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Five books that shaped my
life
by
Captain Stephen Court
As editor of
Journal of Aggressive Christianity, I’ve been blessed by the
contributions of many great Salvationists over the years. In
one feature, leaders such as Clifton, Harris, Phillips, Munn,
and Strickland described five books that shaped theirs lives.
It has become a classic issue, not just because one of the
contributors became General.
One of the
joys of being editor is being able to succumb to the
temptation to jump into the fray with my own two cents’ worth!
After reading the submissions, I couldn’t resist.
I’ve read a
bunch of the books included by these greathearts commended
above. But I am happy to say that I’ve got a fresh list! While
I’ve benefited by 20th century writers (such as Ravi Zacharias,
Commissioner Ed Read, Peter Wagner, Jack Deere, and Charles
Colson), I’ve chosen books by my heroes.
In 1777, John
Wesley wrote an apologetic of his doctrine of holiness called
A PLAIN ACCOUNT OF CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. He took the
high road in the extremely charged debate of the day, allowing
John Fletcher to scale the polemical heights in his CHECKS TO
ANTINOMIANISM. His simple ‘question and answer’ format was
imitated by General William Booth in Booth’s potent little
1903 book, THE DOCTRINES OF THE SALVATION ARMY (subtitled,
“Prepared for the use of Cadets in Training For Officership”).
Wesley patiently answered every critic’s question, every
skeptic’s doubt, and every cynic’s disparagement with
historically documented explanation of this Biblical doctrine.
Now, A PLAIN ACCOUNT stands in for Fletcher’s CHECKS, and for
Samuel Logan Brengle’s practical guides, especially HELPS TO
HOLINESS (a book I carried along with my Bible on a bicycle to
our neighbourhood park, where I sat, determined not to leave
until I experienced the holiness described therein). A PLAIN
ACCOUNT is precious not only as a defence but as a promise of
what is possible.
The year after
Wesley was promoted to Glory was born a man who would walk in
his huge shoes. Across the ocean, Charles Finney stoked the
fires of revival through the eastern United States. His
preaching was so hardcore and so manifestly accompanied by the
power of God that multitudes were transformed and cities were
turned upside down. His LECTURES ON REVIVALS OF RELIGION
(1835) is an account of the preaching that changed a
nation. The sister volume is the stubbornly named, AN
AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY THE REVEREND CHARLES G. FINNEY, 1792-1875
(1876). Together they tell a divine story that rips the placid
satisfaction right out of you.
It wasn’t two
years after Finney was promoted to Glory that Catherine and
William Booth made a name change that has changed the world.
While John Wesley was the grandfather of The Salvation Army
and Finney was dubbed ‘the Presbyterian Salvationist’ by the
Booths themselves, my next choice, PAPERS ON AGGRESSIVE
CHRISTIANITY, was by the Army Mother herself (I’m hesitant
to use that term, as she was the General and the Founder, too,
but she is the only one who was the Mother). I could
have chosen any of a few books by Booth. They are merely
collections of her preaching. They are merely fire on paper!
Flames flick from her words off the page to practically lick
your clothes. Each sermon oozes spiritual authority. Almost
every paragraph shouts out to you with the urgency of the war.
This hero
makes no concessions, no compromises, and no political ‘correctitudes’.
She put (and continues to put) a holy fear in me of the kind
that doesn’t cause cowering and retreat but impels total
exertion to spread the dread. This helped shaped my life- I
named a cyber journal after it (JAC) and an annual conference
(ACC- Aggressive Christianity Councils).
Catherine
Booth was promoted to Glory in 1890. Not coincidently,
Commissioner George Scott Railton was excommunicated from the
halls of primitive Salvationist power in the same year (was it
coincidental that this was the year of the death of primitive
salvationism?). While not famous as an author, GSR battled as
effectively with the pen as he did with the Bible. Backing up
every page of HEATHEN ENGLAND was a life of unleashed
resolve that GSR modeled for the world. My buddy called me
this winter from training college to get suggestions for
references. I recommended HEATHEN ENGLAND and TWENTY-ONE
YEARS’ SALVATION ARMY. He emailed a week later noting that my
name was the last one written in the CFOT borrowing cards (And
I’ve been an officer for ten years!). And that is tragic,
because the book is literally revolutionary, recounting, as it
does, contemporary history of the primitive salvationist war.
The stuff he was writing was happening outside his window. The
heroics that lace these pages are enough to gouge a hole in
your casual, comfortable Christianity and leave in its place a
wrenching hunger for the guts to live and fight for death and
glory as our 19th century comrades did, and for the God of
Railton to show up again today.
Railton
outlived William Booth by a year. Booth has yet to get his due
as an author. He wrote some unknown classics such as
SERGEANT-MAJOR DO-YOUR-BEST, SEVEN SPIRITS: Or, What I Tell My
Officers, HOW TO PREACH, PURITY OF HEART, all less famous than
IN DARKEST ENGLAND AND THE WAY OUT. But my last choice is
VISIONS. It is a collection of visions Booth had, the most
renowned being ‘Who Cares?’ Not only is VISIONS eloquent, it
persuasively depicts the divine. Booth doesn’t settle with
capturing your imagination- he grips it with a stranglehold.
The
undercurrent is that Booth is all about the prophetic. He
hears from God and conveys the message to us. Many of us have
neglected this reality in our
salvationism (Catherine prophesied that this movement shall
inaugurate the great final conquest of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ). We can more easily marginalize modern classics
by Rick Joyner like FINAL QUEST and THE CALL. But Joyner lines
up right behind Booth’s VISIONS for prophetic impact. And
while I love the visions and the writing, I embrace the Army’s
experience and calling with the prophetic.
General Brown
called VISIONS, “Booth at his best.” This is ironic because
Booth at his best was Booth stepping out of the way and
conveying God’s message faithfully to the world. I’m
interested to hear about five books that have shaped your
life. If The Officer doesn’t have space for all of them, feel
free to fire your list to
revolution@mmccxx.net.
Meanwhile, join me in stepping out of the way and conveying
God’s message faithfully to the world.
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