“Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” as Quaker Polemic

/ James Pedlar / 7 Comments

Though I’m sure I’ve heard it before, this hymn was brought to my attention when I watched the movie Atonement.   There is an amazing 5 minute scene (all shot in one take on one camera) in which lead character Robbie is wandering on a beach in Dunkirk, waiting to be evacuated to England.  The beach is in complete chaos, with thousands of soldiers hanging around, seemingly without any organization – fighting, drinking, trashing vehicles, and waiting helplessly.  In the midst of the chaos, however, a choir of soldiers stands in a bandstand, singing this hymn of clamness, stillness, and rest.

The hymn is taken from a longer poem called “The Brewing of Soma,” written in 1872 by Quaker poet John Greeleaf Whittier.  In context, it is actually a strong Quaker critique of more traditional forms of Christian spirituality.  Whittier begins by depicting a scene from Vedic religion, in which priests concoct a drink, called “Soma,” which is then used in an attempt to come into contact with the divine.  In those times, “All men to Soma prayed,” Whittier writes, but his eye is on more recent Christian worship practices, which he believes are no better.  “And still with wondering eyes we trace / The simple prayers to Soma’s grace, / That Vedic verse embalms.”

Clearly Whittier has the Christian sacraments, hymns, and liturgical prayer in mind.  As the poem continues he writes,

As in that child-world’s early year,
Each after age has striven
By music, incense, vigils drear,
And trance, to bring the skies more near,
Or lift men up to heaven!

All religious ceremony is, in his mind, a vain Babel-like attempt to reach the heavens by human effort.

The final six verses of Whittier’s poem are the ones we have come to know as “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.”  The seventh to the last verse is the climax of his critique:

And yet the past comes round again,
And new doth old fulfil;
In sensual transports wild as vain
We brew in many a Christian fane
The heathen Soma still!

It’s amazing that we have taken this polemic against historic forms of Christian worship and turned it into a standard hymn, particularly popular in Anglican circles!   When you keep Whittier’s Quaker faith and the rest of the poem in mind, you can still catch the traces of polemic in the verses we know and sing:

  • The “simple trust” in unmediated grace (v. 2)
  • the idea of rising up “without a word” (v. 2)
  • the “Sabbath rest” depicted as the “silence of eternity” (v. 3)
  • the “noiseless” blessing of God falling on the worshippers (v. 4)
  • the “still dews of quietness” which cause “all our strivings” to cease (v. 5)
  • and finally, the dumbing of the senses in the presence of the “still small voice” (v. 6)

Reading it from this perspective, these verses clearly reflect Quaker theology and practice in a very distinctive way.

Should non-Quakers still sing this song, since we don’t ascribe to their beliefs about worship?   I would say so.  Though it is good to recognize the Quaker aspects of the hymn, poetry does not have one fixed meaning.  Even anglo-catholics might be able to interpret this hymn in  a way that fits with their approach to worship, particularly since most of the imagery in the hymn is thoroughly biblical.   All Christians can affirm the restfulness of being in God’s presence, the place that quietness ought to occupy in worship, and the way that God’s blessing comes to us in spite of our strivings – without taking these convictions in the direction of Quaker theology.

And to be honest, most people are probably so enraptured by the amazing tune, Repton, that they wouldn’t notice the distinctive Quaker aspects of the hymn!

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee,
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
As noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.

Holiness is not a state

/ James Pedlar / 13 Comments

Many of the problems with Wesleyan/Holiness understandings of sanctification come from the drive to define a “low water mark” of holiness, by which I mean, a line in the sand – a threshold which we can identify as the indication that someone has experienced holiness or been made holy.  This whole idea is built upon the presupposition that “holiness” is a state, a status, or a place where one can somehow arrive.   Some of the “second blessing” holiness teachers (such as Samuel Logan Brengle) explicitly define holiness as a “state,” and then go about the process of trying to identify the ways that one can arrive at this state, by God’s help.

