Finding Room in our Inn

It’s time to reflect, as we approach Christmas and the New Year, on the events and experiences that shape our life and ministry. Like most of us, you may be asking, "Where did this year go?" For me, this past year has been, unfortunately, filled with more negative than positive things, mostly in outreach to so many hurting people in both our city and outside areas. Too many funerals and not enough weddings. Too many hospital visits and not enough social visits. Too many tragic emergency call-outs (police and fire departments included). Too many people engaged in negative rather than positive words and actions. The list could go on and on. In most of these situations I could find needed resources and bring some resolution. 

However, there were some circumstances that I could not resolve, as I encountered barriers of closed doors, minds and hearts. I remember that Mary and Joseph encountered such responses when they were homeless and in dire need. The answer they received was: "Sorry, but there is no room in our inn". One can only imagine the panic and distress they felt. How ironic that the people most in need are often the ones for whom it is most difficult to find assistance. Although there is much personal joy this Christmas Season, I must admit that professionally I have never experienced as much pain, sorrow and despair in endeavoring to minister to others as I have over the course of this year. So, the connection I experience in my own life contrasts with the isolation of so many to whom I minister and has changed the way I understand the Christmas Story. I feel and hear it in a new way. 

Christmas is a difficult time of year because in the shadows of the bright clean malls and the sparkling lights lie the specters of pain and sorrow, poverty and loneliness, brokenness and despair. One of the most important parts of the Christmas Story is remembering that Jesus was not born in a bright, beautiful and sterile world. God came to us in the stench and the poverty of a lowly manger. Someone stated it well: "It is amazing that a God so great and so big could come to us in the shape of someone so powerless and small." 

It is my prayer that, this Christmas and all the days of this coming year, we can reach out in love, hope, caring and compassion to those who are seeking "room in our inn". The homeless and hurting. The abused and abandoned. The outlawed and the outcast. The sick and the saddened The unwanted, unloved and untouched. What better way to "Keep Christ in Christmas: and to revitalize and make relevant the Gospel Message to a ragged and ravaged world.



Rev. Dr.  A. Sparks

Former Salvation Army Officer,  USA

Advent 2019 December 1

A series of short daily readings to guide us through this special season towards the Joy   that is to come. 

An Advent poem:

He will come like last leaf’s fall.                                                                                                                                      One night when the November wind has
 flayed the trees to bone, and earth wakes
 choking on the mould, 
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like the frost.                                                                                                                                                   One morning when shrinking earth
 opens on mist,                                                                                                   To find itself arrested in the net of alien, 
sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.                                                                                                                                                                One evening 
when the bursting red December 
sun sets up the sheet and 
penny-masks its eye to yield
the star –snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come like 
crying in the night,                                                                                                               Like blood, like breaking as 
the earth writhes to toss him free.                                                                                         He will come like Child.

--Archbishop Dr. Rowan Williams (Oxford, 1994)

Advent Calendar

Sunday December 1st 

Keep Watch. Take heart. 

As we begin our journey through Advent Lord, we ask You to help us bring the whole of ourselves into Your presence, into the amazing mystery of Your experience among us.  Meet us now in this place and in this time as we follow the path of Your love once again. 

Psalm 13

How long, Lord? Will you forget me for ever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

and my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’

and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for he has been good to me.

Reverend Margaret Watson (retired)

Former Salvation Army Officer, UK

130th anniversary of The Salvation Army's Family Tracing Service.

“Redeemer, Reconciler”

(Set to “Trust In God”)

God of love and reconciliation,

God of families and broken hearts,

God of deep concern and understanding,

God of grace and God of second starts;

Here we pray for those now bruised and wounded,

With their strands of hope by distance torn,

Where those left behind are now excluded,

With the pain of years now sorrow-worn.

God of hope and endless seeking, searching,

God of great compassion without end,

God of care through every step of wandering,

God of frightening, lonely paths we wend;

Here we pray for those who find no comfort,

Far from home, bewildered and afraid;

For their safety, guidance and protection,

For your mercy’s touch to shield and shade.

