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Transformations
by
General Paul A. Rader (Ret.) & Commissioner Kay F. Rader
McPherson Lecture - Australia South - August 2010
Transformation for the Salvationist is first about the power
of the Gospel, the promise of real Redemption and the
possibilities of Grace.
It emanates from the Cross Of Christ, his atoning
death, his risen life, his session at the right hand of the
Father, the outpouring of his Spirit, and the promise that at
his coming we will share in his glory.
Whatever and whoever we have been or hoped to be, “Dear
friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has
not yet been made known.
But we know that when Christ appears we shall be like
him, for we shall see him as he is.
All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just
as he is pure” (1 John 3:2,3 TNIV).
That is the ultimate promise of our transformation in
Christ.
Blessèd hope now brightly beaming,
On our God we soon shall
gaze;
And in light celestial gleaming,
We shall see our
Savior’s face.
By the pow’r of grace transforming,
We shall then His image bear;
Christ His promised word
performing,
We shall then His glory share
But not just then.
Even now, writes Paul, “All we, who with unveiled faces
contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being
transformed into
his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the
Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Or as the
Message has it: “All of us!
Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the
brightness of his face.
And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our
lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God
enters our lives and we become like him.”
Indeed every experience God in his wisdom allows he
turns to this purpose.
“We know that in all things God works for the good of
those who love him, who have been called according to his
purpose. For
those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the
image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many
brothers and sisters.
And those he predestined, he also called; those he
called, he also justified; those he justified, he also
glorified” (Romans
8:28-30
TNIV).
The whole of our experience in the Lord has been one of
radical transformations.
We were the pawns of Satan. Now we are the sons and
daughters of God by faith in Jesus.
We were the children of darkness, now we are the
children of Light.
We were the slaves of sin, but now we have been “set
free from sin and
have become [love] slaves of God, [so that] the benefit [we]
reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life”
(Romans
6:22).
“But thanks be to God, that though you used to be
slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the
pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.
You have been set free from sin and have become slaves
of righteousness” (Romans
6:17-18).
[’Take off the chains!’]
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound by sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray;
I woke; the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
Catherine Booth was content with nothing less than radical
redemption from sin and from sinning.
Salvation, she would have insisted, must be more than
forensic. It must
be effective.
“Where there is no deliverance there can be no salvation.
What a mockery and a delusion it is for a man to
profess to saved, while he is groaning under the power of his
spiritual enemies.
If you are under the domination of sin, you are yet an
utter stranger to the salvation of God” (1887:50).
Liberating.
Transformative.
Paul lists some of the offenders who will be excluded
from inheriting the kingdom, from the sexually immoral to the
greedy, slanderers, swindlers and drunkards.
“And that is what some of you were.
[But no longer!]
You were washed, you were sanctified, you were
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the
[transforming] Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).
And more, we weren’t just incidentally sinners, we were
dead in our transgressions and sins, “But because of his great
love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with
Christ even when we were dead in transgressions -- it is by
grace [we] have been saved” (Ephesians 2:5).
We were homeless, stateless, hopeless -- “foreigners to the
covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the
world” (Ephesians
2:12).
“Once you were not a people,” Peter reminds us, “but
now you are the people of God!”
“A chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of
him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light”
(1 Peter 2:9-10).
We were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship, “But
now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been
brought near by the blood of Jesus” (Ephesians
2:12-13).
How near?
“Therefore brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to
enter the
Most Holy Place
by the blood of Jesus . . . . Let us draw near to God with a
sincere heart and full assurance of faith” (Hebrews
10:19,22).
How near?
Nearer still. For he says, “I am the vine and you are the
branches. If you
remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart
from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
TRANSFORMATIVE SPIRITUAL LOCATION
Sociologists speak of ‘social location’ as descriptive of how
we understand our own and others’ identity and place in
society on the basis of gender, race, language, status,
education, wealth and the like.
Social location determines opportunity, potential,
acceptance, relationship.
By God’s mercy and abounding grace, we have been given
a new ‘spiritual
location.’
It has opened to us a whole new world of opportunity, of
potential, of acceptance and security and transforming
relationships within community.
For by faith, we are ‘in Christ.”
In Christ we are made alive (1 Cor.
15:52).
In Christ Jesus, we are sanctified and called to be his
holy people (1 Cor. 1:2).
In Christ, there is a
new creation; everything old has passed away; see,
everything has become new!(2 Cor.
5:17
NRSV). As God’s handiwork, we are re-created in Christ Jesus!”
(Ephesians 2:10).
Just as we have received Christ Jesus as Lord, we are to
“continue to live [our] lives in him” (Colossians 2:6).
“You died,” writes Paul to the Colossian faithful, “and
your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also
wil appear with him in glory”(Colossians 3:3,4).
Until then, in Christ alone, we stand firm (2 Cor.
1:21).
We have a totally new ‘spiritual location’ in Christ.
We have a new identity.
Sinners and slaves to sin we were.
But not now.
We are the beloved of God, called to be his holy
people. Writing
to the believers in Ephesus, Phillipi and Colossae, Paul
addresses them as
God’s holy people,
faithful
brothers and sisters in Christ (Colossians 1:2).
