"Follow John
Wesley, Glorious John Wesley"
The Theological
Context of William Booth's Ecclesiology
By Andrew S. Miller III
With a note pad in his hands and a series of questions ready
to be asked, the distinguished theologian and founding editor
of The Methodist Times,
Reverend Hugh Price Hughes, skips a list of inquiries and
jumps to the question that he wanted to ask most.
His subject was the fifty-six-year old religious and
ecclesiological misfit General William Booth. Here was Booth,
a man who had left the formality of the Methodist New
Connexion, a group started by the rebel rousing Alexander
Kilham (1762-1798) in 1797,[1]
being asked about his young and thriving Salvation Army. It
was 1885, and the success of the Army was evident as it now
included 1,749 corps, and 4,129 officers[2] in
nearly every country within the British
Commonwealth. Booth indicates the ironic nature of
the question posed by Hugh Price Hughes in
The Methodist Times,
as he asked, “Have you any special advice for us Methodists?”
To which Booth succinctly responds, “Follow John Wesley,
glorious John Wesley.”[3]
These words underscore the way that William Booth thought
about his religious context, and what he felt was handed to
him as a theological inheritance from the Wesleyan tradition.[4]
In trying to understand William Booth and his Salvation Army,
does it matter if we see him in a Wesleyan theological
context? Most of
Booth’s biographers suggest that there was nothing that Booth
abhorred more than theology.[5]
Did he even have an ecclesiology?
Can interpreters and inheritor’s of Booth’s Army find a
context for his mission? It is important to let Booth speak
for himself about his theological milieu. One of his most
noted self-disclosures came as he described his fondness for
John Wesley and Methodism:
I worshiped everything that bore the name of Methodist. To me
there was one God, and John Wesley was his prophet. I had
devoured the story of his life. No human compositions seemed
to me to be comparable to his writings, and to the hymns of
his brother Charles, and all that was wanted in my estimation,
for the salvation of the world was the faithful carrying into
practice of the letter and the spirit of his instructions.[6]
The
greatest good for Booth’s theology and practice is seen within
this statement as he described the goal of his life as “the
salvation of the world.” How would this happen? The Salvation
of the world could happen if people would place “the letter
and the spirit of his [John Wesley’s] instructions into
practice.” The movement within this statement, beyond the
hyperbolic beginning, is toward a pragmatic ecclesiology that
values evangelism, mission and soteriology more than
officially articulated ecclesiological statements. The very
name of Booth’s movement, the[7]
Salvation Army, suggests that it’s squarely focused on the
task of salvation. William Booth inherited a functional
ecclesiology from John Wesley that sparked the theological
praxis of the Salvation Army.
Developing an Army and an Ecclesiology
In 1865 William Booth found his destiny while preaching in
London’s
East End and formed
The East London Christian Revival Society.[8] Later
known as the Christian Mission, this group was motivated to
preach the gospel to the poor of London’s
East End, a segment of the population that was
generally neglected by the Church in the Victorian era. Much
like the beginning of the Methodist movement, as John Wesley
had no desire to form a sectarian group, neither did William
Booth with his Christian Mission. His main focus was to steer
new converts to other churches as stated in the following:
My first idea was simply to get people saved, and send them to
the churches. This proved at the outset impracticable. 1st.
They [the converts] would not go when sent. 2nd.
They were not wanted. And 3rd. We wanted some of
them at least ourselves, to help us in the business of saving
others. We were thus driven to providing for the converts
ourselves.[9]
Unlike Wesley, who throughout his life was officially
connected to the Church of England, Booth clearly made a
distinction that his ties were never to another denomination;
instead his connection was to his theological and spiritual
inheritance. That inheritance is suggested in this paper to be
a pragmatic Wesleyan ecclesiology.
Booth’s Christian Mission moved forward in seeking to
save the lost of London’s
East End.
During the first thirteen years the Christian Mission
grew to include 75 preaching stations and 120 evangelists
throughout Britain.