God of fathers, mothers, sons and daughters,

God of parents, siblings, birth and clan,

God of ties that bind and genes enduring,

God of family unit’s happy plan;

Here we pray for those who work and labour,

Off’ring thanks for every contact made;

Opened hands that reach across the nations

Overriding loss with faith remade. 

© Stephen Poxon

 

Stephen Poxon


Former Salvation Army Officer, UK


* “Since 1885 the Salvation Army Family Tracing Service has been helping to reconcile family members who have lost contact with each other and facilitating the rebuilding of these relationships.* 

We know that contact can be lost for many reasons, and that for some people, searching for a relative is an emotional experience. We provide a service that is professional, compassionate and non-judgmental, with support throughout the searching process.” (https://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/family-tracing)

The hy

Finding Room in our Inn It’s time to reflect, as we approach Christmas and the New Year, on the events and experiences that shape our life and ministry. Like most of us, you may be asking, "Where did this year go?" For me, this past year has been, unfortunately, filled with more negative than positive things, mostly in outreach to so many hurting people in both our city and outside areas. Too many funerals and not enough weddings. Too many hospital visits and not enough social visits. Too many tragic emergency call-outs (police and fire departments included). Too many people engaged in negative rather than positive words and actions. The list could go on and on. In most of these situations I could find needed resources and bring some resolution. However, there were some circumstances that I could not resolve, as I encountered barriers of closed doors, minds and hearts. I remember that Mary and Joseph encountered such responses when they were homeless and in dire need. The answer they received was: "Sorry, but there is no room in our inn". One can only imagine the panic and distress they felt. How ironic that the people most in need are often the ones for whom it is most difficult to find assistance. Although there is much personal joy this Christmas Season, I must admit that professionally I have never experienced as much pain, sorrow and despair in endeavoring to minister to others as I have over the course of this year. So, the connection I experience in my own life contrasts with the isolation of so many to whom I minister and has changed the way I understand the Christmas Story. I feel and hear it in a new way. Christmas is a difficult time of year because in the shadows of the bright clean malls and the sparkling lights lie the specters of pain and sorrow, poverty and loneliness, brokenness and despair. One of the most important parts of the Christmas Story is remembering that Jesus was not born in a bright, beautiful and sterile world. God came to us in the stench and the poverty of a lowly manger. Someone stated it well: "It is amazing that a God so great and so big could come to us in the shape of someone so powerless and small." It is my prayer that, this Christmas and all the days of this coming year, we can reach out in love, hope, caring and compassion to those who are seeking "room in our inn". The homeless and hurting. The abused and abandoned. The outlawed and the outcast. The sick and the saddened The unwanted, unloved and untouched. What better way to "Keep Christ in Christmas: and to revitalize and make relevant the Gospel Message to a ragged and ravaged world. Rev. Dr. Ronald A. Sparks Former Salvation Army Officer, USA

working

There are countless good men in the Salvation Army, and in our hierarchy. Most pursue their ministry within a ­regime that sanction what may be their best efforts. The “regime” is an atmosphere of various gegrees of opinion, with one notable dimension, that of moral resignation (despairing judgment - not much one can do about the sexual revolution) It's not just a system of regulations and policies. an anxious desire to avoid the return of the chaos that characterized the years after Vatican II. The bishops who looked away as McCarrick diddled came of age during those years of disruption. As parish priests and seminary rectors on their way up, they had to manage the intense passions unleashed by Vatican II that threatened to tear the Church apart. Like children of divorced parents, their ministry was consumed by the need to hold things together. In 1977, after a decade of radical experimentation and Lefebvrite reaction, Paul VI formulated the imperative that became predominant: “It is necessary to avoid ­opposing extremisms.” Paul VI saw this as an imperative of unity, but it quickly became a managerial response, a defensive posture that temporizes, looks the other way, and keeps things light and cheerful whenever possible. Realities on the ground encourage this approach. Today’s bishops try to stand astride an increasingly fragmented Church. There are social justice parishes and Latin Mass parishes. Some major Catholic donors are ardent Democrats and support abortion on demand and doctor-assisted suicide; others are equally ardent Republicans and won’t support anything remotely associated with the culture of death. Some major dioceses have gay parishes on the front lines of sexual liberation. Other parishes now rebel against the compromises of the post–Vatican II era in the direction of restored tradition. In the face of this, the dominant impulse is to do whatever it takes to hold things together. This includes avoiding another round of conflict over sexual morality, which is one reason why McCarrick’s pursuit of men was tolerated. After Humanae Vitae, the battle-scarred episcopacy for the most part has tried to avoid criticizing sex between consenting adults.

