Welcome to Thought Matters Conference 2024.
Abstracts
Stop Hiding Behind the Shield: Covenants as Tools of Safeguarding for a Salvationist Ekklēsia.
Amanda Brummell-Lennestaal
The diverse presentations of Ekklēsia within New Testament and earlier Hebrew scriptures demonstrate it is a veritable theological hypernym offering a mosaic of meaning and expression. At its time of founding, the Salvation Army aimed to be a contextual movement employing relevant evangelistic strategies. It arguably embodied the diversity found in representations of the early spiritual expressions of Biblical Ekklēsia. Amid a hyper-plural post-secular Australian society, tensions can arise within Salvationist missional contexts around what it means to be the Ekklēsia, and how to balance tradition and modernisation.
Traditional Salvationist liturgy incorporates covenants for members as well as clergy consecration. In its current macro environment, the Salvation Army is an institution that is expected, and increasingly required by legislative instruments to grapple with the notion of psychological safety. Drawing on feminist and womanist Biblical scholarship, this inter-disciplinary paper is a foray into the under-researched area of how Ekklēsia and its covenants could demonstrate mutuality and psychological safekeeping. It explores an inclusive reimaging of covenants that establish the defined contours of relationship between individual, the movement, and their God. In exploring co-creation of contemporary covenants that utilise a breadth of language, symbolic forms, and include the lived theology of marginalised individuals, the paper explores how this could be an act of resistance and liberation encapsulating the spirit of the early Salvation Army.
Salvationist Spirituality is dynamic, missional, and open – can it also be Indigenous?
Matt Cairns
One of my father’s last scribblings stated, “The strength of The Salvation Army is its spirituality”. This paper seeks to explore this notion, but with the specific focus on the Australian Salvation Army and Indigenous Spirituality. The current Reconciliation Action Plan for the Australian Salvation Army states ‘We aim to respect, value, and acknowledge the unique cultures, spiritualities, histories and languages of the oldest surviving culture in the world (TSA RAP, 20 – italics added). Yet on the same page when outlining what ‘transformation will look like’, any imagining of what Indigenous spirituality might look like within a contemporary Army is missing.
In dialogue with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander theologians and Salvationists, this paper will consider: the historical intersection of Western and Indigenous spirituality; the recent rise in interest and application of Indigenous spirituality; what an integrated spirituality might look like for The Salvation Army in Australia’s future; and what this will mean if it will truly be ‘the strength of The Salvation Army’.
“I [YHWH] Have Given Skill to All the Skillful” (Exod 31:6): What Can Exodus Teach Us About God, People, Worship and Technology?
Arseny Ermakov
The book of Exodus gets its name from the story covered in the book's first part. It vividly outlines the initial acts of the drama of redemption and salvation: the journey from the land of slavery to Sinai, the establishment of the covenant and the giving of Mosaic Law. This foundational narrative sets the grand theological themes of the Bible in motion. But this often overshadows the fact that nearly half of Exodus (chs. 25-40) is dedicated to the construction of a movable sanctuary – the Tabernacle. This painstakingly detailed and somewhat repetitive account – echoing the Noah’s Ark story – does not often hold the attention of modern evangelical readers. Yet it provides a rare instance in the biblical narrative when technology steps in as one of the main actors of the salvation story, alongside YHWH, People and the Land. Even more remarkable, it tells the readers that female and male craftspeople received their technological knowledge and skills directly from God.
The paper explores this intricate relationship between the divine and human and technology as they come together in the act of worship. It suggests that technology not only facilitates the meeting of the human and the divine but also plays an intrinsic part in fulfilling covenant obligations towards God and the Land. Moreover, Exodus envisages worship as inherently technological. If this is true, what insights might this story offer us modern believers, who live and worship in the age of technology?
The presentation will be followed by a short demonstration of the possible use of one rapidly developing technology for evangelical worship.