In 1878 the Christian Mission changed its name to the
Salvation Army. This change of identity is the first clear
indication of a personal shift in William Booth’s theology,
which adjusted from personal redemptive categories to
institutional redemptive categories.[10]
Booth felt so strongly about this institutional focus that at
his sixtieth birthday party, he claimed that his movement was
firmly in the orthodox tradition:
The Church of England boasts of being 2,000 years old. They
say they are in Apostolic Succession. So are we. I am. I look
at this sapling here that has just sprung into being—not
twenty-five years old with its eight thousand salaried
officers, its multitude of Soldiers in every land its colours
waving in thirty-six different countries and colonies….As I
say sometimes, we are a sort of Hallelujah Jews! We are the
descendants not only of the ten tribes, but of the twelve
Apostles.[11]
This new theology is made clear in a popular (and often
quoted) article by William Booth entitled “Our New Name—The
Salvationist” in The Salvationist[12]
from January 1, 1879:
We are a salvation people—this is our specialty…Our work is
salvation. We believe in salvation and we have salvation….We
aim at salvation. We want this and nothing short of this and
we want this right off. My brethren, my comrades, soul saving
is our avocation, the great purpose and business of our lives.
Let us seek first the
Kingdom
of God,
let us be Salvationist indeed.[13]
The alteration is most obviously seen in the pragmatic shift
to transform the structure of the Christian Mission to the
military structure of the newly formed Salvation Army. When
the military metaphor was adopted, every area of Booth’s
movement was affected: preaching stations became corps,
evangelists became corps officers, members became soldiers,
and its leader became the General. An autocratic form of
leadership emerged, and like a conquering Army, the fingers of
the Salvation Army were stretched around the world. Historical
theologian Roger J. Green explains that at this time Booth’s
theology began to move from individual categories to
institutional categories. Indeed, William Booth saw his
Salvation Army as institutionally sanctified to bring about
the Kingdom of God
on earth.[14] His
Salvation Army was, in his mind, the vehicle that would
facilitate the coming millennium. Within eight years of the
1878 name change, the Salvation Army exploded to include 1,749
corps, and 4,129 officers.[15]
Indicative of this time is Booth’s commissioning of a
corporate missional and ecclesial task: “Go to them all. The
whole fourteen hundred millions. Don’t despair.
It can be done. It
SHALL BE DONE. God has sent The Salvation Army on the task. If
every saint on earth would do his duty, it
could be done
effectually in the next ten years. If the Salvation Army will
be true to God, it will
be done during the next fifty” [emphasis Booth’s].[16]
It was in this time that Booth made one clear critique of John
Wesley and Methodism. His experience with New Connexion
Methodism was, to him, indicative of the unprepared nature of
Methodism. Jason
E. Vickers has suggested in his book
Wesley: A Guide for the
Perplexed, that Wesley was a representative Anglican of
his day. It seems that William Booth’s interpretation of
Wesley too quickly forced Wesley into a bifurcation of a
“reactionary and proto modernist”[17]
contrasted with being a stabilizing figure within the
Anglican Communion—as if Wesley could not make up his mind.
Booth saw these polarities of reform and stabilization as a
weakness within Methodism, so when speaking about the growth
of the Army and his focus of the movement’s position he
explains, “What will it [the Army] grow to? Who can guess? I
cannot. Never, I hope, into a sect. We have taken and shall
continue to take every precaution against this. Warned by the
failure of John Wesley in maintaining his unsectarian
position, we are trying to avoid what we think were his
mistakes.”[18]
While understanding this side of Wesley is “perplexing” it
might have been in the best interest of Wesley’s movement,
which in his time was never severed from Anglicanism. With the
name change to the Salvation Army, William Booth detached
himself from committees and structure, thus enabling him to be
the autocratic head of the movement.
Battle images were rigorously employed as the Salvation Army sought to identify
along the lines of an Army.
The Salvation Army was, as one author has said, a group
of “soldiers without swords,”[19]
whose mission had a singular focus of winning the world for
Christ. Did the military metaphor create its own reality as a
result of the way that its adherents adopted its mission?
Booth and his Army saw themselves in a fight with a supreme
purpose. Within the realm of historical theology it is easy to
conclude that the Salvation Army’s militarism developed an
ecclesiology that rearticulated what God’s people were to be
about in this world. The metaphor of an Army “marching through
the land” created new ways to express the mission of God.
William Booth could challenge his troupes the same way a
military general would. Thus he developed a task-oriented
ecclesiology, with the task being the Salvation of the world.
