"What about me?" - Part 2 

From an article by Together for the Common Good

Captain John Clifton is a Salvation Army officer, ordained minister, and theologian based in North East England. His work emphasises the church’s engagement in public life and society, particularly supporting communities affected by debt, hunger, homelessness, and unemployment. He challenges the prevailing culture of professionalised Christian charity. He also asks searching questions of class, recognition, and moral location, exploring what the gospel offers those who have been marginalised by mainstream societies.

He spoke to Salvation Army European colleagues at a conference in Rome, challenging them to consider whether their public witness is disclosing Christ or merely protecting respectability.

This summary of his talk is in two parts. The first part is here.

---

Part 2: Reading the Times, Staying Close, and Telling Better Stories

In this second part, John asks how the Salvation Army should answer the question “Whose side are we on?”

He says the answer begins with discernment, which means learning to understand what is really happening and what faithfulness requires. He uses the biblical phrase “the signs of the times.” In the Gospels, Jesus criticises religious leaders because they can read ordinary signs, like the weather, but cannot see what God is doing in front of them. John says the problem “is not lack of intelligence” but “a failure of perception.” In simple terms, people can be clever and religious, but still miss where God is at work.

John says the Church does need to take sides, but not in a party-political way. It must take the side of Jesus Christ.

That means judging what is right, protecting human dignity, and standing with people who are being ignored or harmed. It also means that solidarity is more than speaking up for people from a distance. Real solidarity means presence, listening, shared life, and respect. Prophetic witness is not about taking an angry public stance to look brave. It is about speaking and acting faithfully, with Christ, Scripture, the Spirit, and the real neighbour in front of us as our guide.

He recognises that many people in Europe feel distant from institutions, including churches and charities. Some communities feel spoken about but not listened to, served but not known. John says churches must take these feelings seriously. People are dealing with economic decline, loneliness, migration pressures, loss of trust, and weaker community life.

At the same time, Christians must avoid easy answers. They should not simply trust experts and systems as if that solves everything. But they should also not treat “the people” as if one group always knows what is right and can ignore laws, minorities, or protections for others. Both approaches can become dangerous.

John then uses the work of Jenny Sinclair, CEO of Together for the Common Good, to challenge the Church. Jenny argues that churches can become too professional, too middle-class, and too focused on managing services. They may no longer share life with poorer communities in a deep way. Her point is not that charity is bad. Emergency help, such as foodbanks, can be necessary. But if people are treated only as clients or service users, they can lose their sense of agency and dignity.

John highlights Jenny’s words that the Church is “not called to be useful” but “to be transformational,” and “to be the embodiment of love.” She calls for a move “from charity to solidarity.”

This is a direct challenge to the Salvation Army. John asks whether its social work has become too much like professional service delivery and not enough like shared life.

He also asks how the Salvation Army tells stories about people. Do its stories show people as neighbours and companions, or only as problems, clients, and case studies? Communications are not neutral. It has spiritual importance. He says “the practice of communications is a theological practice,” and “the stories we repeatedly tell do not merely describe our mission or raise funds; they disciple our instincts.” In other words, the stories an organisation tells shape what it becomes.

John’s main answer is what he calls “holy nearness.” The Salvation Army exists “to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in his name without discrimination.” This means being close to people, especially when that is difficult or costly. He says the Salvation Army did not begin by asking, “How shall we be perceived?” but by asking, “Where must we go?” Its history is about going to streets, communities, and people whom respectable religion often ignored.

Holiness is not only private goodness. It is a way of living that makes public service truthful and believable.

The danger is not mainly that the Salvation Army will become too political. The greater danger is that it will become “merely useful.” It might become efficient, respected, trusted by government, and good at branding, but lose its deeper Christian character. It might manage need without really sharing life.

Holy nearness is the opposite. John describes it as “the refusal to manage needs without sharing life.” It means staying close enough to be interrupted, challenged, inconvenienced, and changed by the people being served.

John offers some questions to test whether the Salvation Army is standing in the right place:

• Is it really present with abandoned people and places?
• Do its stories give people dignity and agency?
• Does it tell the truth about deeper social and spiritual problems, or only show good results?
• Does it serve without discrimination while still keeping close to the poor and excluded?
• Do its communications help people see Christ among “the least of these”?

These questions matter because storytelling is never neutral. Public witness should be visible but not tribal, brave but not cruel, truthful rather than glossy, and rooted in real local relationships.

He ends by returning to the deepest question, “Whose side are we on?”. He concludes, “The Salvation Army is on Christ’s side—and therefore on the side of those among whom Christ chooses to be met in public”: the poor, ashamed, lonely, addicted, displaced, distrusted, deindustrialised, and spiritually hungry.

This does not mean choosing a political party or protecting the institution’s reputation. It means staying near to people, showing practical mercy, telling the truth, and inviting people to salvation. The final question is not only “Whose side are we on?” but “Who is on the Lord’s side?” John’s answer is clear: the Salvation Army must choose “holy nearness over safe distance—presence over performance—truth over polish.”

---

Read the full Together for the Common Good article here.

Watch the 56 min talk here: