The Salvation Army is known for its position on women’s equality in ministry. The Early Salvation Army’s Understanding of Masculinity was even more radical in its day.

Equality?

From the very beginning, women were given positions of authority and were appointed to be church leaders. They preached, taught, and evangelised just as any man, and were put in positions of authority over men. However, the popular tales hide the fact that this was only true for unmarried women. Married women were subordinated to their husbands. They lost their independent rank and position. They were unlikely to be given senior appointments in their own right.

Single women officers were financially worse off than their male colleagues. They were paid less. They would lose their privileges if they married. All of this needs to be discussed more fully. But today, I wanted to highlight something else that was often forgotten about in the early Army.

A Muscular Christianity?

When the early Army reached out to London’s working-class people, they encountered a problem. The men working as dockers, labourers, factory workers, and less savoury occupations were not well inclined towards religion. The previous fifty years had emphasised that religion was the occupation of wives and mothers.

The demands of Christianity, to be meek and humble, to forgive and to love your enemies, were seen as outside of the normal realm of ‘manly’ behaviour. Efforts to promote a kind of muscular Christianity through the public school system did not succeed. Attempts also failed through rugby clubs and groups such as the Boys Brigade or some Evangelical Anglicans. These methods did not reach the men of the working classes.

But somehow the Army could go where very few else had been able to get access. The Army understood one critical point. They could not just ask the rough and ready men of the East End and the Docklands to change. It was necessary to offer them an alternative.

These were hard men who struggled daily to make a living. They were never sure they would have enough to pay the rent. When money came in, it went straight back out on beer and gin. They spent it going to the music hall, the penny gaff theatre, or to the brothel. Most raised racing pigeons and fighting dogs. Street boxing or bare-knuckle fights were always popular. They gambled, swore, fought, and drank. These activities were all done in an essentially male-only space and formed what it meant to be a man.

The Army understood that they may not be able to directly challenge what being ‘manly’ meant, but they could undermine the harmful and damaging behaviour associated with those forms of manliness by reorienting it towards the Gospel.

Redefining the Early Salvation Army’s Understanding of Masculinity

The genius of the early Army, which we have somewhat forgotten at the moment, was that it was willing to call out behaviour and expose it in all its failures. Working-class men at the time thought that drinking, fighting, gambling, and using prostitutes were signs of what it meant to be a man. Physical strength was prized alongside the capacity to down liquor and place a good bet on a dog fight. Rather than trying to find ways to copy those practices, or simply telling the men involved that they needed to stop it all, be gentle and mild, the Army did something altogether different.

The Army said that behaviour was actually a sign of weakness. Being under the control of alcohol or drugs, giving yourself up to fighting and gambling, all of those things were not strength but weakness. The very idea of what it meant to be a man was simply wrong. It was idolizing the wrong things, which was leading men into sin and corruption, with very few ways of escaping it.

The corrupt ideas of masculinity rejected Christianity as a weak and wet religion, which unmanned a person by making them meek, humble and gentle. But the Army was resolute in saying that to engage in that behaviour was never a sign of strength but of abject weakness.

There was no greater weakness, no greater failing, than a man who gave himself over to the power of drink and drugs and gambling. No further to fall than a man who beat his wife or lived by his fists. No man is weaker and more unmanly than a man who cannot control himself or his behaviour.

Real Strength Means Resisting Temptation

In contrast, the Army said that real strength came in the fight against sin. The real man was the one who valiantly and courageously wrestled against his own sins and desires, against the corruption in his soul, and who daily won the victory over temptation through Christ. Giving in to temptation was real weakness. Fighting the battle against evil, in the world and in one’s own soul, was where real strength was to be found.

There are plenty of examples of this being put into practice. Preachers threw punches with every sentence, standing like prize fighters with their sleeves rolled up as they fought against the devil with every word of praise and testimony. Officers and soldiers were engaged in a battle for the world against evil. This was the biggest battle the world had ever known, where mortals contended with supernatural powers, relying only on the Holy Spirit to overcome that evil.

This was how you were to be a man.

Redefining the early Salvation Army’s Understanding of Masculinity by Redefining Strength

This was how you overcame evil in your own heart. This was how to be strong and upright. Not by giving in to the false and corrupt ideologies of false manhood that existed in the world, what today we might call toxic masculinity, but by fighting to live a life of virtue. Forgiveness took courage. Peace took strength. Holiness required conviction. Mercy demanded consecration. Sanctfican needed discipline. Faith was a daily battle to overcome temptation. The Salvationist man was in a battle to the death, which they could not afford to lose.

Perhaps this is something that we need to rediscover now more than ever. Just as with the early Salvation Army’s understanding of masculinity, we need to be willing to think again about what real strength looks like.

In a world with horrible and toxic ideas of manliness wrapped up in shame, anger, and misogyny, it is perhaps time to call it out for the weakness it is. Instead, the Army can boldly say this is how you can be strong. Strength means resisting temptation, demonstrating mercy, forgiving our enemies, and loving our neighbour. This is what real strength means because you must overcome your desires and temptations to do so. Selfishness and anger are easy. It’s weak. Being a Salvationist man means being a spiritual combatant. That’s the way to healthy masculinity.

I hope you found this interesting and helpful. I have only just started thinking this through, so thank you for taking the time to read it. If you’ve got any thoughts, please share them or get in touch.

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