In his 1880 speech to the Wesleyan Methodist conference he
explained, “I cannot help but feel that I am mixed up with a
very important movement, and a movement that is worthy of the
consideration of all Christian men who are concerned about the
salvation of the world.”[20]
The Polarities of Wesley’s Ecclesiology
Wesleyan communities developed as movements within the
Church of England, which has caused these communities to have
a systemic evangelical disposition that naturally questions
whether it is a movement or separate a church. Methodist
theologian Ted A. Campbell explains how Wesley clearly allowed
mission to “trump” traditional Anglican ecclesiology when in
1784 he ordained two Methodist lay preachers to serve as
elders and Thomas Coke to serve as superintendent of the
Methodist movement in the
United States.[21]
This action created a flurry of activity that ignited and
confirmed the suspicion that Wesley was more focused on
mission than remaining at peace with the ecclesiastical
structures of his time. Campbell diagnoses, “Methodists as having a
bipolar ecclesiology, oscillating between an inherited
Anglican concept of the church and a rather different
understanding of the Methodist community as a ‘religious
society’ or revival movement organized for missional
purposes.”[22]
Furthering this view is Wesley scholar Kenneth J.
Collins who highlights these distinctions polarities of
Wesley’s articulated ecclesiology in that he followed the
Reformed line of seeing the church as an institution marked by
the proper preaching of the word of God and where the
sacraments are dually administered. Collins suggests, “On the
other hand, Wesley defined the church not simply in terms of
institution and objective elements, but also in terms of flesh
and blood people, members of the body of Christ who as a
peculiar people are holy precisely because their Savior is
holy.”[23]
It is possible that these polarities might give shape to the
theological and ecclesiological context of William Booth’s
Salvation Army.
For the purposes of this study it is helpful to highlight the
way that Wesley’s ecclesiology grew within Wesleyan movements.
This is the theological context in which Booth was shaped. Campbell uses three
helpful examples to express this tension: the practical
expression of a Love Feast compared to the Lord’s Supper by
Wesleyan communities, officially endorsed systematic
theologies which emphasized soteriological themes, and
architecture within in the movement that was functional for
missional purposes. It is interesting to discover with
Campbell
how ecclesiological language was generally couched in the
church’s ecclesiology in its higher calling to evangelism,
mission, and soteriology. Sacraments are not always
highlighted in Wesleyan communities despite the high view that
Wesley held, saying that the church exists where the
sacraments of the Lord’s Supper and Baptism are “rightly” or
“dualy” administrated.
This tension within Methodism created its own movement
and tilled the ground for the nineteenth century movement
where William Booth’s pragmatic ecclesiology would grow.
Booth’s as an Inheritor of the Wesley’s Polarities
It is within this missional branch of Wesleyanism that William
Booth and his Salvation Army find its theological home and
inheritance. William Booth commented at the Wesleyan
Conference of 1880 that “I am the child of Methodism; that I
was converted and trained to love the soul-saving work in
Methodism.”[24]
These comments are revealing on a few levels. First it is
important to see that William Booth sets his own context not
simply in revivalism or the Reformation but within the
Methodist expression of Protestantism. William Booth generally
had no time for connecting himself to anything but the early
church. It was common for the General to suggest that his
movement was a direct descendent from the Biblical narrative
itself. He felt this so much that he would often retroactively
commission the apostles and biblical characters as Captains,
Officers, and Generals.[25]
Secondly, this statement and many others like it show that he
was never ashamed to connect himself to the Wesleyan
tradition. In an ecclesiological sense he particularized the
way that he identified with his Wesleyan roots by saying he
was a part of the “soul-saving work in Methodism.” It would be
easy to assume that William Booth was tipping his hat toward
the non-sacramental tradition of the Salvation Army. This
argument would make sense, except for the fact that in 1880
The Salvation Army was still practicing the two sacraments of
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. What Booth’s comment shows us
is that he is more committed to the evangelism, mission, and
soteriology of Methodism. I suggest that Booth’s connection to
this polarity in Wesleyan theology is a part of the
theological foundation that would enable his Army to abandoned
the sacraments in 1883.[26]
If Booth felt he was connecting himself to the missional side
of Wesley’s ecclesiology, it is not surprising to see that he
felt his Army was specifically joined to the real intentions
of Wesley, in William Booth’s estimation. In the same speech
to the Wesleyan Conference, Booth explains, “I am sometimes
disposed to think that this movement [The Salvation Army] is
the continuation of the world of Mr. Wesley, for we have gone
on, only a great deal further, on the same lines he
travelled.”[27]
In what way were they moving further? It likely was in the
pragmatic manifestation of a missional ecclesiology rather
than a substance focused ecclesiology that fits into the
institutional categories of word and sacrament.
