Pilgrim Soldier

If you look around The Salvation Army’s blogging community there is a great deal of talk about Holiness and Righteousness. This is of course to be expected given the Army’s roots in the Holiness movement and the often lamented lack of good holiness teaching in today’s Army. For me though there is a real problem in a lot of the views that are being expressed.

The first view seems to be that the central problem with Holiness in The Salvation Army is due to our failure to put aside sin. Regardless of what else this particular camp says it always comes back to our problem being Sin. Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for us as Christians not sinning, but I think the emphasis is in the wrong place. If we focus on our sin as being the problem and teach accordingly, what comes out can be seen as incredibly judgemental and can elicit the “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” type of response from those who hear the message.

The second view, and contrasting view, appears to be focused far more on what we should be doing. Holiness wrapped up in community, righteousness being displayed through justice issues and similar thoughts. Again, this is something I believe strongly in and know that the Bible teaches. The danger is though that we end up concentrating on doing stuff and in many ways this has been part of the cause of the falling standard of Holiness teaching. The Salvation Army has been so busy trying to live out the practical side of the Gospel that in some places the spiritual core has disappeared.

The problem is that both these sides of the coin are missing the real point. Holiness is not about not sinning and its not about being in community. Holiness is more about constantly living in the love of God. That means for me Holiness is better worked out from Jesus’ instructions found in the greatest commandment “The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:29-30

If we spend our lives with this goal as our focus then everything else slots into place. It’s about keeping our eyes focussed on the Lord and coming before His throne each and every day.