WiseReader

This article first appeared in ChristianWeek on December 1, 2009 (Vol. 23 No.18) 

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Not only is The Salvation Army Canada’s largest non-governmental direct provider of social services, it is arguably the world’s most trusted and respected charity. Be it a flood, hurricane or earthquake, or an ongoing need to help alleviate human suffering, it is hard to find a place of need in our world where the Salvation Army does not have a significant presence. 

Serving in 118 countries, speaking 175 languages, with more than 15,000 locations, and a force of officers and soldiers numbering close to 1.2 million, The Salvation Army is powerful example of holistic Christian ministry.

If you’ve wondered how this decidedly evangelical ministry has managed to grow so large and influential, you will want to get your copy of Christianity in Action: The International History of The Salvation Army by Henry Gariepy (Eerdmans, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-8028-4841-3). An adjunct faculty member at the Army’s Training College in London, Gariepy teaches Salvation Army history and Bible.

Gariepy, an author of 29 books and contributor to 50 others, has provided a “meticulously researched yet engaging” account of the Army’s humble beginnings and phenomenal growth into an international evangelical relief and development organization.

The Army’s founder, William Booth, himself reared in poverty, came to faith as a teenager through the preaching of an American holiness preacher. By age 17, Booth was preaching the gospel on the streets of England’s cities. However, before long, the Methodist circles in which Booth ministered grew uncomfortable with his revivalistic methods.

Matters came to a head in May, 1861, when the annual church conference voted to deny Booth the opportunity to engage in full-time evangelistic. William and Catherine, his wife, left that meeting vowing to continue their gospel work without the blessing of the Church.

As William and Catherine Booth embarked on their Abraham journey, they formed the East London Christian Revival Society. By 1867, the ministry had been renamed the Christian Mission. Readers will enjoy discovering how the movement was eventually to be known as The Salvation Army - it was the result of an off-the-cuff remark by a ministry worker commenting on the wording of a promotional pamphlet written by William Booth.

If Booth is remembered as the public voice of the work, Catharine is surely acknowledged the organizational master-mind. Her influence on the Army’s beginnings extended to the role of women - every aspect of the ministry was to be equally accessible to both women and men. In some ways, The Salvation Army is the forerunner of evangelical feminism.

In 27 chapters, Gariepy distils 144 years of compassionate gospel ministry. From the Army’s humble, holiness-centered revivalism to one of the world’s largest compassionate outreaches, the Army has become what may well be one of Christianity’s greatest stories of holistic Christian ministry - a humanitarian giant immersed in gospel truth.

As well as recording the great councils, chronicling the opening of new countries, and reflecting upon strategic advances and challenging set-backs, Gariepy provides fascinating glimpses into the front-line service of Army workers. For example, how many of us would know that The Salvation Army operated the world’s first 24/7 donut shop?

In August, 1917, following 36 days of rain, Salvation Army women served freshly prepared donuts to cold, hungry and battle-weary soldiers fighting in France. They improvised by using a wine bottle as a rolling pin and an old helmet as the frying pan. The gesture was so appreciated that other Salvation Army workers began doing the same in other battlefield locations. Very soon this became a 24-hour, daily service provided to soldiers on the front.

Gariepy’s one volume history concludes with a series of appendices outlining the doctrinal convicitons of the Army, the Soldier’s Covenant, the Founder’s song, and several statistical lists. Readers will be amazed at the many programs operated by The Salvation Army.

The book is well-written and a joy to read. It is a timely reminder that evangelical ministry can effectively meet the spiritual, emotional and physical needs of our world’s most vulnerable citizens. I highly recommend it.

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The author of this article received a review copy from the publisher.

This article first appeared in ChristianWeek on March 1, 2009 (Vol 22 No 24).

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Two new books explore the continuing influence of Francis Schaeffer

Two books published in time for the 25-year anniversary of the death of Francis Schaeffer remind us of the profound influence he left on 20th-century evangelicalism - an influence evident in the work of many privileged to sit under his teaching.

Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life (Crossway Books, 2008) by Colin Duriez is a full-length biography of the man behind the reputation. Duriez studied for several months under Francis Schaeffer prior to reading English and philosophy at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.

Tracking his life from a humble working-class home in Germantown, Pennsylvania, through his conversion and call to pastoral ministry within separatist fundamentalism; the broadening of his ministry base through the work of L’Abri; his crisis of faith; and his subsequent return to America where he became a key figure in the significant social issues of his day; Duriez portrays a man wholly committed to God and passionate to show that Christianity is a thoroughly reasonable faith.

In his Preface, Duriez comments on the recent publication of Crazy for God (Da Capo Press, 2007), the “confessional memoir” of Frank Schaeffer, son of Francis & Edith Schaeffer. He challenges Frank’s portrayal of his father’s “façade of conviction about his faith.” Duriez contends that Francis Schaeffer “did not divorce his inner and public life.” Os Guiness and others concur, having publicly refuted Frank Schaeffer’s harsh assessment of his own father.

