The God Blank

I stumbled across a book published in 1970 by… of all things… a Major in the Salvation Army in Britain who turned out to be a spiritual rabble rouser. Even though he wrote Secular Evangelism in a personal capacity rather than as an officer in the Army it appears he immediately took serious fire from those in charge.

Why? For simpsuggesting that the Salvation Army and the larger church might be failing to speak to people outside of the community of faith with anything approaching intelligibility. What is particularly striking to me is how clearly he seems to be describing the spiritual state of things today (in 2007) as he chronicles what he was facing forty years ago.

In one place, early on, he describes what he calls “a God-blank.” He writes “in the lives of most modern young people there is a God-blank… the whole subject of God was beside the point.” He goes on the contrast to his own youth where while he didn’t pursue God, he had a deep intrinsic awareness that God was there to be dealt with later.

I find myself much like Fred Brown (the Salvation Army Major in question). God was powerfully present in my world from day one—to be embraced, to be rejected, to be questioned, to be feared… to be dealt with in some way. And yet when I venture outside my office with its stained glass windows and rows and rows of books on faith I find more and more not excitement or animosity, not curiosity or fear, just a ‘God-blank.’