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New Salvationism
by
Kelly Pope
Kelly
Pope is the YPSM at The South Atlanta Ray and Joan Kroc Corps
Community Center.
Living incarnationally gives her a definition for Salvationism
in the 21st Century.
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There are many questions facing The Salvation Army as the
world continues to change at a dizzying pace. Barriers in
communication are being eradicated by new technology; the
political terrain is unrecognizable from even a decade ago;
post-modernism is aggressively challenging the certainties and
absolutes of preceding generations. The last few years,
however, there has also risen in The Salvation Army world a
new kind of Salvationism. It has emerged from the traditions
instilled in each soldier and adapted from the new innovations
coming out of the Army in the last decade. This New
Salvationism is eager to meet the needs of the current culture
and shape the future of the Army in the 21st century.
New Salvationism is grounded in doctrine, but open to
dialogue. Comfortable with mystery, ready to meet the
questioning challenges of post-modernism and confidently
grounded in Christ, it is eschatologically focused. Not with
the rhetoric of those who attempt to link obscure scripture
references to declarations about the future, but through a
forward-looking theology focusing on the future of hope. Life
changes are not necessarily centered around the mercy seat,
but more often formed through challenging discourse and
dialogue. In Philippians, when Paul urged Christians to
“forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead,” this
was not a call to forget all that is in the past. Paul often
urged to recall events that were worth remembering, but never
to allow past victories to hinder future possibilities. The
Salvation Army is steeped in rich tradition, however cannot
rely solely on traditions to sustain and shape its future. An
eschatological perspective understands that the hope that we
have as Christians is future oriented. As Christians we are
believers in that hope and as Salvationists we must be
dispensers of it.
One approach to the Christian life is an oscillation between a
life of action and a life of contemplation. The weight of
tradition in the Salvation Army means we can never abandon our
service to the poor. However, a life of action is incomplete
without the nourishment and restoration drawn from times of
quiet dwelling in the presence of God. New Salvationists have
been inspired by the 24/7 prayer movement and shaped by
classic spiritual disciplines. They have encountered new faces
of God through countless mission trips. While refusing to
abandon the mission of The Salvation Army, they increasingly
understand that this life of service must be tempered with
time intentionally set aside in their schedules for developing
a life of contemplation in which the heart becomes a portable
sanctuary, ready to accept the challenges of a life filled
with intense activity bolstered by a centered peace generating
new rotations within the oscillation.
In the last two decades, the church has experienced a
cataclysmic shift away from modernity. Unfortunately, The
Salvation Army has too frequently been on the back end of such
changes rather than the cutting edge. Salvationists are now
more ready than ever to move beyond the confines of the church
building and involve themselves in worship that goes beyond
music and that is not only practiced on Sunday mornings. It is
a participatory worship encompassing every aspect of the
individual and naturally flowing into every aspect of life. It
ranges from serving a cup of coffee to the homeless who live
on the street to starting a children’s ministry far beyond the
church walls. It is the truest form of living sacrifice as
worship becomes not just a series of disconnected experiences,
but an overarching life choice. Such worship contains the
power to impact the world.
Another attribute of New Salvationism is its renewed
commitment to the poor. The Salvation Army as an organization
has adapted itself to the wishes and desires of the donors and
advisory boards, but New Salvationism challenges this
acceptance by defining itself primarily in relation to the
poor. New Salvationists are incarnational. They are willing to
live with poor people, sharing their struggles and providing a
ministry of presence long absent in the communities of those
less fortunate. This involves a mutuality of relationship.
Rather than just asking the poor to solely share their lives
with us, this action is reciprocated as we share our lives
with them. Through Christ’s incarnation we know that God left
the heavenly realms to be with us. Moving beyond imitation for
imitation’s sake, we instead share our lives as persons
meeting persons in the reality that is Christ. Christ’s
incarnation is experienced through relationships. But that
relationship cannot remain one-sided. When I act with and for
another person, Christ meets us both and we are transformed.
New Salvationists are willing to sacrifice in order to live a
life of simplicity. The needs of others take precedence over
their own needs as fullness in Christ can only be achieved as
we empty ourselves in service for others. And such service
cannot be restricted to a monthly financial donation or a
weekly volunteer activity. It is a continual commitment to
place the needs of others above personal needs. It means
responding to a call for help at 3:00 in the morning; it is
speaking out against injustice in your community; it means
showing up consistently in the lives of others so that your
commitment and presence can be trusted. However, this is not
the essence of a life of simplicity. This is when we weigh the
abundance of our possessions against what those possessions
represent. The parable of the widow who had little to give was
not about how much she gave; but about how much she had left.
The de-accumulation of “stuff” liberates our spirit for
simplicity and strengthens our ability to inwardly trust in
God’s providential care. Our renewed commitment to the poor is
a radical mandate and if we are to exemplify this principle
action, we must hold fast to its radical nature.
The defining characteristic of New Salvationism is that
Salvationism has become an identity for its soldiers. This
goes beyond the current denominational culture that insulates
many of its members. New Salvationists do not want to be
anyone other than Salvationists. They hold their commitment to
The Salvation Army close to their hearts as they choose their
own futures, journey alongside their friends, and live a life
of continued obedience. Identity alone, however, cannot carry
us into the 21st century.
The Salvation Army was birthed in London when William Booth
sought to meet the needs of the urban poor created by the
Industrial Revolution. These people came to the city looking
for work and were often unable to find it. They subsisted on
low wages with barely enough to survive, and so were the
working poor. William Booth and his Army all pre-existed the
emergence of the welfare state. Now The Salvation Army faces a
different challenge - the idle poor. They are those unable to
work because of the support they receive from welfare, trapped
in a cycle that penalizes those who step outside of it. We
must follow the examples of William and Catherine Booth for
inspiration, but understand that their example cannot inform
us as our world is different than the world of London in 1865.
We need new wineskins to hold creative approaches and
future-focused strategies for reaching others.
In the last decade, there have been a number of initiatives
pulling Salvationists out of complacency and allowing them to
dream about what TSA can become in this century. In the
mid-1990s, a group of Salvationists from the United Kingdom
gathered to pray about their church and that gathering turned
into a movement called Roots which swept across four
continents. In 1997, an International Youth Congress called
together young people from across the globe to meet in South
Africa. The relationships formed at this event opened a global
perspective of The Salvation Army world for those who
attended. In 2001, the 614 network was birthed. An idea
employing core values that built upon Salvation Army
principles of how to reach the poor in an urban context.
Today, there are 614 communities in Canada, the US, Europe,
Australia, and New Zealand. These movements among others have
shaped Salvationism into becoming an identity of action, and
also an identity of contextualization. New Salvationism needs
to consider these initiatives and re-imagine new ways to
contextualize the vision of the Salvation Army into new
communities, traverse new vistas, and discover new horizons.
The Salvation Army is indeed changing as we move forward in
the 21st century. William Booth once wrote:
“Beginning as I did with a clean sheet of paper, wedded to no
plan…willing to take a leaf out of anyone's book…above all, to
obey the direction of the Holy Spirit…we tried various methods
and those that did not answer we unhesitatingly threw
overboard and adopted something else.”
May we too follow the direction of the Holy Spirit and take
responsibility for our part in envisioning the future of The
Salvation Army.
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