Historical Dictionary of The Salvation Army

Edited by John G. Merritt, Allen Satterlee

Hardback - £154.00

Publication date:

06 October 2017

Length of book:

780 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Dimensions:

237x157mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781538102121

The Salvation Army is an integral part of the Christian Church, although distinctive in government and practice. The Army’s doctrine follows the mainstream of Christian belief and its articles of faith emphasize God’s saving purposes. Its objects are ‘the advancement of the Christian religion… of education, the relief of poverty, and other charitable objects beneficial to society or the community of mankind as a whole.’ The Salvation Army was founded in London in 1865 by William Booth its first 'General' and has continued growing ever since. In 2015 it celebrated it 150th anniversary and today it has a presence in 127 countries.

This second edition of Historical Dictionary of The Salvation Army contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on i leaders, personalities, events, facts, movements, and beliefs of The Salvation Army. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about The Salvation Army..
The format of both this and the first edition (2006) is a straightforward dictionary arrangement of topical, biographical, geographical, institutional, organizational, political, social, and doctrinal articles from a paragraph to several pages in length, written by about 200 contributors, most Salvation Army (SA) personnel. The reviewer of the first edition in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History (v. 58, no.4, Oct. 2007, pp. 795–96), while impressed with the description and facts presented, felt the activities of the SA and its personalities in its Third World locations deserved fuller treatment. So, one must ask of this new edition, what has changed? There is a new coeditor, Allen Satterlee, the USA national editor in chief and author of 10 books about the SA, who has worked for the organization in the US, Jamaica, Singapore, and Papua New Guinea. There are 19 new contributors of articles, five from outside the US. Satterlee wrote a new introduction, an informative history of the SA, and has updated the chronology, extending it to January 2015
Texts of most of the articles remain the same, although information about happenings since 2007 has been appended at the ends of many of the articles about the SA’s activities and entities, particularly in the Third World. New entries include Angola Command; Kenya East (and West) Territories; Mali Region; Mozambique; Appointment System; Bleick, Hildegard; Bond, Linda; Booth University College; Cabinet System; Cadman, Elijah; Democratic Republic of Congo; Ecclesiology, and Salvationist. There is a comprehensive, unannotated bibliography of 62 pages…. The amount of detail is staggering. There are no other competing works. Libraries emphasizing the history of Christianity and mission work around the world should have one edition or the other. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All public and academic libraries.