ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on William Booth and the Salvation Army. Booth's theological perspective was shaped by a Methodist variety of transatlantic revivalism, marked by evangelistic pragmatism, expectant Spirit-centred postmillennial missionary urgency, an ‘unsectarian’ vision for the Church, and an emphasis on spiritual unity over institutional continuity. Church practices, for Booth, were merely functional in relation to mission and could be replaced with other practices which served the same ends. Thus, the sacraments were irrelevant; indeed, the church per se was irrelevant to Salvationist theology. The chapter closes by contrasting William Booth's vision for ‘social salvation’ in his Darkest England scheme (1890) with that of Hugh Price Hughes. Hughes had a more integrated theology and practice of mission, supported by a stronger doctrine of the church and its role as God's instrument for the establishment of the Kingdom.