Faith and artificial intelligence: Seeking life-giving wisdom for the church and the world
Stephen Garner
Artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies have existed for well over five decades, but in the last few years, the wider public has become more aware of them. Arising, in part, from technology companies making certain AI technologies cheaply and publicly accessible, AI is no longer hidden away in systems such as auto-piloting, complex systems modelling, traffic management, medical diagnosis, factory automation, and suchlike. Instead, AI systems are interacting with people in humanlike ways in everyday software, such as web browsers and word processors. Reactions vary to these everyday encounters, with some seeing AI posing many problems for individuals, communities and the wider planet, and others seeing AI as ushering in a new post-scarcity age of health and prosperity. A common theme across these and other responses is different understandings of what being human actually means.
This paper considers two trajectories regarding AI: one church-facing regarding worship, discipleship, and AI; and the other society-facing seeking human flourishing for all in a world being shaped by AI. Exploring what faithful living with AI might look like, the paper highlights the call to love God and love neighbour as foundational for the flourishing of both the church and wider society.
Empowering children’s agency in their spiritual development
Marty Herring
Throughout the Bible children are present. They were part of the ‘assembly’ of the OT and the ecclesia of the NT. Jesus affirms their value by modelling how to treat, include and welcome them as models of faith and humility with their spiritual connection to God something adults could learn from. Modern ecclesia may not always acknowledge, nurture, or embrace the Spirits work among children within it. However, research by Rebecca Nye reveals that children are spiritual and relational.
Contrastingly, educational settings, influenced by social science insights is empowering the agency of children.
A comparative study of child spirituality and social science approaches to child agency will look to identify areas for faith-based community practice reforms.
Comparison of the core principals at work in the social science’s promotion of child agency, against prevalent children’s spirituality and ministry literature and practices, will seek to identify areas of development towards empowering children’s spiritual agency and how this could benefit the domestic and gathered ecclesia.
Along with the reading list attached, personal experience teaching children in both settings, and IHQ theology of children will be explored.
Imagine an ecclesia where children’s spirituality and their agency were welcomed, understood, given expression, and thriving.
The fight continues: Empowering Youth for The Salvation Army’s tomorrow
Arabella Holley
Our world has greatly changed since William Booth’s 1912 “I’ll fight” speech. A speech that highlighted Booth’s life’s work and inspired the foundation of the Salvation Army. The question I have is have we as a movement changed with our world today?
We are now in the 21st Century. A century so heavily influenced by young people and factors such as social media. So, how can we as the Salvation Army adapt our mission to accommodate this? Are we willing to act and do what is needed to meet the young people of the 21st century – the future of our church – where they are, as William Booth once did? I look to survey major changes to the movement of the Salvation Army in worship and outreach since its inception and how this compares to other denominations. I discuss research into ways we as the Salvation Army can grow to support the people William Booth aimed to “fight” for and draw conclusions around the success of modern-day approaches within our movement and whether they are successful.
Through looking at the elements of Booth’s speech I will show who we as the Salvation Army are fighting for today.
How could a faith informed approach to social work help to overtly re-embed the gospel in social work practice and grow the community of believers?
Emma Johnson
During the past 200 years, the church was at the center of humanity’s response to human suffering. In the 21st century, the patronization of the church’s charity work by government became widespread. While this improved the quality of physical service provision, it had an arguably negative impact on the delivery of supports relating to faith and spirituality.
Today, social services have frameworks mandated by funding bodies, including person centered, rights-based approaches and trauma informed care. Church leadership still attempts to create opportunities for members to work and volunteer in social services and faith based social services still try to provide pathways to church, both with limited success.
While it’s widely accepted that faith and spirituality are important elements of what makes us human, research in social work education and scholarly literature demonstrates the absence of evidence-based, spiritually-focused frameworks. This paper seeks to contribute to that pedagogy, creating a faith informed framework, uniquely bringing together fundamental theological and psychological principles as well as social work best practice. Aspiring to provide a scaffolding for people to engage with social service participants in this deeply intimate space, it provides a new way of thinking about how the gospel can be overtly re-embedded in social work.
