A Challenge for Every Generation

There are those in the fundamentalist and evangelical church that hold that the Bible must be interpreted as literally as possible and not reinterpreted by modern thoughts. They speak as if the Bible was a flat document that is to be adhered to down to the letter. This is type of thinking maintains that contemporary trends and thoughts should have no barring upon the eternal teachings of the church. The same faith of our ancestors must be faithfully preserved and passed down.

These traditionalist pervade every denomination, including The Salvation Army. One of thesee branches within the church are described as “restorationists” (or known as "the primitive Salvationist movement" in the Army). The restorationists seek to return the church to its early state. In the Army this movement calls for a return to the early years of the Army (1865-1895) in matters ranging from dress to confrontational evangelism to programs to utilization of resources. The assumption is that the Army has drifted and become somewhat apostate. The view continues that just as God blessed the Army and these early methods He will do so again if we but obediently and passionately return to the old ways.

Whether those thoughts are in the Army or in other denominations, such thinking is flawed. It sees the past through rose colored glasses and does not see the pains endured and mistakes made during “the glory years.” What is overlooked is that those tragic mistakes have helped the church to learn from the past. A handful of undeniable past mistakes may be hinted at or even broadly sketched in historical records in a sanitized fashion without really revealing the heart of the struggle with its gore. Rather than focusing upon mistakes, the records tend to over glorify the accomplishments and the results, and more often than not, do so in a hagiographic manner.

Such thinking forgets that society progresses and learns from the past. Though the heart of humanity remains embroiled in most of the same struggles, how those personal, interpersonal and cultural issues are worked out in the present is unique from prior generations. It is unique simply because society has evolved, because our new toys/technologies help create new issues past generations never dreamed of addressing. Add to modern technology the ongoing evolution of thinking, new laws and different societal standards and you have a context that is unlike those of the earlier generation. We cannot say with any certainty what the Booths or Wesley, or Knox or Luther or Peter or Paul or David or Moses would say about a particular contemporary issue or expression today as they could not and did envision our society.

Each generation has to confront its contemporary issues within its context. The Bible must be understood within its context, eternal truths defined and distinguished from cultural trappings. The kernel of the teaching carries forward to instruct and guide, not the trappings and the expression. Hence, each generation has to interpret and apply afresh the eternal teachings.