JAC Online

Worship in The Salvation Army
by Major Harold Hill

Lex orandi, lex credendi

Attrib. Prosper of Aquitaine (5^th century)

The law of prayer is the law of belief, or, as we pray, so we believe. It was long held that Salvationists, in good Wesleyan tradition, imbibed their doctrine from their Song Books. Even the reflection that most Salvationists today would more likely learn their catechism from the Data Projector continues to impress on us the significance of what takes place in public meetings. The theology inculcated may however have changed somewhat over the years. For the purposes of this exercise, by “worship” we mean what groups of Salvationists do when gathered for religious meetings.

We can distinguish three very general periods or phases in Salvation Army worship style, roughly parallel to the sociologists’ analysis of Salvation Army history – not sharply defined of course but overlapping and varying according to locality and cultural differences.

1.         1865 – c. 1900: The Phase of Enthusiasm

Early “private” gatherings of the Christian Mission – “cottage meetings” in private homes or conference-type gatherings in larger venues – were not extensively written about, though the pages of the Christian Mission Magazine might yield some indications. The participants perhaps felt no need to describe them and outsiders were not interested. We may surmise that they consisted of the usual non-conformist hymn sandwich of prayer, singing, reading and exhortation. The “Ordinances of the Methodist New Connexion”, to which William Booth would have been accustomed, provided for the following:

In the Sabbath Services the following order is usually observed: a hymn – prayer – a chant, when approved – reading the Scriptures – a second hymn – the sermon – another hymn – the concluding prayer and benediction.[1]

The Christian Missioners’ exercises would, in addition, have included testimony, monthly celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, and Love Feasts – the latter sometimes on the same occasion. They not uncommonly climaxed in an altar-call; an appeal for greater consecration on the part of those present, evidenced by an outward response. The concluding exercise of the 1878 “War Congress”, an all-night of prayer, was described as follows:

The great object of the meeting was to address God, and it was in prayer and in receiving answers that the meeting was above all distinguished. Round the table in the great central square [concluded the report] Satan was fought and conquered, as it were visibly, by scores.

Evangelists came there, burdened with the consciousness of past failings and unfaithfulnesses, and were so filled with the power of God that they literally danced for joy. Brethren and sisters, who had hesitated to yield themselves to go forth anywhere to preach Jesus, came and were set free from every doubt and fear, and numbers, whose peculiar besetments and difficulties God alone could read, came and washed and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.[2]

However, most of the Mission’s early gatherings were “public”, and not for worship but for witness. The main focus of their activity was directed outwards and deliberately avoided the conventional and churchly. This activity began in the open air, in the streets, and was adapted to the class of people they were attempting to reach – the lower working class and what Karl Marx called the “lumpenproletariat” or those the sociologists term the “residuum” (a class of society that is unemployed and without privileges or opportunities) in the first instance. What they did had to grab and hold the attention of the passers-by, which meant there had to be great variety, spontaneity, inventiveness, brevity and immediacy and relevance to the people. This meant extempore prayer, singing  to popular tunes and numerous and brief testimonies, given as much as possible by people of the same type as they were wanting to attract; preferably those previously known as notorious public sinners, drunkards and ne’er-do-wells, but now miraculously changed. Such people were advertised by their nom-de-guerre – the “saved railway guard” or the “converted sweep” or even the “Hallelujah doctor”, Dr Reid Morrison, aka the “Christian Mission Giant”. Any reading or speaking had to be short and punchy.

Preaching would always be “for a decision”; to bring the hearer to a point of repentance or commitment or faith, and to express that by an outward response by coming forward and kneeling in front of the congregation. To that extent, the Mercy Seat (or the drum placed on its side in the Open Air meeting) would have a sacramental role, providing the locus for the outward expression of an inward grace. Although this chapter is not the place for an examination of the principles which inform “worship” in general, it is worth-while bearing in mind that one element in all kinds of religious worship is an attempt to recreate the original theophany, the “God moment” lying at the heart of a particular faith. So, for example, the Eucharist is intentionally a re-enactment, an anamnesis of the “Last Supper” of Jesus with his disciples, or the Temple ritual with loud trumpets and cymbals and clouds of incense was thought to recreate the scene at the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, or the glossolalia of a Pentecostal meeting “singing in the Spirit” might recapitulate in some way the experience of Acts Chapter Two. Does the repeated call to the Mercy Seat or Holiness Table in the “appeal” at the conclusion of a Salvation Army meeting likewise give an opportunity for Salvationists to re-live their moments of conversion, consecration and experience of the work of the Holy Spirit? Is the test of such a meeting the degree to which this might be said to have happened? 

When, after 1879, brass bands made their appearance, they were firstly for attracting attention, and secondly for drowning out the noise made by the opposition, as well as for helping to carry the singing of hymns and songs. They had the immense advantage of being in the popular working-class musical idiom. Folk-doggerel words were set to popular tunes.

All these characteristics were carried inside, whether they were inside a theatre or music hall or a bricked up railway arch or the loft over a butcher’s shop. The style was modelled on the contemporary music hall, the primary place of entertainment for the lower classes. A master of ceremonies introduced a succession of short acts; speech and music alternated. Salvationists also accepted opportunities to appear as acts in genuine music hall shows – Bramwell Booth wrote of appearing on stage as “Item No. 12” at a theatre in Plymouth.[3]

We do not have many descriptions of how such meetings ran, but some from the Christian Mission period were recorded. Sandall says:

The Revival printed at this time [1868] a long description of a Sunday afternoon testimony meeting (“free-and-easy”) in the East London Theatre, contributed by Gawin Kirkham, Secretary of the Open-air Mission. The testimonies were reported in detail:

The meeting commenced at three and lasted one hour and a half. During this period forty-three persons gave their experience, parts of eight hymns were sung, and prayer was offered by four persons.

Among those who testified was:

One of Mr. Booth’s helpers, a genuine Yorkshireman named Dinialine, with a strong voice and a hearty manner. Testimonies were given at this meeting by “all sorts and conditions” and many were stories in brief of remarkable conversions. The report concluded:

Mr. Booth led the singing by commencing the hymns without even giving them out. But the moment he began, the bulk of the people joined heartily in them. Only one or two verses of each hymn were sung as a rule. Most of them are found in his own admirably compiled hymn book… A little boy, one of Mr. Booth’s sons, gave a simple and good testimony.[4]

The Nonconformist described a Sunday evening at the Effingham Theatre in the same period:

The labouring people and the roughs have it – much to their satisfaction – all to themselves. It is astonishing how quiet they are.

There is no one except a stray official to keep order; yet there are nearly two thousand persons belonging to the lowest and least educated classes behaving in a manner which would reflect the highest credit upon the most respectable congregation that ever attended a regular place of worship.