‘CALD’ or ‘Called’? How CALD Youth Are Restoring the Acts II Church in the 21st Century
Tahlia Johnson
The Western Church in Australia is in decline, with Christian identification dropping from 61.1% in 2011 to 43.9% in the latest census. This is reflected within The Salvation Army (TSA) in Australia as well, though more so in a Youth and Young Adult (YYA) setting, including local, divisional, and territorial levels. Moreover, the cultural demographics of YYA events have not truly reflected the diversity of the YYA population in Australia. According to the 2021 Census, it was found that only 39.0% of Gen Z identified as Christian, the smallest of any adult age bracket (excepting Millennials, at 30.6%).
TSA Cairns found that embracing the diversity of their YYA not only grows their youth congregation, but their wider church as well, including online. While multiculturalism’s impact on church growth has been acknowledged, there is little-to-no research on the critical role of CALD YYA, nor its effect in a regional Australian context. This study, utilising research from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, biblical thought, statistics recorded by TSA Cairns, and personal experiences of employees, volunteers, and CALD YYA themselves, aim to help other Churches in rural, regional and metropolitan areas to not only replicate, but improve upon these results within their own communities.
Contributionality of presence in The Salvation Army from an intergenerational perspective and beyond
Sandy MacDonald
Contributionality proposes that all children, regardless of age, disability, or developmental capacity contribute to their families, churches and societies simply by being children (David Scott). While not limiting contribution to that of presence—active, agentic ways of contributing to the local people of God are important—this paper will ask the question what difference it may make within The Salvation Army were we better attuned and attentive to the contributionality of presence for all generations within The Salvation Army when we gather as the people of God.
What does it do to the (Sunday) gathered worship community when babies are present? When teens turn up? When the elderly regularly attend? Further, where is intergenerationality evident in age‑specific ministries such as children’s or youth ministries or, indeed, seniors ministries? At its simplest, presence embeds us in community. If we get a grasp on intergenerational contributionality of presence, perhaps it will also open our eyes to other ways of being in the world, such as when people with disabilities are part of our faith family, when cultural diversity is the norm or when our faith expression actively includes marginalised people.
The paper will draw from personal experiences, observations from gathered worship communities, and readings from the fields of child theology and spirituality and intergenerational ministry.
When ‘old vs new’ gets old: Exploring how we can best ‘serve the present age’
Casey O’Brien Machado
As the church seeks to carry out its mission in each generation, it employs many ‘methods’ to do so. For many years, its unwillingness to change these methods resulted in a loss of church members, an ineffectiveness of mission and stunted growth. This resulted in a loud cry from missiologists and preachers, declaring “We must be prepared to change, or we will die!”. This paper will explore whether or not this cry has resulted in a tipping of the scales too far in the opposite direction. It will argue that this cry for ‘change’ has resulted in an obsession with change – often for the sake of change - that is equally as dangerous as the refusal of it. The oversimplification of methods as “old” or “new”, and the suggestion that change should take place based on time (or trend or organisational strategy) rather than an actual critical look at whether or not the method is serving the mission does more to hinder the mission than to advance it. Instead, the Church must be prepared to do the work to determine whether a missional method is working, and to seek to understand God’s use or non-use of it – rather than simply change it because of a humanly-imposed time limit. Jesus’ call in Luke 43:19 to ‘interpret the present time’ requires that we be prepared to do what is best in that time – which will not always necessarily be synonymous with doing something ‘new’.
This paper will argue that in order to ‘serve the present age’, the church must focus on the effectiveness of methods rather than how long they’ve been used. Coming from a practical theology and lived experience perspective, it will argue the need for a sound review of missiological methods (based not on time or trend), drawing on examples of methods from numerous denominations across generations.
