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Interview: Commissioner Shaw Clifton
Original Publication - JAC #9, October – November 2000
Shaw
Clifton was nominated for General at The Salvation Army’s 1999
High Council election. He became an officer of The Salvation
Army in 1975. Irish by birth, he served for many years in the
UK, on staff at International Headquarters in London, and
later as the leader of The Salvation Army in Massachusetts,
USA. Educated as a lawyer (L.B.), he also holds the Bachelor
of Divinity and Doctorate of Philosophy degrees. He is author
of several books including “Who are these Salvationists?”
(1999). Currently he is the leader of The Salvation Army in
Pakistan and was promoted recently to the Army’s highest rank
of Commissioner.
JAC: Please tell us a little about your
conversion.
SC: At the risk of being misunderstood, I
nevertheless need to say that I have always been saved, in
this sense: there has never been a time in my life when I did
not know about Jesus and that He had died to be my Saviour
from sin, and there has never been a time in my life when I
did not believe this and accept it fully for myself with much
gladness. This I owe to my parents who were faithful in
keeping the promises they made to raise me in the Christian
faith when I was dedicated under the Army flag in Belfast
Citadel hall in Northern Ireland. Growing up through childhood
and my teen years there were many times when all this came
with a new freshness to me and reconfirmed the simple and
innocent, saving faith of a small child.
JAC: You have served in several parts of the
world. Please comment on how this has impacted your
Salvationism.
SC: We are serving on our fourth continent.
We have also been privileged to see the Army at work in many
countries. Everywhere the Army is the same, yet distinctive.
All one, but different. This is a miracle of God, who alone
could bind together an Army of such massive proportions from
so many diverging cultures and peoples. Our internationalism
is a very precious gift, one that is perhaps not sufficiently
prized among us. The recent Congress in Atlanta brought it all
before our very eyes in a gloriously God-honouring way. It is
important that we never stand in the way of the Army
developing at local levels in ways that truly reflect and
speak to the local culture.
JAC: You have had a unique role in Salvation
Army activity over the last generation. In legal capacities
you have impacted High Councils and SA nationals constitutions
and protests and defence of historic rights. You were on the
scene for the tragic martyrdoms in Africa. You have written
pages that have challenged Salvationists on such issues as
marriage, ethics, holiness, and Salvationism. Where do we
stand in light of General Booth's prophecy that, "If The
Salvation Army will be true to God, (we will reach the world)
in the next fifty years" (THE GENERAL'S LETTERS, 1885)?
SC: When we first set out on life's great
adventure with God, and when we first say "Yes" to Him when He
calls us to a distinctive life of ministry, we can have
absolutely no idea of all that will follow. He opens doors and
presents challenges that without His grace would be utterly
daunting. I cannot pretend to know what Booth had in mind when
he wrote these words. However, I do know that his emphasis on
being "true to God" was the only one that mattered. It still
matters. For me, the Army is "true to God" when it remembers
and prioritises the following non-negotiables:
1. The sinfulness of sin. By this I mean
that we must never be seduced by arguments and attitudes that
would cause us to join those who pretend that sin is OK. We
need to hold to the truths of Scripture about those things
that grieve God and are entirely incompatible with His
righteousness or with a claim to love and serve Him. Hell will
laugh loudly on the day the Army fails to do this. Our
compromise will be Satan's victory. If we lose our sense of
the awfulness and evil of sin and its horrendous hold on human
hearts, or if we ever cease to grieve over the damage and hurt
it causes to human lives, we shall then have lost our sense of
urgency about the need of a Saviour. Linked to this is the
fading belief among us as to the reality of Hell or Satan and
the forces of evil and darkness. We need to know our enemy,
but too many of us no longer think there is an enemy. This
makes us dangerously vulnerable to those "fiery darts" of
which the Apostle speaks in Ephesians 6:16.
2. The power of the forgiveness of God shown
in Jesus Christ our Lord. We are called as an Army to preach
the matchless love of God for a sinful human race, a love
revealed in the Cross of Calvary. It is our mission to
proclaim the blood of Jesus as the only remedy for sin. This
message needs to permeate our teaching, preaching and writing.
Each Salvationist is called to lead a life that is an eloquent
witness to the love of God and the power of the Cross.