When William Booth made the decision to cease practicing the
sacraments he did so within an ecclesiological argument that
understood the Salvation Army’s identity as focused on its
evangelistic task:
Now if the Sacraments are not conditions of Salvation; if
there is a general division of opinion as to the proper mode
of administering them, and if the introduction of them would
create division of opinion and heart burning, and if we are
not professing to be a church, nor aiming at being one, but
simply a force for aggressive Salvation purposes, is it not
wise for us to postpone any settlement of the question, to
leave it over to some future day, when we shall have more
light , and see more clearly our way before us?
Meanwhile, we do not prohibit our own people in any shape or
form from taking the Sacraments. We say, ‘If this is a matter
of your conscience, by all means break bread.’[28]
There are several historical reasons that created the
atmosphere for William Booth’s non-observant statement.
This paper is focused on the theological reasoning that
accompanied Booth’s praxis, but a historical comment is
helpful. Suffice to say that Victorian Anglicanism made an
attempt to bring the Army under the umbrella of the Church of
England. The Church of England was reluctant to welcome the
Army’s revivalist tendencies and was uncomfortable providing
an ecclesiastical home for this band known as The Salvation
Army. Andrew Eason makes a brilliant case for the historical
context of the Army’s move away from the “ecclesiastical
supremacy” of the Church of England.[29]
The major theological implications that can be conveyed
through Booth’s speech might allow us to catch a glimpse of
his ecclesiological priorities. First, he indicated that
ceremonial sacraments are not “conditions” for salvation,
clearly pointing to the reality that evangelism was more
important than official ecclesiastical procedure. Though
Wesley had a high view of the sacraments, one can see a
similarity in his disregard of ecclesiastical processes with
the ordinations of 1784. In a similar fashion Wesley allowed
the mission and movement of God to transcend his ecclesiology.
The source of this movement is likely due to Wesley and
Booth’s understanding of “perceptible inspiration.” Wesley
scholar and philosophical theologian, William J. Abraham,
finds reason to assert that Wesley was able to demonstrate to
himself and others that he had experienced the truth of the
gospel in his Aldersgate experience. This paves the way for
Abraham’s claim that Wesley’s theology should be understood
soteriologically.[30]
Wesley and Booth, though they would likely not agree on this
issue, were committed to the way they could prove that God was
at work in the world.[31]
Hence Booth can say that Sacraments can be postponed
for his Army, in the light of the evangelical task before
them.
Second, it was important for Booth not to get involved in the
arguments that were being made by other churches who took
stances on the sacraments. It is in this sense that Booth can
say, “if we are not professing to be a church, nor aiming at
being one [then we don’t have to be concerned about the proper
administration of the sacraments]…” If being a church means
taking an opinion that could hurt the battle for the salvation
of the world, then William Booth could easily say that his
Army was not a church in that fashion. Instead of being a
church in the institutional sense, his Army was “a force for
aggressive Salvation purposes.” Mission was the priority of
William Booth’s ecclesiology. A very abrupt articulation of
this ecclesiological understanding came from one of Booth’s
inner circle leaders, George Scott Railton, who seemingly
resented the hoops of confirmation that the Church of England
was asking the Army to jump through to observe the sacraments.
He chides, “The church law, they say will not allow them to
receive us to the communion table, unless we get confirmed.
Very well, we won’t waste a minute in discussing that with
anybody; but instead of trying to get ourselves confirmed
we’ll try to get confirmed drunkards saved.”[32]
This soteriologically focused ecclesiology should not be a
surprise since this group was and is still called today the
Salvation Army.
A Lack of an Ecclesiology?
In a now famous address at the Oxford Institute of Methodist
Studies, in 1962, acclaimed John Wesley scholar and theologian
delivered an address, “Do Methodists have a Doctrine of the
Church?” Ted
Campbell summarizes Outler’s conclusion, “His answer was,
essentially, no—Methodist have a strong sense of the mission
of the church, but not really a ‘doctrine of the church’
beyond what Methodists inherited from Anglicanism.”[33]
A parallel statement came describing William Booth by the
“Albert Outler of Salvation Army Studies,” Roger J. Green.
In his article “Facing History: Our Way Ahead for a Salvationist
Theology,” Green concludes that the contemporary Salvation
Army has inherited a “weak ecclesiology.”[34]
He asserts that Booth’s ecclesiology was weak for two reasons:
his postmillennialism and the distancing of the Army from the
institutional church after the failed merger with the Church
of England.
