The Salvation Army is a holiness movement. It’s radical commitment to sanctification as the privilege of every believer has impacted it’s emphasis on the Priesthood of all Believers.

Introduction and Context

The Salvation Army has historically understood itself as a movement of saved and sanctified people committed to a world war against evil to usher in the Kingdom of God.

This understanding has risen and fallen in the popular imagination of Salvationists and within the Army’s theological writing.

There have been moments when officership attained an almost sacral quality, and in some territories, there is an increasing dependence on employees to carry out the Army’s mission.

Despite these tendencies, the assumption and intention remain that every member of the Army should be committed to achieving the Army’s mission.

However, a divide has grown between soldiership and officership.

In the face of that growing divide, it needs to be remembered that the idea of an ontological rather than functional difference between officers, soldiers, and employees is quite a modern one within the Army, growing in strength since the 1950s.

Fundamental to the debates about leadership in the Army, over what the roles of employees should be, what an officer actually is, and what soldiers should be doing, is the question of what ministry is and who does it.

My argument is that everyone is called to minister and carry out God’s mission and ministry. This is possible because of sanctification.

The only difference between an officer and a soldier is functional, and regardless of whether someone is an officer, a soldier, or an employee and irrespective of what role they are performing, they are engaged in ministry.

The Early Army as a Totalising Movement

The strange confluence of the Second Great Awakening, political upheaval in the UK and across Europe, and the rise of Imperial Britain gave birth to The Salvation Army.

A lay movement

Like the Methodist Church, the Salvation Army began as an almost entirely lay organisation.

They did not intend to create another church, at least at first, so they were not particularly interested in creating new ecclesial forms. They needed organization, so preachers and superintendents were created, soon being replaced with military ranks. But the officers of the Army were not ordained. This remained true until the late second half of the twentieth century.

An officer was a soldier who was given an allowance to free them from work and given a commission to represent the Army and have authority over the members in their appointment.

Every soldier had a role to play

However, the genius of the early Army was that every member was expected to be involved in the movement’s mission. As soon as someone was converted, they were put on a street corner or stood up in a meeting to give their testimony.

Every soldier was expected to give their spare time to the work of the Army, whether preaching, music, social service, or whatever they were best suited for. Soldiers worked for the Army in its headquarters and in its social reform units.

The early Army grew rapidly because of mobilised and energetic soldiers. They would move to a new town and start the Army there, travel to a different country and set up the Army there, start rescue work for women sex workers, and undertake prison gate ministry.

People were commissioned officers without training when their previous experience justified it. People already doing work were given commissions to make it official.

There was an energetic and empowered body of soldiers who were committed and passionate about the mission of the Army. Membership in the Army was different from membership in a normal congregation. There were expectations about getting involved in fighting the Salvation War.

A totalising Army

The early Army was a totalising movement with no space and less time for people who were not ready to commit their entire lives to the work of the Army.

Everything else was subordinated to the needs of the mission. This was partially because of the early Army’s eschatology.

They believed that if they could convert everyone in the world, not only would all the world’s problems disappear, it would mean that Jesus would return. They were in a war against evil; if they won, Jesus would return to the world. This motivated them to commit entirely to achieving their goal.

However, their belief in total sanctification gave impetus to their lay movement and the involvement of everyone in the mission.

The Army fundamentally believed that everyone could be sanctified, the roots of sin removed from their lives, and the power of the Holy Spirit filled them up.

Sanctification the only necessary qualification for ministry

To become an officer, a candidate had to testify to receiving the Holy Spirit’s blessing. Holiness meetings taught how to get and keep the blessing. Sanctification gave the power for ministry and granted spiritual authority to officers and soldiers.

This carried the Army forward and emphasised the total mission for a total war. Every member was part of the Army’s mission. Every soldier was a combatant in the Salvation War; there were no bystanders. Anyone wanting a peacetime church needed to go somewhere else.

This was the militarisation of the priesthood of all believers. It was not only that no one needed anyone to intercede for them, that anyone could preach, that everyone should read the bible, and the individual’s conscience would teach them how to act. It was that everyone was an active member of the Kingdom of God with a mission to undertake.

Clericalism in the Army

The Army did not stay that way.

Classing Up

Fairly swiftly, the initial working-class members of the Army started to ‘class up’ as they stopped drinking and gambling and were supported to find work.

Officers were increasingly educated and lower-middle class because of the work that was increasingly demanded of them. As the Army became more acceptable and part of the establishment, ordinary members became less involved, and there was more emphasis on the role of officers and employees.

Structuralism

The command and control of the Army became increasingly centralised in the first thirty years of the twentieth century.

Soldiers stopped being made officers because of their work. New projects could not be started without authorisation from London. Soldiers were still expected to contribute to a corps’s mission, but fewer soldiers worked in the social reform wing and at headquarters.

Changing World culture

The impact of the two world wars was significant. After the bloodbath of the Somme and the mass deaths of the trenches, the horror of Auschwitz and the war against Japan, the churches almost entirely gave up on their belief that the whole world could be saved and establish the kingdom of God here and now.

They became more pessimistic in their approach to mission, and it became more about saving who they could out of the sea rather than going out to defeat evil and win the world for Jesus.

This changing emphasis meant there was less energy to go out and do things for God. The Army was no longer trying to usher in Jesus’s return, so there was less need to get involved in the war effort.

Changing understanding of holiness

Alongside this, the Army’s understanding of holiness changed. It was no longer believed that everyone could be made holy in this life, empowered and transformed for mission by the Holy Spirit. Instead, it was understood that people would slowly grow in holiness by being good disciples.

Changing membership demographics

It should also be noted that the demographics the Army drew from had changed dramatically. Membership had become strongly middle-class, while the people served were still working-class.