If we look back further, John Wesley’s famous “redefinition” of “sin properly so-called” as “a voluntary transgression of a known law of God” was part of his attempt to define the “low water mark” of Christian perfection.  Wesley would never say that anyone could reach a point in their Christian life where they did not constantly need the atoning blood of Christ.  While, in certain contexts, he used the above “redefinition”, he also believed in total depravity, which means that he believed that, as one journeys deeper into holiness of heart and life, one continues to find that sin “cleaves to all our words, and actions.” (The Repentance of Believers, §I.11)  Indeed, Wesley says of the children of God,

They are daily sensible of sin remaining in their heart, — pride, self-will, unbelief; and of sin cleaving to all they speak and do, even their best actions and holiest duties. [On Sin in Believers, §III.7, emphasis mine]

This is classic protestant teaching on total depravity, though I think later Wesleyans have, at least on a popular level, not always followed Wesley in maintaining this point.  The point is that even our “holiest” actions as Christians remain tainted by sin, possibly in ways we are not conscious of and don’t even understand.  However, Wesley felt that one could reach  a point of not voluntarily sinning, by becoming so overwhelmed by the perfect love of God that the intentions of one’s heart is made pure.   This was his “low water mark” of Christian perfection, though he never claimed it for himself.

It seems to me that this “low water mark” issue could be avoided if we simply made clear that holines is not a state.  There is no line in the sand of the Christian life which marks off “the holy” from the rest of us.  Holiness is a relative characteristic which all believers possess, to a greater or lesser degree.  From the moment of conversion we are being transformed, made responsive to the grace of God in our lives, and conformed to Christ’s likeness.   That is why Paul can address the Corinthians as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be holy.”

From a Wesleyan perspective, we can still maintain that it is not right for us to put a priori limits on the sanctifying grace of God.  That is, we cannot, in advance, say that any aspect of our lives will surely remain corrupted by sin.  What we can say, however, is that, as a relative characteristic, our transformation will always remain relative. Only God is absolutely holy.

Perhaps part of the problem is that later Wesleyans conflated Wesley’s category of “Christian perfection” with “holiness.”  While Wesley seems to fall into this “low water mark” trap I’m speaking of in relation to his discussions of Christian perfection, he nevertheless recognizes the fact that “holiness” is a relative characteristic shared by all believers.

Every babe in Christ is holy, and yet not altogether so. He is saved from sin; yet not entirely: It remains, though it does not reign. [On Sin in Believers, §IV.3]

Therefore, the answer to the question, “are you holy?” will always be “Yes” and “No.”  There ought always to be ways in which our lives reflect the holiness of God; and yet there will always be ways in which they do not.

Ongoing Discussion of SA and Sacraments

/ James Pedlar / 4 Comments

Way back in June I started a discussion of The Salvation Army’s new Handbook of Doctrine, focusing on the section that deals with the Sacraments.   I indicated then that I was working on an article for the Rubicon on this topic.  The article turned into two short articles, and they’ve been posted in recent weeks, here and here.

The two posts point out two changes made in the new HOD: 1) a shift of emphasis, from divine agency to human agency, and 2) the addition of a claim to a divine calling to non-observance.   Point #1 is not terribly concerning, although I prefer the more theocentric teaching found in the 1999 handbook, Salvation Story.   Point #2 is a much more serious problem, because it touches on foundational issues of authority in doctrinal teaching.

I hope Salvationists will consider carefully whether or not they are willing to support the claim that God himself  has called them to not observe sacraments.   I am not willing to go along with this claim, because there is no way to establish it on the basis of scripture or Christian tradition.   I could have written a lot more in my post on this issue, but I’ve tried to get to the heart of the matter and to state it succinctly.  I’d welcome your comments and feedback.

Signs that make me laugh: “Bakewell Auto Parts & Pet Supplies”

/ James Pedlar / 4 Comments

My wife and I spotted this sign while on vacation in the Peak District.

Doesn’t this strike you as a bit of an odd combination?  Auto parts and pet supplies?   Who buys their cat food and oil filters from the same guy?

I would have thought that the lovely town of Bakewell, Derbyshire was big enough to have separate auto parts and pet supplies stores.

Christian Life as Ecclesial Life

/ James Pedlar / Leave a comment

I want to finish this three part discussion of Salvation and the Christian life by drawing attention to the ecclesial nature of the Christian life.  This also brings us full circle, as we return to the question of theology and ethics.

From a Christian perspective, there are no autonomous subjects.  All of us exist in a relation of dependence upon God.  Yet the idea that we are autonomous selves is often found within the Church, as well as in our hyper-individualistic society.  For example, we often treat the topic of Christian life in a highly privatized and individualistic manner.