A
definition is needed for the term “weak.” It appears that
Green is suggesting that “weak” is a lack of strength.[35]
Green’s argument that the contemporary Army has inherited a
weak ecclesiology seems to have two points of contention. His
first argument is that postmillennialism does not create a
lasting ecclesiology because it supposedly did not plan for
the future.[36] His second argument is
centered on the fact that Booth was ecclesiastically
inconsistent in his definitions of the Army’s raison d’etre (i.e.
“reason for existence”). Green’s second claim demands a
distinction between ecclesiastical structures and
ecclesiology. William Booth was inconsistent when speaking
ecclesiastically. Ecclesiological and ecclesiastical are,
however, different terms. Booth’s unpredictable ecclesiastic
language refers more to the organization of the movement,
whereas, suggesting that Booth possessed a “weak ecclesiology”
is proposing that he had an incomplete doctrine of the church.
The same could be said regarding Outler’s discussion of
Methodism. Green’s final point of argument is that Booth’s
ecclesiology is weak because it de-emphasized ecclesiastical
structures. In fact Booth was proposing an alternative
structure, inherited from his Wesleyan ecclesiology, which was
far more effective than the ecclesiastical structures of his
day.
William Booth was continually defining the early Army, his
letters and sermons giving regular emphasis (sometimes overemphasis)
to what it meant to be a Salvationist. This provided an
ecclesial self-understanding for the young Army. An implicit
ecclesiology that lacks classical formulation does not
necessarily dictate a “weak” ecclesiology. Booth’s writings
are saturated with ecclesiological statements concerning the
mission and aims of the Salvation Army. What is implicit is
direct theological definition about ecclesiology. His
inconsistent ecclesiastical jargon does not negate the content
and missional purpose of those statements. Sociologically this
creates difficulties in identifying the Salvation Army as a
“church” or “sect” along the lines of the
typology of Ernst Troeltsch and others. Sociological
difficulties do not however necessitate theological
deficiency.[37]
At the forefront of Roger Green’s argument about Booth’s
“weak” ecclesiology is his desire to see the Army move toward
church-like categories. Green notes, “I have long been
convinced that the only way to approach a correct historical
analysis that leads to a truthful institutional
self-understanding is to impose the sect/church distinctions
developed in the discipline of sociology upon ourselves.”[38]
He then encourages Salvationist to accept the
“historical fact” that the Army has moved from being a sect to
a church and should hence evaluate what sectarian distinctives
should be maintained.[39]
Missionally and soteriologically directed movements are
not governed by sociology; they are motivated by God’s word,
which challenges them to be an active body “preaching the
Gospel of Jesus Christ and meeting human needs in his name
without discrimination.”[40] When
mission directs the church, it forms an alternative
ecclesiology that is often more in tune with Scripture than
the sociologically classified “church” or “denomination.”
When moving toward the future the Army must evaluate its
heritage in order to progress with historically directed
confidence. It seems that the ecclesiological heritage that
William Booth fashioned for his Army is something that should
be maintained. Why?
Because this ecclesiology keeps the Salvation Army
focused on mission, this ecclesiology provides a place for the
Army as an “evangelical branch of the universal Christian
church.”[41]
Conclusion
If William Booth shaped his Salvation Army in any specific
tradition, he did so in light of his ecclesiological legacy
from the Wesleyan movement. More than 135 years after Booth
began his movement in London’s East End, the Salvation Army is in a position to renew the
way that it actualizes its own theological inheritance as a
Wesleyan community and movement. As a Salvation Army officer,
I am daily am oscillating between the polarities of Wesley’s
ecclesiology. I am leader of missional movement, I am pastor
of congregation, I am the CEO of non-profit agency, the leader
of a disaster response team, while being a politician lobbying
my local municipal leaders. It seems that William Booth’s
pragmatic ecclesiology has maginified the extreme sectarian
pole of Wesley’s ecclesiology. For instance, there was a
lively discussion on Facebook, while I was writing this paper,
concerning the Army’s ecclesiological identity.[42]
A worship leader in the Army posted a comment about the need
for wearing uniforms these days, which in my impression opened
the proverbial “can of ecclesial worms,” leaving more than 200
comments in just twenty-four hours. One officer championed,
“The Salvation is not a church….was never intended to be….we
are an ARMY….a mission….fighting for lost souls….William Booth
did not intend for us to become a church….”[43]
What is apparent in this statement is a desire to stay focused
on our task, but ecclesiological identification has broadened
since William Booth’s day and the Salvation Army can easily
keep its evangelical focus while seeing itself as an
evangelical branch of the church. There is no reason to
distinguish the Army’s theological praxis by moving away from
seeing itself as a movement within an ecclesiological context.