John Wesley’s ‘Catholic Spirit’ and the fully affirming church of the future
Glen O’Brien
Debates about the inclusion of LGBTQI+ believers speak to the core message of the church and the question of whether it is possible to fully embrace Queer Christians represents a crisis in the Christian church, but also an opportunity. The Fijian theologian, James Bhagwan points out that in Pasifika culture, when a new sail is woven, in much the same way as grass mats, the strands must be loose enough to pick up the wind of the Spirit but tight enough to keep the vessel seaworthy. Sometimes we have to engage in some theological weaving, drawing together scripture, reason, tradition, and experience to shape a church that will hold together, while catching the wind of the Spirit to journey to new places. In this paper, I will engage with John Wesley’s sermon on a ‘Catholic Spirit’ as a helpful model to address current disagreement on inclusion in the church. His method of narrowing disputes among Christians by shifting from debates about the faith to faith itself and its consequences, is a model which provides a phenomenological and experiential basis for affirming Queer holiness and preparing for the fully affirming church of the future.
Embracing Disability in the Body of Christ Today
Joseph Pinkard
How are Salvationists in Australia living out the mission intentions to ensure people with disabilities are intentionally included in the body of Christ?
There is an increasing prevalence of disability identified in Australian society. In 2024, national research revealed that over 1 in 5 (21.4%) Australians have a disability. This is up 3.7% from the 2018 survey (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2022). How are our faith communities responding to this trend to create accessible and inclusive evangelism, discipleship, and worship experiences alongside people with disabilities?
This paper will ambitiously seek to integrate key biblical perspectives on disability, theological reflections from Salvationists such as Coralie Bridle and Catherine Spiller, and the personal experiences of Salvationists living with disabilities, carers, and allies. Then apply these insights through the social model of disability.
Concluding with a practical framework based on The Salvation Army Australia’s mission intentions. That identifies barriers to participation in our faith communities and principles of inclusion to reduce these barriers. Ensuring people with disabilities can flourish in a church that makes the embodied gospel accessible for all (The Salvation Army 2020).
A Theology of Requisite Variety
Clayton Spence
Complexity theory seeks to understand modern life. Simple explanations are insufficient when describing life that has a level of complexity which cannot be understood in simple terms of cause and effect. AI, algorithms and machine learning point to a much more complex way of existing. Humans have always been complex beings, even if we haven’t always explained things in their complexity. Sometimes the church has attempted to oversimplify things. As a well known Australian Christian politician claims on his website “making things black and white in a world of gray”, Christians have attempted to give cliché and simple answers to complex questions. A new generation asks questions and are not satisfied with “black and white answers in a world of vibrant colour”. As God declares in Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways … As the heaves are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”. This paper attempts to reconcile faith with Complexity theory to provide a way of engaging a generation seeking a theology that matches the infinite variety of the universe in which we live.
Go and make disciples, not buildings; Boundless Salvation
Andrew Steer
Therefore, since we are surround by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders. Hebrews 12: 1
The explosive growth of the underground house church movement in China is inspiring. A key element of growth are believers who are prepared to risk all to make disciples who make disciples. They rely on the Holy Spirit and some simple training. Free from the need to spend time and resources on buildings and administration, they are able to focus their lives on loving Jesus, loving his people, in any context and geographical location they find themselves in, resulting in an abundant harvest of disciples.
The parable of The Sower talks about the weeds that strangle the crop, does this apply to soldiers and the TSA organisation in the West?
My personal experience has been, that every time, I have pulled back on activities, income and structures to allow space to let God lead, he has poured his spirit into that space, transforming my life and those around me. It has led to boundless opportunities to disciples’ others. I pray that I have the faith to dive deeper into God’s boundless ocean, that many others will do the same including the TSA so that the whole world is redeemed and becomes part of the Ekklesia.
First Copernicus, then Darwin, Now AI! The Threat to Notions of Human Uniqueness by the Rise of the Intelligent Machine.
David Wardle
Judeo-Christian culture has had built into its very being a high understanding of what it means to be human. That is, that human beings are creatures fashioned in the image and likeness of God. We are unique and special acts of creation – a ‘singularity’ as John C. Lennox argues. This proposition has shaped every aspect of our society, from the way our laws are configured, through science and medicine, to our social interactions and behaviour.