There was a gulf between members and those whom the Army served. Especially as those members rarely participated in that service. There were increasing options and opportunities for leisure available to compete with the time demands of the Army.

Women were increasingly entering the workplace, reducing the number of people who could give their time to the work of the Army when women made up the biggest percentage of membership in the Army.

Fears of decline and uprisings within the Army from student movements, charismatics, and social reformers led to a clampdown on control by the hierarchy. Authority was increasingly vested in officers and taken away from soldiers. This resulted in the ordination of officers, which turned an implicit difference between soldiers and officers into an explicit difference.

Officers were not becoming priests, as they still did not preside over rituals. However, authority and responsibility for the mission were increasingly grounded in the officer. Social reform work was undertaken by employees, and officers led and ministered to corps.

The space for soldiers to be involved was reduced to music sections and local officers. The priesthood of all believers was maintained as a principle but had effectively ended as a practice. All that remained was the belief that individuals did not need a priest to mediate their relationship with Christ.

Modern Attempts at Mobilisation

There have been attempts in the modern Army to remobilise the membership for mission, move away from centralised administration, and focus on officers as the primary performers of missional activities.

Different expressions of Army

Roots is one example—an annual conference and festival with worship and teaching linked to the 24/7 prayer movement and highlighted the need for charismatic gifting amongst the Army’s membership.

It lasted for a short period, with most organisers being non-officers, although some were employees. Eventually, Roots was taken over by the Army, and it slowly wound down. It may have significantly impacted the people who went but did not achieve transformation or mobilisation for the wider Army.

Another example is the War College in Vancouver, where soldiers and members could sign up for incarnational training in ‘primitive salvationism’, including living in the rough part of the city and working with people in that community.

The training was transformative for the people who went and led to a short-term vitalisation of the primitive salvation movement. However, it did not achieve transformation for the wider Army, and eventually, the project closed.

A different example is the establishment of the Army’s Fresh Expressions unit. The idea was to take on members of the Army, train them, and release them for ministry, supporting their work to start new expressions of the Army in difficult locations.

It launched some new projects, which are still ongoing, but other projects did not survive. However, whilst it did raise up some new leaders, it was always a subset of the Army and did not change the culture of the wider Army.

Changing Views of leadership

Increasing emphasis has been placed on the necessity for local leadership and the ministry of every member of the Army.

However, due to the nature of the Army as a hierarchical unit, with control over finances being centralised, it is somewhere between difficult and impossible for individual members to start new things without the permission and authority of officers or other leaders within the Army.

Fundamentally, a member of the Army could not claim to be acting on behalf of the Army when they do something without the Army telling them they can do that thing.

There has been a broadening of who can lead corps or participate in ministry. Officers, Territorial Envoys, and employed spiritual leaders can lead corps.

It has been said that ministry does not belong only to those commissioned and ordained. But this is key. It only belongs to those who have been officially recognised.

There is always a limit to how much the priesthood of all believers can be enacted within a denomination because that denomination has structures and processes which must be adhered to.

This does not increase how members of the Army are mobilised for total mission.

Changing social context

It should be acknowledged that people increasingly have less time to devote to the Army’s work. They have to negotiate multiple competing demands on their time and work out how much time they can devote to the Army.

The actual demands of ministry, with risk assessment, safeguarding, and insurance (all of which are important and necessary), can make it more difficult for individual members to be innovative in their own ministry.

But it also needs to be acknowledged that soldiers and members understand themselves as belonging to a church congregation rather than being active participants in an Army fighting a Salvation War.

This means that members do not feel the need to give their lives to the mission. There needs to be a reason for why total mobilisation for total war should actually happen.

If the Army does not give that reason and cannot sell it with the kind of imaginative narrative which creates an engaging reality for members to participate in, then why should members feel a need to engage with ministry?

Why should they give their precious time and resources to something that fulfils their needs every Sunday? The song says ‘there must be more than this’ and that is very true for the call to mobilise for mission amongst Salvationists.

The Army needs a narrative, a need, and a theology to match it so that its members can become a missional Army rather than a passive congregation.

Sanctification is the Foundation of Transforming and Radical Ministry

The work of the Holy Spirit has been the heart of almost every lay movement throughout Christian history.

Throughout history, people have believed that they answered primarily to God and that the Holy Spirit would give them the ability and power to do so. If we can return to that, there will be a great awakening within the Army’s membership.

If people are empowered by the Holy Spirit, they will be more confident in their ability to work for God through sharing their testimony. Their hearts and attention will be opened to the needs of the people around them and the compulsion to serve them.

Sanctification creates disciples who want to create other disciples. It is the secret weapon of the Church, and it transforms a congregation into a militant group committed to the mission of God.

But just as the early Army trained its members in sanctification and offered opportunities in things like Corps Cadets and mission campaigns, the Army needs to train its local officers and soldiers. Whether through small groups on Sunday, one-to-one discipleship, or central courses, every member needs to be trained in the basics of ministry.

God will empower people through the Holy Spirit. Anyone and everyone can participate in God’s mission simply because God is living within them. They are a living witness to the truth of the Gospel.

However, it’s always helpful to add skills and experience to the power that the Holy Spirit grants. When these two things are brought together; sanctification and training for mission, the possibility for the total mobilisation of the Army’s members for a total war against sin and evil in the world has some hope of succeeding.

Conclusion

This is obviously far more complicated than what I have set out here. But I believe that if every corps invested in teaching and expecting sanctification for its members and combined that with evangelism and ministry training, there would be a good foundation for mobilising every member for the Army’s mission.

I hope this has got you thinking and maybe given you some ideas. If so, please share, comment, and like.

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