The way forward for the Army might be for it live in the
tension of John Wesley’s ecclesiology. This would likely
require some pragmatic movement to embrace the institutional
realities the way Wesley did with the Church of England.
Despite the comments above the Army does not have to live
within an either/or mentality regarding its ecclesial
identity, it can simultaneously be understood as a church that
is a part of the Church Universal while also being a
missionally focused movement. That Salvation Army has learned
a great deal and provides a distinctive taste within the body
of Christ, that taste can advance God’s kingdom more richly if
the Army is willing embrace its ecclesiological inheritance.
This embrace can be done explicitly or implicitly. The
inheritor’s of Booth’s Army could find a holy balance in their
ecclesiology, if they will hear and actualize their founder’s
words to Hugh Prices Hughes to “Follow John Wesley, glorious
John Wesley.”
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Sandall, Robert. The History of The Salvation Army. 7
vols. London:
The Salvation Army, 1947-1966. vols. 1-3 by Sandal, vols. 4-5
by Arch Wiggins, vol. 6 by Fredrick Coutts, vol. 7 by Henry
Gariepy.
Vickers, Jason E.
Wesley: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: T & T Clark,
2009.
Walker, Pamela J. Pulling the Devil’s Kingdom Down:
The Salvation Army in Victorian.
Berkley,
CA:
University
of California
Press, 2001.
Warrick, Susan E. and Charles
Yrigoyen. ed. The Historical Dictionary of Methodism.
2nd Edition. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2005.
[1]
See “Methodist New Connexion” The Historical
Dictionary of Methodism, ed. Susan E. Warrick and
Charles Yrigoyen, 2nd Edition (Lanham:
Scarecrow Press, 2005), 207-208.
[2]
Robert Sandal, The History of The Salvation Army.
7 vols. (London: The Salvation Army, 1947-1966. vols.
1-3 by Sandal, vols. 4-5 by Arch Wiggins, vol. 6 by
Fredrick Coutts, vol. 7 by Henry Gariepy), 2:338.
[3]
Hugh Price Hughes, “An Interview with William Booth on
The Salvation Army,”
The Methodist
Times (February, 1885), 81-82.
[4]
It is interesting to note the nature and context of
this interview. Hugh Price Hughes would in that same
year lead a movement called the “Forward Movement”
that targeted toward a similar population as Booth’s
Army. See Ted A. Campbell,
Wesleyan Beliefs: Formal and Popular Expressions of the Core Beliefs of
Wesleyan Communities (Nashville:
Abingdon, 2010), 235.
It is also interesting to note from an
ecclesiological perspective that this same theologian
and social commentator, Hugh Price Hughes, in an 1890
sermon places General William Booth in the same
ecclesial and canonical context
as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles
Spurgeon, Cardinal Manning, the Chairmen of the
Congregational Union, and the President of the
Methodist Conference. See Hughes “‘Robert Elsmere’ and
Mr. Gladstone’s Criticism of the Book,” in
Social
Christianity: Sermons Delivered in St. James Hall, London (London: Hodder and Stoughton,
1890), 99–100. Quoted in
Campbell,
Wesleyan Beliefs,
79. Maybe
Hughes’ followed Booth’s advice.
[5]
See Harold Begbie, The Life of General William
Booth, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1920).
Begbie’s interpretation are likely misunderstood and
characterized. For an alternative vision of William
Booth and his theological perspective see Roger J.
Green, The Life
and Ministry of William Booth: Founder of The
Salvation Army (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005).
[6]
Quoted in Fredrick Booth-Tucker, The Life of
Catherine Booth, the Mother of The Salvation Army,
2 volumes (New York: Fleming H. Revel Company, 1892)
1:74. It
is important to note that Booth is consciously and
humorously paraphrasing the Muslim shahadah.
Booth issued a similar statement on his sixtieth
birthday which is recorded in St. John Ervine,
God’s Soldier:
General William Booth, 2 volumes (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1935) 2:735.
[7]
For stylistic reasons I do not capitalize the definite
article.
[8]
Also referred to as The East London Christian Revival
Union or East London Christian Mission these names
appeared interchangeably in the formative years of the
movements. See Rightmire, 28-29n. and John R Rhemick,
A New People of God: A Study in Salvationism
(Des Plaines, ILL: The Salvation Army, 1993), 17.
