The changing nature of Salvation Army officership
by Cadet Mat Badger

Introduction - Death by Paperwork
 

This research project attempts a brief historical review of The Salvation Army’s journey to institutionalization and an analysis of how this has impacted the mission of the organization.[1] Because of increasing institutionalization, the functional nature of the key people within the organization, the officers, has continued to change since the founding of the Salvation Army in 1878.[2]  Or to put it another way, the officer’s essential function has been predominantly lost in the ever increasing tide of paperwork. In looking at this change in function of officership, we will be able to assess the current effectiveness of the mission.

 

So the aim of this project is threefold. It is firstly to look at how the function of the Salvation Army officer has changed (chapter one). We will do this by examining the historical process of the Salvation Army becoming an institution. In looking at the journey towards institutionalization, we will lay a good foundation to then, secondly, discuss the impact that institutionalization has had on the Salvation Army officer  (chapter two). In discussing the impact of institutionalization on the officer, we will see that any impact on the officer will directly impact the effectiveness of the mission. We will also discover that institutionalization creates certain complications for the movement to be effective in its mission to “go for souls, go for the worst!”[3]  In light of this, the third purpose of this project is to critique the complications associated with institutionalization. In part three we search for a solution to these complications through examining the writings of Samuel Logan Brengle (1860 – 1936), an officer who lived through the early years of the Salvation Army’s institutionalization. Brengle is not only recognized as a holiness prophet within the Salvation Army, but as we will see, much of what he has to say speaks down through the decades to those of us within the organization today.

 

>> view research project report by Cadet Badger - PDF file (236 KB)


 

Footnotes

[1] The trust deed setting up The Salvation Army stipulated that the definite article, with a capital T, was an essential part of the title. See Roy Hattersley, Blood and Fire – William and Catherine Booth and Their Salvation Army (Great Britain: Little, Brown and Co, 1999), 1. Having shown proper respect for that wish, this research assignment will now revert to common usage – that is, without the capitol T.

[2] The Salvation Army, The Constitution of the Salvation Army (London: Salvation Army International Headquarters, 1969), 3.        

[3] Trevor Yaxley, Through Blood and Fire – The Life of General William Booth (Auckland: Castle, 1999), 41.


 

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