We have entered a whole new world of possibility.
We have been drawn into a new community.
And we have been given a glorious destiny.
Now “our citizenship is in heaven.
And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring
everything under his control, will
transform our
lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body”
(Philippians 3:20-21).
Paradoxically, our life in Christ is made possible because of
the reality of Christ in our lives.
“I am crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but
Christ lives in me!” (Galatians 2:20).
It is what Jesus wanted for us.
It was what he prayed for in his great High Priestly
prayer: “I have made you known to them, and will continue to
make you known in order that the love you have for me may be
in them and that I myself may be in them” (John 17:26).
It was for Catherine Booth the secret of a holy life.
Earnestly seeking the blessing of a clean heart, she
wrote: “In reading the precious book,
The Higher Life
[Wm. Boardman] I perceived that I had been in some degree of
error with reference to the nature or rather manner of
sanctification, regarding it rather as a great and mighty work
to be wrought in me through Christ, than the simple reception
of Christ as an all sufficient Saviour dwelling in my heart
and thus cleansing it every moment from all sin” (quoted in
Green 1996:106).
Commissioner Brengle observed, “There is no such thing as
holiness apart from ‘Christ in you!’”
It is Christ in us, Paul declares, that is our hope of
Glory (Colossians
1:27).
TRANSFORMATIVE COMMUNITY
In Christ we have been called into community.
This is an essential dimension of our life in Christ
and not an option.
Paul writes: “To the church of God in Corinth, to those
sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people,
together with all
those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
-- their Lord and ours” (1 Cor. 1:2).
“Now I commit you to God,” Paul assures his friends
from
Ephesus,
“and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give
you an inheritance
among all those who are sanctified” (Acts.
20:32).
The community of faith is intended to be a
transformative community, a supportive community, an
instructional community, a worshipping community, a
functional and fruitful missional community.
Speaking the truth to one another in love, “we will in
all things grow up into him who is the head, that is, Christ.
From him the whole body, joined and held together by
every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love,
as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4:15,16).
There is an issue of necessity, of urgency, of accountability
here. The church
as expressed in our corps is not incidental to our life in
Christ. It is
integral to that life.
For Paul our local faith fellowships, our churches and
corps, are “God’s household, the church of the living God, the
pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy
3:15).
It is why it has been so critical at this point in the
history of our movement [and we are a spiritual movement, not
just an organization, an NGO, a para-church structure, a
society, a club for the religiously elite] for us to come to
terms with our ecclesial identity.
That has been helpfully clarified in the statement
released in 2008 by General Clifton,
The Salvation Army in
the Body of Christ: an Ecclesiological Statement.
“We believe,” the statement says, “that The Salvation
Army is an international Christian church in permanent mission
to the unconverted, and is an integral part of the Body of
Christ like other Christian churches, and that the Army’s
local corps are local congregations like the local
congregations of other Christian churches . . . . We do
not believe that The Salvation Army’s history,
structures, practices or belief permit it to be understood as
anything other than a distinct Christian denomination with a
purpose to fulfill and a calling to discharge under God”
(2008:10-11). It
is a reality we are now more comfortably acknowledging.
It affords us the opportunity to explore more
intentionally the New Testament vision for the church and to
draw upon the dynamic and motive power of the biblical images
for faith communities.
And if we in the Army have not been enamored of the
horizontal continuities in church tradition -- its sacraments
and liturgies, its traditions and trappings, we are committed
to the vertical and dynamic marks of the Church in Mission
under the Lordship of our heavenly Captain, moving out to the
ends of the earth and the end of time in obedience to our
Savior’s command.
There are dangers, against which our founders warned us, in
settling down and turning inward on ourselves.
To be sure, we must attend to our inner life as a
movement.
Commissioner Phil Needham comments: “The mission of the Church
is inextricably tied to the life of the fellowship . . . .
Only as the Church is gathered for nurture can it be scattered
for mission. Only
as it worships can it serve . . . . Fellowship without mission
dies of spiritual suffocation.
Mission
without fellowship dies of starvation” (1987:75-76).
It was this concern that led to the convening of the
1995 International Spiritual Life Commission.
The calls to Salvationists around the world issued in
the wake of its meetings and further developed in
Commissioner Robert Street’s
helpful book, Called to
be God’s People address this issue.
[The text is available on line for down load at
www.salvationarmy.org/resources.]
The Calls are introduced with this statement:
“Our identification with God in this outward movement of love
for the world requires a corresponding inward movement from
ourselves towards God.
Christ says ‘come to me’ before he says ‘go into the
world.’ These two
movements are in relation to each other like breathing in and
breathing out. . . . The vitality of our spiritual life as a
movement will be seen and tested in our turning to the world
in evangelism and service, but the springs of our spiritual
life are to be found in our turning to God in worship, in the
disciplines of life in the Spirit, and in the study of God’s
word.”
Still we may find it too easy to opt for the outward
structures, procedures and trappings of a churchly identity
and focus more on the ceremonial and sacramental functions and
traditions of formal worship, that certainly have their place.
They have assisted the faith and fostered the worship
of the faithful across the centuries.
We should draw from that ecclesiastical tradition the
necessary elements of faithful proclamation of the Word, such
procedures and practices in worship as will faithfully nurture
the faith of our people, and the maintenance of order and
appropriate discipline.
