The Sacramental Life is at the heart of how The Salvation Army understands practical holiness. Sacramental Life, not Anti-Sacramental There is sometimes a confused idea that The Salvation Army is anti-sacramental. But this has never been the case. Instead, the Army has understood the Bible to point not to rituals and rites, but to a…
What is the cost of our integrity? How much would it take for you to give it up? How Much Does Our Integrity Cost? Is there a limit to virtue for you? Or are you willing to pay the cost that is sometimes required of us to follow Jesus? It is easy to say that…
The sin of hypocrisy is the sin which is often most besetting for Christian communities. It is also the sin which Jesus spent most of his time calling out. This was particularly true during Holy Week. Yesterday, on Holy Monday, we saw Jesus flipping over the tables in the Temple to signal the start of…
Flipping Tables is always a valid answer to what would Jesus do. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, following Jesus does not just mean binding the wounds of those who have suffered from injustice. Sometimes it means putting a spoke into the wheel that is grinding them down. After making his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus went to…
On Palm Sunday we are confronted by the revelation of King Jesus as he begins the revolution. An eternal revolution as the Kingdom of God takes form in the world. The mission of Jesus comes to a climax. The world holds its breath. The dark powers of the world are confronted, exposed and broken by…
The Salvation Army is known for its position on women’s equality in ministry. The Early Salvation Army’s Understanding of Masculinity was even more radical in its day. Equality? From the very beginning, women were given positions of authority and were appointed to be church leaders. They preached, taught, and evangelised just as any man, and…
There are no priests needed in The Salvation Army. That time has gone. The life, death, and resurrection of Christ has changed that. But still the language of priesthood has clung on in Christian churches and ideas of ministry. No Priests Needed – Everyone Is a Priest When the Army first began, it pushed back…
At times like these, when it can feel that everything is getting darker and harder, joy is an act of resistance. Our choice to claim joy for our lives stands in opposition to the kind of dark and sinister powers and principalities which seek to corrupt and destroy us. Choosing Joy as an Act of…
Understanding Theopoetics simply means using poetic forms to practice theology, and I have been reflecting on this a lot lately. Poetic Theology – When Prose Fails Sometimes we don’t have the right words to explain what we believe. Sometimes we are confronted with the infinitely unknowable, uncontainable person of God, and find our response utterly…
The story of how The Salvation Army became conservative is a complicated one, but one which needs to be understood. It is the story of how one of the world’s biggest social service providers left behind its radical roots. Setting the Scene The Salvation Army began with a radical commitment to evangelising the people who…