William Booth on Spiritual Warfare

I will finish this series by looking at how the Army would deal with opposition and turn enemies into friends.  In an age where the church does not look much like an army, where it is largely despised and struggles to be a triumphant, respected, feared body of brave, loving, believing servants, I find this passage deeply challenging and encouraging too.  If they could do this over 100 years ago, why can't we now?

Consider, moreover, through what opposition the Salvation Army has ever had to make its way.

In each country it has to face universal prejudice, distrust, and contempt, and often stronger antipathy still. This opposition has generally found expression in systematic, Governmental, and Police restriction, followed in too many cases by imprisonment, and by the condemnatory outpourings of Bishops, Clergy, Pressmen and others, naturally followed in too many instances by the oaths and curses, the blows and insults of the populace. Through all this, in country after country, the Army makes its way to the position of universal respect, that respect, at any rate, which is shown to those who have conquered.

And of what material has this conquering host been made?

Wherever the Army goes it gathers into its meetings, in the first instance, a crowd of the most debased, brutal, blasphemous elements that can be found who, if permitted, interrupt the services, and if they see the slightest sign of police tolerance for their misconduct, frequently fall upon the Army officers or their property with violence. Yet a couple of Officers face such an audience with the absolute certainty of recruiting out of it an Army Corps.

Many thousands of those who are now most prominent in the ranks of the Army never knew what it was to pray before they attended its services; and large numbers of them had settled into a profound conviction that everything connected with religion was utterly false. It is out of such material that God has constructed what is admitted to be one of the most fervid bodies of believers ever seen on the face of the earth.

William Booth on Prison

I recently read a book [don't you just love Kindle!] entitled 'In Darkest England' by William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army.

You may still see a few Salvationists around our cities and towns, especially at Christmas playing carols with their brass instruments, and you may even wonder what they're all about.  In the words of an old Cliff Richard song:

'And I thought, "If that's an army, it's a funny way to fight!"'

But I have to impress on you this one thing.  With due respect (there are still some great people in that movement), they are a pale shadow of the powerful, militant movement they once were.  They are an odd group in some ways [a military structure, no baptism or communion], but it is hard to argue with the huge success they had through the Gospel in Victorian and Edwardian England among the poorest and vice-ridden underclass.

I found it such an interesting book, that I collected a number of quotes which I still believe are pertinent for the church today and I am going to reproduce them over the next few days and weeks.

This is what Booth said about Prison:

The Salvation Army has at least one great qualification for dealing with this question I believe I am in the proud position of being at the head of the only religious body which has always some of its members in gaol for conscience' sake. We are also one of the few religious bodies which can boast that many of those who are in our ranks have gone through terms of penal servitude. We, therefore, know the prison at both ends. Some men go to gaol because they are better than their neighbours, most men because they are worse. Martyrs, patriots, reformers of all kinds belong to the first category.

No great cause has ever achieved a triumph before it has furnished a certain quota to the prison population. The repeal of an unjust law is seldom carried until a certain number of those who are labouring for the reform have experienced in their own persons the hardships of fine and imprisonment. Christianity itself would never have triumphed over the Paganism of ancient Rome had the early Christians not been enabled to testify from the dungeon and the arena as to the sincerity and serenity of soul with which they could confront their persecutors, and from that time down to the successful struggles of our people for the right of public meeting at Whitchurch and elsewhere, the Christian religion and the liberties of men have never failed to demand their quota of martyrs for the faith.

I love how Booth does not lament the fact that his people are imprisoned, but takes it as a badge of honour.

Without doubt, some of the freedoms we have today to preach the Gospel in the streets were won for us by the Salvation Army.  They managed to get these freedoms enshrined in our law by the House of Lords during a time when many local Magistrates [often on cahoots with the owners of pubs] opposed them bitterly and many Salvationists were sent by them to prison for preaching the Gospel.