But we must not be caught up in a belated rush to
emulate the mainline denominations which themselves are
struggling to survive -- at least, in our country. [CT cover
story] The
emerging church models, the seeker-sensitive, performance
oriented, high decible, free wheeling fellowships may provide
features worth emulating.
In adopting the most accessible of these features
without reference to the dynamics of the whole package, we may
be left with a spiritually vapid and poorly performed
approximation, while walking away from our own rich traditions
of worship and witness.
After all, we are about results in lives redeemed, made
holy and useful in the Kingdom.
And I have encouraged the creative development of new
models for ministry and rejoice in the cutting edge examples
of aggressive corps outreach.
[614 street level ministries here in
Melbourne
and in
Sydney
-- and now being replicated around the Army world.]
Still, we have great strength in remembering who we are
as an Army: disciplined, joyful, identifiable, accessible,
mission-oriented, outward looking, soul-seeking, always
welcoming and available to the ‘sat upon and spat upon’, the
sinning and sinned against.
TRANSFORMATION TOWARD CORPORATE HOLINESS
“You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow
citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with
Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
In him the whole building is joined together and rises
to become a holy temple in the Lord.
And in him you too are being built together to become a
dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians
3:19-22).
Through the reality of Christ in us by his Spirit we
are ourselves, individually, temples of the Holy Spirit.
But God desires more than a privatistic and personal
sanctity. He
wants a sanctified fellowship.
He wills a “corporate holiness” in which the values of
the Kingdom are lived out in our families, our communities and
mission structures.
I am grateful to
Stephen Court,
Geoff Webb and
Rowan
Castle
for giving us their fresh, compelling and often, troubling
insights on the corporate implications of our commitment to a
Holiness standard in a book they jointly authored and
provocatively titled,
Holiness Incorporated.
I commend it to you for its gut-level honesty,
prophetic intensity, and spiritual intelligence.
The authors have made bold to engage the tough and
sometimes untidy implications of living corporately as the
people of God, called to holiness, in the real world of
missional fidelity. Not everyone will be comfortable
with how the issues and alternatives are resolved, or, more
often, left in creative tension. But you will, as did I
in reading it, be pressed by the Spirit to confront the
dilemmas and disconnects between our principles and our
practice that they surface, with humility, penitence, and a
better informed commitment to corporate as well as personal
holiness.
The transformation of a corporate culture -- its
sanctification, requires more than the godliness and good will
of individuals.
The principles of holy living for the individual must be
translated into the standards, policies and expectations of
the community.
Further, the implementation of those policies must be
expressed in established procedures.
Implementing the procedures in turn, may require
structural adjustments within the organization affecting the
ways in which it operates.
Transformation is only complete at the operational
level. How do we
actually function?
How do we relate to one another?
How are we guided in our decisions and the establishing
of priorities by our commitment to a standard of ‘Holiness
unto the Lord’?
It is one thing to write ‘Holiness unto the Lord’ over the
door and another to write it across every relationship, every
code of conduct, every operational manual, every hiring and
firing procedure, every administrative interaction, every
budget, every audit, every representation to our own people
and the public we serve -- and that so generously supports us.
In virtually every meeting, in the American
territories, where the Holiness Table has been central to the
platform arrangement, [a tradition that goes back to the time
of Evangeline Booth] we worship gazing at the words ‘Holiness
unto the Lord” embroidered in gold on the rich scarlet
covering of velvet. What if we were to make small replicas of
the holiness table and attach them to our computer terminals,
our refrigerators, our cell phones, our tellys, our magazine
racks, our clothes closets, our office desks as well as our
pulpits? What if
we had it written on every page of our planning calendars, or
on our check books, credit cards and wallets?
Extreme?
“On that day Holy to the Lord will be inscribed on the bells
of the horses, and the cooking pots in the Lord’s house will
be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar.
Every pot in
Jerusalem
and
Judah
will be holy to the Lord Almighty” (Zechariah
14:21).
Holy living is about how we treat one another in our
day-to-day interactions.
John Wesley famously declared that there is no holiness
that is not social holiness.
Holy relationships are built on mutual respect that
transcends our differences of social location: race, social
status, and culture, including and especially, gender.
One is caused to wonder if there is any area of social
interaction where biases seem entrenched more intractably than
gender. The Army historically has set a high standard in this
regard, a standard we owe to the commitment of our founders,
William and Catherine Booth.
It was a standard they themselves modeled and built
into the principles and practices of the early Army.
Most importantly equality based on mutual respect
between women and men is a biblical standard.
Significant strides have been made in the Army in
recent years in implementing this biblical standard, but
entrenched attitudes do not change easily and it has been a
continuing challenge to live up to our ideals.
A transformation -- a conversion seems to be required
to alter attitudes.
I want Commissioner Rader to address this issue, not
because I am not firmly committed to biblical gender
egalitarianism, but because she has invested so deeply in this
issue and spoken eloquently and courageously to it across the
years.
TRANSFORMATION TOWARD GENDER EQUALITY
We now consider the uniqueness of an Army with an
unprecedented number of women who were included on an equal
with men from the beginning.