For those who are evangelicals: think of how much stress is put on the importance of our “personal relationship with Jesus” in the evangelical tradition.  How about “personal devotions?”  We spend a lot of time talking about (and feeling guilty about) “personal devotions.”  I’m not saying that private prayer and meditation on scripture are unimportant; surely they are.  But compare the amount of stress put on “personal devotions” with the attention that is given to other issues.   I mean, of all the challenges facing the church today, of all the things for us to focus our time and energy on, the one thing that evangelicals are racked with guilt over is “personal devotions”?  And when this is done in the context of a consistent focus on our “personal relationship” with Christ, the Church can seem redundant.

We are still dealing with the question of the chrisotogically determined direction of salvation and its implications for the Christian life.  The Christian life is ecclesial because God’s election of Jesus Christ includes the election of the Church to be his witnesses.  There is no “private” salvation; there is no “individualistic” election to salvation.  God’s work in Christ is not intended to sporadically save independent and autonomous Christians who will live solitary lives of saintliness.  Rather, it is about God forming a people who will give witness to his redemption by their words and deeds.   This may seem like a reduntant point but it needs to be said: the Christian life is an ecclesial life.  We are definitely not autonomous subjects; we are members of a body, who can only function in the context of that body.  In attempting to answer the question, “how now shall we live?” the emphasis is on the word we.

But this is not simply to say that Christians are to value “community” and “relationships” in the abstract.  Again we must look to Jesus Christ as the concrete and particular revelation of the truly human life.  We are dealing with the particular God revealed in Christ; this should lead to a very particular Church – a particular kind of community, not “community” in general or as a value in and of itself.  The particular kind of community in which we live means that the Christian life is a very particular kind of life.  Perhaps it would be better to say it is a peculiar kind of life.  Just as the God of the gospel always cuts against the grain of the world’s expectations, so the life of the Christian community ought to be counter-cultural.   The Church is called to embody the always surprising grace of God in its communal life together, and it should therefore be the context in which a different way of life is enacted and sustained.

Therefore as we think about the question of “ethics” within the context of the Christian life, we must reject the enlightenment suspicion of “tradition-dependent” ethics. Christian ethics is explicitly tradition-dependent, because the Christian lives and moves and thinks in the context of the Church and attempts to do so with the Church.  The Christian believes that the commands of God are directed to the Church, not to autonomous individuals.  Ethics, therefore, is always ecclesial.

The task of Christian ethics, then, is not so much about abstracting “timeless principles” that can be applied to any situation, as it is about seeking to inhabit an understanding of God and the world that is shaped by the Church as the people of God, attempting to be a living enactment of the story of the gospel.   In the end, Christian ethics is about what is real, and what is real is Jesus Christ and the gospel.  If the gospel is the true story of God’s history with humanity, then Christian ethics can be described, as Hauerwas puts it, as living as if Jesus and Trinity matter; living as if the gospel is reality.

There is no such thing as “ethics for anybody.” We all stand in a tradition, and cannot exist as  “autonomous individuals.”  Ethics, then, must be received and nurtured in the context of the Christian community.

This too is part of the direction of our salvation.   We are saved for communion with God and with our fellow human creatures.   We find this in the new humanity which Christ has inaugurated.  We participate in it now as an anticipation of its full realization in the new Kingdom.

Salvation and Active Obedience

/ James Pedlar / 1 Comment

[continuing from my previous post]

Just as God’s freedom makes our freedom possible, we must also say that God’s action makes human action possible.  God’s action always precedes our action.  Our action is the always a gracious response to the prior action of God.  God takes the initiative, and we respond, with a genuine human response, a response which can only be given as an echo and answer to the definitive action of God in Christ.   This is why it is said that God’s action and our action are not in competition with one another.  It is not as if we must choose to either believe that it is God who acts or it is human beings who act in salvation.  Human action is only possible because of God’s action.  And human action is not able to encroach upon God’s action.

But we must go further than this. We’re not speaking here of the simple affirmation that God has created all things, therefore we would not exist and could not act if it weren’t for his creation.   When we speak of God’s action we are speaking of something concrete and actual: Jesus Christ.

