Topics about the history and beliefs of The Salvation Army
Alida Bosshardt was a Salvation Army officer from the Netherlands whose life was dedicated to serving people most in need. Major Bosshardt is a hero of the faith. She worked in places others didn’t want to go, and she loved and cared for people that others rejected. Her life and ministry is an example of…
Sometimes, things happen which have unexpected consequences. The Salvation Army’s work, particularly that of Bramwell Booth, in seeking to raise the age of consent for women in the UK indirectly led to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde. The Reformation of Manners In the middle of the nineteenth century, a popular movement for the reformation of…
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…
The General of The Salvation Army, Lynden Buckingham, has called for a new global strategy. It’s intention is to mobilize the Army for mission through increasing its governance, improving it’s structures, freeing it’s recourses, and empowering it’s members. This is my reflection on it. Introduction At the moment, an overview page and a short video…
A Reflection On Marriage, Sacraments, and Covenant. Should The Salvation Army stop marrying people? I think The Salvation Army should bless marriages, but should not conduct weddings. I will set out my reasoning in this article. I am not advocating for change, as this is quite a radical position to take. But it is a…
William Thomas Stead (1849-1912) was a somewhat unlikely ally of the early Salvation Army. But without the influence and support of Stead, it would have been far more difficult for the Army to gain the popular approval with which it entered the 20th century. W. T. Stead’s Early Life Stead was born in Northumberland; his…
This post makes no claims about whether the reader should adopt Christian Anarchism as a political philosophy, nor does it argue that The Salvation Army should be organised around its principles. Rather, this article seeks to set out what Christian Anarchism is, its biblical roots, and its relationship to The Salvation Army today. The basic…
At the moment The Salvation Army is experiencing a culture war. To understand what that means, and how it might be resolved, we need to understand how culture wars work and the essentially theological nature of culture wars. What Is A Culture War? At its heart, a culture war is an argument over the identity…
For a Salvation Army Officer, part of life is moving from one role to another with some frequency throughout their career. But each move brings with it a whole range of complexities, anxieties, and opportunities, which makes for a heady mix of emotions, especially when combined with the loss of the previous appointment and the…
My argument is that The Salvation Army combined Christianity with a form of proto-Marxism through the Postmillennial beliefs of William Booth and his followers. The historian Tom Holland makes the claim that Marxism is essentially rooted in Christian theology and culture. Given the events of the last two centuries, the knee-jerk rejection in some cultures…