“There is a better world, they say” was sung with intensity and vigour . . . everybody seemed to be joining in the singing. The lines

“We may be cleansed from every stain,

We may be crowned with bliss again,

And in that land of pleasure reign!”

were reached with a vigour almost pathetic in the emphasis bestowed upon them. As they reluctantly resumed their seats a happier expression seemed to light up the broad area of pale and careworn features, which were turned with urgent, longing gaze towards the preacher.

Mr. Booth employed very simple language in his comments … frequently repeated the same sentence several times as if he was afraid his hearers would forget. It was curious to note the intense, almost painful degree of eagerness with which every sentence of the speaker was listened to. The crowd seemed fearful of losing even a word.

It was a wonderful influence, that possessed by the preacher over his hearers. Very unconventional in style, no doubt . . . but it did enable him to reach the hearts of hundreds of those for whom prison and the convicts’ settlement have no terrors, of whom even the police stand in fear. . . . The preacher has to do with rough and ready minds upon which subtleties and refined discourse would be lost. . . . He implored them, first, to leave their sins, second, to leave them at once, that night, and third, to come to Christ. Not a word was uttered by him that could be misconstrued; not a doctrine was propounded that was beyond the comprehension of those to whom it was addressed.

There was no sign of impatience during the sermon. There was too much dramatic action, too much anecdotal matter to admit of its being considered dull, and when it terminated scarcely a person left his seat, indeed some appeared, to consider it too short, although the discourse had occupied fully an hour in its delivery.[5]

Clearly, William Booth was not himself restricted by the rule that any speaking should be brief, but then again most Victorian sermons were likely to be of this length or even greater.

What grew up by trial and error as the most practical way to proceed became in due course the standard as prescribed by regulation. The first Orders and Regulations (1878), largely drafted by Railton, directed as follows:

Be sure to keep up from the first that perfect ease and freedom as to the form of service which always belongs to us.

Drive out of the place within the first five minutes the notion that there is to be anything like an ordinary religious service. A few free and hearty remarks to your helpers, or to persons just entering the building, whom you wish to come forward, such as a loud “God bless you, brother; I’m glad to see you,” will answer this purpose, astound Christians, and make all the common people feel at home as much as when they enter the same place amidst the laughter and cheers of weekdays.[6]

The Orders and Regulations also provided a description of the meetings and activities of the Corps as they would appear to a stranger arriving in the town, thereby providing the officer with a template. Extracts convey the flavour:

14. About a quarter to eight he would observe a procession marching along, which as it passed would be joined by several companies.

15. On nearing the hall he would see another procession of equal size approaching from the opposite direction, and both would meet in the presence of a huge mob at the doors.

16. Two strong men would be seen keeping the entrance with smiling faces; but with the most resolute silent determination to keep back the turbulent, and welcome only the well-intentioned.

17. Upon the front he would observe very large placards, “The Salvation Barracks” being prominent above all.

18. The building would be entered through large gates into a yard, and would turn out to be a plain white-washed room on the ground floor, capable of seating—on low unbacked benches—some thousand people.

19. Upon entering he would find a large number of men present, many of them of a very low description, and a general buzz of conversation prevalent. He would be received at the door by a man who would smilingly show him to a seat. Another would offer him a songbook for ld.

20. At one side of the place he would notice a platform, some two feet high, capable of seating from 50 to 100 people.

21. He would notice the men as they came in from the open air disperse, some sitting at the end of forms, some in seats at the front, and some on the platform.

22. He would hear one standing at the front of the platform call out a number, and upon this, order would generally prevail. But some young men at one side would laugh and make remarks to one another.

The leader turning upon them, would caution them to be quiet. One of them would reply in a saucy manner—another would laugh aloud.

They would then be told they must leave the place, and the first verse of a hymn not given would be started. One of the men seated at the end of a form near would then request these two to go out, and upon their refusal would turn towards a man at the door, who would at once come up with three others and the two would be dragged out before the end of the chorus several times repeated. As they were pushed out two of the men would remain at the door to assist in keeping them out, if necessary.

23. The second verse would be given out with an extraordinary remark, and the singing would be of the loudest and wildest description, the chorus repeated many times, but always led off by the leader.

In the course of singing the next verse many shouts would be heard, and some would stand on forms and wave their arms.

24. After this, all would suddenly kneel down and at once there would be a burst of prayer from one after another, till in a few minutes six or eight had prayed.

25. Another hymn would then be at once struck up by the leader, and whilst it was being sung a very large number of persons kept outside during prayer would stream into the room, making it nearly full…

26. The leader would then announce an extraordinary list of speakers, and strike up a verse while they came forward. Each speaker would occupy a few minutes only, eight or nine being heard in the hour.

27. A lad would sing a solo between two of the speeches, and one speaker would announce, amidst many shouts, that he had never spoken before, but meant to do so again.

28. An old woman rising near the front would ask for a word, would be welcomed by the leader, and would then speak in such a way as to move all present to tears.

29. Encouraged by this, a big man, wearing rather flash clothes, would rise and ask a word, but would be informed there was not time tonight by the leader, who would instantly strike up a verse.

30. About the middle of the hour notices of the services of Sunday and Monday would be given out, and everyone urged to buy and read on Sunday some publications, to be had at the door.

31. The leader would then speak after the rest, urging everyone unconverted at once to come forward and seek Christ, and would then call for silent prayer, after a minute or two of which, prayer aloud would begin.

32. The stranger would now rise to leave; but would at once be spoken to by someone who would walk towards the door with him, urging him not to go. He would notice facing him near the door a motto of the most terrible description, others being placed on each wall and along the front of the platform…[7]

That was Saturday night – the hypothetical visitor returned and got saved on Sunday.

This prescription is not unlike the description of the Christian Mission meeting of ten or so years earlier, except that huge crowds are envisaged and provided for, and an immense amount of organisation assumed. In some places, that was what it was like. And when Booth insisted that people “do mission work on mission lines, or move off”, this is what he meant.[8]  

A reporter from The Secular Review attended an Army meeting at the People’s Hall, Whitechapel in 1879. A selection of quotes from his article gives an impression of the people and practices of the early Army:

The congregation is evidently drawn from the poorer classes, with here and there a young man or woman who may be slightly superior in point of what the world calls respectability...

These Salvationists are in earnest - plain, vulgar, downright, most unfashionably earnest...

The service begins with a hymn sung to the air of ‘Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon’. As the hymn proceeds and the oft-repeated chorus gathers strength, arms and hands are raised to beat time with the singing...

And now comes a prayer... and we are compelled to acknowledge that it is an able one. It moves the hearers’ sympathy. Its eucharistic cries arouse... cries of ‘Amen!’, ‘Glory!’, ‘Hallelujah!’ from all around.