The action of God on our behalf is the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.   Jesus, in his truly human activity, is the basis for the new humanity, in which we are included and toward which we are being moved by the Spirit.  Thus “human action,” as was the case with human freedom, does not refer to some neutral form of agency, or some latent potentiality which we can choose to direct toward whichever ends we choose: truly human action means a faithful response to the gracious action of God, as concretely manifested in the human life of Jesus.  Truly human action is action which is conformed to the likeness of Christ.

What about the fact that human beings, including professing Christians, don’t act in conformity to Christ?  Human actions which do not conform to the likeness of the new humanity in Christ are not evidence of an “agency” or a “power” that humans have over and against God.  They are rather evidence of the weakness of the human response; they are deficiencies in human agency; they are a kind of inhuman aberration.

Therefore, because God has acted, we can and must act.  The action of God on our behalf in Christ is ordered to our conformity to Christ and our realization of God’s intention for an active human covenant partner.  God has not acted so that we will not have to act at all; he has acted in Christ so that we will act in a truly human way.   Our action in conformity with Christ is not the basis for God’s justifying and sanctifying action on our behalf; rather, our action in conformity to Christ is the goal of God’s justifying and sanctifying work on our behalf.

I want to add one more layer to this description I’ve been giving of the character of the Christian life: the Christian life is a life of obedience.  Here is where those who are nervous about works-righteousness get particularly nervous.  How can Christian life be about obedience?  Isn’t the whole point that we cannot obey, and therefore we can only throw ourselves on the mercy of God?   Well, yes, if we are talking about the question of our standing before God.  None of us is capable of obedience to God in our own strength.  Nevertheless, if we keep the directional nature of salvation in mind, and the christological determination of salvation’s direction, we must say that the Christian life is a life of obedience.   God has determined that he would have a free, active covenant partner who responds to his gracious commands in obedience.    Jesus Christ is that covenant partner, and we who are “in Christ,” saved by Christ’s faithful obedience, are being conformed to his humanity and formed into obedient children.

The obedience of Christ is, I think, an undervalued theme in the New Testament.  I think in our concern to affirm the divinity of Christ in the face of historical criticism we have tended to shy away from a full appreciation of Jesus’ humanity.  But it is clear from the scriptural witness that Christ, in his humanity, had to go through the genuinely human struggle of obedience to God.   The obedience Christ offered in his life on earth was not something which came easily to him. His obedience was not “automatic;” and he was not removed from the genuine human trial of obedience.  The reference point for this discussion, of course, is the garden of Gethsemene.  There was real struggle, described in Hebrews as a process of “learning obedience.” What is intended by that text, I believe, is a description of the way in which Christ had to gain first hand experience as an obedient human being, in order that he could offer a perfect sacrifice on our behalf, and also in order that he could be our perfect, sympathetic high priest: one who understands the trials and temptations of human life and yet was able to overcome.  He is the “author and perfecter” of our faith – the trailblazer in a sense, who has in his humanity paved the way for us to participate fully in God’s covenant.

If Christ in his human life lived obediently, then surely our lives, as an echo and response to his, will be lives of obedience.  There will be struggle.  There will be real effort on our part.  There will be moments of decision in which we are called by God to answer a specific demand and act in accordance with his will.  But once again, none of these efforts, struggles, or decisions will be or ever can be the basis for our standing before God.  Our efforts are not the presupposition for God’s grace.  God’s grace, seen in the obedience of Jesus Christ, is the presupposition for our obedience.  Again, our obedience is not the ground of our salvation, but it is the goal.  Once again we must also say that it would not be enough to simply affirm that the obedience of Christ makes our obedience possible, as if Christ had simply restored a potential for obedience in us that we then can choose to use or not.  Obedience is our direction.  Obedience is our determination in Christ.  Our salvation is directed to obedience as free human action.

Salvation, Ethics, and Human Freedom

/ James Pedlar / 5 Comments

The main source of discomfort with talk of “morality” in protestant theological circles is the issue of faith vs. works.  We are nervous that any talk of morals will lead to moralism, to a reliance on our moral behaviour as the ground of our standing before God.  Of course, the doctrine of justification excludes such a conception of human ethical behaviour.  Salvation is the gift of God, fully and completely, and even the faith by which we acknowledge our salvation must be said to be God’s gift, and not a human work.

