The early Salvation Army professed its commitment to sexual equality in ministry and leadership. In fact, its founding constitution proclaimed women had the right to preach and hold any office in the organization. But did they? Women in God’s Army is the first study of its kind devoted to the critical analysis of this central claim. It traces the extent to which this egalitarian ideal was realized in the private and public lives of first- and second-generation female Salvationists in Britain and argues that the Salvation Army was found wanting in its overall commitment to women’s equality with men. Bold pronouncements were not matched by actual practice in the home or in public ministry. Andrew Mark Eason traces the nature of these discrepancies, as well as the Victorian and evangelical factors that lay behind them. He demonstrates how Salvationists often assigned roles and responsibilities on the basis of gender rather than equality, and the ways in which these discriminatory practices were supported by a male-defined theology and authority. He views this story from a number of angles, including historical, gender and feminist theology, ensuring it will be of interest to a wide spectrum of readers. Salvationists themselves will appreciate the light it sheds on recent debates. Ultimately, however, anyone who wants to learn more about the human struggle for equality will find this book enlightening.

The Wesleyan Holiness Movement began out of the teachings of John Wesley, who held that Christ's atonement provided sufficient grace for the believer to live in this world continually loving God and neighbor unconditionally, although the believer's expressions of that love would not be perfect. Since its founding, different movements have been spawned and have interpreted Wesley's doctrine in their own way. The two volumes presented here represent the first installation of a three-part series that greatly expands upon Charles Jones's landmark 1974 work. This work focuses on the Wesleyan Holiness Movement, while the third and fourth volumes have the Keswick Movement and the Holiness Pentecostal Movement as their focal points. This series provides materials for study of doctrine, worship, institutional development and personalities, as well as antecedent and related movements. It will serve to illustrate the history both of the Holiness Movement and the rural-urban transition in which it developed. Theological reconsiderations, realignments, and changes, as well as the nearly exponential growth of the Movement since the book's publication, make these new publications almost absolutely necessary. The guides retain all of the good and strong qualities exhibited in the first edition, and have strengthened them.

The emergence of the Salvation Army within the context of Victorian England was theologically a part of the late nineteenth century holiness revival. This book examines the historical and theological influences on William Booth's decision to abandon sacramental practice (1883), and investigates the relationship between the Salvation Army's pneumatology and its non-sacramental theology. By placing the theology of the early Salvation Army in the context of Victorian society, the Wesleyan revival, and the nineteenth century holiness movement, the author interprets Booth's non-sacramental position as the subordination of ecclesiological and sacramental concerns to pneumatological priorities.