As for the preacher, Peter Keen, the reporter noted, “He is natural, and undoubtedly is firmly convinced of the truth of the gospel which he declares. With a rude, untutored, but withal moving eloquence, he preaches a sermon upon the inability of man to do aught for himself, and the consequent necessity of ‘throwing it all upon Jesus’...”[9]

The 1881 Doctrines and Discipline of The Salvation Army urged lively and attractive meetings:

[10]

Various types of Meetings were prescribed. Apart from prayer meetings (Knee-drill) there were open-air meetings at various times of the day, the main purpose of which, apart from bearing witness and challenging people to be converted on the spot, was to persuade the public to follow the Salvationist back to their Barracks for the in-door meeting. There were generally public indoor gatherings in the afternoon and evening on Sundays, and on every night of the week. 

At first it was not usual to have indoor meetings on Sunday mornings. These were the time the working class idled about in the streets, drinking and gossiping and wasting their free time. Therefore, non-stop open-air meetings were to be conducted at this time. Later, when morning indoor meetings came to be held, these were at first attended by small numbers, usually only Salvationists, and used for teaching, especially about Holiness. However, it was not expected that all Salvationist would attend, because the soldiers, in their brigades or companies, would take turns away from their own inside meeting to work in the open air.

The “Holiness Meeting” was at first usually a week night event, for soldiers only, with strictly controlled admission by token or pass. The style would be more restrained, there being no need to entertain the masses; those attending were there because they were serious about their religion. Singing, praying and testifying to “the Blessing” would precede the sermon. Later, the Sunday morning meeting became known as the Holiness Meeting and was attended mainly by Salvationists. There was always a challenge to seek the Blessing of Holiness, and an invitation to come forward to pray for this.

The outline of the meeting for the “saints” was therefore the same as that for “sinners”: all was focussed towards the climacteric appeal. This might be contrasted, for example, with the Anglican liturgy where a general confession and absolution fairly early in the order of events relieves the worshippers of any burden of guilt and sets them free to enjoy the rest of the service. In the Army’s meeting plan, any guilt is relentlessly pursued – sung, prayed and preached towards the appeal, heightening the participant’s anxiety in order to ensure their capitulation at the end. Those not making the cut may take their guilt home with them to ensure their return.

On the Sunday afternoon there was a “free-and-easy” meeting, like a music hall concert. Both soldiers and the public attended, and the opportunity to preach and testify was not neglected. There was always a challenge to conversion. There was a church fashion for PSA – “Pleasant Sunday Afternoons” – at this time, but they tended to be lecture-based. The Army’s were different, and more focussed. At night was the “Salvation Meeting”, when the largest numbers of the public would attend, and all the stops would be pulled out in the battle for converts.

The arrangement of the Barracks followed the lay-out of the music hall and such places, with a stage for the performers. As the number of soldiers grew, and the Army built or bought its own halls, the platform was often tiered; the soldiers sat on the tiers and the public gathered in the body of the Hall. Only later, as the crowds thinned towards the end of the century, did the soldiers start to fill up the hall itself, and the musicians come to occupy the stage. Booth was insistent that the musicians were there for support purposes, not to be seen or heard for their own sake. He was very reluctant to have singing groups as such – his experience as a Methodist minister had left him believing “choirs to be possessed of three devils: the quarrelling devil, the dressing devil and the courting devil.”[11] It was some years before “Songster Brigades” were tolerated. Booth preferred the “Singing, Speaking and Praying” Brigades initiated by his son Herbert, the members being equally willing and able for any of those assignments.

While Booth’s prescription in the Orders and Regulations suggests and assumes a very tightly controlled and directed performance, all under the orders of one person, in practice the early Army’s spontaneity was at odds with this picture, owing more to the revivalist camp-meeting. Lillian Taiz quotes the memoirs of Salvationist James Price:

One Saturday night during the ‘Hallelujah wind-up’ he nearly passed out. “I seemed to be lifted out of myself,” he said, “and I think that for a time my spirit left my body.” While he did not faint, “mentally, for a time I was not at home.” When he regained awareness, he found himself “on the platform among many others singing and praising God.” “[S]uddenly finding myself in the midst of a brotherhood with whom I was in complete accord; without the shadow of a doubt regarding its divine mission, and then the great meetings climaxing in scores being converted, all this affected me like wine going to my head.”[12]

Taiz also quotes the National Baptist’s description of a Salvation Army meeting:

Many of the soldiers rock[ed] themselves backwards and forwards waving and clapping their hands, sometimes bowing far forward and again lifting their … faces, heavenward. The singing was thickly interlarded with ejaculations, shouts [and] sobs.[13]

Taiz’s comment is that “Salvationists had created an urban working-class version of the frontier camp-meeting style of religious expression.”

All religious revivals produce their own hymnology. The Christian Mission used mainly the great Wesleyan hymns Booth and some of his supporters brought from Methodism – and they had often been set to the popular song tunes of the previous century. Many of what today we hear as “great hymns of the Church” were set to tunes sung in the pubs in the 18^th century. Many of these have been carried forward into the Army’s modern repertoire. Before long, however, the Army was producing its own doggerel – and much of it was that. It tended to be set to the music hall tunes and popular songs of the day, such as “Champagne Charlie”. In the words of John Cleary, “the early Salvation Army captured, cannibalised and redeemed the popular forms of the day, and filled them with messages that spoke of the love of God for ordinary people and the power of God to change the world.”[14] “Penny Song Books” were sold at the meetings. The War Cry ran song-writing competitions and printed the results. The War Cry was also sold to the congregation so that they could sing the new songs produced that week. Because many people could not read, the leader outlined the words of each verse before they were sung. Many of the songs had choruses, so that the congregations could pick up the repetitive refrains and join in – as had long been the custom in the pubs with popular songs as well. The Officers were instructed:

Remember that the people do not know any tunes except popular song tunes and some tunes commonly sung in Sunday Schools, and that unless they sing, the singing will be poor and will not interest them much…

Choose, therefore, hymns and tunes which are known well, and sing them in such a way as to secure the largest number of singers and the best singing you can…[15]

John Rhemick in his A New People of God explores the significance of the Army’s “dramatic expression” as a means of reaching working class people. What a more cultured critic chose to call the Army’s “coarse, slangy, semi-ludicrous language” was what reached its target, and popular music provided the right vehicle for such language.[16] Paul Alexander, writing on Pentecostal worship, quotes Tex Sample on how “Pentecostal worship is an expression of working-class taste because it is in direct contrast to how ‘elitist taste legitimises social inequality’.”[17] The early Army’s music was the 19^th century equivalent of such religious expression.