So where does this leave the human agent.  Is there nothing for us to do?   I want to argue that the Christian life is an active life of free obedience.  But the key thing to remember is that this activity on the part of the Christian is not the ground of our salvation; rather our salvation, as the gracious gift of God, is the ground for our free obedience.  God’s action always precedes our action, but God’s action does not exclude our action, but rather opens up the space in which we can act as responsible agents, and directs us toward the responsible action which is proper to our existence as human creatures.

We are free to actively obey God precisely because that obedience does not merit our salvation; if it did, we would not be free to actively obey, we would be damned. I’m going to attempt to unpack that statement by way of a positive view of Salvation.  Just as we cannot talk of “freedom” without speaking the goal of human life, so also we cannot talk about “salvation” without speaking of salvation’s goal.  That is, salvation cannot be conceived in purely negative terms, as “salvation from” sin, death and the devil.  It is true that our salvation is a salvation from, but we must also consider salvation in positive terms, as salvation for communion with God and with our fellow human creatrues.

We can be more specific than this, however, because “communion with God and with our fellow human beings” could be seen as somewhat vague.  The direction of our salvation is anything but vague; it is concrete, specific, and particular; it is Jesus Christ himself.   He is “our wisdom, our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,” and we are being conformed into his image.  Christ himself is the concrete direction toward which our salvation is oriented.  God has determined that he should have a free, responsible human covenant partner, and in his humanity, Jesus Christ is that true covenant partner. It is in his free obedience that we are enabled and called to respond to God with a free and active obedience of our own.

That is why salvation and ethics are inseparable: human action is not the ground of our salvation, but it is the goal of our salvation.  Salvation has a christologically determined direction; therefore it is ethical. We appropriate this free, active obedience in accordance with the mystery of salvation: it is a gift realized fully in Christ, and yet being realized in history as we are conformed to his likeness.   Thus, if we can speak of “growth in grace” in the sanctification process, we can also speak of “growth in free active obedience,” as we are conformed to Christ, and the Spirit continues to lead us into an ever-greater radical responsiveness corresponding to God’s radically free grace in Christ.

Karl Barth has described God’s freedom and ours in the following terms: “God’s freedom is his very own,” and “Man’s freedom is his as the gift of God.”  The human creature does not possess and inherent, directionless “freedom.” The Christian life is a life of freedom, not because we have an inherent “free will” or capacity for free moral decisions: rather, we are freed to respond freely to God’s grace because God, in his freedom, has chosen that it should be so, and acted to make it so in Jesus Christ. In our own power, we are not free; rather, we are exposed to the tyranny of our own will, with all of its disordered desires.  But God has determined that he would have a free covenant partner, and has acted in electing Jesus Christ as that free human partner.  Our being “in Christ,” our union with him, is the basis of our freedom, a freedom which is an echo and correspondence of his freedom.  This means that we only know what human freedom is by looking to Jesus Christ, as God’s truly free covenant partner.  Our understanding of freedom must be constantly measured against the the freedom of Jesus Christ as the truly free human creature.

This means that a “negative” account of freedom is obviously misguided.  The negative view of freedom posits that freedom is simply freedom from all external constraints and obligations.  To be free is to be an autonomous, unencumbered, self-directed agent, acting in accordance with our own desires.  In this context, any kind of structured moral obligation appears as an impingement on our freedom, and a burden which needs to be thrown off.  Such freedom, however, is illusory because it lacks a goal; it lacks positive content, and direction.  In other words, it is not freedom at all, but a form of slavery to our own misguided desires and impulses.

But this is true not only of supposed accounts of “free will;” it must also be emphasized that the Christian freedom we are discussing here as a freedom which is an effect of God’s grace is not a directionless negative freedom.  That is, human freedom in Christ is not simply a  freedom from negative influences, a freeing of our will which would then lead to a kind of regenerated “free will.”  Christian freedom is not a kind of “second chance” at free will, where God does his part in Christ and now leaves us to do our part with a newfound freedom.

The gift of freedom is directive: its end is conformity to Jesus Christ.  It is a freedom for this goal, a freedom for true humanity, in communion with God and with his creation.  We are therefore being made free human creatures as we are conformed to his image.  Our freedom does not precede God’s work in us and for us in Christ; it is not the ground but the goal of our salvation.