In addition to extensive interviews with those who knew Schaeffer well, Duriez enjoyed full access to Edith’s Schaeffer’s family records, L’Abri history and unpublished Family Letters. The inclusion of 28 pictures provides a welcome visual to a gripping story of an authentic life lived for God’s glory. The book concludes with an interview Colin Duriez had with Francis Schaeffer on September 30, 1980.

If you are familiar with his writings, you will enjoy this finely crafted biography that Alister E. McGrath says effectively mingles “personal memories and theological analysis.”

An Absorbing Portrait

Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008) by Barry Hankins, professor of history at Baylor University, is an absorbing study of Francis Schaeffer providing valuable insight into how he was perceived by other intellectual Christians then and now. Hankins paints a sympathetic picture of a man who did not always get it right.

While Hankins records significant life events in the Schaeffer family, the heart of this study is a critical analysis of Francis Schaeffer’s work. Tracing Schaeffer’s beginnings as a pastor in America, Barry Hankins skillfully maps the gradual move from American Fundamentalist bent on finding every vestige of doctrinal compromise, to European Evangelical intent on equipping Christians to effectively engage the cultural questions of their day, to social crusader calling America’s evangelicals to rise up and reclaim Christian America. Hankins rightly observes that, had Schaeffer not moved to Europe, he would likely have remained an unknown pastor mired in the swamp of separationist fundamentalism (my term, not Hankins’).

In God’s providence, Schaeffer’s move to Europe, a move aimed at organizing continental fundamentalists and conducting child evangelism, drew him into contact with men like Hans Rookmaker – a friendship that encouraged Schaeffer’s move toward exploring Christianity’s interface with culture. It was a move that catapulted Schaeffer into an international ministry of helping young Christians wrestle through their philosophical questions about God and truth.

Hankins organizes Schaeffer’s work into three broad categories: his fundamentalist beginnings in America, his broadening evangelicalism and engagement with culture in Europe, and his return to America with its subsequent return to a strident fundamentalist engagement with the social questions of the day. Whatever one’s view of Schaeffer’s work, all are compelled to acknowledge his profound influence on the way evangelicalism relates to the world around it.

Hankins notes that much of Schaeffer’s writing does not readily address the cultural questions of today, but observes that Schaeffer understood his own times, learning how to effectively capture a generation for Christianity.

Whereas Colin Duriez was afforded liberal access to the Schaeffer family and papers, Barry Hankins notes that “members of the Schaeffer family were unwilling to be interviewed” for his book. He does not tell us why. Despite this restriction, Hankins has provided a thoroughly satisfying study of the man who, perhaps more than any other, was used by God to bring evangelicals into the public square.

Read together, these books provide a complete account of the man behind the books, lectures and films, providing a valuable assessment of his continuing impact on evangelical Christianity. I highly recommend them both.

Bent Hope: A Street Journal
Tim Huff
Castle Quay Books, 2008
ISBN: 1894860365
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Though names and locations have occasionally been changed to protect identities, the stories Tim Huff recounts in Bent Hope are

“snapshots of real times and places, bodies and faces … fragmented glimpses of fragmented lives, where hope is anything but shiny and bright. Unpolished. Crushed. Twisted. Bent hope.”

It was late evening when I first picked up this book. It was early morning when I finally put it down.

With more than twenty years of work among homeless people (mostly youth), Tim Huff is more than qualified to write this book. Though some occurred outside the city limits, and even across the Atlantic, most of the stories recounted here took place within Toronto - “a good city that unwittingly draws Canada’s largest pilgrimage of runaways, hideaways, castaways and throwaways, from small towns and large cities across the nation and even the United States.”

Too many of us find it highly inconvenient, an annoyance really, to be asked for “some change” when walking along a city street. And we have an amazing ability to look straight ahead when a disheveled man or woman stands at the traffic light with that tattered and faded sign seeking help from a compassionate motorist. We keep reminding ourselves that they are merely scam artists preying upon us. And while some are undoubtedly trying to work the system, Huff reminds us that the vast majority are truly needy people.

The twenty-three stories recorded here will have you both weeping and laughing, filled with despair, yet finding glimpses of hope. Don’t look for a theological treatise on ministry among the poor; don’t search for tight doctrinal discourse. Indeed, conservative evangelicals (myself included) will wince more than once at the theological ambiguity occasionally peeking through.

What readers will find is a front row introduction to a hidden world, a parallel community that very few of us know much about. It is a world that, despite the abuse, contempt and neglect it regularly experiences, nevertheless contains many who still find reasons to hang on, to hope that things might yet be better.

I will never look at the homeless with the same eyes again.