GAY RIGHTS AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT

Editor FIRST THINGS R. R. Reno 11 . 25 . 19 The Wall Street Journal gets things exactly wrong in a recent editorial about two important cases before the Supreme Court. The cases concern claims of employment discrimination against gay or transgender individuals. The Journal concedes the main thrust of the claims, noting that “discrimination against gays and the transgendered is invidious.” It then pivots to a “textualist” or “originalist” argument that our anti-discrimination law does not apply to these cases. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans discrimination on the basis of sex, it argues, but “the plain meaning of Title VII is that ‘sex’ referred to a man or a woman.” This line of argument is misguided and is not likely to succeed. Our anti-discrimination law was set up to address pervasive discrimination against black Americans. They were politically disenfranchised and subject to a brutal, state-enforced regime of racial subjugation in the South. In many other regions of the country, black Americans lived under an informal Jim Crow system that included redlined housing, all-white unions, and pervasive social exclusion. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was formulated, drafters added sex, religion, and national origin. These were less pressing concerns at the time, in large part because the scope and intensity of these kinds of discrimination was far less than that which bore down on black Americans. But anti-Semitism and social exclusion of Jews was certainly a reality. And women experienced a great deal of workplace discrimination. In sum, our anti-discrimination law was established to use the full force of government power to address clear and present injustices in American society. This is not the situation for gays in twenty-first-century America. (I leave aside transgenderism, a disorder that surely—and rightly—attracts strong disfavor.) On the contrary, gays are among the most privileged groups in the United States. For decades business magazines have reported the desirability of targeting gay consumers. They are uniquely well-heeled in comparison to other sectors of the population. Tax data show that gay couples with children have more than double the median household income of straight couples with children. Nobody collects data on gay representation in elite university faculty, top law firms, or corporate management. The reason is simple: The disproportionately high representation will belie the narrative of discrimination that drives gay rights activism. And that activism has shown itself to be extremely powerful. Gay groups can control the philanthropy of large corporations, as the recent capitulation of Chick-fil-A illustrates. The same groups can kill the careers of those deemed “bigoted.” A network of gay employees exists in every federal agency that monitors policies relevant to gay interests and censors opinions judged contrary. In the present circumstances, it is absurd to speak of gay rights as an anti-discrimination imperative with any relevance to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The details of the cases are of no moment. Only a fevered, utopian mentality imagines that lawyers and judges should minutely monitor the relations between employers and employees unless there is a clear and pervasive pattern of debilitating discrimination that requires redress. But the success, wealth, and power of the gay community in the United States indicate that there is no such pattern. On the contrary, the pattern runs the other way. More than 20 states have incorporated sexual orientation into their anti-discrimination statutes. As Charlotte Allen documents in “Punching Down,” this has empowered well-educated and well-paid gays to punish less educated, less wealthy neighbors who dare to refuse to bake a cake or make a bouquet for their weddings. At present, Colorado baker Jack Phillips has been targeted by yet another lawsuit, this time brought by a transgender Denver lawyer. The situation is exactly the opposite of the Montgomery bus boycott. In certain circumstances it may be unjust to deny employment to a gay person. But this kind of discrimination, if it happens in our society (as surely it does), is not “invidious.” By any measure, discrimination against gays is uncommon. I am willing to bet a substantial sum that a fat person is far more likely to suffer employment discrimination than someone who engages in sodomy in the privacy of his home. GLAAD set a goal: It wanted 10 percent of primetime TV characters to be LGBT. The organization recently reported that this goal was achieved. The new goal is 20 percent. Four percent of the population identifies as gay. In what universe does a group capable of compelling fivefold overrepresentation in the media require anti-discrimination protection? There is no evidence that those drafting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 imagined extending its protections on the basis of sexual orientation; certainly not on the basis of gender identity. But the Supreme Court justices need to think about social implications, and the other reasons—more fundamental and substantive than “originalist” arguments—to refrain from reading these “identities” into our anti-discrimination laws. Our civil rights law seeks to protect unpopular minorities subject to debilitating discrimination. Gays are not unpopular and are not subject to pervasive discrimination. More importantly, it is dangerous to give powerful people the weapons of anti-discrimination law. They will be tempted to use those weapons to destroy the institutions, organizations, and people whom they happen to disfavor. This is all the more likely to happen when those powerful people live disordered lives, engaging in sexual practices that make their consciences, however malformed, whisper doubts. These people will be sorely tempted to use the full power of the law to set up a repressive anti-discrimination regime that criminalizes any opposition to their cultural and political goals. R. R. Reno is editor of First Things. WSJ - By Nicole Ault Nov. 20, 2019 6:53 pm ET The Salvation Army is the latest target of progressive wrath. British pop singer Ellie Goulding threatened to cancel an appearance at the Dallas Cowboys’ Thanksgiving halftime show, which will celebrate the army’s red-kettle campaign, unless it made a “pledge or donation to the LGBTQ community.” She backed down after the Salvation Army assured her it serves needy members of that community. Chick-fil-A this week said its charitable foundation will no longer donate

