The Salvation Army and Anne Lown
Mainstream Baptist printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Thu May 18, 2006 at 11:41:23 AM EST
I got my copy of Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming yesterday and started reading this superb book last night.

One story that Michelle told stopped me in my tracks.  The story disturbed me so much that I had to put the book down and walk around the block to lower my blood pressure.  It was the story about the "Christianization" of the social services division of the Salvation Army.

I have a vague recollection of reading newspaper articles about the Salvation Army receiving federal money while purging itself of homosexuals and non-Christians, but Michelle's account of her interview of Anne Lown, daughter of the nobel prize winning physician and peace activist Dr. Bernard Lown, personalized the issue and clarified the values that are at stake.

Here's a quote  from Kingdom Coming:

    Lown, who had been an employee at the Salvation Army for twenty-four years and oversaw 800 workers, said religion had never had anything to do with her job.  As long as she'd been there, the New York social services division had been independent from the evangelical side of the organization.  Her office ran more public programs than any Salvation Army division in the United States, most of them for children.  Almost all of the money came from the state and local government, and Lown assumed that it would be illegal to infuse taxpayer-funded services with Christianity.  Her division had gay, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu employees, reflecting the city it served. (p. 130)

Before this administration took office, it was "illegal to infuse taxpayer-funded services with Christianity."  When those responsible for enforcing the law and upholding the constitution refuse to do so and actively work to undermine it, anything is permitted.

Apparently, the Salvation Army decided to take advantage of this administration's lax enforcement of the first amendment.  Colonel Paul Kelly was brought in to "heighten the agency's evangelical aspect."  Here's another quote:

    According to the complaint filed by the NYCLU, Kelly asked the human resources director at the Salvation Army headquarters, Maureen Schmidt, whether one of the human resource staffers at the social services division, Margaret Geissman, was Jewish, because she had a "Jewish sounding name."
     Schmidt told him she was not.  Geissman, who described herself to me as a conservative Catholic, told me that Schmidt then started asking her to point out gay and non-Christian employees at the division.  She refused to answer, but day after day Schmidt kept pushing.  "She said Kelly wanted to know and that eventually they were going to find out about everyone," Geissman told me.  "She said the new vision for the Salvation Army was to have Christians and Salvationists and not to have homosexuals." (p. 131)

Anyone who has studied the holocaust knows the resonances of  these conversations.




Display:
A lot of people think it's no big deal for the government to fund discriminatory social service agencies.

I think it is the proverbial camel's nose in the tent.  Blur the line between church and state and there won't be any line.

by Mainstream Baptist on Thu May 18, 2006 at 11:45:36 AM EST

It's highly significant. Thanks for highlighting it.

by Bruce Wilson on Thu May 18, 2006 at 11:54:13 AM EST
Parent


I have gotten questions from many people asking why I included the Salvation Army logo on the marching band drum in my painting (replacing the Marine Corps logo from the "President's Own" Marine Corp band). Take a moment to read the Salvation Army's Website, which includes statements on Marriage, Divorce, Cloning and all the major Religious Right's hotbutton moral issues (they would get a 100% form the Christian Coalition on these topics). Their military terminology (members are referred to as "soldiers", and their leaders all have military-style ranks with uniforms) takes the "Christian Soldier" metaphor to it's logical and ridiculous conclusion. It's a wonder they have been so successful in promoting a compassionate image, but then there are no limits to the success of PR and propaganda in America, and the Salvation Army is a shining example of SPIN.

One topic I find so interesting as one of the most glaring contradictions of the New Testament (amongst so many) is the portrayal a compassionate pacifist Jesus in the Gospels and a heartless death-wielding Jesus in Revelations. That very different writers with opposing agendas (political and theological) wrote these sections seems obvious; almost 2000 years of Biblical scholarship exists simply to explain (away) this contradiction. Militant Christians have only the story of Jesus' hissyfit at the temple to illustrate that the Gospels supported the notion that he could get angry, but an avenging Jesus dropping from the sky with a sword in his hand and flames shooting from his mouth to defeat the Anti-Christ and cast the Jesus-hating masses into Hell just encourages all kinds of the wrong people...

It also reminds me of the Bush Administration's apparent fondness for anything military. As with the recent Immigration/Border debate, they seem to honestly believe that the ONLY way to accomplish ANYTHING of value is through the use of the military (see the successes Iraq & Katrina). Is it because they are all authoritarian-types, or Christian militants, or both? Wasn't it Twain that said that if you only have hammers, then every problem looks like nails (or maybe Chaney...)? Replace the hammer with a sword and the Salvation Army's bell ringers takes on a whole different feel.

by joelp on Thu May 18, 2006 at 05:09:20 PM EST

Salvation Army, "Battle Cry", Spiritual warfare... I feel an article about the militarization of right-wing Christianity starting to coalesce in my mind...

I'm a military veteran. I know how the military works. And the fantasy military stuff coughed up by the extremists really bothers me in a basic way. Only people who haven't suffered the real privations of being in the service would glorify it so. Those of us who have been there and done that know the score, and can spot a 'chickenhawk' a mile away. We can also sniff out a BSer from a long ways away.

by Lorie Johnson on Thu May 18, 2006 at 08:00:25 PM EST
Parent