So Many Women in God's "A-R-M-Y"

We had to push our way into the Chester Cathedral. The Freedom Service we wanted to attend was about to start. The crowd at the entrance, it turned out, was thick with tourists not because everyone was heading to the sanctuary but because the cathedral has a constant "queue for the loo."

Once inside we joined several hundred people to learn about the ecumenical efforts to combat human trafficking in North West England. The Cathedral choir sang an introit from the Song of Songs,  the chair of the local council on human trafficking led the opening prayer, the Baptist praise band helped us sing "Break Every Chain, Break Every Chain."  We stood and sang a Charles Wesley hymn, "Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night." A short video dramatized forced "bonded" labor on a large screen, then Major Kathryn Taylor from the Salvation Army climbed into the pulpit.

Major Kathryn Taylor,
Sept. 17, 2017,
Chester Catherdral

Wearing a standard issue uniform, Major Taylor told of driving before sunrise in London to pick up a beautiful, fragile young women from a safe house in London. She was the designated driver to transport her one of the programs to help her reclaim her life. The story was moving and Major Taylor acknowledged she wanted the story to tug at us. To feel something can lead us to do something.  Major Taylor told of early efforts in the Salvation Army to combat human trafficking.  Exploiting the vulnerable is not new. I suspected she was going to tell the "Snead affair" and she did. I had read about it a few weeks earlier when I visited the Salvation Army museum. (Keep reading!) The Salvation Army had been my first stop in London for two big reasons: 1. you can't tell the story of women's contribution to the Christian mission without the Salvation Army. They may have had more women in their leadership ranks than another other Christian group.  2. My grandfather was a Salvation Army officer. I can still see that saintly man ringing the bell by the red kettle seeking donations for those in need. 

William Booth College sits directly across from the Denmark Hill Station in London, serviced by the Overground. (Who knew there were Underground and Overground trains in London?) A flight of concrete stairs leading to the entrance are flanked by two statues:  Mrs. Catherine Booth (1829-1890), named the “mother of the Army” is at the left and William Booth (1829-1912), her husband, named the “founder of the Salvation Army, is on the right. The organization they started depicted them aptly as co-leaders.
 On a late-July visit, I signed in at the reception desk, collected a day pass, and took the elevator to the top floor to visit the museum and the reading room. The first exhibit was of Catherine and William with one of her bonnets on full display. The next panel that outlined the Army’s history with images of Army officers, all male and female pairs in full uniform.  Their clergy, from the onset, has been male and female, mostly married couples who had to become officers together, continue to model a mutuality of ministry. 

Later as I read through a biography of Catherine Booth, I learned that the first argument Catherine and William had was over the social equality of women and men. William had quoted an old saying, “woman has a fiber more in her heart and a cell less in her brain.” Catherine argued that men and women are intellectual equals. Women, were disadvantaged by lack of access to education but not to any “shortcoming of nature.” Her insistence on equality and mutual respect took root in her marriage and became a creed of the Salvation Army: “there is no male or female, Jew or Greek, slave nor free—all are on in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). The Army became the object of much ridicule for their inclusion of women in leadership, including preaching, but they never have changed their stance.


Reading of early efforts to combat the “white slave trade,” what we would call human trafficking today left me deeply impressed by the Salvation Army’s courage to step into the social struggles of their day. It left me also a bit depressed. None of the social ills they combated in the 19th century, from settling refugees from war or feeding the hungry have been eliminated in the 21st. They believed then and now, that with salvation and active service, the misery on earth will be replaced by neighborly love. The optimism of Christian charity continues to motivate.

Scandal is always interesting and one public relations stunt caught my attention. It is referred to as the Elisa Armstrong incident. In 1885, efforts in Parliament stalled to combat the sale of young women into prostitution or service. An investigative journalist. W.T. Snead of the Pall Mall Gazette, was encouraged by a leading proponent of new legislation to investigate sexual exploitation of minors. Snead agreed to investigate. A couple of women, one from the newspaper and another from the Salvation Army infiltrated some local brothels and over the next week spent 100 British pounds buying  children offered for sex.

Snead thought something more needed to be done to bring these children to the public attention. So with help from his colleagues at the paper and Salvation Army, including the Booth’s son, Bramwell, they arranged to buy a young girl, Eliza Armstrong, from her mother under the guise that she would be a domestic servant to the older man (Snead). She was then taken to a hotel where they faked her being assaulted and whisked her from the country to be cared for by the Salvation Army. Snead then wrote of the transaction not disclosing the fact that it was a set up. His article, “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” received international attention. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 was soon passed and raised the age of sexual consent from 13 to 16. The law made it a criminal offence to buy girls for prostitution or made buying and selling children illegal both for the buyer and guardians who sought monetary gain from their children. The set up was soon disclosed. The girl’s father had not agreed to the sale and Snead was arrested and sentenced to three months in jail. He was well-treated and the Salvation Army museum displays his tan prison uniform and tells the story as a not-to-be-repeated mistake that actually made a difference.

Once I finished looking through the museum, I asked to see Catherine Booth’s tract on “Female Ministry.” I had read it in seminary several decades ago and wanted to see an original copy. The archivist brought me three items: the first version of the pamphlet entitled “Female Teaching” from 1859 and the second edition “Female Ministry” from 1861. He also brought me a copy of the pamphlet that engendered Booth's response, “Reasons for not co-operating in the Alleged “Sunderland Revivals” in an address to his congregation by A.A. Rees.” In this pamphlet Rees, was explaining why he was boycotting the revivals. He was all for revivals but not for the “methods” used in this one.

Rees was opposing the ministry of Phoebe Palmer, an American Methodist lay evangelist who held revivals in the British Isles from 1859-1862. Palmer was accompanied by her husband, a physician, Dr. Walter Palmer.  Women preachers were rare and Phoebe proved popular and successful with thousands turning up to hear her preach. Rees had written to Dr. Palmer expressing his discomfort at his allowing his wife to speak publicly.  Catherine Booth had not been to hear Mrs. Palmer but she found Rev. Ree’s argument hitting hard in that same sore spot of inequality which she had battled early with her own husband.

She challenged Rees to rely on more than custom and quotations from writers such as Shakespeare and Cowper. She clarifies her view of women and then gives a biblical defense for women teaching: 

[God] treats her as an independent, responsible being; amenable to the same law, and subject to the same penalties, as her companion; and, by the terrible sentence passed upon her for her disobedience, Jehovah unmistakeably  [sic] indicates that he held her equally capable of understanding and obeying his law. Even in her present state of subjection as a wife, she is only allowed to submit to her own husband "as it is fit in the Lord;" her own enlightened conscience being left arbiter of that fitness. We hope Mr. Rees is able to justify his motives as a Christian minister, in thus parading before the public mind views and sentiments so degrading to at least half his race, and so dishonouring [sic] to his religion and his God. (p.6, 1861, 2^nd ed.).

Catherine’s defense was written more than 150 years ago and she honed her arguments in each subsequent version. I prefer the early ones that are full of youthful passion. Any of the versions she wrote of her penny pamphlet remain worth reading and can be found online. Here's one link.  http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/vwwp/view?docId=VAB7105

Back at Chester Cathedral, Major Taylor reminded us that all persons have God-given dignity, even those who traffic others. The radical faith of the Salvation Army was obvious in her words and in our final prayer:  Awaken our hearts and deepen our commitment to work for a world where all people are free and able to live with dignity and freedom. We ask for conversion of heart for traffickers and for strong laws to protect victims. Give us wisdom and courage so that we may find ways to ensure Your freedom is the gift for all people. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.