GAY RIGHTS AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT

First Things R. R. Reno 11 . 25 . 19 The Wall Street Journal gets things exactly wrong in a recent editorial about two important cases before the Supreme Court. The cases concern claims of employment discrimination against gay or transgender individuals. The Journal concedes the main thrust of the claims, noting that “discrimination against gays and the transgendered is invidious.” It then pivots to a “textualist” or “originalist” argument that our anti-discrimination law does not apply to these cases. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans discrimination on the basis of sex, it argues, but “the plain meaning of Title VII is that ‘sex’ referred to a man or a woman.” This line of argument is misguided and is not likely to succeed. Our anti-discrimination law was set up to address pervasive discrimination against black Americans. They were politically disenfranchised and subject to a brutal, state-enforced regime of racial subjugation in the South. In many other regions of the country, black Americans lived under an informal Jim Crow system that included redlined housing, all-white unions, and pervasive social exclusion. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was formulated, drafters added sex, religion, and national origin. These were less pressing concerns at the time, in large part because the scope and intensity of these kinds of discrimination was far less than that which bore down on black Americans. But anti-Semitism and social exclusion of Jews was certainly a reality. And women experienced a great deal of workplace discrimination. In sum, our anti-discrimination law was established to use the full force of government power to address clear and present injustices in American society. This is not the situation for gays in twenty-first-century America. (I leave aside transgenderism, a disorder that surely—and rightly—attracts strong disfavor.) On the contrary, gays are among the most privileged groups in the United States. For decades business magazines have reported the desirability of targeting gay consumers. They are uniquely well-heeled in comparison to other sectors of the population. Tax data show that gay couples with children have more than double the median household income of straight couples with children. Nobody collects data on gay representation in elite university faculty, top law firms, or corporate management. The reason is simple: The disproportionately high representation will belie the narrative of discrimination that drives gay rights activism. And that activism has shown itself to be extremely powerful. Gay groups can control the philanthropy of large corporations, as the recent capitulation of Chick-fil-A illustrates. The same groups can kill the careers of those deemed “bigoted.” A network of gay employees exists in every federal agency that monitors policies relevant to gay interests and censors opinions judged contrary. In the present circumstances, it is absurd to speak of gay rights as an anti-discrimination imperative with any relevance to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The details of the cases are of no moment. Only a fevered, utopian mentality imagines that lawyers and judges should minutely monitor the relations between employers and employees unless there is a clear and pervasive pattern of debilitating discrimination that requires redress. But the success, wealth, and power of the gay community in the United States indicate that there is no such pattern. On the contrary, the pattern runs the other way. More than 20 states have incorporated sexual orientation into their anti-discrimination statutes. As Charlotte Allen documents in “Punching Down,” this has empowered well-educated and well-paid gays to punish less educated, less wealthy neighbors who dare to refuse to bake a cake or make a bouquet for their weddings. At present, Colorado baker Jack Phillips has been targeted by yet another lawsuit, this time brought by a transgender Denver lawyer. The situation is exactly the opposite of the Montgomery bus boycott. In certain circumstances it may be unjust to deny employment to a gay person. But this kind of discrimination, if it happens in our society (as surely it does), is not “invidious.” By any measure, discrimination against gays is uncommon. I am willing to bet a substantial sum that a fat person is far more likely to suffer employment discrimination than someone who engages in sodomy in the privacy of his home. GLAAD set a goal: It wanted 10 percent of primetime TV characters to be LGBT. The organization recently reported that this goal was achieved. The new goal is 20 percent. Four percent of the population identifies as gay. In what universe does a group capable of compelling fivefold overrepresentation in the media require anti-discrimination protection? There is no evidence that those drafting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 imagined extending its protections on the basis of sexual orientation; certainly not on the basis of gender identity. But the Supreme Court justices need to think about social implications, and the other reasons—more fundamental and substantive than “originalist” arguments—to refrain from reading these “identities” into our anti-discrimination laws. Our civil rights law seeks to protect unpopular minorities subject to de

THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS ILLUMINATES A WORLD LIVING IN DARKNESS

••• GENERAL ANDRÉ COX 

In the world today we often see people choosing to ignore the true meaning of the Christmas message. For many it is a very busy time of the year, with so many activities to rush between. Countless demands and pressures seem to be placed upon us, with a myriad of preparations to make. Within self-gratifying materialistic and consumer-driven societies many, sadly, will be caught on the arduous treadmill of Christmas parties, shopping and concerts.

Why, though, should that concern us? When asked which the greatest commandment was, Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.


This is the first and greatestcommandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew

22:37-40). At a time of year characterised too often by excess and over-indulgence by those in the world fortunate to have so much, we have an opportunity to reflect on greater values and to think of those who cannot even dream of the many material things many of us take for granted.

The 17th-century English poet and cleric, John Donne, famously and correctly noted, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind and, therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee” 

How easy it can be to pursue our own selfish pleasures while ignoring the plight of more than a quarter of the world’s population.

We hear there are about 2.4 billion people living on less than $2US per day, with another 1.1 million or so forced to live on less than $1 a day. If you have ever tried to live on that amount of money, you will know what a monumental struggle it is.

The reality is, of course, that a very significant proportion of the world’s population have to because, through no fault of their own, they have limited choices and opportunities.

We cannot remain unmoved or indifferent and, rightly, are reminded, “We may be the only means that God has of touching people around us with his love, of relating to them his Word, of enabling them to discover his saving grace” (taken from Jesus Now by Leslie Brandt).
That is what Christ wants to do in and through you and me. In grasping that, we will approach the heart of what this Christmas celebration is really all about.


“Could it be that amidst the bright lights of Christmas we too can fail to see the true light of the world”

In realising this deeper meaning, we are freed from focusing on our own wants and liberated to open our hearts to others who need to experience the beautiful message of Christmas through a kind and selfless gesture.


I do sometimes wonder how history will judge our generation. Most of us receive a better education than our forebears and have far more wealth and resources than at any time in human history.


Yet the pain, suffering and deprivation of so many people continues to grow unchecked. If parochial and selfish ambitions continue to be relentlessly pursued, our generation will be remembered not for any significant achievements but instead for greed.

Let us never forget, therefore, that Christmas is far more than bright lights, parties, shopping and concerts!

