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A Holiness movement?
by
Commissioner Wesley Harris
IT IS often claimed that the Army is a ‘holiness movement’ and
no doubt an emphasis on the preaching and teaching of the
Wesleyan doctrine of holiness was characteristic of our early
days. The word ‘holiness’ was often on our lips. We spoke of
holiness meetings, holiness songs and the holiness table, for
example. Now at the grass roots the word seems to have dropped
out of the Army vocabulary.
Of course in words as in clothes there are fashions which tend
to change. So is it just the word ‘holiness’ which has lost
its appeal? Do we have ‘holiness teaching’ under a different
name? Has the greater open-ness to the ways of the wider
Church (through Church Growth teaching, for example) caused us
to leave our characteristic emphasis behind? I only ask.
Many corps now only have one meeting on a Sunday so that the
message may have become more diffused rather than dealing with
the specifics of salvation or holiness. We have our Brengle
Institutes often with first class teaching but how much
percolates down to corps? Who can tell? Army leaders and
others encourage holiness teaching through our literature, so
what more can be done? That is a challenge for us all.
The Army began as a somewhat outlandish expression of
Christianity and adopted strange methods and means of reaching
people for Christ. But our methods of witnessing were under
girded by the credibility of our comrades. People might not
have fancied our way of doing things but they could not deny
the radical change in the lifestyle of our converts. ‘Holiness
unto the Lord’ was not only written in the Bible it was like a
watermark in the lives of the people called Salvationists. The
kind of life proclaimed in the open-air and holiness meeting
on Sunday was demonstrated in the factory or mill on Monday.
Please God that will always be the case!
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