Over at the Journal of Aggressive Christianity there is an excellent article from Captain Geoff Webb called “Time to grow up?” which was orginally published in the Australian OnFire publication.
Having just read this for a second time in only a couple of days, I’ve got to say that it is one of the best articles I’ve read for ages.
In particular, especially off the back of current discussions on cultural relevance, it’s interesting to see Captain Webb’s thoughts around relevance/identity.
Those at the ‘relevance’ end of the continuum, including neo-Salvationists, argue we can afford to sacrifice anything relating to ‘forms’ that gets in the way of relevance.
By contrast, those at the ‘identity’ end—including traditional Salvationist voices and primitive Salvationist voices—contend we need to remain true to our past, and that it is often very difficult to separate form from essence.
Can these two ends ever be reconciled and co-exist peacefully within The Salvation Army as a whole? Whilst they may currently, a lot of work will need to be done in order to avoid an irreconcilable split at some future date. It is also possible that in some places this split is already close at hand.
What musn’t be forgotten in the debate is that the views of all sides are valid expressions of belief on the part of the people who hold them. Many on each extreme are operating within what has come to be called “Salvationist DNA” and our inability to se that is more to do with form of which Webb speaks than it is essence. We must be aware of this and always act in love when finding our way through the differences.
A good few weeks ago in our small group we were looking at Jesus’ prayer in John 17
. One area we particularly concentrated on were verses 14-19. Over the last few weeks I’ve been turning these over, on and off, in my mind.
These words where Jesus basically prayers for his disciples to be filled with holiness so that they can survive in the world are so powerful. The normal reaction to a world full of sins is to retreat into a Christian sub-culture where we can be safe amongst like minded people. Yet Jesus clearly says that he has sent his disciples into the world. He came from Heaven to live amongst sinful man and immersed himself into 1st Century Jewish culture. He didn’t seperate himself and live within a little sub-culture all of his own.
In an earlier post I mentioned that my Dad recalls the Army of his youth. He also recalls his Army friends who were thrown out of the band for going to a football match because this was ‘of the world’. Why did we put these sorts of rules in place? Why did we take ourselves away from places where we could meet with the very people who need salvation?
It feels as if we can be so frightened of the world that we don’t believe that our God is greater than the false gods of the world!
There is a growing tendency today to retreat from the world. This is to some extent what the growth of fundamentalism in all areas is about. It sees the rapid change that is going on around us and retreats into what is known best. Thankfully this isn’t too evident amongst the more passionate amongst us. However in some places home schooling is prevalent to avoid children from Christian families being subject to the ‘inherent evil’ in the school system. More and more Christian music, books, videos, even computer games are produced (much of it extremely mediocre or even based on suspect theology) in order to supply the need for the Christian sub-culture.
Do we turly have such a small picture of God and the strength that come through His Spirit, that we have to hide ourselves away to avoid the arrows of the evil one? Could it be that we are exchanging the Armour of God that was so effective for our forebears with an impenetrable fortress that offers total safety?
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