They could argue that the symptoms of poverty - alcohol abuse, prostitution etc - were really its cause.
#Salvation army anti gay meme code#
This moral code had a dark side, in that it allowed the Salvation Army to blame the victims of poverty for their own situation. This is highly debatable, as the Army itself has been forced to admit.(6) The basis for these teachings is more likely to be found in Booth's hangups than in the Bible. This was justified by saying that the Bible had described drinking etc as sinful. The only permissible pleasure was praying and playing in the Army band. There was no drinking, swearing, smoking, premarital sex or gambling allowed.
The moral code that was enforced was extreme, even by the standards of society when it started. Control of the Army passed from Booth to his oldest son and stayed there, until high-ranking officers pulled a coup.(4) The organisation's basic dictatorship stayed untouched, with little power at the grassroots and almost total control at the top.(5) Its own organisational setup reflected this love of authority, with a military structure complete with uniforms and an army band. So from the very beginning the Salvation Army was in favour of a world made up of bosses and bossed. Any of the poor who were unfortunate enough to go against the Army's morals were quick to discover themselves out on the street, hungry or not.(3) Booth stated that what was important was not "whether a man died in the poorhouse but if his soul was saved".(2) Dispensing the absolute basics of food and temporary housing to the needy was motivated by the need to recruit rather than by anything in the Bible. Regardless of their attitude towards social structures the primary aim of the Salvation Army was not to provide charity, but to win souls from the devil. For him the work of a good Christian was to piously tend to the poor rather than work with them in the hope of transforming a society based on poverty for some people and profit for others. In his view (and contrary to many others) the Bible was detached from social and economic change. Booth characterised the revolutionary Christianity of the Diggers and Levellers as "utopian" and believed that Salvation Army members could earn a large profit from businesses and still keep a good conscience. Instead Booth hoped to promote a "kinder, gentler" form of industrial capitalism, one with the "Christian values" of hard work, abstinence and charity. However the social system that created conditions of poverty and inequality was not to be improved or replaced via social revolution. The Salvation Army's social work efforts can be directly linked to Booth's failure to convert the poor through more conventional means.(1)Ī former pawnbroker, Booth was aware that poverty largely stemmed from the structure of society that he was in. Salvation Army founder William Booth spent years evangelising before he realised that he would never achieve his goal of banishing the 'three As' of "Alcohol, Atheism and Anarchy" from England's underclass if he did not first keep them from starving.