3. The life of holiness. We must recapture
our nerve about the practicality of living a sanctified life.
The Lord is willing to demonstrate through His Army the
boundlessness of the salvation to be found in Christ, to show
that He forgives past sin AND wants to keep us clean and pure
after we are saved. I am praying that God will raise up among
us women and men who will be bold about all this, who will
speak of it, write about it, and articulate again for the
early 21st century the timeless truths of Scripture. I believe
that purity of heart and life is a daily possibility through
grace imparted directly from God to the believer. I am not
among those officers or soldiers who think it fashionable to
denigrate the writings of Samuel Logan Brengle. I do not agree
with those who say he got it wrong and did not understand the
Scriptures. He still challenges us across the years and spurs
us on to higher and better. (I wish dearly that his books were
again available from the trade department in the UK. When I
want one I have to contact the USA, Canada or Australia. It
seems Brengle is read and appreciated more these days outside
the Army than in it. Something is wrong.)
4. A refusal to curry the favour of men. Too
often we have yielded to the temptation to trim our sails to
the winds of human approval. That is no way for an Army of God
to go on. We need to plead on our knees for regular cleansing
from the care of what men think or say. We shall have friends
aplenty by being "true to God". Our best friends will be those
who know all about us, warts and all, but who love and admire
us for our willingness to be absolutely ourselves under God
and respect us for our determination never to waver from His
will or from the identity He has given us a a distinctive
church and community of compassionate carers for the outcast
and lost.
5. Practical, compassionate service to the
needy. God has endowed us with a marked capacity to serve the
under-privileged. We share his bias to the poor. We walk with
the outcast. We identify with the rejected. We serve with the
basin and towel. We kneel before the lowest of the low and the
poorest of the poor. We are to be the voice of the voiceless.
All this is hard and costly, but there is grace for it. Every
Army social worker needs to be saved, to be a partner in
mission, consciously receiving and, in turn, channelling that
divine grace to needy souls.
6. Advocacy in the public arena for social
action. We are called to be actively, intelligently involved
and openly concerned on issues of social justice and human
rights. Some parts of the Army world have done better at this
than others. We take no political side, save that of the
oppressed or downtrodden. We must forever be on our guard
about the implications of taking money from secular sources.
Sometimes the strings attached represent too high a price. We
must never sell our birthright. All the world must know that
the Army's silence is something that money cannot buy.
7. Our belief in the directness and
immediacy of divine grace to the human heart. This brings me
to the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers and also to
our historic, divinely inspired stance concerning the
sacramental life. We are called to bear witness to the daily,
hourly reality of God's grace in our lives without the help of
the (by now myriad) outward forms of sacramental ceremony
found useful by many others. This is a hard, even lonely,
calling. So was our Lord's.
8. Claiming new ground for Christ. I am with
Booth in his vision to take the gospel to all the world.
Opportunities to open the work in new lands will still present
themselves. The Spirit must guide us. There are voices calling
for a moratorium on new national openings because of the
financial costs involved. I understand clearly the need to
count the fiscal cost before venturing further across yet
another national boundary, but the cost of ignoring the
prompting of the Holy Spirit is higher still. Where He leads
with a clear vision and call, like Booth I would follow,
trusting God implicitly for the resources we need. He has
never let us down and is not about to start doing so. Here in
Pakistan we have ventured forward time and again into bold and
unlikely ventures, taking new ground for Christ. The money has
always come to hand. Our faith has been strengthened and is
growing ever bolder.
JAC: You served in Africa during some
challenging times (recounted most recently in MOBILIZED FOR
GOD). What is the secret to the fast Salvation Army growth in
parts of Africa?
SC: Our four years in Africa (1975-79)
hardly make me an expert! But it is notable that in East
Africa and in Zimbabwe we have the two largest territories in
the world when it comes to the number of soldiers. Then we
look to India and to Pakistan also to see high numbers. Only
25% of our soldier strength is to be found outside Africa and
South Asia. Many cultural factors are at work in these places.
We do not encounter western scepticism about God or about
organised religion. We are free from the inordinate
individualism of the west with its emphasis on pleasing one's
self and the need for self-sufficiency. In Africa and Asia we
find a recognition that we are basically social animals with a
need for one another. I think this willingness to see our
personal need is helpful to evangelism. Another factor is the
faithfulness of the early pioneers who are still openly
remembered and spoken of in revered tones. Their lives still
inspire.
Next, I would mention the willingness of
modern "missionaries" to work themselves out of a job and hand
over to indigenous staff. This way the church, the Army, can
more easily reflect the culture of the place where it is
found. Indigenisation and inculturation are the key
ingredients.
JAC: You bring a unique combination of
educational accomplishment to the warfare. There are various
schools of thought as to the proper place of formal education
in the Army. What is the proper role?
SC: Get all the formal education you can
get, then hand it all back to God for Him to use at will,
never thinking for a moment that you did it all in your own
strength. However, education is no substitute for godliness.
Also, we need sanctified "thinkers" and this is not quite the
same as "educated folk". I suppose in the end I would want to
be an advocate for an evangelicalism backed up by sound
education and scholarship. But I would never accept that lack
of formal education is automatically a handicap to ministry in
the Army. There is a place for all of us, and we must humbly
learn from each other regardless of our backgrounds. We all
need to remain forever teachable.
JAC: Pakistan has experienced significant
growth in the last couple of years. How do you see the Army
strategising towards reaching the other predominantly Muslim
nations of the world?
SC: Yes, God has given us growth in our
soldiers' rolls of 30% in the last three years. We have
witnessed a net growth of over 10,000 senior soldiers in that
time. God is good. Pakistan is a Moslem state. We find it very
hard to reach Moslems with the gospel. Our converts come from
the unchurched, unsaved ethnic "Christians". Recent research
shows that in Pakistan there are perhaps at most only a dozen
or so true cases of conversion from Islam to Christ in any
year (from a population of 140 million Moslems). The impact of
the gospel is seriously hampered by what are perceived by
devout Moslems as low moral standards in the west and these
are assumed to be "Christian" - immodesty of dress, excess of
drugs and alcohol, marital infidelity, family breakdown,
pornography, abortion and so on. We see it as our role to
prove that the Army can, by God's grace, not only hold its own
in Pakistan but grow and flourish. We are the last frontier of
Salvationism between Europe and Asia. Indonesia, Nigeria and
Russia/CIS also work in Moslem settings. I am not aware of any
thought-through strategy by the Army to reach the world's
Moslems. I think perhaps there is widespread ignorance about
Islam - its beliefs and its potential for influencing world
and national events. In Pakistan we have many Moslem friends
and the Army is free to worship and serve, despite the
volatile nature of life here.
JAC: What books have had the greatest impact
on you over the years? Why?
SC: Richard Collier's "The General Next to
God" - for its inspirational account of Booth; the 1945
Handbook of Doctrine - for its simplicity and directness (each
section seems to call for a verdict from the reader, not least
the section on our Tenth Doctrine); the Journals of Bramwell
Booth - for what they have taught me about spiritual
leadership in the Army and single-mindedness for the cause of
Christ; anything from the pens of Brengle or Ed Read, whose
recent promotion to glory has taken from us an irreplaceable
man; the latest volume of Army history by Henry Gariepy,
"Mobilised for God" - for its fine research and willingness
not to hide the truth (we need, as an Army, to mature still
further in giving the people all the facts, uncomfortable or
not, in works of this kind); my little book of collected
prayers - for its daily help to my soul (I thank God for the
written prayers of others that help me say to God the things I
need to say); "God in Pain - Teaching Sermons on Suffering" by
Barbara Brown Taylor - for its sensitivity to the human lot
and for the courage and skill of its author who stands out as
a preacher of God's word.
JAC: Who are your heroes? Why?
SC St.Francis - because he was not in love
with this world or its honours;
Martin Luther - because he knew where he
stood and could not be intimidated by powerful persons,
religious or secular;
John Wesley - for showing me what Christ can
do for me in the blessing of a clean heart;
William Booth - for role-modelling what it
means to let God have all there is of me;
Samuel Logan Brengle - for not letting his
wealth or legal education stop him from preaching and writing
as a prophet of holiness;
my Dad, Major Albert Clifton (R) - for being
the nicest, most humble man I have ever known and for showing
me how to both love the Army and also stand back from it from
time to time.