As General Rader has reminded us, the Army set a high
standard for mutual respect that transcends our differences of
social location, including and especially, gender.
As early as 1895 the
Orders and Regulations
for Staff Officers drafted by the Founder, William Booth
himself, made clear the Army’s official position on gender
equality and I quote:
One of the leading principles upon which the Army is based is
the right of women. . .to an equal share with men in the great
work of publishing Salvation to the world. . .She may hold any
position of authority or power in the Army from that of a
Local Officer to that of the General.
Let it therefore be understood that women are eligible
for the highest commands – indeed, no woman is to be kept back
from any position of power or influence merely on account of
her sex. . .Woman must be treated as equal with men in all the
intellectual and social relationships of life.
Evidence of its egalitarian history is seen clearly in
Salvation Army history.
Why, then, is it necessary to confront in this 21st
century the issue of egalitarianism within the Army?
In the words of the Founder “The Salvation Army employs
women.” To this
day The Salvation Army sets a fine example in numbers of women
ordained and commissioned.
Having said this, there are those
within The Salvation Army who find unsettling parallels
between existing attitudes within the Church regarding the
ordination of women and their accorded roles and prevailing
attitudes within the Army regarding
ordained/[commissioned] women officers and their roles.
For example, it is particularly unsettling that we in the Army
understand clearly the struggle within the Church of England
when in recent years, representatives of the Anglican Church’s
Working Party Concerned with Women in Ordained Ministry, faced
with the issue of ordination of women to the diaconate,
opined, “”Having
willed the end, the Church is now faced with the challenge of
willing the means.”
As the Church is faced with the challenge of willing the
means, so is the Army.
Moving from the radical theology and practice of an
early Army of unlimited female leadership to recent times and
more conservative/limited leadership roles for women officers
in the Army has
been and is a concern which demands our constant vigil.
Although The Salvation Army holds a very definite view
and has a policy of equality between the sexes, it is
undeniably doing so against a powerful, historical and
cultural background concerning attitudes towards women.
The misunderstanding of the word ‘equality’ and its
practical outworking can create misunderstandings,
misjudgments and sometimes mishandling of situations the final
consequence being relationships that fall far short of holy.
“Willing the means” becomes the litmus test of
day-to-day interactions .
“A basic doctrinal principle,” says Salvation Army historian
Roger Green, “was established as policy of The Christian
Mission and this policy continued.
It was strengthened with the birth of The Salvation
Army. The
principle was, ‘people were placed in positions because of
ability and not because of gender.’”
This uniqueness of The Salvation Army is a treasure worthy of
loving protection.
Whenever our useable past is either forgotten or
ignored, we should seek to revive it.
Pathways forgotten due to neglect or disuse we should
seek to rediscover.
To lead women officers onto open roads to tomorrow
should be our ultimate goal.
Even before the Christian Mission became The Salvation Army,
William Booth declared his intention to employ women fully in
the work of ministry.
He appointed women, married and single, in charge of
many of the growing numbers of Christian Mission stations.
They were expected to preach.
They were the leaders.
They had the example of Catherine Booth, the Army
Mother and her remarkable daughters.
Beginning in 1859 until her death in l890 she preached
constantly with great power and effectiveness.
Indeed, when Catherine Booth died in 1890, the November
issue of Bible
Christian Magazine, declared her to be “the most famous
and influential Christian woman of her generation.”
Her own preaching and writing persuaded many Christians
of the value of women’s ministry.
Catherine knew that if she did not preach she would be
disobeying God.
She could not resist the urgent call of the Spirit.
In responding to that call to preach she bequeathed to
every woman officer, married or single, the privilege of
proclaiming the Gospel in public ministry.
There is no doubt that it was contrary to the cultural
expectation for women’s roles at that time.
It was contrary to the culture of Jesus’ time for women
to be regarded as credible witnesses.
To this Catherine Booth responded, “The women were last
at the Cross, first at the tomb.”
So from the women
the news was first given of the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus. It
was they who took the word to the apostles.
They were the first missionaries and ministers of the
resurrection message.
Nevertheless, the idea of women being sent out into the
malicious degradation of the 19th century world
horrified many.
Crowds pelted them with all manner of flying objects and told
them to go home.
A letter to the editor of the
East London Observer
in 1881 expressed the shock of seeing the Salvation Army
women at work, said, (quote)
“It is hardly consistent with one’s feelings to see a
woman standing at the corner of a street – preaching – and to
what purpose?
Why? To give
encouragement to the roughs to deride, and to skeptics the
opportunity of indulging in sarcastic remarks about the manner
in which Christians publish their beliefs?”
Are we willing to succumb to this kind of ridicule?
To settle down toward nomalism, the way of all churches
or should we not be the Army
positioned to be the light on the pathway of the Church
universal, including mission organizations, to point the way
toward ever expanding and equal opportunities between women
and men in ministry?
In her book,
Woman, published in 1930, Evangeline Booth issued a
passionate plea.
It was this: “We must light new lamps.
We must tread new paths.
We must go on.”
At that time the Army was sixty five years old.
It is now 145!
Can we truthfully declare today that
our best men are women?
That even some of our best men are women?
Other movements/churches are picking up the gauntlet.
