The Salvation Army

When you hear the word Salvation Army many may think of the holidays when people stand outside of stores and ring their bells with red collection bins and ask for donations but he Salvation Army was founded in London in 1985 and was originally called the East London Christian Mission. The Salvation Army’s mission statement states this “The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.” (Salvation Army).With this being said the United States has the constitution which is our set of rules to follow as Americans but the rule of separation between church and state has not been followed in the faith-based organization of the Salvation Army.

When former President Bush took office one of the first things he did was make sure that he and his supporters gave the many different faith-based organizations money. Goldberg had spoken with a former employee of the Salvation Army and they had spoken on a event that had take place in the organization. After the event had taken place Lown and seventeen other employees had filed a lawsuit against the Salvation Army suing them for discrimination. As written to the Los Angeles Times “The department’s position in this case is that religious groups should be able to hire and fire people based on their religious views, even when administering publicity funded programs.” (129, Goldberg) This statement was a cornerstone of former Presidents Bush’s faith-based initiative. This quote makes it seem like the Salvation Army had been given approval by Bush’s administration to discriminate as long as they supported Bush’s agenda. It was later discovered that Bush’s administration had been having secret conversations with the Salvation Army.

“Three years ago, the Salvation Army publication The War Cry ran a strident attack on church-state separation. The article, written by Sam Silligato, recycled the Religious Right's bogus history, contending that the United States was meant to be an officially "Christian nation."”(R.B.). At the New York location in Spring 2003 they had called in Colonel Paul Kelly in to heighten the agency’s evangelical aspect. Once Kelly had arrived many things had started too changed. People were being fired and then the employees that were left were asked to fill out a form listing their religious beliefs and the churches that they had attended in the past ten years and to give the Salvation Army permission to contact the church and ask questions about their characteristics as people. Many refused and this is where the lawsuit came up and the Salvation Army had said that they will guarantee “equal employment” without discrimination. With this many employees became worried about how the new emphasis on evangelism would affect the clients on the Salvation Army.

In conclusion the White house in 2003 had issued a paper explaining why they believed government-funded religious charities should be allowed to discriminate. The paper was titled “Protecting the Civil Rights and Religious Liberty of Faith Based Organizations: Why Religious Hiring Rights Must Be Protected.” (132-133, Goldberg). Overall I fell that Faith Based organizations should not have the right to decide who and who not to hire basing it on their religious background.

Goldberg, Michelle. The Christian Rise of Nationalism: Kingdom Coming. New York. Norton Paperback, 2007. P.129-133.

"Mission Statement". Salvation Army. November 2009

R.B. "THE SALVATION ARMY: DECLARING WAR ON CHURCH-STATE SEPARATION? (Cover story)." Church & State 54.8 (2001): 7. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web.