JAC: General Catherine Booth went on record,
stating, "The great fundamental principle of The Salvation
Army is? the law of adaptation." This comment has been used by
many salvos at many times toward diverse ends. You are on
record in various places, including WHO ARE THESE
SALVATIONISTS?, commenting on change in various areas of The
Salvation Army.
What is the proper understanding of this
fundamental principle for us today, in light of tensions
between priestly v. prophetic roles?
SC: "Adapt or die!" is still as true today
for us as ever it was. Adaptability, without compromising our
non-negotiables, is a gift we have been given but which we are
often slow to exercise. I sense a new stirring toward good,
wise change. The best change comes from the grassroots up.We
must never forget to measure our methods ruthlessly against
their effectiveness in winning souls and building saints. Our
social, compassionate services need also to be constantly
reviewed in the creative light of the Spirit's illumination,
so that we never find ourselves offering answers to questions
that no one is asking any more. Any tension between the
priestly and the prophetic must always be creative. It is not
"either / or", but "both/and".
JAC: What is the most significant part of
your ministry today?
SC: Striving daily to be a spiritual leader
in a manner that pleases God. It is vital that I encourage my
people (yes, I know they are first and foremost God's people,
but I unashamedly think of them as "mine", given to me in high
and sacred trust by God to shepherd and pastor in His Name).
Leadership involves also the setting of standards, the
creating of a climate in which others can excel for Christ and
be stretched beyond what they believed possible. I am always
excited to see others discern that they have gifts long
undiscovered. I am grateful to God also for opportunities to
travel in ministry, to teach and preach for Him. I am called
also to minister to my family. Helen, my wife, and I pastor
one another as we both seek jointly to pastor our three
children, scattered on three continents at present! I feel
also called to write for Christ. The USA National HQ have
generously published my last two books. I feel the stirrings
of another - something about "Pakistan - the Final Frontier",
but that sounds too much like an episode of "Star Trek"!!
JAC: What are your dreams for The Salvation
Army?
SC: The response given above where I list my
understanding of the non-negotiables covers this. Because I am
a radical, progressive traditionalist my dream is of an Army
rediscovering the richness of its roots, its first purposes,
its first bold obedience to the Spirit, its passion for souls
and for holiness while all the time staying crucially relevant
to the needs of the age, sensitively in touch with changing
social trends but never being seduced by them because we are
in Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever.
JAC: What is God teaching you these days?
SC: 1. To trust Him in matters large and
small. That He will win through for me, for my family, for my
Territory, for God's Army.
2. That I need Him more than He needs me.
3. That I have no answers, except those that
are God's.
JAC: Can you tell us of any memorable
preaching you have heard, and what made it outstanding?
SC: I think of two starkly contrasting
experiences:
a) I listened to the preaching of the Rev.
Dr. Bernice King at the Congress in Atlanta this summer. It
was rooted in the Scriptures (the fourth Gospel's account of
the raising of Lazarus), it was articulate, passionate,
persuasive, powerful, professional in the very best sense. God
was in it and we heard His voice.
b) A few years ago we were on furlough and
visiting a corps on the south coast of England. The corps
officers were away on leave and so one of the local officers
was taking the Sunday evening meeting. He was inexperienced
and hesitant, almost apologetic. His whole approach was
amateurish. Yet his words were simple and unpretentious. He
spoke to us about the sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary and our
need of a Saviour. It came from his heart. As I listened I
knew that had I not been saved already I would have accepted
Christ as my Saviour that night.
JAC: How are you a different person and a
different Salvationist from when you were commissioned?
SC: God is more central in my life. My
calling to be an officer in the Army has been confirmed over
and over again. I am more sure that I am in His will. I am
living out a marvellous adventure with God, for Christ, in the
power of the Spirit.
JAC: What is your most memorable spiritual
experience?
SC: Impossible to answer! But I do find
myself looking back upon (and looking forward to) those quiet
moments when, on leave with Helen, we can sit in a lonely
church sanctuary somewhere in the English countryside, or
kneel together at an Army Mercy Seat, renewing our vows to God
as officers and recommitting our futures to Him.
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