The Army must not lose faith.
We must not allow ourselves to become sidetracked. We
must go on.
Loren Cunningham, Founder of one of the world’s largest
mission societies, YWAM, asks a telling question,
Why Not Women? and
takes a fresh look at scripture on women in missions, ministry
and leadership in a book co-authored with Bible scholar,
David Joel Hamilton.
Loren declares, “I have a dream of a spiritual
awakening sweeping the world through this emerging generation,
the millennium generation.
I see the Gospel finally being spread to every person
in the world, with every nation and every people group
discipled with the teachings of Jesus Christ.”
Then, he says: “As I envision this, I see every little girl
growing up knowing she is valued, knowing she is made in the
image of God, and knowing that she can fulfill all the
potential He has put within her.
I see the Body of Christ recognizing leaders whom the
Holy Spirit indicates, the ones whom He has gifted, anointed,
and empowered without regard to race, color or gender.
This generation will be one that simply asks, “Who is
it that God wants?”
There will be total equality of opportunity, total
equality of value, and a quickness to listen to and follow the
ones the Holy Spirit sets apart.”
Women have played and still play important roles during
difficult periods of history.
American author, Janet Hassey, reminds her readers of
the vigorous nature of women in ministry during the
evangelical resurgence between the American Civil War and the
rise of fundamentalism in that country.
She notes that during that period evangelical theology
opened the door for women’s adventures on behalf of the gospel
and outlines several factors that were at work.
She lists them as:
-
The horrible fate of the unsaved
which motivated believers to ignore social convention for
the good of the lost.
-
A sense of the nearness of the Second Coming of Christ
which predisposed believers to see women’s gifts as part
of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. . .these women
received public encouragement from the leading ministers
of the day.
-
The social factors at work
such as the social upheaval of the frontier and the
desperate needs of the urban areas which created an
action-oriented atmosphere in which social convention
withered and women’s ministries blossomed.
-
Later, the Church withdrew its enthusiasms and women were
relegated to less important roles, indeed, roles that
placed them just short of anonymity.
In an article written for the magazine
THE TABLET,
author/historian, Paul Johnson, reaches farther back into time
and insists that women have played a structural part in
Christianity, particularly during crisis times.
For example, he says that the number of Christian women
who were martyred reflected the resentment they aroused among
pagan authorities.
“Indeed it is likely,” says Johnson, “that women formed
the majority of the martyrs during the decades of crisis and
persecution.” Once the crisis was over, baptism was accepted,
Christianity made lawful and in time, powerful, women were
pushed into the background, the principle of masculine
superiority reasserted itself.
“When during the Dark Ages the Church remained in a critical
condition,” says Johnson, “sometimes obliged to fight for its
existence against paganism, it continued to call upon women to
play a leading part in its survival. However, having resolved
the crisis in the Church’s favor, women were again pushed
aside and the masculine order prevailed virtually everywhere.”
Johnson points out that during the Reformation no way was ever
found to mobilize women – no place was found for them in St.
Ignatius’ Society of Jesus; they were excluded from the
Counter-Revolution in education and invisible at the Council
of Trent. So a
great opportunity was missed and as a result, the Church lost
half
Germany
and the
Low Countries,
the whole of
Scandinavia
and
England.
Historian Paul Johnson foresees an approaching spiritual
crisis in which women will be in the front line.
He concludes, “It behooves us to learn the lessons of
the past and ensure that women are allowed – indeed encouraged
– to exert themselves powerfully when the next major crisis
strikes the Church.”
It is unfortunate that pastoral directions forbidding women to
speak or lead that were addressed to a particular historical
situation by the apostle Paul have been taken as normative for
the whole church by some theologians and church leaders.
At the same time, the example of Jesus in his attitude
to women and the practice of Paul, have been largely ignored.
Katherine Haubert writes in her book,
Women as Leaders:
Dogmas, much like those of the Pharisees, have sought to put a
stranglehold on the life and liberty Jesus accorded women.
The challenge for the church is to allow the redeeming
results of the Cross and Jesus’ attitude to shape its views.
The church needs to take the sickle of truth and cut
through the barbed wire of cultural customs and taboo in order
to follow the One who promised both men and women, “If the Son
makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
(John 8:36)
Paul declared, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither
slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one
in Christ Jesus.”
(Galatians 3:28)
Having made this liberating declaration, the apostle Paul
lived it out in his relationships with women in the Church.
In Romans 16 he is careful to express appreciation for the
contribution of women in the life of the Church.
They played key leadership roles in teaching and
ministering and he was quick to recognize their contribution
and to thank God for them:
Priscilla,
who with her husband,
Aquila,
instructed Apollos in the way (Acts 18;26 and Romans 16:3);
Junia,
(v. 7);
Tryphena and Tryphosa and Persis,
(v. 12, 13).
Even his relationship with the troublesome women,
Euodia and Syntyche
(Philippians 4:2), gives insight into his attitude toward
women. He says,
“They have contended
at my side for the
cause of the gospel.”
(Philippians 4:2-3).
It is significant that Paul’s ministry in
Philippi
began in a prayer meeting of women, apparently led by
Lydia.
It was her heart that the Lord opened to respond to
Paul’s message (Acts
16:14).
“Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ!”
Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers (I Corinthians
11:1). It is his
example and the example of Christ we are to follow.
What did Jesus
do in his relationships with women?
And what did Paul
do in his
relationships with women who were his fellow-workers?
General Frederick Coutts spoke eloquently of the privilege of
women to lead and to preach.
He said, “In church order, theories of what ought to be
so often break before the fact of what is.
In the economy of the Kingdom, God’s ways are not our
ways, nor His thoughts, our thoughts. . .seeing that the grace
of the Spirit and the gift of the office of apostle, prophet,
evangelist, pastor and teacher have been and are so undeniably
granted to women as well as men, ‘ for the perfecting of the
saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the
body of Christ,’ (Ephesians 4:11-12) who are we to withstand
God?”
The Salvation Army must be intentional in its resolve not to
allow cultural bias, traditions, or interpretation of other
views to deny women the right to fulfill their God-given
calling as fully ordained ministers of the Gospel.
There is a world to win – a world of sin and suffering, of
brokenness and bondage, a world waiting to hear the liberating
Word and to feel the transforming touch of the Saviour’s love
through us – all of us.
As we look to future challenges, part of the new
paradigm for the Church will be an expanding role for women -
and men’s whole hearted acceptance of their role.
TRANSFORMATION TOWARD ADVOCACY
Equality of respect and opportunity for women is a justice
issue. Our
transformation in Christ expands the horizons of our awareness
and concern for the stranger, for those unlike ourselves, for
the marginalized and exploited and disempowered.
In the synagogue in Nazareth Jesus takes the scroll and
reads from Isaiah 61 to announce his mission: “The Spirit of
the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good
news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and
recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to
proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Taking his seat he declared, “Today this scripture is
fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke
4:18-21).
To follow Christ is to share fully in his mission. We
are an Army proclaiming salvation through faith in Jesus
Christ and his atoning death.
But too many of us seem to have forgotten that we
signed on for much more. The Founder sometimes referred to
Isaiah 58 as ‘The Salvation Army Charter’: “Is not this the
kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of
injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the
oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to
provide the poor wanderer with shelter -- when you see the
naked, to clothe them and not to turn away from your own flesh
and blood . . . . Your people will
rebuild the ancient
ruins and will raise up
the age old foundations; you will be called
repairer of broken
walls, restorer of
streets with buildings [NRSV ‘to live in’]” (58:6,7,12).
Our capacity to respond to natural disasters wherever they
occur around the world has garnered the highest regard of the
public. ‘We respond to natural disasters with acts of God!’
Salvationists around the world have risen up to respond to the
sufferings of the people of
Haiti.
A single division in
California,
for example, has packed over one million meals for
distribution to earthquake victims in
Haiti.
Volunteers have come from many territories to join
hands in meeting the immediate needs of the people.
Now we are gearing up to provide more long term
solutions. It has
been a ministry of hope -- for hope is in short supply in
Haiti.
[Herb in
Haiti]
Given the Army’s global stature and reputation and our
deployment in 119 countries, this is God’s moment for us to
recover our heritage, becoming more intentional in addressing
the causes of human suffering. Major Ted Horwood,
International Projects Officer, in an article entitled “Social
Redemption” gives this call to action: “We believe the local
church is at the frontline of human need and where possible
should be resourced and equipped to facilitate social change,
which includes economic empowerment, justice, equity and
peace. With
nearly 15,000 corps, in addition to institutions and
partnerships with other organizations around the world, the
opportunity to effect change is potentially staggering.
What is needed is a belief in ourselves.
Not just as Christians, but as Christians functioning
through The Salvation Army, a formidable force in the struggle
against global poverty” (The
Officer, March/April 2009:43).
The establishing of the
International Justice
Center
in
New York,
a stone’s throw from the United Nations headquarters, has
raised the profile of this dimension of our mission.
Commissioner Christine MacMillan, director of the IJC,
has been expanding our awareness of the social justice
imperatives of scripture in her unique and insightful
Words of Life
readings earlier this year.
She is
speaking out compellingly on issues of social justice, not
only speaking truth to power, but stirring our consciences as
Salvationists.
Speak Out, the
online advocacy conference, sponsored by the International
Social Justice Commission and the Salvation Army Ethics Centre
of the
Canada
and
Bermuda
territory, became an innovative platform for creating a global
forum, involving over 1,100 participants from 60 countries.
Forums, chat rooms, videos available for viewing and
presentations provided biblical, theoretical and practical
exposure to issues of advocacy for social justice.
http://www1.salvationarmy.org/IHQ/www_ihq_isjc.nsf
Social work motivated by our love for Christ has been our
forte.
Salvationist have a remarkable record of response to
disasters. In
recent years, however, we have become more intentional in
pursuing holistic programs of sustainable community
development and capacity building through integrated mission.
In September 2007 Colonel Bo Brekke was shot to death by an
assassin in the discharge of his duties at the Army's
territorial headquarters in
Lahore.
Salvationists around the world mourned the loss of one
of our most gifted leaders.
Before taking up the leadership of the Army in
Pakistan,
he and Colonel Birgitte Brekke served with courage and
compassion in
Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh,
Eastern Europe,
Denmark
and
Norway.