More than 2000 years ago, angels proclaimed the birth of a Saviour who would bring great joy for all the world. The reality was, of course, that when Jesus came, there was no room at the inn. As a result, the Saviour of the world was born in most humble surroundings. Could it be that amidst the bright lights of Christmas we, too, can fail to see the true light of the world Jesus, the Son of God?

As we approach this Christmas so many years after Christ came and changed the course of human history, we still see too many people who, though lacking little materially, do not realise that there can be no Christmas without Christ.

God’s promise from long ago was realised with the birth of Jesus – God incarnate: “‘… The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’” (Matthew 4:16, 17).

The coming of this kingdom signalled a radical change in values and heralded the possibility of human nature being utterly transformed. In experiencing the dynamic Kingdom of God we begin to perceive the true light of Christmas.

“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given!” wrote Phillips Brooks in the familiar carol. “So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his Heaven. No ear may hear his coming; but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.”

May this be so for you this Christmas, for the Light has come! 

pipeline 12/2014 9

Anglican priest Kelvin Holdsworth has hit out at the Salvation Army and accused the charity of lying when it claims it is no longer anti-LGBT+.

Holdsworth, who is provost at St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow, shared a PinkNews story on Twitter titled ‘The Salvation Army really want you to know they’re not anti-LGBT anymore’ and said the organisation was “lying”.

“You can’t be a member of the Salvation Army and wear their uniform or be an officer (like beingordained) if you are gay and married or in a partnership,” the priest – who has been vocal in his support for LGBT+ rights and is openly gay – wrote.

“Christians shouldn’t tell lies in public or bear false witness,” he continued. Salvation Army recently claimed that its anti-LGBT+ views are in the past.

Holdsworth’s comments came following a statement from the Salvation Army, released to OUT. which claimed that the charity has left its anti-LGBT+ views in the past.

“As we’ve better understood the needs of the LGBTQ+ community, we’ve evolved our approach,” said David Jolley, director of communications for the charity. (religious movement?)

Blood Of The Lamb

Did ROP Sideline Christian Heritage?

                       NOVEMBER 18, 2019

 

Chick-fil-A has announced plans to end charitable giving to Christian organizations—including the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA)—amid concern over LGBT backlash as the popular Christian-owned business expands beyond the US.

The strategic shift has disappointed evangelicals who admired the chain’s stance and leaders at Salvation Army, who say its outreach supports members of the LGBT population facing homelessness and poverty.

“There’s no question we know that, as we go into new markets, we need to be clear about who we are,” Chick-fil-A President and Chief Operating Officer Tim Tassopoulos told the site Bisnow on Monday. “There are lots of articles and newscasts about Chick-fil-A, and we thought we needed to be clear about our message.”

Chick-fil-A—the country’s third largest fast-food chain, behind McDonald’s and Starbucks—has been blocked from opening new locations in the San Antonio and Buffalo airports this year over criticism for donating to organizations with a traditional Christian view of sexuality. Previously, it has faced resistance for the same reason from politicians in Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago.

Internationally, a shopping center in Reading, England, announced eight days into Chick-fil-A’s lease on a new location that the lease would not be renewed when it expired. The mall cited a desire to “offer an inclusive space where everyone is welcome.”

An unnamed Chick-fil-A executive told Biznow the chain was “taking it on the chin” in media reports about LGBT protests and could not ignore the threat to its growth.

Several years ago, the restaurant chain stopped giving to some organizations that oppose same-sex marriage, like the Family Research Council, but continued to support groups like FCA and Salvation Army, which are not focused on political action. Going forward, it will end multiyear commitments to both charities after donating $1.65 million to FCA and $115,000 to the Salvation Army in 2018, according to tax forms.

The Salvation Army, the Christian denomination now better known as one of the biggest charities in the US, told Christianity Today it is “saddened to learn that a corporate partner has felt it necessary to divert funding to other hunger, education and homelessness organizations—areas in which The Salvation Army, as the largest social services provider in the world, is already fully committed.”

