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The Door for ( Wednesday in the Third Week in Advent )

Blood, Fire, and Living Incarnationally

Stuart Jeffries reports on the Salvation Army. Interesting article, possibly despite Jefffries (I didn't want to know about his masochistic fantasies about girls in uniform, and although I admit that I didn't know that the Sally Ann is the biggest social care provider in the UK after HM Govt, precisely how clueless do you have to be to be surprised to hear that they do lots of good work among the poor and marginalised? Given that Roy Hattersley, though an atheist, is a vocal admirer of the Booths and has often written about them in the Grauniad, I suspect Jeffries of being disingenous, but it's a rather odd journalistic strategy).

On the other hand, I sympathise with his finding the term 'new expressions of church' (or neo-church!) baffling and off-putting. I hadn't realised that particular cliché was current among Salvationists, and while I'm not averse to thinking critically about what and why the church is doing things, it would be very nice if we could ditch that silly term, not to mention its assumption that the only correct model is evangelical/ charismatic, or involves letting people drink coffee during the service, or moving the church to a shopping centre, or all of the above.

The Anglican equivalent is 'fresh expressions of being church,' and very annoying the report was, too. There is a Facebook group called 'stale expresssions of being church', which I have to admit I joined while feeling more than usually catholic and bolshie.

ETA: possibly I have been overestimating how well the Salvation Army's work is known. For the record: they do lots of excellent work, particularly with the homeless, addicts and the elderly, and it is not dependent on willingness to be proselytised at. Which reminds me that I keep meaning to contribute to their Christmas Appeal....