The style and subject matter of the Army’s songs majored on personal religion; the experience of the individual and appeals to the individual. “I” and “we” have experienced this; “You” need to. In the words of Cleary again, the “lyrics were critically linked to evangelism. Songs for worship were also songs that spoke to the lost and broken. There were not songs for the elect body of believers but for the whole lost world for whom Jesus came.”[18] Many of the new songs did not last the distance; we no longer hear

                                    [19]

Or

A number seemed to celebrate The Salvation Army itself. On the other hand, many Army classics by notables like Herbert Booth, George Scott Railton, Charles Coller, William Pearson, Richard Slater, Thomas Mundell, and Sidney Cox enriched the Army’s continuing repertoire. In his memoirs, Bramwell Booth paid particular tribute to his brother.

Among the men who stand out prominently as makers of Army music I must put in first position my brother, Herbert. He, a natural musician… first originated that kind of music which I may call peculiarly ours. It is right that he should have special recognition for the great work he did. He was the creator of melodies which are now known throughout the world, both within and outside the Army… His melodies stand unrivalled in their suitability to Army meetings, and they have earned undying popularity…[20]

Such a recommendation is borne out by the retention of no fewer than 22 of Herbert Booth’s songs in the 1986 Song Book, including the following:

The following, written by George Ewens in 1880 and first published in The War Cry in June 1881, also still appeared in the 1986 Song Book:

At the same time the older Evangelical and Wesleyan tradition continued alongside the newer Salvationist style, the book containing old favourites by people like Fanny Crosby, Richard Jukes, William Collyer, Henry Alford, and especially by Charles Wesley. Such writers perhaps provided material more suitable for the Holiness meetings, perhaps more worshipful, although the subject matter was less often the attributes of God than it was the personal spiritual life and struggles of the worshippers. The emphasis was on joy, triumph and challenge. Booth admitted in 1904:

I think sometimes that The Salvation Army comes short in the matter of worship. I do not think that there is amongst us so much praising God for the wonders He has wrought, so much blessing Him for His every kindness, or so much adoration of His wisdom, power and love as there might, nay, as there ought to be. You will not find too much worship in our public meetings, in our more private gatherings, or in our secret heart experiences. We do not know too much of

                        “The sacred awe that dares not move,

                          And all the inward Heaven of love.”

… worship means more than either realisation, appreciation, gratitude or praise; it means adoration. The highest, noblest emotion of which the soul is capable. Love worships.[21]

Perhaps the old man was becoming nostalgic for the Wesleyan worship of his youth.

2.         c. 1900 – c. 1980: The Phase of Routinisation and Institutionalisation

The tendency of revival movements is to see themselves as recreating the original purity of the church. The Army did not set out to do this – Booth was simply pragmatic – but it came to believe this is what had happened. A 1921 article claimed:

The Salvation Army is, in a word, the modern manifestation of Apostolic religion. For the first 200 years after the death of Jesus, the Christian Assemblies were very like Salvation Army meetings. The reading of the Prophets or the Psalms, and copies of the manuscripts of the Gospels or Pauline letters, extempore prayers, testimonies – in which the women shared – and, speaking generally, unconventional as against a set form of service.[22]

Ironically, by then the unconventional was setting in the mould of its own conventions. By the early 20^th century the Army’s first great age of expansion and excitement was over; it was settling down. The period of routinisation began. If the history of the Church alternates between the “priestly” tradition, which seeks to secure continuity of an established pattern, and the “prophetic” tradition, which seeks to regain the original impetus and spirit which had created that pattern, at this stage the priestly tradition was re-asserting its dominance.

Lillian Taiz has examined the change in the Salvation Army culture in the United States, but her findings are equally applicable to the Army in Britain and the old “white” Commonwealth countries. Firstly (seeing that, in the words of the old song, “In the open air, we our Army prepare”[23]), Taiz remarks on the way “at the beginning of the century the Army started to ritualize its expressive and spontaneous street meetings by institutionalizing them and creating carefully scripted performances.” This change is illustrated from the Men’s Training Garrison curriculum described in the American War Cry of 14 March 1896. By this time Joe the Turk’s confrontational antics had become an embarrassment to the high command, which tried to discourage officers from courting imprisonment and “martyrdom”, and urged compromise and accommodation with local authorities. (And Taiz notes that by-mid-century “Salvationists had largely abandoned their ‘open-air heritage’ and no longer performed their spirituality in the streets.”)[24]

Taiz’s main point however concerns the Army’s adaptation to changing culture – both that within which it operated and that found within its own ranks. The spread of middle-class gentility affected what the donating public would tolerate from the Army, and what the gentrifying second-generation Salvationists would tolerate amongst themselves. While earlier Salvationists justified their extreme “uncouth, noisy and disagreeable” informality on the grounds that such methods were necessary to reach the masses, by the turn of the century the leadership “took steps to improve the organisations public image by discouraging noisy, confrontational public performances while at the same time providing the public with alternative images of Salvation Army religious culture.”[25] The same was true of the Army’s homeland; it was no accident that perceptions of its new-found decorum and professionalism in Saki’s short story were associated with Laura Kettleway’s references to the Army’s good works of social reformation – respectability was important for fund-raising! Taiz draws attention to the influence of the increasingly important social operations on the change in the Army’s internal religious culture. “The social work champions soon realized… that in a world that enshrined gentility as a standard for public and private behaviour, the organization could no longer afford to foster its own marginalization if it meant to achieve its goals.”

The Army’s regular congregation was by now composed largely of Salvationists and regular attendees. The style of meeting began to change, transmuting from a variety show back into the typical nonconformist hymn-sandwich, but with more fillings, or “items” incorporated because the musical sections had to have their turn. Regulations give a clue: there was one restricting the band to playing only for the first song in the Holiness Meeting, because they were beginning to assert their concert role and play to be noticed. That regulation was not long in being ignored. Extempore prayer suffered the stereotyping of word and phrase that accompanies a lack of preparation. Taiz quotes a Californian thesis to the effect that “services took on a “traditional ritual and form… consist[ing] of a call to worship, some offertory, band and songster special numbers, and a message followed by an alter [sic] call.”[26]

Taiz perceptively notes that

in addition to the transformation of its religious culture, changes to the Salvation Army by the twentieth century also reconfigured its religious mission [which] in the nineteenth century… was “conversion of the lost”. In the twentieth century … conversion of the heathen masses became the purview of the social work and was no longer rigorously evangelical… Salvation Army spiritual work increasingly focussed on “those already converted and … those who were being nurtured in the faith.” Like the late-nineteenth-century holiness camp meetings, Salvationists in the twentieth century began “preaching to the choir”.[27]

Sermons began to get longer, and testimonies to diminish, and the officer to do more and more of the speaking. From time to time efforts were made to turn the clock back. Even in the 1890s there was concern that some officers were monopolising the platform:

