The Salvation Army provides a case study of the way in which renewal movements in the church institutionalize. Their leadership roles, initially merely functional and based on the principle of the priesthood of all believers, begin to assume greater status. The Army continues to exhibit a tension between its theology, which supports equality of status, and its military structure, which works against equality, and both schools of thought flourish within its ranks.

The Salvation Army has now been around for more than one hundred and fifty years, having celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2015 with an International Congress in London. Over the years both the Army and the world in which it appeared have changed beyond recognition. This is a good time for the movement to stop and look back--not just to celebrate, but to see where it is today. The Army has not evolved in isolation from the world. Bringing its own history with it, it nevertheless belongs to the twenty-first century world as much as William Booth's little East End Mission belonged to...