The Salvation Army brings in $4.3 billion in revenue annually and says it does not discriminate against the LGBT community in its programs, services, and hiring. Officers in the Salvation Army, who are ordained as ministers, are asked to comply with its theological teachings on sexuality.

“We serve more than 23 million individuals a year, including those in the LGBTQ+ community,” the Salvation Army stated. “In fact, we believe we are the largest provider of poverty relief to the LGBTQ+ population. When misinformation is perpetuated without fact, our ability to serve those in need, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or any other factor, is at risk. We urge the public to seek the truth before rushing to ill-informed judgment and greatly appreciate those partners and donors who ensure that anyone who needs our help feels safe and comfortable to come through our doors.”

FCA did not respond to CT’s request for comment. According to its own report, FCA brought in $141 million in 2018, but financial support from foundations like Chick-fil-A’s make up just 14 percent of its donations. The FCA asks leaders to sign a purity statement, committing to avoid homosexual activity and sex outside of marriage.

Beginning in 2020, Chick-fil-A’s charitable arm, the Chick-fil-A Foundation, will instead focus $9 million in philanthropic gifts on three initiatives: promoting education, combating youth homelessness, and reducing hunger, Chick-fil-A announced.

For years, evangelicals in particular have appreciated the Christian identity and values espoused by the popular closed-on-Sunday restaurant chain, founded by the late Truett Cathy, a faithful Baptist. In a brand study by Morning Consult, 62 percent of evangelicals said Chick-fil-A had a positive impact on their community, compared to 48 percent of Americans on average.

Conservative politician and commentator Mike Huckabee, who organized a campaign to support Chick-Fil-A amid pushback from LGBT advocates in 2012, said “Today, @Chickfila betrayed loyal customers for $$. I regret believing they would stay true to convictions of founder Truett Cathey [sic]. Sad.”

Columnist Rod Dreher wrote, “I love Chick-fil-A, but it’s going to be a while before I go there again. This is nothing but gutless surrender.” Wheaton College professor Ed Stetzer tweeted, “Biblical orthodoxy matters—and biblical orthodoxy increasingly has a cost in #America2019.”

Chick-fil-A’s new charitable focus directs funds to Junior Achievement USA, Covenant House, and local food banks. The restaurant said it will dedicate $25,000 to a local food bank at each new Chick-fil-A opening.

The chain’s mission statement, established by Cathy, is “to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.”

Tassopoulos, the current president and COO, told Bisnow that the foundation will be open to partnering with faith-based charities in the future, but that “none of the organizations have anti-LGBT positions.”

He said the shift in giving is “just the right thing to do: to be clear, caring and supportive, and do it in the community.”

David Roach

 h

A Moscow Christmas Eve

 CHAPTER 36 A Moscow Christmas Eve

So Kathie and I were enjoying the privilege of serving as part of a Salvation Army pioneer officer team in Russia, immediately following Perestroika; they had been busy, heady and often difficult times. 

            One of my favourite monthly activities was leading or participating in the Sunday evening devotions at the US Embassy, a gated community in the centre of Moscow protected by high walls. A group of some 35–-40 expats, Americans living in, or visiting Moscow, would meet to worship each Sunday evening. The congregation included several familiar faces, including the Bowers, an American couple, both members of the Embassy staff and regular participants in our Salvation Army services. Mrs. Joan Bowers had served as our pianist during our early start-up period and Ron as a Sunday School teacher.

            Visitors were always found in our small assembly; one Sunday there were five USA military officers visiting our evening service. All five belonged to the Association of Christian Military Fellowship and had been active for several weeks visiting and seeking to sign up Russian regiments. They were given the opportunity to share the Gospel with large groups of Russian military personnel, an unheard- of witness opportunity in the history of the Soviet military. 

            The MCF[Ds1]  shared their hope with us over coffee at the Embassy canteen following the worship service that theirs would be ‘a community of individual military Christians in over 100 nations.'

