Spiritual formation - a rose by any other name?

As I understand it ‘Spiritual formation’ is the process of being shaped in the image of Christ by the gracious working of God's Spirit, for the transformation of the world. Any movement that encourages Christians to grow, study, pray, and to remember that they are accountable for their life and witness to God has got to be good.

However, ‘Spiritual formation’ is not holiness.

In her book “The Way Of Holiness”, Phoebe Palmer (a big formative influence on Catherine Booth) stresses the instantaneous elements of sanctification to the exclusion of the gradual. She also teaches that entire sanctification is not really the goal of the Christian life, but rather its beginning. This is the holiness teaching upon which early SA ministry was based.

It seems to me that ‘Spiritual formation’ is possibly a tad too slow from a Salvationist perspective. Our job is to save the lost and to provide them with an internal infrastructure that sustains their conversion and allows them to immediately begin leading others to Christ.

One can almost imagine the devil telling his lieutenants “If you can’t stop them becoming Christians at least get them to slow down a bit!” When we sing ‘Glory, glory, Hallelujah I have given my all to God’ it terrifies him if but if we were to sing “Glory, glory, Hallelujah I am thinking about giving my all to God’ he would see that as a victory.

There can of course be a process that leads to absolute surrender and there is definitely a process post absolute surrender but absolute surrender can only occur in an instant. To use Alistair Smith’s analogy “I can’t grow into a coat but I can put a coat on and grow in it!’ Finney would say that someone who has sanctified 95% is not a mature Christian but a rebellious sinner! It might seem harsh to us but that is basically what Christ told the rich young ruler. If ‘Spiritual formation’ has a place in SA teaching it must be as something that occurs post absolute surrender.

Salvationists are among the first to expect God to instantly deal with sins in the life of a new convert like alcoholism, lust, gambling, drug addiction – we teach sinners that God can instantly deliver them from such bondage. However, when it comes to things like anger, pride, bitterness (the things most likely to impact upon us) we quickly retreat into the safety of ‘process’.

I am full of praise for people like Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson, and Terry Wardle – at the end of the day contemplative spirituality is better than nothing but in The Salvation Army do we not possess a more rapid form of Christ-likeness?

Yours set apart by Christ, for the lost, in the Army.

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