Set Apart In Christ

The Salvation Army in Australia is in the midst of an historic journey. Since 1880 the Army has been active in this country, doing all it can to see God’s Kingdom come and his will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. For much of that time, for functional and practical reasons, there have been two territories; Australia Southern and Australia Eastern. Earlier this year it was announced that this would change. The two would become one. As at 1 June the Australia One project was launched and work was begun on joining the two territories together into one unified structure. This move excites me. Not just for the practical reasons, but for theological ones as well. This has the potential to be a symbol of unity to the rest of the Army and, indeed, the world. A symbol of how two different things can come together to form something new and, through that new thing, reform society. This can be a symbol of the incarnation; that moment in time and space when the divine and human were u...

1       Introduction The Trinity is one of the most difficult aspects of Christian theology yet at the same time arguably the most important. What we understand God to be like impacts how we understand what God does. Robert Letham has suggested that “In the West, the Trinity has in practice been relegated to such an extent that most Christians are little more than practical modalists.” [1] In other words, in practical terms, the Trinity really  has no impact on the way most Christians live and move within their faith.  How can this be? Clearly, if theologians suggest that this a “fundamental aspect of the Christian vision of God” [2] then surely this must have an impact on the way we worship, the way we engage in mission as well as our understanding of what it means to be a people of the Triune God. These are the things we will be focusing upon today. So, whilst we will make an attempt to describe the Trinity in ways that are understandabl...

Happy New Year! 2012 is, of course, an Olympic Year and so I’d like to issue an challenge in this first post of  2012. It’s inspired by the Olympic motto – “Citius, Altius, Fortius” which is translated “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. 

OK. Confession time. Did you come to this wondering if I was about to reveal that I am about to receive a change in appointment? If so, I wonder if you've just emphasised the point I'm hoping to make here. That being, that I think the current system of appointing Officers needs to be discarded as it no longer remains best practice. In fact, the current system actually promotes gossip and voyeurism more than it does our mission objectives. I'll come back to that momentarily.

One of my favourite Salvation Army Songs is "Storm the Forts of Darkness" (Song 802 in The Salvation Army Song Book). It's a real battle song. I love the way the chorus moves from "fighting words" to "praising words", and the use of the word "Lamb" at that point I think is particularly important. I also love the fact that this tune used to be a "pub" song, but was "captured" (back in the days before copyright issues prevented such a thing) and the words changed for Army purposes. We used to do this frequently, and this is perhaps the best and longest surviving example. I like that it used to be "Here's to good ole whiskey, drink it down, drink it down" but then became "Storm the forts of darkness, bring them down, bring them down." Genius! But, there's just one word in this song (in three specific locations) that I would prefer to be changed. It's a little word, but I think a change here ...

I was recently asked (again!) what I thought the "non-negotiables" of The Salvation Army were. I thought my reply might interest others and so I have included it below... I always find the discussion regarding "non-negotiables" somewhat amusing. It seems to be a perpetual one that has become more prevalent in the last ten years or so. I can remember the then Commissioner Shaw Clifton (now General) speaking at the Coutts Memorial Lecture when I was in college (2003) on this very topic. His talk from that occasion is now the first chapter of his book New Love . He shared his 8 "non-negotiables" on that occasion... Realism Idealism Acceptance (or Inclusiveness) Compassion Simplicity Internationalism Visibility Audibility