I’ve been involved in a discussion with a fellow from Denmark over on Facebook. The discussion itself is really irrelevant to this topic at hand except for providing an explanation to find what I found. I was looking for details between the United States and Denmark and came across the following information [warning it’s a PDF] published by the United States Census Bureau (see they produce something for all those millions of dollars the squander on sending out post cards reminding us of the census we’ll be receiving soon enough).
While digging through it I found some rather interesting information I didn’t know. The Salvation Army is a religion its own separate denomination of Christianity. Now I knew they were a religious organization but I never new they were an actual religion separate denomination. So I did a little more searching and found this article on the BBC:
The Salvation Army is a Protestant denomination of the Christian Church with over 1.6 million members in 109 countries.
In the UK there are over 800 Salvation Army parishes (known as corps), over 1,500 ordained ministers (known as officers) and 54,000 members (including senior soldiers, adherents and junior soldiers).
Salvation Army officers wear a military-style uniform, though some officers may wear a more informal uniform when undertaking certain duties. Members of the church often choose to wear a uniform, but are not required to do so.
Salvation Army halls are registered as places of worship. Salvation Army officers are ordained ministers of religion, and can conduct weddings and funerals.
So they are a Christian based religion denomination, their positions in the church reflect that of a military army, they wear military style uniforms, their facilities are registered places of worship, and their officers are ordained ministers. Hm… does that make them a Christian militia group?
Update 2010-04-27 13:29: Change the wording. Technically the Salvation Army is a denomination (such as Catholicism, Mormon, Lutheran, etc.) of Christianity which is the technical religion.
The Salvation Army is not a Religion, it is, as it’s mission statement says:
The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church.
Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.(Link Below)
It is part of the Church, and you have a poor understanding of Religion. Christianity, is a Religion; Hinduism, is a Religion; Budhism is a Religion; Islam, is a Religion, Judaism, is a Religion.
Salvationists, like the Baptists, Presbytarians, Luterans, Catholics, Methodists, etc, are Christians and Therefore of the Christian Religion and not a religion unto itself.
We Worship God, and Believe that Jesus Died on the Cross to save all of us from our sins because “we have all sinned and fall short of the Glory of God” (Rom 3:23). The Reason why it is called The Salvation Army is because it is an Army of God’s people bent on bringing all to Salvation from whatever it is that binds them in their troubles.
http://www.salvationarmy.org/ihq/www_sa.nsf/vw-sublinks/2AF3956053A88A5E80256D4E003B4965?openDocument
You may want to tell that to the governments of the United States and the United Kingdoms. Both have the Salvation Army listed as its own denomination. I use the words religion and denomination interchangeably. I’ll change the verbiage to make it more accurate.