            The five US officers had learned that one of my Salvation Army- related activities was lecturing weekly at the Russian Military Academy, in a series titled ‘Introduction to Social Services’. They were eager to further their reach into the Russian military and thought I could be helpful in their gaining direct access to the Academy, the Russian equivalent of the USA’s West Point and the UK’s Sandhurst. 

            We arranged to have dinner that week, on 24 December. We met at a typical Russian restaurant, a decade before any Wwesterniszation and subsequent improvement in the quality of Russkie Stolovayas (restaurants). 

            The build- up of wind- swept snow and ice prevented the massive front door from closing properly, and we heard the Muscovites’ exuberance well before venturing inside.

            We entered the rowdy premises, smoke-filled enough to sting one’s eyes. The Russian people’'s staple drinks,  – vodka, cognac, and champagne – were flowing freely; the voices of the Russians were boisterous as they sang and toasted each other. They ha’d begun celebrating the lead- up to the New Year, an important Russian event, and some were looking forward to celebrating the Russian Christmas Day, on 7 January according the Gregorian calendar, which corresponds to 25 December in the Julian calendar.

            As we entered, five well-decorated US military officers and the two of us in our Salvation Army uniforms. We must have been a very strange sight the Cold War had not yet thawed completely! Did more than one intoxicated mind think that the long-threatened invasion by the USA was under way? 

            The celebrant’ rowdiness became a hushed murmur and their glances suspicious –- we entered, stomped the snow off our boots, shook our hats and overcoats free of snow and presented them to a startled doorman.

            We were escorted to our table and greeted with snickers of ‘Hello Yankees’ and ‘Nasdrovia’, the Russians’ courage boosted by the contents of glasses that were lifted and clinked in our direction!

            Our menus were distributed, drink orders were taken, and we bowed in prayer…it was our Christ-mass table, thousands of miles from our families, celebrating what was Christmas Eve stateside. 

            As we waited for our meals to be prepared, our thoughts and conversation turned naturally to family. 

Each military officer shared a brief overview of himself. One told how he had been born and raised in Chicago, going on to say that he became a Christian as a young boy. A ‘Salvation Army man’ had come to his home on Christmas Eve, delivering a parcel of food and toys to him and his siblings. His father, he explained, ‘had abandoned the family’ and they were living on welfare. ‘After passing out the Christmas gifts, the Salvation Army man asked my mother’, he said, ‘if he might be allowed to read the Christmas story.We sat at our kitchen table as he read… and then he asked my sisters and me if we’d like to have Jesus living in our hearts.We knelt there in our tiny kitchen, and he prayed with us, and Jesus has been my Lord ever since’. 

            I shared enthusiastically that I too was from Chicago’s North Side: ‘in fact, I went to Lake View High School, near Wrigley Field’.So did my sister’, he exclaimed!  

            I asked in what year had been the home visit from the ‘Salvation Army man’: 1960. I asked him to describe the uniformed man, to which he replied, ‘He was tall, maybe in his late thirties, and he spoke English with an accent of some kind’.‘Could it have been a Swedish accent?’I asked. At that moment, all of us at that Christmas table realised with free-flowing tears, that the man who had brought the gift of Jesus to that young boy, 40 years earlier on a Christmas Eve, had been my father.  

            
The re-gifting of the story of the birth of Jesus, the love of God, to that young boy was the catalyst that was now bringing the name of Jesus to thousands of Russian military men and women, former atheists, and agnostics. The Name above all other names was being re-gifted. 

            My father had spoken from time to time throughout the years about my grandfather, reflecting on the sad ending to the Army’s unsuccessful campaign in early-twentieth-century Russia. The Salvationist pioneers had brought the Christmas message to Russia, but the Salvation Army’'s presence would be short- lived...

            I believe my father often pondered whether those early efforts by my grandfather would ever find resolve and be reconciled with the scripture’s command, found in Matthew 28:19 (NIV): ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptiszing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’.

            Here, in a noisy Moscow tavern, the resolution was celebrated on Christmas Eve, - 1992

Sven & Kathie 1993

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