I would argue that this is an authentically Wesleyan position, although Wesleyans are often seen as aligning themselves with accounts of “free will.”   Certainly there are some Wesleyans who have argued in favour of a libertarian concept of free will, but I don’t think that is consistent with Wesley’s own views on the subject.   I’ll have to post separately on this question, to do it justice, but I believe it would be better to describe Wesley’s argument in terms of the freed will of the regenerate, rather than claiming “free will” for all humanity.

Wrestling Jacob

/ James Pedlar / 2 Comments

This is one of Charles Wesley’s greatest hymns, though it has not proved popular for congregational singing.  This may have something to do with its length, and the fact that it would be difficult to eliminate verses without disrupting the structure of the hymn.

Originally published in 1742 inHymns and Sacred Poems, this version is from A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodist (1780), no. 136 [online here as nos. 140-141].

In the notes of the Bicentennial Edition of Wesley’s Works (vol. VII, p. 250), John’s obituary tribute to his brother is quoted as having said:

“His least praise was his talent for poetry; although Dr. Watts did not scruple to say that that single poem, “Wrestling Jacob,” was worth all the verses he himself has written.”

High praise, coming from the second greatest English hymn writer of all time.

The hymn is a fascinating meditation on Genesis 32:22-32, with the angel interpreted as a figure of Christ.  My favourite line is the first line of the last verse: “Lame as I am, I take the prey”  – a powerful summary of the gospel.

WRESTLING JACOB

Charles Wesley (1742)

1

Come; O thou Traveller unknown,

Whom still I hold, but cannot see!

My company before is gone,

And I am left alone with thee;

With thee all night I mean to stay,

And wrestle till the break of day.

2

I need not tell thee who I am,

My misery or sin declare;

Thyself hast called me by my name,

Look on thy hands, and read it there.

But who, I ask thee, who art thou?

Tell me thy name, and tell me now.

3

In vain thou strugglest to get free,

I never will unloose my hold;

Art thou the Man that died for me?

The secret of thy love unfold:

Wrestling, I will not let thee go

Till I thy name, thy nature know.

4

Wilt thou not yet to me reveal

Thy new, unutterable name?

Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell;

To know it now resolved I am:

Wrestling, I will not let thee go

Till I thy name, thy nature know.

5

What though my shrinking flesh complain

And murmur to contend so long?

I rise superior to my pain:

When I am weak, then I am strong;

And when my all of strength shall fail

I shall with the God-man prevail.

6

Yield to me now—for I am weak,

But confident in self-despair!

Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,

Be conquered by my instant prayer:

Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,

And tell me if thy name is LOVE.

7

Tis Love! ‘Tis Love! Thou diedst for me;

I hear thy whisper in my heart.

The morning breaks, the shadows flee,

Pure Universal Love thou art:

To me, to all, thy bowels move—

Thy nature, and thy name, is LOVE.

8

My prayer hath power with God; the grace

Unspeakable I now receive;

Through faith I see thee face to face;

I see thee face to face, and live!

In vain I have not wept and strove—

Thy nature, and they name, is LOVE.

9

I know thee, Saviour, who thou art—

Jesus, the feeble sinner’s friend;

Nor wilt thou with the night depart,

But stay, and love me to the end:

Thy mercies never shall remove,

Thy nature, and thy name, is LOVE.

10

Sun of Righteousness on me

Hath rose with healing in his wings;

Withered my nature’s strength; from thee

My soul its life and succour brings;

My help is all laid up above:

Thy nature, and thy name, is LOVE.

11

Contented now upon my thigh

I halt, till life’s short journey end;

All helplessness, all weakness, I

On thee alone for strength depend;

Nor have I power from thee to move:

Thy nature, and thy name, is LOVE.

12

Lame as I am, I take the prey,

Hell, earth, and sin with ease o’ercome;

I leap for joy, pursue my way,

And as a bounding hart fly home,

Through all eternity to prove,

Thy nature, and thy name, is LOVE.

Improving Salvation Army Worship

/ James Pedlar / 1 Comment

For those interested, I’ve got an article out on one of my favourite sites, theRubicon.

The topic is “Five Ways to Improve SA Worship,” and my five suggestions are:

  1. Eliminate the MC-style running commentary on songs
  2. Stop singing about the Army
  3. Let the Word be heard
  4. Pay attention to content
  5. Drop the showtunes

Come join the conversation!