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The Great Divide
by
Captain Genevieve Peterson
Occasionally, a quirky TV show or top notch Matt Damon movie
will have a story line involving Siamese twins. Inevitably, it
leads to the question of how one pursues a romantic
relationship with the one twin, while the other twin is left
‘tagging along’. The intimacy with the one is clearly hampered
by the presence of the other. I can’t help but draw the same
analogy when we consider the union of our two-fold mission of
The Salvation Army, that of evangelism and social action.
Booth once stated “if you want my social work you have got to
have my religion; they are joined together like the Siamese
twins, to divide them is to slay them."
Now most Salvationists would not want to divide the two to the
point where we removed one completely. While it is not
uncommon for Christian charities to lose their evangelical
ties, The Salvation Army has been firm in remaining as
strongly an evangelical movement as much as it has remained a
forceful welfare movement. However as Salvationists, too often
the temptation is to encourage the one, and while
acknowledging the other, ignore and neglect the lesser valued.
The result is a skewed mission that ‘almost’ looks right, but
in reality becomes terribly inadequate. So how did Booth do
it? How did he use the two wings of the bird with such ease?
And why do we seem to have so much trouble?
Let’s start at the beginning where we so often get things
muddled. Booth’s statement was required at a time where
society was in dire need of a sophisticated welfare system.
There was poverty and depravity throughout London and he felt
not just an inclination, but a mandate and spiritual
imperative to act. Booth once stated, “What the poor and the
fallen and the prodigal and the backslider and the hopeless
crowds around us need is help, practical help, without delay.
We must not only remember them and pray for them and talk
about them, we must go to them in their miseries and deliver
them.” If we look at the world or sections of our own
communities today, we might say that the condition of the poor
is not too dissimilar from that of the late 19th century.
However there are some significant differences. When we review
the work he and others in the Army commenced, we must always
keep in perspective the context of poverty. We are talking
about an era that lacked social infrastructure and lacked a
deep knowledge of social sciences. Mental illness, addiction,
poverty, economic, child abuse, neglect, and political
structures and their implication to the construction and
consequently the stability of society, were all relatively
unexplored academic fields. This meant that they were not
working with an ideology that was mapped out with years of
careful study, research and thought. They were not working
from a social paradigm. Consequently, it means that their
social practice was almost purely intuitive, and based
entirely on their theology.
For the Booths, all social services were an outpouring of the
Spirit working through them. Booth states that “All the social
activity of the Army is the outcome of the spiritual life of
its members. All social service must be based on the
spiritual, or it will amount to little in the end.” The
relevance for us? We tend to base our social services on
social science practices, and then work our theology in. I am
not suggesting we ignore the academic field of social science
now and work purely from a theological standpoint. We could
not even if we tried. However, you can see how our evangelism
and social practice have disconnected, for they are often
founded on different paradigms. It’s like taking two people
and sewing them together and calling them Siamese twins. Push
as hard as you like, they will not become one being! What is
the answer? We need a social theology developed for the Army
based on sociological and theological principles, and then
this needs to be taught to our people so that we can stop the
unnecessary tug of war. We need an acknowledgement that social
work is part of the gospel, but not the complete gospel. We
need an acknowledgment that proclamation of the good news
involves words, but very much includes practical temporal
life-transforming actions. Without this, we will continue to
compartmentalise our social and our evangelical actions to the
point where they can actually be performed in two separate
locations and by two separate sets of people.
When we are contemplating the development of a social theology
and practice, we must also acknowledge that when we look at
our past, we are looking at a nineteenth century State that
connected poverty with morality and ethics, and where charity
was both highly residual, value-laden, and based in
reciprocity. Booth, and others like him, developed social
practice that began to serve humanity with the knowledge that
in part, their troubles were not completely their doing; that
assistance did not need to be inextricably linked to
punishment for the individual was often a victim of a flawed
society. However, to suggest that poverty was taken completely
out of the realm of morality would be to elevate Booth to the
realm of fiction. While Booth may have recognised structural
poverty, he did not apply a social, political or economic
causal theory. Catherine, William and many others like them
believed that social evils were both evils of society and of
the individual, and to separate the spiritual condition from
the social condition was unfathomable. The following quote of
Catherine Booth should give you the general idea of their
foundational thinking:
“We, Christians, see around us everywhere men and women under
the influence of false ideas, given up to selfish indulgences
and evil practices, which enslave their faculties and render
real happiness impossible to them, either in this life or in
that which is to come. Now, religious aggressive effort
implies measures taken for their deliverance from these evil
habits, and from the bondage of Satan, and the actual bringing
of these souls into the liberty, power, and blessedness of the
family of God. It is, in short, a holy warfare, prosecuted
under the direction and power of the Holy Spirit, to bring men
from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God.”
Or how about this one on the state of alcohol:
“Doubtless one secret of the church's failure in nearly all
aggressive measures has been her ignoring the power of this
great adversary. Why, even heathen chiefs, the heads of savage
tribes, have sent us word that "it is of no use to send them
the Bible, if at the same time we send them strong drink."
Alas! that Christians have been so slow to learn the power of
this mitrailleuse of hell, but, thank God, some of them are
beginning to appreciate it at last, and these are crying, What
is to be done? How shall we deal with the drink? We answer, in
the name of Christ and humanity, deal with it as you do with
all other Satan-invented, Christ-dishonouring, soul-ruining
abominations. Wash your hands of it at once, and for ever! And
give a united and straightforward testimony to the world that
you consider it an enemy of all righteousness and the
legitimate offspring of Satan!”