[9]
William Booth, in George Scott Railton,
Twenty-One Years
Salvation Army (London: The Salvation Army, 1886),
22.
[10]
That is to say that the Salvation Army was viewed by
William Booth as institutionally sanctified to bring
redemption to the world. Roger Green explains that
these “institutional” categories were “sustained by
his [Booth’s] belief that The Salvation Army was
divinely ordained, and that it was a renewal in the
nineteenth century and twentieth century of the Church
of the New Testament, the early Church, the Reformation
Church,
and the Wesleyan revival.” War on Two Fronts: The
Redemptive Theology of William Booth (Atlanta: The
Salvation Army, 1989), 54-55.
[11]
St. John Ervine, God’s Soldier: General William Booth,
2 volumes (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935)
2:737.
Also in this speech William Booth defends his
autocratic structures as having been invented and
ordained by God, saying, “It was the government of
Eden; it is the government of
the Mosaic economy. Moses was the General, yet His
people were free. I say it is the government of
Heaven.” God’s Solider, 2:736. The point here is that
William Booth saw the movement from the Christian
Mission to the Salvation Army as accompanied by an
institutional sanctification that reinforced his
ecclesiological and theological foundation.
[12]
It should be noted that this was written in connection
with the change of name of the Army’s journal from The
Christian Mission Magazine to The Salvationist.
[13]
William Booth, “Our New Name—The Salvationist” found
in The Founder Speaks Again: A Selection of the
Writings of William Booth (London: The Salvation Army,
1960), 45-48.
[14]
See William Booth’s article “The Millennium, or, The
Ultimate Triumph of Salvation Army Principles.” All
The World 6. August 1890.” 341. In this article Booth
paints a picture of the coming millennial kingdom that
envisions
London
as the New Jerusalem.
[15]
Robert Sandal, The History of The Salvation Army. 7
vols. (London: The Salvation Army, 1947-1966. vols.
1-3 by Sandal, vols. 4-5 by Arch Wiggins, vol. 6 by
Fredrick Coutts, vol. 7 by Henry Gariepy), 2:338.
[16]
William Booth, “Go!” All the World (November, 1884)
found in The General’s Letters, 1885 (London:
International Headquarters, 1890), 7. This
demonstrates an amazing parallel between Booth and
Charles Finney, particularly Finney’s claim, in 1835,
that if the church does its job the millennium could
come in three years.
[17]
For more on these polarities see Jason E. Vickers,
Wesley: A Guide for the Perplexed (New York: T & T Clark, 2009), 40-49.
[18]
William Booth, “What is The Salvation Army?” The
Contemporary Review 41 (August 1882): 175-182, 181. It
might be that comments like this are what drive some
to insist that Booth
is not very concerned about his ecclesiological
inheritance.
[19]
Herbert Andrew Wisby, Soldiers without Swords (New
York: Macmillan, 1955).
[20]
William Booth, “The General’s Address at the Wesleyan
Conference,” The War Cry, (August 14, 1880), 1.
[21]
Ted A. Campbell, Wesleyan Beliefs: Formal and Popular
Expressions of the Core Beliefs of Wesleyan
Communities (Nashville: Abingdon,
2010), 204.
[22]
Ted A. Campbell, , Wesleyan Beliefs: Formal and
Popular Expressions of the Core Beliefs of Wesleyan
Communities (Nashville: Abingdon,
2010), 206.
[23]
Kenneth J. Collins, The Theology of John Wesley: Holy
Love and the Shape of Grace
(Nashville:
Abingdon, 2007), 240.
[24]
William Booth, “The General’s Address at the Wesleyan
Conference,” The War Cry, (August 14, 2980), 1.
[25]
For as
consistent example of this see Booth book, Salvation
Soldiery: A Series of Addresses on the Requirements of
Jesus Christ’s Service (London: The Salvation Army,
1889).
[26]
For more on this see R. David Rightmire, Sacraments
and the Salvation Army: Pneumatological
Foundations (Metchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1990).
Rightmire’s thesis is that Booth’s
pneumatological emphasis inherited from the
American Holiness movement was the theological basis
for abandoning the sacraments, in that one’s wholly
committed life empowered by the spirit was in itself a
sacrament to God’s work.