It is rumoured that at some corps the soldiers and sergeants never have a chance, except in the open-air, the captain reserving all the indoor meetings to himself. Surely this is an exaggeration. The General is going to deal with this danger in a future number. Let us be awake to it, and do our utmost to avoid the snare.[28]

In 1928 Bramwell Booth wrote to an officer in charge of a corps he had visited, advising him to, “Rope in your own people in so far as it is at all possible to take part in platform [i.e. speaking, preaching] work. If the soldiers and locals felt the responsibility of speaking to the people the words of life and truth they would fit themselves for this work. This would relieve you of some of your platform responsibilities, and thus enable you to tackle other work.”[29] And General Edward Higgins wrote, “I am afraid the idea has sometimes got abroad that Officers are intended to be like parsons and preach sermons, to monopolize all the time of a meeting while the people they are supposed to lead in fighting do nothing.”[30] Despite regulation and precept, there seemed an inevitable drift towards a semi-formal churchliness, with parsonical performances from the officer.

Sadly, the custom of “lining out” the words of songs continued a century after all the people could read and had the words before their eyes – custom once fixed, dies hard. Too many meeting leaders then felt they had to justify the practice by preaching a mini-sermon midrash on the words they superfluously read aloud to their bored congregations. In time the afternoon “free and easy” evolved into the “Praise Meeting” in which, where it survived in larger Corps, the Band played to the Songsters and the Songsters sang to the Band, and both attempted to entertain the mainly Salvationists and their bored, long-suffering children who attended, with ever more esoteric offerings – including transcriptions from the Great Masters.

The former Commissioner A. M. Nicol, lamenting the Army’s loss of its first love in about 1910, gave a depressing picture of an Army meeting in a London Corps.

I visited a Corps in North London a few weeks ago which stands in the first grade. I think it is next to Congress Hall in respect of membership and Self-Denial income. It has an excellent brass band, a band of songsters, a well-organised Junior Corps, and the hall in which the meetings are held is situated in the heart of an industrial population on a site that is among the best in the neighbourhood. It has an excellent history and is respected by the people as a whole. Few people can be found in the neighbourhood to say an unkind word about it, although if the question was put to them if they visit the Corps, the answer would be that they "see the Corps pass by with its band, and some years ago, when Captain So-and-so was in charge, I occasionally looked in."

What did I see and hear? A small audience, including officials, of about a hundred people and this Corps has a membership of some four or five hundred, a humdrum service without life in the singing, or originality of method or thought in the leadership, such as would not do credit to an average mission-hall meeting of twenty or thirty years ago. But for the music of the band and the singing of a brigade of twenty songsters the Corps would be defunct. The outside world was conspicuous by its absence. The audience was made up of regular attendants.

When the preliminaries were over, the Captain in a strident voice, as if the heart had been beaten out of him and he had to make up for the lack of natural feeling by the extent of his vocal power, announced that the meeting would be thrown open for testimony. As no one seemed inclined to get up and testify the surest sign that the Corps was no longer true to itself he informed the audience that he would sing a hymn. He gave out the number and the singing went flat. A sergeant, observing two young men without hymnbooks, went to the platform and picked up two and was about to hand the same to the strangers, when he was ordered by the Captain to put them back. “Let the young men buy books,” he said. I shall not forget the look upon that sergeant's face; but being accustomed to the discipline of the Army, and being in a registered place of worship, he did not express what he evidently felt.

A song was next sung from the Social Gazette newspaper, one of the Army’s agency, and the Captain stated as an incentive to buy that “last week I had to pay five shillings loss on my newspaper account. For pity's sake buy them up.” The appeal did not seem to me to strike a sympathetic chord in the audience.

Testimonies followed. Two or three were so weakly whispered that I could not catch the words another sign of the loss of that enthusiasm without which an Army meeting is worse to the spiritual taste than a sour apple to the palate. Among the testimonies was the following given by a Salvationist of some standing:

“I thank God for His grace that enables me to conquer trials and temptations; I feel the lack of encouragement in this Corps. My work is to lead the youngsters. In that work I get no encouragement whatever. The songsters take little interest in their duties and it is impossible at times not to feel that they have lost their hold of God. The Corps does not encourage me, and though our Adjutant will not care to hear me say so, he does not encourage me.”

A woman got up and screamed a testimony about the lack of the Holy Ghost and the spirit of backbiting in the Corps, during which the two young men referred to walked out, and several soldiers in uniforms smiled, whispered to each other, and the meeting degenerated into a cross between a school for ventilating scandal and cadging for “a good collection.” And I declare that this spirit of the meeting is the spirit of the Corps in the Salvation Army throughout England and Scotland. It has ceased to be true to itself, and as a consequence, no matter how the Army organises and disciplines its forces, the future of the movement is black indeed, and will become blacker unless – But that is not my business.[31]

It could be understood that even though the words and music of the earlier era survived in the Song Book and usage of this later time, once the spirit had gone out of the concern in the way Nicol described, spontaneity would relapse into formalism in their performance. How far, with ‘redemption and lift’, might a gradual distancing from genuine working-class roots also contribute to this change?

Fortunately the worship of the Army in general evidently did not continue to sink into the morass Nicol described, partly because of some improvement in its musical skills and perhaps with the wider adoption of traditional church hymnody and the production of Army songs of greater merit. The Army’s “hymn sandwich plus items” format evolved into an instrument capable of fostering and maintaining its distinctive spirituality – even though this might appear unusual to outside observers. The story is told of a BBC producer who had recorded a meeting at Regent Hall Corps, London, for broadcast in the late 1960s. He remarked, “That was a very good concert. But tell me, when do you hold your service for worship?” Writing of Salvation Army worship towards the end of this period, Gordon Moyles says:

The present basis of the Army’s evangelical work is its two public worship services, conducted in all corps every Sunday. These too, on the whole, have become predictable, traditionalized and staid.

The predictability of Salvation Army worship, only infrequently thwarted by an imaginative corps officer, lies in the fact that a meeting format—opening song, prayer, choir and band selection, testimony period, sermon, appeal—originally adopted as innovative and lively, is now accepted as sacred and has become ritual. Salvationists have forgotten that the novelty attached to early meetings depended not so much on their format as on their content: lively war songs, sparkling testimonies, sensational conversions, spontaneous demonstrations and unexpected diversions were the attractions that kept the Army barracks filled. This is not to say that revivalistic techniques have disappeared from Salvation Army worship; far from it. Revivalist specials still survive; at Congresses, where charismatic leadership is nearly always evident, one may still witness emotionally-charged scenes of repentance and conversion; and there are corps, particularly in the outports of Newfoundland, where one may still experience the exuberant evangelism characteristic of all corps a few decades ago. On the whole, however, and especially in those corps dominated by middle-class attitudes, routine and the desire for respectability have tempered the Army’s exuberant mode of worship. Apart from the peculiar contribution of the band, there is little in a Salvation Army worship service which differs remarkably from what one might encounter in the Sunday services of any other conventional, conservative conversionist sect.

