Blood and Fire Revisited

Hello everyone. Well I have to hold my hand up and say that I chose the last book, and I had not read it so sorry to give you all a very long and slightly academic read-but then a reading group does expand our horizons and enable us to travel together along new pathways.

I chose this book because I wanted to read about the Booth family who started the Salvation Army. I feel that they were one of the first modern church movements that demonstrated the need to be inclusive in an age where there was a huge divide between rich and poor, educated and uneducated, men and women. We can watch Dickens' adaptation on the TV and see what a work house may have been like and read of a rags to riches story but I found that a new light was shed on the conditions of the working and lower classes of Victorian England and also the prejudice and values of those who were Christians or even slightly more privileged.

William Booth was painted warts and all, and although I felt he accomplished so much-I could also see his foibles and limitations on every page. Catherine Booth also came through strongly as a woman of great courage, determination and one who ruled her family with a little kindness but mostly with a great need for discipline and devotion to the cause.

They were a whirlwind and raised a movement that is still active today-if you go to Oxford Street in London there are Salvation Army people serving-they run the biggest agency in the world for finding missing persons, and are an example of how evangelism and social action can be combined to change lives from the inside out.

I was very encouraged too by their work of raising public awareness to the slum conditions, the terrible abuses of cheap labour and the everyday lives of those caught in poverty without the means to escape it. This family changed the face of Christian service a hundred years ago without much money, by using the printing press, by mobilising believers to live a life of devotion and worship and by giving people the opportunity to find dignity and spiritual, economic and social well being.

That inspires me that if God could use them at that time and place then he can use you and me to also help people to encounter Jesus in a way that will make an impact on their own lives and our communities that may well be remarked upon in a hundred years time. Let's believe that this could be true as perhaps one of the biggest challenges for us in the UK and developed world is the crisis in the banking world, and how debt is making slaves again of free people. I see those who are working in CAP as modern day examples of how practical and spiritual help can make a difference to families and restoration can begin.