New Structure: The Social Wing
The late Major Harold Hill’s collection of writings To Love and Serve Him Supremely All My Days, is being published this year. The following is part two of an excerpt from Chapter 15: ‘Out of Darkest England: The Effect of the “Darkest England Scheme” on The Salvation Army Itself’
Over the years, The Salvation Army has oscillated between these two solutions to the relationship between evangelism and welfare. The falling out of fashion of institutional care—except for a few specialist areas, at least in ‘Western’ societies—has also contributed to the beginnings of a reintegration of social and field work. In New Zealand, the majority of corps now exercise what is dubbed a ‘Community and Family Ministry’, usually including such services as foodbanks and budgeting services.
William Booth nevertheless long entertained hopes that Salvationists in general might embrace his vision, becoming not only soul-winners but social workers as well.
However, The Salvation Army has struggled to coordinate its evangelical and social outreach—not only at an administrative level but also at a delivery level. With social work left to the specialists, and increasingly institutionalised with In Darkest England, it became ever more remote from the lives and experience of the rank-and-file soldiers and officers engaged in corps work. As Salvationists rose in the social scale, they sometimes became less interested in attempting, and less able to attempt, to integrate the clients from social work into their communities of faith. This contributed to the phenomenon of ‘Goodwill Corps’ in Britain (now reabsorbed into the field), and the Bridge Recovery Churches (linked to Addiction Services) in New Zealand—in some cases quite separate from the ordinary Salvation Army ‘church’ communities.
Such initiatives have at times actually brought the Army around full circle to Booth’s early comment that when he referred his converts to the churches, the churches wouldn’t have them. Only now, it was the ‘citadels’ and ‘fortresses’ which took on the role of the unwelcoming ‘churches’ and the social centres the task of the ‘Army’. I still recall a New Zealand Salvationist expressing disquiet at the number of ‘social cases’ beginning to attend her large, traditional corps: ‘__ Corps is supposed to be
a Goodwill Corps, isn’t it? Why don’t these people go there and leave the Citadel to us!’ Fortunately, others still shared Booth’s vision.
In his book, Keeping Faith in Faith-Based Organizations, Dean Pallant warns against the condescending, ‘instrumental’ attitude ‘which manifests itself in congregations wanting to “do something” about the plight of “the poor” rather than commit to deep relationships with people.’ Of course, integrating this work with corps does not ensure that those involved in providing services will be free from ‘instrumental’ and patronising attitudes, but one must hope that training and oversight helps avert these difficulties.
Ideally, this recaptures the vision of the integrated ministry of soul-winners-cum-social workers, living where they minister—proposed by Bramwell Booth in the 1880s and enunciated by William Booth in 1890 and 1904—but effectively negated by the separatist, institutional model which emerged from In Darkest England.
