What Do You Really Know About the Salvation Army?

Did you know: The Salvation Army is not a charity! Rather a church with social service programs, who embrace a cult environment, use their church status to discriminate, their denomination; Salvationism! or that: The RED KETTLES you see in front of Wal-Mart & other locations, are a 6 week church fundraising campaign (the church, aka cops community centers are not self-sustaining) for a Salvationist church, that primarily caters to its Salvationist members, a lot of which are on the payroll. Knowing this, why wouldn't we just give to our own church... so it could expand its outreach programs? Each local Salvation Army Corps (church) community center has a red kettle campaign (with a few exceptions). The money raised will be used to fund that centers (church) budget for the year. The Salvation Army does use some of the donated money to assist people; however, the percentage of money used is very small compared to the donations received. Most of the bell ringers are hired as seasonal help. And on top of that: The Salvation Army "Officers" benefits package looks like this: All expenses paid, complements of you, the donor! "Nice" home, health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, vehicles, gas, heating, electric, phone, cell phones, Internet, cable, uniforms, daycare, trips, computers, retirement & cash salaries. They live very well! The national average for all of the above is about $73,000.00 per year or more; depending on rank and kids- you get more cash if you have kids
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DOCTRINES AND BELIEFS The goal of the Salvationist is to win converts. "The belief in sudden conversion is 'in his blood'—anywhere, any time, any person," a Salvation booklet explains. Even social and relief work is part of a program that keeps the Salvation Army religion before the minds of the public. But what are their doctrines and beliefs? Are they based upon the Bible? The teachings of the Salvation Army are almost identical with those of most fundamental Protestant churches. The third of the eleven cardinal affirmations that every convert must sign to become a Salvationist, says: "We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, undivided in essence and coequal in power and glory." And the eleventh affirms: "We believe in the immortality of the soul . . . and in the endless punishment of the wicked." The Faith of the Salvationist explains: "The Salvationist believes in Hell. His vocabulary contains the phrase 'eternally lost' though he may refrain from the vivid and imaginative language of his forbears when speaking on this subject." But does the Bible teach the trinitarian belief that God, Christ and the holy spirit are coequal and that they are three persons in one essence? Neither Jesus nor his apostles taught such a doctrine. In fact, Jesus confessed: "The Father is greater than I am." Never did Jesus seek to usurp his Father's superior position in order to be equal to him, as the trinity doctrine falsely teaches that he is. Professor E. Washburn Hopkins observed in his book Origin and Evolution of Religion: "To Jesus and Paul the doctrine of the trinity was apparently unknown; at any rate, they say nothing about it." Arthur Weigall notes in The Paganism in Our Christianity that "nowhere in the New Testament does the word 'Trinity' appear." He adds that "the origin of the conception is entirely pagan."—John 14:28; Phil. 2:6. Similarly, the belief in the immortality of the human soul and its eternal torment have been an integral part of pagan religions for thousands of years, but you will find no support for such teachings in the Bible. Greek scholar Benjamin Wilson noted in the appendix of his Bible translation, The Emphatic Diaglott, that in the more than 800 occurrences of the original Hebrew and Greek words for soul, "not once is the word immortal, or immortality, or deathless, or never-dying, found in connection, as qualifying the terms." However, the Bible reader will find many expressions similar to Ezekiel 18:4: "The soul that is sinning—it itself will die." And instead of teaching eternal torment for those who have died, the Bible says, "As for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all."—Eccl. 9:5, 10; Isa. 53:12; Ps. 22:29. The Salvation Army also holds that "baptism and the Lord's supper are not essential to the soul's salvation, and it does not observe them." However, Jesus' explicit farewell command to his followers was: "Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them." The record of the apostles' ministry in the Bible book of Acts shows that they obeyed this command. Jesus also instructed his followers respecting the "Lord's supper," the final meal he ate with his disciples to memorialize his death: "Keep doing this in remembrance of me." These two things, baptism and the "Lord's supper," have a wealth of symbolic meaning for Christians, and Jesus put true Christians under obligation to observe them.—Matt. 28:19; Luke 22:19. Although many who have supported it in various ways may have viewed the Salvation Army as merely a social-welfare organization, a closer look reveals that it is primarily a religious movement having its own set of doctrines and teachings. And even though many of its officers and soldiers may display exemplary zeal, the message they carry to the people concerning Christ and man's hope for the future is not based on an accurate knowledge of God's Word.
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