In
Bangladesh
they reached out to the poorest of the poor, providing
programs of micro-credit to enable slum dwellers to attain
some measure of self-sufficiency.
For a group of homeless former prostitutes they
provided literacy classes and work opportunities, forming
Sally Ann products, a commercial fair trade venture, and
arranging for the handwork of the women to be marketed around
the world. Sally
Ann products are produced by units in
Bangladesh,
Kenya,
Moldova,
Chile,
Brazil
and
Peru.
Pakistan
and
Ghana
will soon come on line.
The Brekkes embodied the kind of commitment that
transforms communities and individual lives.
In 2005 Colonel Brekke published an account of the development
of the Sally Ann Fair Trade program.
It is a truly remarkable and deeply moving account of
the development of the program and the ways in which it has
touched lives and transformed communities.
Jessore is a town
of 200,000 in
Western Bangladesh.
There is a large community of commercial sex workers in
a place called,
Hatkhola Lane
-- 285 women prostitutes -- 300 women and 100 children in all.
Joseph Das has been working there for the Army since
'97. Took years
to build up trust.
Joseph and his team belong.
So much so that people in Jessore sometimes refer to
the brothel in
Hatkola Lane
as the Salvation Army brothel!
Captain Albert Mir joined the team as a volunteer.
Born a Muslim, he met Christ many years ago.
He became an officer and works still in the brothel.
At Christmas, he planned a one-man Christmas service in
the brothel courtyard.
Whores, pimps and customers stood around. Victims and
abusers. A Jesus
kind of crowd.
The Captain read the Christmas story and spoke of love come
down at Christmas.
They didn't understand it all, but they knew Jesus
understood poverty and knew what it was to suffer indignity.
Then he brought out a Christmas cake and the brothel
owner was asked to cut it.
Cheers went up for Jesus, cheers for Captain Mir who
cared enough to share the story.
Cheers for themselves so important in God's eyes!
Do they make a difference?
The brothel is cleaner.
Health care is available.
Condoms are used more generally.
More children go to school. More than 20 have been
helped to leave the brothel.
Women are organized into small production and savings
group. Several
work for Sally Ann.
Ask Mina Rani Das -- a prostitute for 18 years.
She still works in the brothel.
She is there every day.
She is one of Joseph's team.
She wears The Salvation Army's blue sari uniform.
"Something in Joseph's presence made an impression on
her. The team's
determination to continue their work in the brothel touched
her. Captain
Mir's gospel message moved her.
She met Jesus in the brothel, and he changed her life!"
Perhaps because of the inevitable political implications of
standing with the powerless and exploited, we have been
somewhat slow to advocate for justice.
Salvationists, however, were in the thick of the
struggle for freedom and the defeat of apartheid in
South Africa.
There were risks, but Colonel Brian Tuck and South
African officers black and white were in the vanguard of the
struggle in Kwa Zulu Natal and Commissioners Trevor and Memory
Tuck were with their people in strife-torn Soweto, for
example, in the thick of the rioting when our officers had to
drag the dead and injured off the street into our Army
compounds during the struggle.
When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was
established under the chairmanship of Bishop Desmond Tutu,
Commissioner Paul duPlessis offered to make a presentation
acknowledging publicly that though the Army has always
included blacks, coloreds and Asians in our ranks, and had
sought to encourage positive relationships between the races,
we had not stood boldly against the evil of apartheid and,
indeed, had been tacitly complicit.
Fears that the public would lose confidence in the Army
and our people feel betrayed by our representation to the
Commission were quickly allayed.
Indeed, facing up to our failures proved to be the
right thing, eliciting many positive and supportive responses
within and beyond the Army.
We have only begun to explore the potential the Army
represents for confronting the systemic entrenchment of evil
and injustice.
The mission of Christ is our mission and requires that we
respond to immediate human needs wherever we encounter them.
‘Where there is a need, there is The Salvation Army!’
But more, it moves us to attend to the causes of
poverty and human suffering.
God’s concern for justice includes all of this, but
moves us to responsible action in advocating for the
disempowered and oppressed.
TRANSFORMATION TOWARD A GLOBAL VISION
Biblical transformation begins with the work of the Holy
Spirit in human hearts, making them new in Christ through
faith. God’s
purposes in salvation extend beyond the individual to families
and communities and nations.
It was inevitable that The Salvation Army would become
an international movement.
Every Salvationist, wittingly or not, has enlisted in
one of the world’s great missionary movements.
Our internationalism is a vital dimension of who we are
as a movement. It
models the Body of Christ in its unity and rich diversity.
More, it makes us a mighty force for salvation marching
under one flag, soldiers of Christ with a common covenant, a
global ‘company of the committed’.
We do not begin to understand our capacity for
advancing God’s Kingdom purposes in a world gone wrong.
How essential it is for our commitment to be rooted in a local
corps, where we are nurtured and supported in our faith, given
opportunity for witness and mission, and held accountable to
the standards and expectations of the fellowship.
But we are impoverished and disempowered as
Salvationists if we do not begin to see ourselves as
participants in God’s global strategy for mission.