So much in Salvation Army practice has in fact become “tradition,” and therefore sacrosanct, that the Army itself has become a bulwark of traditionalism. The improvisation and spontaneity of early Salvationism have been replaced by established ritual, and some of the results of that early improvisation have become sacred institutions, enshrined as effectively as sacerdotalism itself.[32]

John Cleary suggests that,

Salvation Army methods were so successful that the Salvationist culture was soon able to close itself off from the world. By 1912 Army music could be sold only to Salvationists and Salvationists were not permitted to perform non-Army music. Brass bands continued to have a powerful cultural role long after their evangelical influence had waned.

This is due in some part to the fact that group music-making is one of the most creative and cost-effective ways of mobilising a significant body of people for a purpose that is both personally fulfilling and spiritually uplifting. Additionally the brass band is one of the few group musical activities which is relatively simple to teach, yet allows amateurs access to the best and most sophisticated music of the genre.

While this gave Salvationist culture its international cohesiveness and strength, it turned the culture in on itself. The composer Eric Ball remembers Bramwell Booth speaking to cadets at the International Training College of The Salvation Army [describing the Army] as “A nation within the nations, with its own art and culture and music”. The Salvation Army remained largely secure within this culture, insulated from the currents of the world for almost a century.[33]

In this respect, the maturing and institutionalised Army became for a time more, rather than less, sectarian, in the sense that it increasingly offered an all-embracing social milieu for its members, which probably went some way towards justifying Roland Robertson’s description of it as an “established sect”. Any tendency towards a denominationalising accommodation to the wider world was delayed by the very strength of its own sub-culture.

This was not all loss, however. The Song Books of the twentieth century provided a widening range of style and theological teaching. The 1953 and even more so the 1986 edition also sought to familiarise Salvationists with more hymns from the rest of the church, some going back to the middle ages and earlier. The Army also developed a genre of worship songs of its own, still deeply personal and in fact inward-looking rather than evangelistic as the early Army songs had been, but equal in style and content to anything in any tradition. To mention only two from the 1986 Song Book, firstly Olive Holbrook’s 1934 gem:        

And Albert Orsborn’s well-known 1947 poem:

Many other writers – Doris Rendell, Ruth Tracy, Catherine Baird, Will Brand, Bramwell Coles, Miriam Richards and Iva Lou Samples for example – made their mark.

Besides such song-writers as those mentioned, there were voices attempting to recover some freshness and instil some wisdom even in this period of increasing decadence and routine in worship. In other words, the prophetic tradition which had created the Army style in the first place was re-emerging to critique the pattern into which that style had become set. Of these, Fred Brown’s The Salvationist at Worship was a classic exposition.[34] Frederick Coutts also wrote a series of articles in The Officer, and collected in his In Good Company, addressing the important elements of meeting leadership: public prayer, the structure of the meeting and the preaching of the word.[35] Would that both Brown’s and Coutts’s work were prescribed reading for all leaders of Salvation Army worship today.

What did not change with respect to the Army’s own hymnody was its tendency to focus on the individual’s interior spiritual life. There was a good deal of “I” and not a great deal of “we”; not many of its songs explicitly attempted to express the corporate worshipping life of the community. Nevertheless, at its best the kind of music and verse available this era went a long way towards meeting William Booth’s desire for more true “worship” in Salvation Army gatherings and laid down a tradition capable of supporting the spirituality of ordinary Salvationists in a changing world.

While the matter of Salvation Army architecture has not been explicitly addressed in this history, the design of the meeting place – from the earliest co-opted spaces in shops and theatres, to the purpose-built “Barracks”, to the increasingly ornate “Citadels” and “Temples”, to the diverse creations of modern architecture, some under the influence of the wider “liturgical movement” in the Church – would always have some influence on the kind of gathering which took place in it. A rare and valuable recent study of Salvationist architecture in the United Kingdom at least is that by Ray Oakley in his To the Glory of God.[36]

3.         c. 1960 to the present day: a phase of diversity, or another stereotype?

In the second half of the 20^th century a restlessness crept in upon the established patterns. Some younger Salvationists began to look to more contemporary models for Army music-making. The iconoclastic editor of the Danish War Cry and author of that country’s territorial history, Brigadier Ketty Røper, in her “Reflections on Denmark’s 75^th Anniversary, Is it all Jubilation?” regretted that “Jazz is one of the modern powers which we – at any rate in Denmark – stifled at birth and with it many young people whose loss we now pay for dearly.” Recounting the story of one such group of musicians, she asked, “Why could we not admit that most of our meetings are boring… and that progress has ceased?”[37]

With the advent of Rock’n’Roll and the rise of youth culture, the guitar began to make its appearance in the Citadel. The Joy Strings burst upon the astonished Army world in the early 1960s, encouraged by General Coutts. Similar groups began to appear in other “western” territories, such as USA Western, Australia and New Zealand. John Cleary suggests this was a false dawn because the powerful and reactionary forces of Bands and Songsters were marshalled for the spate of Centenary Celebrations from 1965. The rock band remained peripheral to the Army’s vision.

Cleary’s comment is apt:

In 1965 the huge edifice that was Salvation Army music publishing had just entered its most mature and sophisticated phase. Both composers and musicians reached levels that put them on a par with the best in the secular world. Ray Steadman-Allen’s The Holy War marked the emergence onto the world stage of serious Salvation Army brass music. Eric Ball, Dean Coffin, and Wilfred Heaton, had prepared the way, but in 1965, with the International Staff Band’s album The Holy War, featuring Ray Steadman-Allen’s Holy War on one side and Christ is the Answer – Fantasia For Band and Piano on the other, Salvationist music had “arrived”.

In this holy war the Joystrings were simply blown away. Salvation Army brass musicians around the world welcomed the success of the Joystrings, but regarded them at best as a novelty, perhaps a distraction, and at worst as a satanic influence on true Salvationist culture. Numerous youthful musical aspirations were crushed by the contempt of local bandmasters, and the threat of Headquarters to act against those who had not submitted their work to the Music Board for prior approval.

