Pilgrim Soldier

Martin Luther King jr once wrote:

“There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide. and gladiatorial contests.

“Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Par from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.”

Letter from a Birmingham Prison - 19 April 1963

In my understanding of The Salvation Army, this is what we were in the early days. Certainly when we marched into a new place in those days we were seen as a threat by those in authority. Now we hear of countries requesting our presence because of our good works and few who would try to throw us out because of the way we threaten their often oppressive authoritarianism.

We pray so often “on Earth as it is in Heaven” yet so often the Church’s response is to try to take the world’s values and impose them on the Kingdom of God here on Earth. I want to be part of a church that brings in a “Colony of Heaven” in the community that He has placed me. The only way I can do that is to galvanise people to rediscover the thermostatic role of the Church and start raising that spiritual temperature.

Let’s throw out the status quo and start disturbing the peace!