The origin of The Salvation Army

IT IS Christmastime again, time for The Salvation Army to put out its kettles at strategic points to collect money to help support its social outreach. It is perhaps one of the few religious movements to use this method to get money for social programmes, but how did this decades-long tradition begin?

To start, their literature and website say, “The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.”

That is actually the mission of The Salvation Army and seems to have been inspired by the experience of William Booth, born in 1829 in Nottingham, England. He was an active Methodist, supporting the welfare of the poor and destitute. Sometime before 1865, he and his wife, Catherine Mumford, moved to east London, where they continue to attend to the needs and salvation of marginalised people.

They were of the view that, instead of waiting for people to come to church, they would visit them wherever they were. So, they targetted people living on the fringes of life in east London, taking the message of Jesus Christ to the people on the streets and attending to some of their material needs. This approach to evangelism did not go down well with the Methodist Church.

Booth parted company with it and began an evangelistic ministry in the streets. As the poor and destitute responded to the gospel, Booth directed them to the various churches and chapels in their neighbourhoods. But they were rejected mainly because of their social backgrounds and “uncultured” appearances.

To provide a place for them to worship and be discipled, Booth founded the East London Christian Mission in 1865. Its objective is “to make known the good news about Jesus Christ and to persuade people to become his followers”. As to how the name Salvation Army came about, one source says, in 1878 while Booth was dictating a letter referencing believers as God’s army, the name ‘Salvation Army’ was born.

Another says, “When Booth read a printer’s proof of the 1878 Christian Mission annual report, he noticed the statement, ‘The Christian Mission is a volunteer army’. Crossing out the words ‘volunteer army’, he penned in ‘Salvation Army’. From those words came the basis of the foundation deed of The Salvation Army.” However, one thing that is certain is that, thereafter, he began to structure his mission like that of the military.

Booth appointed himself the general of The Salvation Army, and his wife, Catherine, was named ‘Mother of the Salvation Army’. From the beginning, women were given the same freedom and authority as men, and Catherine became an ordained minister in the organisation. Ministers were given military officer ranks in keeping with their duties and experience, and church members were called soldiers.

The rationale for this military-like stratification was a reminder that, as Christians, believers were on a permanent mission to change the unconverted. Booth was guided in his work by the three ‘Ss’ – Soup, Soap, and Salvation. In order to give the message of salvation, the physical needs of the people must be met. Converts became soldiers of Christ and were known, then as now, as Salvationists.

Now, The Salvation Army carries out a wide range of work, including prison visits, disaster response, refugee assistance, addiction and dependency treatment, daycare and children’s homes, homeless and domestic violence shelters, thrift stores, hospitals, clinics, and schools. It has permanent ministries in 127 countries, using 175 languages, and provides assistance to millions of people every year. And the story of the aforementioned kettle goes back to 1891.

Then, Salvation Army Captain Joseph McFee was distraught because many poor individuals in San Francisco, California were hungry. During the Christmas season, he decided to provide a free Christmas dinner for the destitute and poverty-stricken. But, he did not have the money to fund such a project.

He prayed about and agonised over how he would find the funds to fulfil his commitment of feeding 1,000 of the city’s poorest on Christmas Day. One night, he remembered the days when he was a sailor in Liverpool, England where, at Stage Landing when the boats came in, there was a large iron kettle called ‘Simpson’s Pot’, into which passersby tossed a coin or two to help the poor.

The next day, Captain McFee put a similar pot at the Oakland Ferry Landing at the foot of Market Street. Beside the pot, he placed a sign that read, ‘Keep the pot boiling’. The pot boiled and boiled and soon he had the money to feed the needy people at Christmas. The idea spread across the United States fast, resulting in 150,000 Christmas dinners for the needy.

In 1901, kettle contributions in New York City provided money for a massive public dinner in Madison Square Garden, a custom that continued for many years. The kettle drive has become one of the biggest social outreaches in the world, symbolic of The Salvation Army’s mission to attend to the various needs of people, especially that of the poor and destitute.