Hence William Booth says in “The General’s New
Year Address to Officers,” “Let us remember Him who
died to for us continually. Let us remember His love
every hour of our lives , and continually feed on
Him—not on Sundays only, and then forget him all the
week, but let us in faith eat his flesh and drink his
blood continually…all to the Glory of God.” The War
Cry (January 17, 1883), 2. Another explaination, which
is more of a defense, comes in Philip Needham’s,
Community in Mission: A Salvationist Ecclesiology
(Atlanta: The Salvation Army Supplies, 1987).
Needham’s discussion is
intentionally inward focused toward the Army.
This focus is the book’s strength and
simultaneously its weakness. Community in Mission is a
supplemental response to the Army’s response to the
Lima Document, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. His
argument about the sacraments falls into the category
of defense rather than explanation. He is defending
the validity of The Salvation Army as a Christian
church, and he does so by insisting that the real
importance in the Christian experience is the
spiritual change rather than a physical manifestation
of it. The Salvation Army can not continue to defend
its sacramental position from a spiritualist
hermeneutic that tends toward a type of sacramental
doceticism, which overemphasizes the spiritual over
the physical. An explanation of the theological roots
within the Wesleyan Holiness movement is the primary
way of understanding the Salvation Army’s position
theologically.
[27]
William Booth, “The General’s Address at the Wesleyan
Conference,” The War Cry, (August 14, 2980), 1.
[28]
William Booth, “The General’s New Year Address to
Officers,” The War Cry (January 17, 1883), 2.
[29]
Andrew M. Eason, “The Salvation Army and the
Sacraments in Victorian
Britain: Retracing
the Steps to Non-Observance,” Fides et Historia
(June 22, 2009).
[30]
William J. Abraham, Aldersgate and Athens: John Wesley and the Foundations of Christian Belief
(Waco: Baylor University
Press, 2010).
[31]
Abraham asserts that Wesley could have resorted to the
divine power in human experience more as a claim to
undergird epistemological certainty. The claim of a
blind person to say “I was blind, but now I see” has
power to reach many people as a rational claim. Hence
the simplicity of the inward evidence, for Wesley, is
more powerful than a complex argument.
[32]
George Scott Railton, “Are We Going to Church ?” War
Cry (June
15, 1882), 1. Quoted in Andrew M. Eason, “The
Salvation Army and the Sacraments in Victorian Britain:
Retracing the Steps to Non-Observance,” Fides et
Historia
(June 22, 2009),14.
[33]
Ted A. Campbell, , Wesleyan Beliefs: Formal and
Popular Expressions of the Core Beliefs of Wesleyan
Communities (Nashville: Abingdon,
2010), 206.
[34]
Roger J. Green, “Facing History: Our Way Ahead for a
Salvationist Theology.” Word and Deed 1:2 (May, 1999):
23-39, 29.
[35]
There are various lexical definitions of “weak”:
“1:lacking strength or vigor….2 not able to sustain or
resist much weight, pressure, or strain….3 deficient
in vigor of mind or character…4 not supported by truth
or logic…5 not able to function properly.…6 lacking
skill or proficiency…” The Merriam-Webster Concise
School and Office Dictionary (Springfield, MA:
Mirriam-Webster, Inc., 1991), 594.
[36]
It is not within the scope of this paper to discuss
Booth eschatology. For more on this see my, “The Good
Time Coming”: The Impact of William Booth’s
Eschatological Vision, Unpublished MDiv thesis (Asbury
Theological Seminary, 2005).
[37]
See Roland Robertson’s helpful study of the Salvation
Army using this typology in “The Salvation Army: the
Persistence of Sectarianism,” in Brian R. Wilson, ed.
Patterns of Sectarianism (London: Heinemann
Educational Books, 1967), 49-105; Andrew Mark Eason,
“The Salvation Army in Late-Victorian Britain: The
Convergence of Church and Sect,” Word and Deed 5:2
(May 2003): 29-50.
[38]
Green, “Facing History,” 29.
[39]
The chief sectarian distinction Green opposes is
postmillennialism. He maintains that the Army should
retain wearing the uniform as a symbol of the
sacramental life. See Green, “Facing History,” 30-31.
[40]The
Salvation Army 2004 Year Book (London:
The Salvation Army International Headquarters,
2004), iii.
[41]
The Salvation Army 2004 Year Book (London:
The Salvation Army International Headquarters,
2004), iii.
[42]
My professor will be glad to know that I was an
objective observer to this discussion and not a
participant.
[43]
Conversation accessed from Phil Laegar’s profile page
on Facebook on Thursday, December 1, 2010. Screen
shots were taken of this conversation.
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