The Army of the 1960s failed to recognise that brass bands had come to occupy the very same niche that church choirs had in the previous century. Choirs achieved the highest form of musical art with the best composers writing great works of lasting value – men like Elgar, Stanford, and Parry. But though of great merit, they were totally out of touch with the sounds of the music halls and gin palaces, where the early Salvationists found their inspiration. Army bands might have been playing Toccata but it was the Joystrings who touched the public.[38]

It is also true that the Army of the 20^th century suffered under a disability less problematical in the 19^th – the matter of copyright. Revivalists of the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries could set new and religious words to whatever popular tunes were being sung by the people they wanted to evangelise; by the 1960s that simply was not possible. From Scott Joplin to John Lennon to Mick Jagger, those melodies were now off limits, even if the copyright fees could have been afforded. A tremendous link with popular culture had been cut off; Christian musicians would have to provide their own and attract attention in a market never more competitive.

In succeeding years the great series of musicals with words by John Gowans and music by John Larsson contributed a score of lasting classics to the Army’s hymnology.  Indeed, some 20 of Gowans’ songs were included in the 1986 book, including.

Along with others by such writers as Harry Read, Maureen Jarvis and Howard Davies, for example, the songs from those musicals have made a lasting contribution. Unfortunately, these by themselves were apparently insufficient to inspire an indigenous Salvationist renewal of corporate worship. An opportunity seemed to have been missed.

The Salvation Army, having largely rejected the new life which was emerging from its own tradition, eventually bought into what was emerging in a different tradition. It was not until the 1980s that the “Western World” Army began to descend into the “Worship Wars” which were triggered by the rise of the charismatic movement and the burgeoning of new songs for yet another strand of revival. To some extent the Army succumbed to this influence because of the frustration of many Salvationists with an ossified tradition, so that they began looking elsewhere for inspiration – to Pentecostal and Charismatic styles.

Spasmodic attempts were made to address the need for some rejuvenation of Salvation Army worship over the years. Colonel (later General) John Larsson of the United Kingdom presented a paper on “New Joy in Worship” at a Church Growth conference in London – touching on what was a crucially divisive issue in some corps. New Zealand delegate Richard Smith’s Report stated:

In introducing this topic Colonel Ian Cutmore spoke of the need for ‘the kind of worship in our meetings that satisfies the people who come and will not stay otherwise’. John Larsson’s emphasis was on the need for real effort to make Sunday meetings the apex of all we do and so a major priority on the time of officers, musicians and other leaders in the corps situation. Colonel Larsson quite strongly stated that many of our meetings were stereotyped, were uncreative, were unsatisfying spiritually and were often the result of the regular turning of a handle to produce a patterned object. The value of the meeting in actually assisting every person present to lift their heart to God in praise and in obedience was much affected by the proper use of suitable words and music and the creative building of the meeting itself.

He quoted an American CSM who asked ‘would we want to spend eternity in a typical Army meeting? The meeting of Christians together for worship, for praise and for challenge should be the nearest thing to heaven we experience on this earth.’ GOSH! The possibility of larger corps particularly having a small group of qualified leaders as a ‘worship team’ responsible for the planning of the first 40 minutes of a meeting was floated. A major emphasis was the need to adopt styles of worship and communication which clearly spoke to the local cultural needs and expectations. The tragedy of the imposition of a conservative Anglo—Saxon worship and meeting style upon cultures all around the world was something that needed attention. Change would demand considerable openness to allowing liberating changes in terminology, music, and style. There was a strong feeling that in all territories and commands there should be an endorsement of the use of contemporary music in meetings, and the insistence that officers facilitate inspiring meetings through the use of music and other means of communication.[39]

Despite such efforts, it was the Pentecostal-Charismatic mode, the “Worship Song”, rather than any home-grown Salvationist idiom which tended to be adopted by Corps in parts of the Western World. As a result, changes of an altogether more sweeping kind have overtaken Salvation Army worship in the last part of the 20^th century (and this is from a New Zealand perspective, and may not be apparent to the same degree elsewhere). And of course those changes were resisted most strongly by those who believed that the tradition they defended was that of the ‘apostolic age’ of the Salvation Army rather than the creation of the 1950s.

·                     In earlier days Sunday meetings at Salvation Army Corps had marked “similarities”, even internationally. Anyone going to “the Army” knew in general terms what to expect. Increasingly however, from the later 1970s, this became less the case. Meetings were marked now by variety, diversity and non-conformity rather than the uniformity, conformity and predictability into which the original Salvation Army free style had set. Each Corps might be very different in its worship expression. In some the traditional song-sandwich, with input from the usual musical sections, would be encountered. In others, an almost Pentecostal style of meeting might be found.

·                     Over the course of the last twenty or so years of the 20^th century, the balance of probability swung in favour of the newer format, so that many Corps meetings now frequently look and feel more like a typical “charismatic” church service. The “Song Sandwich” has been largely replaced in some Corps by a long period of standing and singing choruses, with many people singing with hands raised above their heads, followed by a rather long Sermon. It has to be said, however, that in many cases it would appear to be the form rather than the spirit of the charismatic style which has been adopted. Uniformity, conformity and predictability still prevail, though of a different flavour.

·                     In some other Corps, worship has changed though not as much.  Following a lurch towards the charismatic there is now a better traditional and contemporary balance in these.  A period of chorus singing accompanied by a musical group (guitars, drums and electronic keyboard) is inserted into the already rather crowded meeting programme, not uncommonly introduced by, “Now we’re going to have a time of worship”, as though nothing else which has taken place to that point qualifies for that description.

·                     There has been a move away from the use of the Army Song Book and traditional “hymns of the Church” to use of music and song material from other, though limited, sources. “Songs of Praise” and “Songs of the Kingdom” were in turn superseded by songs of Vineyard and Hillsong provenance, amongst other material. There is a much reduced theological range in the sung material, with more of “me” stuff – as there was in the early Army, though with a different message and often less theological depth. There can be a concentration on “feel good”, triumphalist and “prosperity gospel” themes, to the exclusion of the original Army preoccupation with the needs of the lost and disadvantaged. It tends to be music for the self-conceived saints rather than for the sinners. What is sung in Sunday worship powerfully communicates doctrine, under the radar as it were, and reinforced through frequent repetition.  Some material is quite sound; some surely questionable. Much of it is monotonous, both musically and conceptually; too often unsuited to congregational singing and boring to listen to. It also tends to perpetuate the individualistic focus, to the neglect of the corporate.

·                     In earlier days when almost exclusively the sung material for Sunday worship came from the Song Book more doctrinal checks and balances existed.  Material to be included in each edition was closely vetted, filtered through the Doctrine Council. Now there is apparently less careful scrutiny or requirement, other than the need to avoid copyright infringements.

·                     In some Corps, the choice of songs is sometimes less in the hands of the Officer and more as selected by “Worship Leader”. William Booth, with his insistence on meetings being under the unifying direction of one person, would not have been pleased.

