The Salvation Army, founded in London in 1865 by William and Catherine Booth, is an international, evangelical part of the universal Christian church. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and meet human needs in his name without discrimination. Salvation Army officers (ordained leaders) and soldiers (lay members) operate corps community centers, schools, hospitals, shelters, feeding sites, and other programs in ninety-six countries around the world.
From its beginning, The Salvation Army has been thoroughly evangelical. The founder, William Booth, served as an evangelistic revivalist preacher from 1849 to 1861 with both the Wesleyans and New Connexion Methodism, and from 1861 to 1865 in independent ministry. As an evangelist, Booth preached convincingly on the themes of personal conversion and sanctification. Using almost any means available—open-air preaching, tambourines, brass instruments—to attract attention to his gospel message, Booth soon had a following of loyal supporters.
From the early open-air meetings, Salvation Army worship moved inside to disused pubs, dance halls, theaters, even a tent on a Quaker burial ground. The meetings were lively. Army musicians took secular tunes from pubs and dance halls and gave them unmistakably evangelistic words. (For instance, “Here’s to good old whiskey, drink it down” became “Storm the forts of darkness, bring them down.”) Converts testified enthusiastically to the change wrought in their lives by salvation. Preaching, by men and women Salvationists alike, was fiery and always aimed at the individual’s need for salvation in Christ.
In an 1889 article, “Salvation for Both Worlds,” Booth expanded his message to include the social dimensions of salvation. Redemption meant not only individual, personal, and spiritual salvation, but corporate, social, and physical salvation, as well. Booth and his followers believed that preaching had to be complemented by caring for the physical needs of the poor to whom they preached. Booth’s book, In Darkest England and the Way Out (1890), became the textbook for an all-out, aggressive two-front war for the souls of people and for a rightly ordered society.
Today, Salvationists are still fighting “The Great Salvation War” on those two fronts. Salvation Army worship emphasizes spontaneity, personal experience, and congregational participation in worship. A typical worship service might include congregational singing with brass band accompaniment, spontaneous testimonies from members of the congregation, and an invitation for individuals to publicly respond to the biblical call to holy living.
In theology, The Salvation Army is Wesleyan. In philosophy, it is practical. An Army slogan, “Heart to God, Hand to Man,” explains the commitment of salvation soldiers around the world to preach, teach, counsel, shelter, feed, clothe, and befriend their brothers and sisters of all races, colors, creeds, and ages.
“We are a salvation people,” William Booth wrote in 1879. “This is our specialty, getting saved, and then getting somebody else saved, and then getting saved ourselves more and more, until full salvation on earth makes the heaven within, which is finally perfected by the full salvation on the other side of the river.” More than one hundred years later, the heart of all Salvation Army worship and work is still preaching and personal experience of salvation for all people and sanctification from all sin.