Please Don't Call Me A White Evangelical!
ALERT! Love cannot be politicized nor institutionalized. It is not defined by labels, e.g., "evangelical, born-again, charismatic." Love can never be exclusive! Jesus exemplified this in action and word. The inborn nature is always drawn toward exclusivity. Denominationalism, by its very nature, will always progress toward institutionalism and exclusivity, e.g., "Catholicism, Methodism, Pentecostalism." And The Salvation Army is not immune, e.g., "Salvationism." It too can be victimized by institutionalism and exclusivity
Samuel Logan Brengle prophetically and metaphorically employs the terms “sinking” and “leakage” to describe this phenomenon, as in "sinking ship” and “leakage of love.”
He does so in the final chapter of his book, Ancient Prophets, titled, “What about the future of The Salvation Army?” So, over the next several months, I'm going to take a risk and explore each paragraph of this chapter, carefully, prayerfully and prophetically, perhaps even raising a few eyebrows in the process (beginning in the next post).
I also write this as an extension of a book recently published “exclusively” for a limited audience, unfortunately (see cover graphic above). Here I have the book opened to the chapter "Movement or Monument," the preface page quoting General Albert Orsborn, one of my Army heroes. A PDF Ebook version can be downloaded free here: http://themorerevolution.wixsite.com/reinventthemovement
Finally, by way of introduction to this next book phase, the term “evangelical” has been thrown around loosely lately, as in the recent headline, “Trump Elected President, Thanks to 4 in 5 White Evangelicals.” Let it be known far and wide that I do not wear the label “Evangelical,” as defined here and in my first paragraph above. And please don't preface it with a color, because that offends me. LOVE IS NEVER EXCLUSIVE!
JN
