The Salvation Army

Denomination·Founded 1865 CE·The Army works in 134 countries by its own count. It publishes country-by-country figures of officers, soldiers, adherents and corps in its annual Year Book rather than a single global membership headline; totals commonly cited run above a million and a half and are not independently audited. The number of people it serves through its social programmes is far larger and is a different thing entirely.

Judaism → Christianity → Catholicism → Protestantism → The Salvation Army

Branch
Core tenet of The Salvation Army

Soup, soap and salvation — in that order, and the order is the doctrine.

Booth's position was that you cannot preach to a man who is starving and that saving his soul while leaving him in the rookery is a fraud. In Darkest England, published in 1890, laid out a national scheme of shelters, farm colonies, labour bureaux and a missing persons service, and the Army built most of it.

Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

In Darkest England and the Way Out, published in 1890 and ghost-assisted by the journalist W. T. Stead, was a national plan: city colonies of shelters and workshops, a farm colony, an overseas colony, a labour bureau, a poor man's bank, a legal aid department, and a missing persons bureau, all costed. Booth raised the money and built much of it. The Army's social work grew from that — hostels, rescue homes for women, employment schemes, the match factory at Old Ford opened in 1891 to shame the phosphorus manufacturers whose workers developed phossy jaw. The Army also ran a campaign with Stead in 1885 that exposed child prostitution in London and helped force the Criminal Law Amendment Act, at the cost of Bramwell Booth standing trial. The social work has since grown so large that it obscures the church attached to it, which the Army periodically worries about in print.

The same ground, other faiths

claims that share this one's ideas
The alms round. Buddhism · rite Go deeper →
Repairing the world is human work. Judaism Go deeper →
The tithe. Christianity · precept Go deeper →
The neighbour. Islam · precept Go deeper →
Charity is doing your job well. The New Church (Swedenborgianism) · precept Go deeper →

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