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Salvation Army not actually an Army
by Kris on 12/16/2002 (0) 
 | | Actual photograph of children laying on a Salvation Army logo. | It is the Christmas season and no doubt you have seen the many people from the Salvation Army standing outside of stores, ringing their bells and asking for donations. Many people donate money, but few realize where their donations actually go. The name Salvation "Army" implies that it is some sort of military unit, but this is couldn't be further from the truth... well, I suppose it could be further from the truth, but it's not.
"I always assumed it was some sort of International Space Army" said one confused donator. "I thought my money was going to fund a war on the Martians and help save Earth."
"I too thought it was going towards stopping the Martians," said the confused donator's brother, "I really hate those Martians."
While stopping the Alien menace isn't necessarily the goal of the Salvation Army, they still have noble duties. According to their website, the Salvation Army is "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." Donations that you make will be put towards helping the needy and less fortunate, spreading religion, and efforts for disaster relief... or so we assume.
 | | The more typically view of an Army. | So if these are the goals of the Salvation Army, why do we consider them an army? Webster's Dictionary defines an army as "a large body of people organized and trained for land warfare". From these statements, it is quite clear that the Salvation Army engages in no such land warfare, or air warfare, or sea warfare, or space warfare! The Salvation Army has no tanks, no bomber planes, no nuclear weapons, and no attack submarines. So why do we call it the Salvation Army? Dr. Bob McBob has his own theories on this issue.
"I have my own theories on this issue," commented Dr. Bob McBob.
Others were more forthcoming in why the name was used. "I suspect it is because they are some sort of secret government army operating out of Area 51 with the intentions of using the DNA off of the cash donations to create a super race of kind people who give out money to the less fortunate," said local man Steve Smith. Mr. Smith was later arrested for shooting his rifle at the moon after claiming the moon had destroyed the sun, forcing us to live in perpetual darkness where we would soon be eaten by rabid watermelons with two brains.
"In the early days of the Salvation Army, they were in fact an army," claimed another local man. "They were created in the late 60's as a secret organization to put an end to the Communist threat. They were trained in the art of professional wrestling and a single troop of the Salvation Army could take out six commie bastards with a single steel chair! But due to the end of the Cold War and copyright issues with many small wrestling promotions and later the WWF, the Salvation Army moved away from being a wrestling army to being a nonprofit organization." This local man was also arrested for shooting at the moon, and later again for attacking a police horse because it wouldn't tell him the name of the eighth President of the United States of America.
 | | What does Star Wars have to do with this story? We have no idea, but we really like Star Wars! | While these reasonings seem quite feasibly, the official word from the Salvation Army is quite different. According to the Salvation Army, the Salvation Army was founded by William Booth in July of 1865. This was over a hundred years before the release of Star Wars in 1977! Booth began by "preaching to a small congregation in the slums of London, his spirit was as militant as that of a professional soldier while battling an almost overwhelming army". This group served under the name of "The Christian Mission" and were also known as the "Hallelujah Army". They spread from their origins in the east of London to neighboring areas and eventually other cities altogether. In 1878, Booth was reading a printer's proof of the organization's annual report when he noticed the statement, "the Christian Mission under the (sic) Superintendent's of the Rev. William Booth is a volunteer army." He crossed out the words "volunteer army" and penned in "Salvation Army." And thus, the Salvation Army took it's name.
"This story is obviously a cover-up" commented noted conspiracy theorist and Taco Bell drive-thru operator Drew Davis. "Obviously something is hidden deep inside the very heart of London, something so terrible that it needs it's own army to guard it's terrible secret." What this secret could be can only be speculated, but were we to speculate, we would assume that it is either a planned vampire invasion or some sort of wacky British comedy.
Needless of the origins of the Salvation Army, it seems quite likely that they were rooted in doing good, unlike the Canadian Binary Robot Teams who are here only to kill and Rosey O'Donald who is only here to eat. The Salvation Army have touched numerous lives throughout their many years of operations and we can only hope that they continue to do the same for many years to come.
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