Saved to Save and Saved to Serve: Perspectives on Salvation Army History

As a retired Salvation Army (SA) officer and a teacher in an SA training institution, Harold Hill is to be expected to have a wide knowledge of the movement—both anecdotally and from scholarship. However, this book exceeds expectations in the insights it gives not only into the twists and turns of the first 150 years of the Booths' evangelistic enterprise, but also into contemporary debates.Framed as ‘a critical and analytical study’ that ‘attempts to explore the interaction between mission and world as it has impacted the Army's beliefs and practices’, Hill's work employs tools from social history, sociology, and theology. He begins with an overview of the history of the movement, and the appendices and glossary explain SA terminology, the structure of the Army and the Booth dynasty. Thus, a reader unfamiliar with the field can easily become orientated and engaged with the issues raised, as a family evangelistic effort enlarges to grapple with questions of core Christian belief and practice relating to issues such as organization, funding, training, and relationships with the existing churches.Hill has three chapters on the ecclesiology of the SA—Sect and Church, Leadership, and the Role of Women; then three chapters on SA theology—belief, diversity, and worship (including the sacraments), before chapters on social work at home and abroad, and finally a chapter focused on the global nature of the SA with some consideration of globalization or ‘glocalization’.While rightly drawing attention to the extraordinary growth of the SA and its international nature, and exploring the possible reasons for this, Hill does not minimize the contradictions within the SA and the tensions that have ebbed and flowed. Thus, he forcefully shows how completely autocratic William Booth's leadership was to the point of disowning several of his children when, as mature commissioned officers themselves, they disagreed with him, while he simultaneously argued for the importance of flexibility in responding to the evangelistic needs of the moment.Similarly, the author explores the contradiction between the staggeringly few females to achieve higher positions of leadership in the Army in the twentieth century and Catherine and William Booth's pioneering work in insisting on female equality. Intriguingly, he raises the possibility that it was the force of the Booths that enabled them to impose their will in this matter, but that there was a subsequent shift over time because of a more widespread conservative view of headship among the ranks and a reluctance to let women lead.In discussing the theological and practical issues raised by having full-time paid commissioned officers as well as soldiers, Hill gives an impressive array of quotes from Salvationists and others wrestling with the question of whether ‘ordination’ is by God or a representative of the Army, and whether all are ordained or only a few chosen ones. The interesting way he opens up discussion on issues like this makes his work applicable and useful for those of other Christian groups or denominations considering similar matters in their own setting.In introducing the theological statements of the SA, the author makes clear that William Booth had little interest in theology per se, and, indeed, feared it likely to divide and distract people from evangelization. Nevertheless, as Hill points out, the SA did and does have a theological stance, which he explores. At this point in the book, it seems unfortunate that he did not raise the question of Catherine's relationship to theology and mention the exploration that has begun recently to assess whether she was the driving force behind the SA's theology. It has long been clear from her publication in support of women preachers that she was not averse to theological reasoning. Hill does mention, at three points in his book, John Read's work in this field, and how Read has illuminated aspects of Catherine's thinking on issues such as the doctrine of Christian perfection and substitutionary atonement. But it would have been good to address the question of her theological contribution directly at the beginning of his chapters exploring SA theology.This is a highly readable book with the sort of anecdotes and quotations from SA sources that are acquired only from years of research and immersion in the field. Hill's work can be read profitably by a wide audience and used as a textbook.

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