes for everyone.

The town thought this was great! People came to the clinic from miles around and were healed. They went and got their sick friends who were also healed. Many of those people wanted to learn to look after people, and before long, the clinic was full of people wanting to help
others get better. In fact, the clinic was so full of people there wasn’t enough room for sick people to get in the door!

The doctors had a meeting to discuss the problem. One doctor thought they should open another clinic. Another thought they should close
their books and send people to the old hospital up the road. ‘No,’ said one doctor. ‘Let’s open our own hospital!’

Nobody had thought of that! But they thought through the possibilities. They could do operations! They could open wards for
people who needed to stay a few days! Instead of sending trainee doctors to the city they could train them locally! The health
educators could make their own flip-charts instead of buying everyone else’s!

So once again they started to raise money. Some of the ladies set up a stall and sold doylies and knitted animals. They sold space to
florists and newsagents who wanted to set up shop in the hospital. And instead of buying new sphygmomanometers, they got them donated by sponsors. They had a big raffle, and they had benefit concerts, and before long they had enough money to build the hospital.

The new hospital was a sight to behold. It had a massive foyer with coffee shops and newsagents and florists and restaurants. They had a
huge car park and a bus stop out the front. The operating theatre had lots of machines that went ‘ping!’ The wards were the the cleanest and
shiniest and fanciest any of the doctors could remember seeing.

Most importantly there was a huge Emergency room. It had several ambulances that would rush out at a moment’s notice to bring sick
people back to the hospital. All the best doctors and nurses were stationed in there.

Every floor had a tea room for the staff. The doctors elected the doctor who had had the idea of building the hospital to be the Chief
Administrator. The other doctors all became heads of departments. They made the nurses into matrons and sisters and ward managers. The health educators were given fancy laptop computers and projectors so they didn’t need to use flip-charts anymore.

Everyone got to work. The Chief Administrator held staff meetings every week in the fancy tea room on the top floor. The heads of
department had staff meetings every day to discuss budgets and new ways of doing surgery. The health educators would talk about the new
ways people were getting sick and write grant proposals so the government could fund programs to research ways to help the sickest
people in the community. The nurses would do training courses every week, learning new techniques in infection control and ward organisation.

News of this new hospital went for miles. People would come and take tours to see how it was run. They would marvel at the big tea rooms
and the gymnasium on the second floor. They were full of wonderful phrases like, ‘industry best practice’ and ‘a paradigm example of
mission focussed development, leveraging existing synergies to maximise staff potential thus setting new benchmarks and producing
positive staff/client interactions leading to the achievement of all stipulated outcomes.’

The wards were full of patients. Many of them weren’t even sick-they were just so worried about their health they would come in, just in
case. Some had been near sick people outside the hospital and were worried they might have caught their diseases, so they checked in.
After all, they were told, if your life’s at risk you won’t take chances. Many people were so worried about getting sick they stayed in
the hospital. Some were able to get permanent beds. Others got jobs in the hospital so they never even had to go outside. They could help
sick people by staying right where they were.

After a while the big new hospital started to feel a bit small. They had to expand. The Board of Directors held a meeting to discuss the
options. Someone suggested they open a new hospital. Someone else suggested they get rid of all the healthy patients.

After some discussion they decided that the Emergency room was taking up far too much room and money. So the Board of Directors decided to open a small Emergency room in one of the sicker neighbourhoods in the town. If people got sick they could go there. Once they were a bit
better they might be able to find a place in the hospital. That way no-one would have to worry about sick people coming into the hospital,
and the space saved would make a lovely play area for the children who had been born in the hospital. Whilst doctors might risk being around
sick people, it seemed reckless to expose children to the dangers outside.

The new Emergency room was very popular amongst the people of that neighbourhood, but after a few months the Chief Administrator
discovered that one of the doctors assigned to the Emergency room had sent a newly healed patient to another hospital. That wouldn’t do-that other hospital had female doctors and he wasn’t even sure the health educators were properly qualified! So he immediately shut down the Emergency room, saying that it was better for people to stay sick than receive bad medical advice.

Besides, they didn’t need an Emergency room anyway. After all, keeping people healthy was just as important as getting healthy in the first
place. Sick people could still come to the front door. And everyone agreed that if people were still getting sick it was all their own
fault. So they closed the Emergency room.

One day, the Chief Administrator got a visit from a group of young doctors from another town. They claimed that people in the town were
getting sick, and that they’d like to help out. ‘No,’ said the Chief Administrator. ‘There aren’t as many sick people in this town as you
might think. Anyone who does get sick wants to be that way.’

I think you know the rest of the story.

Writer: Cameron Horsburgh. Along with his wife Trudy, Cameron is the Corps Officer at the Colac Corps of the Australian Southern Territory. They have two daughters, Shekinah (12) and Charis (9). They all look forward to the day when the girls’ schools have enough money to buy all the supplies they needs, but the Navy needs to sell raffle tickets to buy ships.

blog: http://spiritcry.wordpress.com