Pilgrim Soldier

Over at the ArmyBarmy blog (see Saturday 19th January 2008 entry) Captain Stephen Court says that we need to ensure that we:

assert a healthy SALVATIONIST culture and CHANGE the national culture

rather than adopting too much of a culture that is similar to the mainstream churches that most of the population have switched off to. I would tend to agree!

The problem is that too much of what many perceive to be Salvationist culture is actually a hindrance to the gospel in some places. We have fixated on certain early techniques and maintain them today, even when they are demonstratively ineffective today. There seems to be a belief, in some circles, that changing the way we do things in order to be more effective in today’s culture is tantamount to abandoning our cultural heritage.

Let’s think though what our true heritage is. Firstly, it is an openness to the leading of the Spirit. The reason that the early Salvation Army was so effective was that we were led by the Spirit. There was an openness that seems to have been replaced with a closed mind. The second aspect of our heritage was our openness to adopt things from the culture we were in and ‘redeem’ them. So we see people writing Christian lyrics to music hall songs, and those arriving in non-British cultures attempting to live in culturally relevant ways. There are more elements to our heritage of course, but these two are some of the main reasons we were so effective.

This is the wonder of the transformational power of the Gospel. If we are led by the Spirit and through him act in ways that redeem culture then the Kingdom will be seen at work in our lives, and that in turn will make our witness more attractive.