The Booths, while showing a greater empathy for the
individual, and placing greater responsibility on the State,
did not see the social condition outside of the spiritual
condition. I am not certain that modern day Salvationists
still see this in the same way, which is why we can allow
social and spiritual to remain separate entities but believe
the same transformation will occur. For the Booths, social
action and evangelism are one in the same in a literal and not
metaphoric sense. Transformation and salvation occurred
holistically and simultaneously. Sanctification was the
freedom from sins that had manifested in negative social
condition, and therefore sanctification is what they worked
for in whatever way necessary. They didn’t do social work to
make themselves feel better as Christians, they didn’t do it
to get people into corps. They didn’t even do it because it
was a prosperous harvest of easily malleable vulnerable
people! They did social action because the social and
spiritual cannot be removed from one another for they are one
in the same, both in cause and in solution.
However, this is where I find a lot of people get ‘hazy’ on
the application, and as a result, we water down our entire
understanding of salvation. Booth understood his mission from
a theological standpoint, and his practice was deeply rooted
in the knowledge that Jesus was Saviour. He states; “Our
social operations are the natural outcome of Salvationism, or,
I might say, our Christianity as instituted, exemplified in
the life, teaching and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Social work,
in the spirit and practice which it has assumed with us, has
harmonized with my own personal idea of religion”. So, when I
say that for Booth, social and spiritual are one in the same,
it is to say that they are an action that is unified and
morphed, but still identifiable as separate entities with
separate functions. A classic illustration would be the quote
often attributed to St Francis, to “Preach the gospel at all
times, and to use words if necessary”. This is NOT something I
think Booth would have encouraged. While his actions were one
in the same, they involved both social action, and the words
of the gospel. Therefore we cannot say that to give a food
hamper is to do evangelism. Rather it is to ask, why would we
give a food hamper and not the message of the gospel? The food
hamper is not Jesus, just a way of understanding the love of
Jesus.
How is this concept remotely relevant, interesting or
applicable for us today? Well, let’s look at an example. For
the Booths, alcoholism was not understood as an illness, but
as a sin, either personal or as a result of generational sin.
Therefore, the response to alcoholism was repentance, faith
and an intense discipleship that superseded any form of case
management we see today. One could argue that intuitive
therapeutic measures were also included to assist the person
as well, however there was very little understanding of
addiction as a medical concern. Today, many of us in the
social science field would see addiction as an illness and as
a result, we would treat that illness with medication,
counselling and personal support. We may incorporate
chaplaincy in into our service, but we would place our
socio-medical response as our primary means of support.
Fundamentally, we must recognise that we as a society have
progressed considerably, and these changes must be implemented
into our practice. However, we must also recognise that social
science does not supersede theology, and therefore we must
reconsider some of our welfare practices and programmes. This
must be done with a careful development of a theology of
social work, and not a meshing of old practices with new
ideology. We must recognise that the Siamese twins cannot be
separated, and that Siamese twins cannot be manufactured. If
we can do this, we may perhaps at last realise that social and
evangelical are not two functions performed by two sets of
people, and rather one action offered by the same person.
Having said all of that, we know that there were campaigns and
schemes carried out by the Army that attempted to transform
society on a much larger scale, and these were more acts of
social reformation than a focus on spiritual transformation.
The Maiden tribute, much of the Darkest England scheme, the
Match Factory and many other endeavours like them are all
examples of social action that was not always closely
connected to evangelical aims. These works would have provided
significant ‘distraction’ from the mission of individual
evangelism and discipleship, and provided tension in the
development of the mission of the Army. Catherine was clear in
her warnings of such distractions. However, I would argue that
they were based in a clear theological paradigm with aims of
social justice based firmly in Biblical principles. The
difference between then and now is not in our larger social
justice campaign work, and rather in our everyday social
programme work. I see great value in social justice-related
activities that push our largely selfish and corrupt society
into acting with the justice principles God has designed for
us. However I see great danger in leaving much of our everyday
social work void of Christian influence within programmes and
institutions, and allowing our discipleship to remain confined
to the four walls of our shiny corps buildings. Our job as
soldiers is surely to be on the frontline, where the darkness
of abuse reigns. Our job as soldiers is surely to provide
transformation for both now and into eternity. Our job is
surely to have an understanding of the complexity and evil
that lives in oppression to enable us to impact the social and
spiritual realms. Our job is surely to educate ourselves in
the social sciences, to work within our social programmes, to
personally involve ourselves in the lives of the least, last
and lost. Our job is to engage within the whole of our
mission, and not just do the parts we like. And to do this, we
will need to understand why and how we do things.
Only then perhaps will our Salvationists stop hiding in our
corps performing occasional welfare tasks and instead stand
along-side the poor with the same level of intensity, faith
and love as our original Salvationists. Only then will we
understand how spiritually oppressed the poor and addicted
are, and how much they need the light of Jesus from within
you. Only then will we realise why a good social welfare
structure will not reap the kind of transformation God
desires. Perhaps the divide between the social and evangelical
is far more convenient for us middle-class Salvationists than
we would care to acknowledge, and that it is not actually a
divide between our theology and theory that causes so much
confusion, but a divide between our beliefs and subsequent
lack of action.
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