This post follows from the article on the Ethiopian eunuch, so if you haven’t read that one, you might want to go back and read it first. https://mytheologycorner.com/2024/09/02/the-ethiopian-eunuch-the-radical-inclusivity-which-created-the-church/ Introduction – Why Cornelius’s Conversion Matters for Inclusion Cornelius’s conversion, the giving of the Holy Spirit to Gentiles, and Peter’s confronting of the change to dietary laws…
Content note: this essay discusses castration and the sexual exploitation of enslaved people in the ancient world, in historical and pastoral context. We take for granted that the church is a community whose membership is constituted by faith alone. We are used to it. But when the church first burst into the world, it introduced…
A Reflection On Marriage, Sacraments, and Covenant. Should The Salvation Army stop marrying people? I think The Salvation Army should bless marriages, but should not conduct weddings. I will set out my reasoning in this article. I am not advocating for change, as this is quite a radical position to take. But it is a…
Content Warning Description of death, torture, and execution The Crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the central truth claim of orthodox Christianity. Without this, the rest of the Christian claims fall apart. But when we hear the story of the crucifixion, or we read it for ourselves, we see it through our modern eyes, separated…
William Thomas Stead (1849-1912) was a somewhat unlikely ally of the early Salvation Army. But without the influence and support of Stead, it would have been far more difficult for the Army to gain the popular approval with which it entered the 20th century. W. T. Stead’s Early Life Stead was born in Northumberland; his…
One of my favourite quotations comes from the American philosopher, political commentator, and theologian Cornell West. He wrote that: “Love in public is justice, and love in private is tenderness.” Today I am concentrating on what it might mean to say that justice is the public act of loving the neighbour. Justice is Always Something…
This post makes no claims about whether the reader should adopt Christian Anarchism as a political philosophy, nor does it argue that The Salvation Army should be organised around its principles. Rather, this article seeks to set out what Christian Anarchism is, its biblical roots, and its relationship to The Salvation Army today. The basic…
Church pioneer ministry is often thought of as the sexy and cutting edge new frontier of church development. Pioneers are the chosen few, specially gifted to think outside the box and start something new and different. The reality is that every minister is a pioneer. Pioneering Happens In The Small Things The Kingdom of God…
At the moment The Salvation Army is experiencing a culture war. To understand what that means, and how it might be resolved, we need to understand how culture wars work and the essentially theological nature of culture wars. What Is A Culture War? At its heart, a culture war is an argument over the identity…
For a Salvation Army Officer, part of life is moving from one role to another with some frequency throughout their career. But each move brings with it a whole range of complexities, anxieties, and opportunities, which makes for a heady mix of emotions, especially when combined with the loss of the previous appointment and the…