·                     There is less use of the Brass Band, which used to make a significant contribution in every meeting. In the New Zealand territory, Bands are struggling to survive, even in some larger corps. Their number has probably halved in the past thirty years. In many corps there has been an almost complete demise of uniformed music sections – no band, no songsters, no singing company, no junior band, no timbrels, etc.

·                     In many Corps the “worship team” has replaced the Band, Songsters, organ and piano, while in others there is a relatively comfortable cooperation between the new and the traditional music groups.

·                     The whole issue of worship styles and choice of material has been cause of much pain and concern, along “traditional”/“contemporary” lines. Some older, more traditional Salvationists feel betrayed and abandoned.

·                     There appears to be a dearth of public testimony from people who are not officers or aged senior soldiers, and opportunity is seldom given for such expression of experience.

·                     In the early 1960s, when Television was introduced to New Zealand, there was within a year or two a change in attendance patterns; instead of the morning meeting being the smaller and the evening meeting the larger, with greater likelihood of non-Salvationists attending, their attendances were reversed. By the 1990s, the evening meeting had begun to disappear entirely, despite attempts in places to make it a specialised “youth” meeting. The collapse of intentionally focussed “holiness” and “salvation” meetings into one event had implications for what was taught and preached. Traditional Wesleyan Holiness teaching largely disappeared – although other reasons have contributed to this change.

·                     Technology plays a larger part: e.g data projectors, projected song material,   ‘powerpoint’ sermons, video clips, are common. (And sermons straight off the internet, not invariably taken from doctrinally impeccable sites, have become all too familiar.)

·                     In a few larger corps, multiple congregations have been attempted, with a number of relatively discrete congregations meeting at separate times.

In an attempt to provide some resources for development of worship, in 2003 General Larsson appointed Colonels Robert and Gwenyth Redhead, domiciled in Canada, to an international role as “General’s Representatives for the Development of Evangelism and Worship through Music and other Creative Arts”. This innovative appointment capitalised on the Redheads’ personal giftings but its effectiveness was really dependent upon their individual influence and example in the course of their extensive travels conducting meetings and workshops. Only so much could be done this way, and in any case the role did not survive their retirement in 2005.

This outline has really only referred to the “Western World” – and only to those parts with which I am familiar. Furthermore, some parts of that World might not recognise what I have described. Attending a small corps in Washington DC, USA, in 2004, I felt I had time-travelled back to the corps of my adolescence in 1950s New Zealand. But 80% of Salvationists are to be found today in the “Developing World”. While the “colonial” influence of western officers as missionaries and leaders long imposed a song sandwich model and acclimatised versions of European hymns on these territories, are they now breaking the mould and exploring indigenous ways of being Salvationists. Indeed, 35 and more years ago in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe there was a world of difference between the type of meeting and singing customary in the largely missionary-led Howard Institute Hall and the altogether more boisterous and triple forte celebration at a village corps, where people did not sing without simultaneously dancing, and there were as many vocal parts as in Tallis’s “Spem in Alium”.

Now that a new Song Book is appearing, it will be interesting to see how all these special interests are to be accommodated.

John Cleary asks of the way forward:

How do we bridge the gulf between contemporary style and theological substance? There is in fact a direct link between the lyrical and musical styles of today and the revolutionary message of William Booth and John Wesley. It can be found where evangelicals give hope to the most oppressed… The black spirituals spring out of a combination of the heart-felt cry of the oppressed and the world-redeeming hope of Wesley and Finney. It is music that is grounded in the love of God, speaks with the voice of the prophet, shows all the tenderness of Jesus and moves through the power of the spirit. It is no accident that out of this musical form sprang the most popular musical forms of the 20th century; Blues, Jazz, Rock and Soul. This is music that speaks from heart to heart. It lives with sorrow and pain yet sings of hope.

Black Gospel music is the bedrock of contemporary Christian music. The Salvation Army has missed this connection twice before. Once in the 1910s, when having so successfully embraced the sounds of the secular English Music Hall and the American Minstrel shows of the 1880s, we turned our back on the religiously based Blues and Jazz of the early 1900s. And again in the 1960s, the Joystrings reconnected Salvationists with popular culture at a critical turning point in the modern world. Unfortunately the movement was deaf to the message.

The consistent path for the Salvationist is radical engagement. The Salvation Army needs to embrace contemporary Christian music. It needs to learn the lessons of its own history and infuse that music with a comprehensive sense of compassion and care, which belongs to the roots of Gospel music and the origins of The Salvation Army.

It is something of an irony that at the very time some Salvationists are questioning its mission, the evangelical church is rediscovering its need for a theology that engages with the world. Evangelists such as Philip Yancy and Tony Campolo in the United States, magazines like Christianity Today and Christian History are turning to the great evangelical revival for inspiration. The evangelical churches are recovering the message of William and Catherine Booth and the early Salvation Army.[40]

In conclusion, we look back to our introductory suggestion that we might distinguish three very general periods or phases in Salvation Army worship style, roughly parallel to the sociologists’ analysis of Salvation Army history.

·                     We might take the first phase, enthusiasm, as an example of the “prophetic” attempt to recover first principles, in this case of the evangelisation of the poor and disadvantaged.

·                     The second phase, of routinisation, can be seen as an example of the reassertion of the “priestly” function of stability, the maintenance and preservation of what has been achieved.

·                     In the third phase there is a tension between the “prophetic “and the “priestly” and it is not clear whether they will learn to co-exist or one will achieve dominance for a period. The newer, charismatically-influenced worship style was itself the product of a revival movement, even as the “old Army” was in its time. However, by the time the charismatic movement came to influence the contemporary Army it was already losing its original momentum and turning into another example of a “priestly” phase of church life. Its music is in the course of becoming as esoteric and out of touch with the world as that of Herbert Howells or Ray Steadman-Allan. (How many non-Christians tune in to “Christian” radio? Or how many Christians, for that matter?) The Salvation Army has therefore “copped a double whammy”; it has been the locus of a struggle between two equally controlling and outdated modes. Perhaps Alice Cooper would be a better model than Hillsong of a genuinely spiritual voice in the contemporary world. A real diversity of source and expression, encompassing traditional Salvation Army classics, music from the charismatic tradition and other contemporary hymns (of which the Army is largely unaware) would be a helpful thing.

John Cleary’s analysis of the present challenge suggests that the Salvation Army needs to look to its own roots for the inspiration and resources whereby it might renew its mission and worship. Perhaps a weakness in his argument is the assumption that all Army music must be evangelical and therefore to engage the “world” it must be focussed on and stylistically drawn from popular culture. The difficulty with this, as it has been since the second and third generations of Salvationists, is that the Army also needs to keep its own, home-grown constituency engaged. It needs therefore somehow to maintain a smorgasbord of styles, fostering mutual acceptance and toleration, in order to keep the whole together.