"My arms are around the world . . . "
Here is the Founder writing to officers:“Remember, no officer
can be a Salvationist in the wider or fullest sense except he
has in some measure this world-embracing love.
I want every officer in every part of the globe to take
his share in this wider life of the Army . . . . To think, and
to feel and to pray and believe, in a large world-embracing
way.” Would this
not have been his desire for all Salvationists?
Here is Oswald Chambers: “The first thing God will do with us
is to ‘force through the channels of a single heart’ the
interests of the whole world.
The love of God, the very nature of God, is introduced
into us, and the nature of Almighty God is focused in John
3:16, ‘God so loved the world . .
.’” (1935, September 21).
Here is a necessary transformation in self-understanding for
the Salvationist which will not only expand one’s sympathies
and interests in prayer, or commitment of resources to the
Army’s global mission through self-denial giving.
It may well mean making one’s self available to God for
service in some other part of the globe.
We have met lay Salvationists making invaluable
contributions to the Army’s ministries and services in many
parts of the world -- volunteers responding to natural
disasters with a wide range of competencies, a hospital
administrator in Zambia, an engineer serving in an isolated
clinic in Papua New Guinea, an educator with a love for music
coming regularly from Singapore to train a Boys’ Home band in
Indonesia, not to mention lay teachers serving in Army schools
around the world.
What difference does all this make?
Just this: transformation is about hope.
We can change.
I refuse to accept that our possibilities are bounded
by our DNA, our environment or educational opportunities, or
even our physical characteristics.
I am not naive as to the degree that these determinants
may shape our lives.
We in the Army do not accept a predestination that
determines our eternal destiny without regard to our response
to or rejection of grace. And we need not accept a determinism
that denies the possibility of transformation by grace.
We believe people can change.
We believe sinners can change.
We believe the addicted can change. We believe that the
obsessively greedy, selfish and bitter can change.
We believe in the power of the Gospel to make everyone
who comes in repentance and faith to Jesus a new creation.
We believe that through the sanctifying grace of Christ
by the power of the Holy Spirit within, our hearts can be
cleansed and made pure so that we can love God and neighbor
with a whole heart and a holy self-giving love.
We believe that as we abide in Christ and he in us in a
transforming friendship we can be changed into the likeness of
Christ. If we are
optimists, our optimism is an
‘apostolic optimism’ grounded in the promises of God
and our experience of his grace at work in the likes of us!
We can change.
We must not insult the grace of God by doubting His
power to transform human hearts.
We must not give up on those to whom God sends us with
His transforming Word.
If people can change then our corps can change.
God can breathe that same resurrection life and power
that makes us new in Christ into a moribund corps releasing
new life among us.
Transformation is about hope.
The Army can change.
Most of us may be uncomfortable with change.
But the ever creative Spirit is breathing new life into
our movement.
Hold onto your hats.
God is at work by his Spirit.
Jesus is praying for our broken world.
Communities can change and nations can change through the
power of the Gospel working in the lives of God’s people.
Our planet itself will be transformed. One day there
will be a new heaven and a new earth. Precisely because we
have this hope we are called to be faithful stewards of the
global home God has given us to care for.
“Listen,” says Paul, “I tell you a mystery: We will not all
sleep, but we will all be changed -- in a flash, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised
imperishable, and we will be changed. . . . Then the saying
that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up
in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the
law. But thanks
be to God. He
gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1
Corinthians
15:51-57).
Then let us live in hope.
Let us labor in hope.
Let us look up in hope for the coming of our Savior
King, who in his coming will make all things new.
“Therefore, my brothers and sisters, stand firm.
Let nothing move you.
Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord,
because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (15:58).
SOURCES CITED
BOOTH, Catherine, 1887
Popular
Christianity.
Atlanta:
The Salvation Army Supplies (1986 edition).
BREKKE, Bo and Knut Bry, 2005
Sally Ann --
Poverty to Hope: Fair Trade by The Salvation Army,
London,
The Salvation Army United Kingdom and
Ireland
Territory.
CHAMBERS, Oswald, 1935,
My Utmost for His Highest
CUNNINGHAM, Loren, 2000,
Why Not Women?
A Fresh Look at Scripture on Women in Missions,
Ministry and Leadership, Seattle, YWAM Publishing.
GREEN, Roger J.,
1996, Catherine Booth:
A Biography of the Cofounder of The Salvation Army.
Grand Rapids:
Baker Books.
HASSEY, Janette, 1986, No
Time for Silence: Evangelical Women in Public Ministry around
the Turn of the Century,
Grand Rapids,
Academie Books, Zondervan.
HAUBERT, Katherine M., 1993,
Women as Leaders:
Accepting the Challenge of Scripture,
Monrovia
CA,
MARC.
HORWOOD, Ted, 2009, “Social Redemption,”
The Officer
March/April.
London:
The Salvation Army.
NEEDHAM,
Philip, 1987, Community
in
Mission:
a Salvationist Ecclesiology,
Atlanta,
Salvationist Supplies.
STREET, Robert, 1999, Called
to be God’s People: An aid for corps to look together at the
Call to Salvationists,
London:
IHQ, 1999.
2008, The
Salvation Army in the Body of Christ: An Ecclesiological
Statement.,
London:
The Salvation Army International Headquarters.
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