Today, when electronic devices routinely out perform us in almost everything, people often take comfort in the fact that ‘they are only machines.’
What if a technology were to exist that made this comfort ring hollow?
There is, and it is called ‘Strong AI’! Indeed, some are arguing that developments in Artificial Intelligence constitute the final blow to the notion of human uniqueness. First, Copernicus and those who followed showed that our physical place in the universe is not that special; then, Darwin and those who followed showed that our physical bodies are not that special; finally, that discoveries concerning animal intelligence along with artificial intelligence ‘are showing that even our minds are not truly special’.
It is the challenge to the biblical understanding of who humans are posed by the rapid development of artificial intelligence that this paper is primarily concerned. Do we need to be worried about being superseded by intelligent machines? What might it mean to hold second place in the universe?
Drawing on the work of John C. Lennox, Nick Spencer and Hannah Waite, Russell C. Bjork, Lynne Bower and Deborah Stevens, the paper argues that the development of AI is simply the next step in the evolution of the machine which has extended our ability on a huge scale to both benefit and to ruin. We should not be surprised by this. The Industrial Revolution changed the world entirely and we are still living through its consequences. Moreover, it continues apace in the development of AI and so does the upheaval!
Nor is there anything new or surprising about human nature. As Paul Tillich argues, human beings are both ‘essentially good and existentially estranged’ - from God, from others, from Creation and from our own true selves. This should lead us to be very weary of AI’s ability to amplify our tendency to overbearing control, domination, brutality, and cruelty, let alone the claim by some that it will eventually gain its own consciousness and rebel against us. Afterall, the created reflects its creator.
Ultimately though, the paper argues that we can rest assured that our unique place as God’s image bearers and regents on Earth is safe. The incarnate God became flesh as a weak embodied human being; not the ‘Terminator’!
New Faith Paradigms: What's the Future of Christian Community?
Richard Wiltshire
In response to the ongoing decline of church attendance in traditional faith communities, much effort has been made to modernise the church by changing its external format or practices. But is that enough? Unfortunately, such efforts often overlook the changing worldview paradigms shaping our world. Without understanding how our culture has largely shifted from traditional religious frameworks to embrace modern, postmodern, and increasingly metamodern/integral forms of faith and spirituality, the church is likely to fail in its efforts to connect with the culture, consciousness, and values of today’s world. This includes a growing desire for new spiritual and theological conversations outside of institutional religious structures evident in the recent phenomenon of faith deconstruction inside the church and increased numbers of people identifying as ‘Spiritual but not Religious’. To support a new vision for Christian community, the thesis of this submission will demonstrate with research how people are now seeking new expressions of faith and spirituality. This will include reference to various stage theories (Spiral Dynamics and Fowler’s Stages of Faith) revealing how people’s faith choices today are less about the external format of church, but more about the spiritual and theological paradigms and values embodied by the faith community itself!
Multiculturalism in Ekklesia
Emma Xiang
I was born in 1969 in China. I grown up in the years of Cultural Revolution. All my upbringings were around Chinese communist party. I never heard of Christianity & The Salvation Army.
I wanted to see the world beyond the teachings of the Chinese Communist party, so I came to Australia. God guided me to The Salvation Army Collingwood Corps where my friends were on Sundays & other activities. After learning English from the Bible, I became the interpreter for Sunday meetings. As I grew in faith, I became a senior soldier of Collingwood Corps.
I went to The Salvation Army Training College in 2013 after wrestling with God for years. My session name is Heralds Of Grace.
I have been a Corps Officer for 9 years up until now. I am the Chaplain for Gateways - Homelessness East of Victoria. I love the Chaplain role. Chatting with people, building relationship is the first step of introducing Jesus to people.
I have lived experiences to emphasise the Multiculturalism in Ekklesia.
My appeal would be cultural sensitivity should be carefully considered when applies/approach to Ekklesia.