Agents of Peace in Times of War

Salvationists have served through wars and conflicts, and their stories are important to tell, particularly for those of us who’ve only known stability.

by Rob Jeffery

In the Salvation Army church of my youth in Canada, a gentleman named Erik came into the church well into his senior years. As I got to know him, I remember him speaking in his strong Dutch accent, even though he had lived in Canada for many years. He shared that as a teenager he had served in the Dutch Resistance, a group that actively resisted the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands from 1940 to 1945. Through his work in this group, he had seen some horrible things—man’s inhumanity toward man.

I know of a Salvationist who grew up in Northern Ireland during the 1970s and ’80s who witnessed the extreme sectarian violence known as the “Troubles.” Decades later, the smell of diesel fuel and smoke takes her mind right back to the turmoil. 

When I was serving in active church ministry, a woman entered our fellowship who was a refugee from Rwanda. She was filled with the joy of the Lord and always seemed to be smiling, but behind that smile was the sadness of seeing her child murdered during the Rwanda genocide. And even more recently in my church in Spring Valley, N.Y., we listened with great concern as our Haitian members told us in a Sunday morning meeting of the many horrors they escaped when they fled their home country to live in the United States. 

A military metaphor

Both past and present, The Salvation Army has operated in countries torn apart by war and has always risen to meet the needs of the moment. Think of the “Donut Girls” of World War I—these American Salvation Army officers volunteered to serve U.S. military personnel fighting in France. With motherly devotion, they operated those donut huts faithfully and at great risk to themselves from 1917 until the early 1920s, when the remaining troops were sent home. On the other side, the German Salvation Army, though diminished by the war, tried to meet its members’ needs through similar efforts. The “heart to God, hand to man” approach of The Salvation Army knows no enemy. All can be served in love.

Yes, its very name is based on a military metaphor, and The Salvation Army’s support of the armed forces community is without question. But the reality of war and human conflict has always been seen as tragedy. Founders William and Catherine Booth were subjects of Queen Victoria’s British Empire, which had control over many countries with resulting conflicts, yet the Booths never seemed to be pro-empire or to take on the jingoistic mood of the times. 

William Booth thought it was monstrous that human beings should be sent to war. In an article from 1885, “The Possibility of War with Russia,” he wrote the following impassioned plea:

“What is the duty of Salvationists at such a crisis? … One thing is plain—every true soldier of The Salvation Army should cry night and day to God to avert so dreadful a calamity. Let him shut his ears to all the worldly, unscriptural, unchristian talk about war being a necessity. It cannot be a necessity before God that tens of thousands of men should be launched into eternity with all manner of revengeful passionate feelings in their souls. … Whatever may be the right method of settling human disputes and preventing earthly calamities, this cannot be the Divine plan. This cannot be the will of God.”

In 1878, Commissioner George Scott Railton noted the human propensity for war in an article called “Peace or War?” He wrote: “There will be wars—not only one but many, as long as this wretched world continues. The war-fever … will spread its deadly contagion, century after century, amongst people after people, until the sword has reaped its horrid harvest out of every homestead and desolated every family in every land.” 

How sadly prophetic.

Fighting for peace

So, while The Salvation Army does not have a formal expression of pacifism in the same way some Christian communities do (the Quakers and the Anabaptists, for instance), we have a desire to fight for peace in our everyday work as Salvationists. As soldiers we fight for peace in our communities by showing love and acts of kindness. We fight for peace by bringing healing and reconcilia­tion to peoples beset by enmity and strife. This is the only way that our metaphor of an Army makes sense. 

Ephesians 6:12 affirms, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

In many conflicts, Salvationists have stood out as agents of peace. During World War I, while Evangeline Booth was sending brave young officers over to France to minister to American troops, her brother General Bramwell Booth was in London struggling to keep the global Salvation Army united. After the war, Bramwell upset some Army supporters when he committed resources to war-ravaged Germany. 

“Why help our enemy?” some asked. Bramwell, rock-solid in his convictions that The Salvation Army was not to be confined by narrow nationalism, said, “Every land is my fatherland, for all lands are my Father’s.”

During World War II, General George Carpenter refused to allow the word enemy to appear in any Salvation Army publication. Conscious of the power of words to stir up hate, Carpenter did not want Salvationists thinking of their fellow human beings as enemies, despite the actions of their governments.

Babies in a basket

In that same conflict, then-Captain Alida Bosshardt hid Jewish babies in her bicycle basket and drove them around Amsterdam to various safehouses. Such bravery from a young officer! 

Salvationists have often paid a steep price for living out their faith and witness in times of fighting. Commissioner Herbert Lord was arrested and jailed first by Japanese authorities in World War II, and for a second time by North Korean authorities in the Korean conflict. Even in jail, he ministered to the people under his care.

According to General Shaw Clifton in his book Who Are These Salvationists? during times of human warfare The Salvation Army has focused on evangelism among members of the military community, compassionate action (meeting human need), and political neutrality.

In our present day, we find ourselves living in a world torn apart by war. While only two or three may be in the focus of Western media at any given time, there are literally dozens of conflicts, varying in size and intensity, raging around the world as you read these words. Worship leader Graham Kendrick wrote these hopeful lyrics found in The Song Book of The Salvation Army (No. 998) about a glorious future in God’s coming kingdom without war:

Refuge from cruel wars, havens from fear,

Cities for sanctuary, freedoms to share.

Peace to the killing-fields, 

scorched earth to green,

Christ for the bitterness, 

His cross for the pain.

God of the poor, friend of the weak,

Give us compassion we pray.

Melt our cold hearts, let tears fall like rain;

Come, change our love from a spark 

to a flame.

May we be inspired by our godly heritage to be agents of peace in a world at war. 

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Rob Jeffery is director of the Heritage Museum in the USA Eastern Territory.