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5 the Salvation army uSa Doing Good to hasten the Second Coming Action, action! Religion in action, this is what the world needs—religion alive, religion living among the people, religion going about doing good as well as singing hymns. —Evangeline Booth, National Commander, Salvation Army USA (1908) The Salvation Army USA takes its name literally and, like the Muslim Brotherhood , Shas, and Comunione e Liberazione, sees itself as battling secularism and modernity . It differs from the other three movements in having become known to most Americans more for its economic mission than for its theological or cultural agendas. The Salvation Army USA is also distinctive in that it has never formed a political party or pressure group. While its purpose has been broadly political, the Army has limited its direct political engagement to moving the state in what it sees as a Christian direction through behind-the-scenes lobbying on Capitol hill. And the Army differs from the Muslim Brotherhood and Shas in that its social service network has generally not been seen by the public as putting the state’s modest efforts to help the poor to shame, in part because many Americans have minimal expectations of the social welfare functions of government. In its early years in the United States, the Salvation Army bypassed the state by establishing institutions that offered faith-infused services to the poor, unemployed, homeless, and sick that were not provided by the state. In more recent decades, the Army has sidestepped the state in that its institutions complement or fill holes in the service delivery of the weak U.S. welfare state. Throughout its history, the movement has regarded its efforts in building a vast network of religionbased institutions as having the critically important theological purpose of paving the way for the Second Coming of Christ. The Salvation Army USA is the nation’s largest charitable organization, faith-based or secular,1 with assets of $8.76 billion according to the Army’s 2010 Annual Report.2 When most Americans today think of the Salvation Army, they likely think of the Army ’s thrift shops and its annual Red Kettle Drive at Christmastime. yet less than 15 percent of the Salvation Army’s revenue comes from these activities,3 and the Army’s extensive network of faith-based social services in the United States goes far beyond 114 Claiming SoCiety for god thrift shops. The Salvation Army USA’s 2010 Annual Report states that the Army offers assistance of $3.1 billion to 29.4 million Americans—almost one in ten Americans— through 7,821 centers of operation, including worship centers; hostels for the homeless ; group homes for needy children, the elderly, and single mothers and their babies; hospices for hIV patients; day care facilities; addiction dependency programs; missing persons location services; domestic violence shelters; disaster assistance programs; outreach programs for released prisoners; summer camps for children; career counseling centers; and medical facilities; among others.4 The Salvation Army USA began as, and continues to be, a religious movement. Today, it has 1,241 churches, called “corps,” offering regular religious services; 400,055 Americans call the Salvation Army their church.5 The Salvation Army—an evangelical Protestant movement—began in 1865 with the preaching of the Rev. William Booth to the poor and downtrodden in London. The American branch—our focus here—was founded fifteen years later in 1880.6 This makes the Salvation Army USA the longest surviving movement of the four whose stories we tell. To give a sense of how remarkable it is for an organization to achieve this longevity, a recent national commander of the Salvation Army USA, Robert Watson, reported the following: “of the firms listed among the original Dow Jones industrials in 1896, only one—General Electric—is still in business.”7 Marketing specialist Peter Ducker, interviewed by Forbes, called the Salvation Army USA “by far the most effective organization in the United States.” “No one,” he continued, “even comes close . . . in respect to clarity of mission, ability to innovate , measurable results, dedication, and putting money to maximum use.”8 The longevity of the Salvation Army USA is all the more noteworthy when what the movement had to overcome is considered. In the first decades that the Army was in the United States, Salvationists—or “Sallies” as they were called—faced angry and sometimes violent mobs, resulting in the deaths of five Salvationists. The movement had to survive two major schisms, one of them initiated by...

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