The Silencing of The War Cry

"Slaves were freed, Factory Acts passed, and the NHS and social care established, through Christ-liberated courage."

When Cardinal Manning led the 1889 London dockers’ march, in a strike which he was to play a pivotal role in settling, then he was serenaded by the Salvation Army band. 

He and it alike stood in the tradition of Shaftesbury and Wilberforce, Tories both, who used the full force of the State to stamp out abuses of the poor at home and slavery abroad, both of which are now well on the way back in this secularised age.

He and it alike stood in the tradition of  the Victorian Nonconformists who at that very time were using the Liberal Party to fight against opium dens and the compelling of people to work seven-day weeks, both of which have now returned in full.

He and it alike stood in the tradition of  Josephine Butler, after whom the newest college of the University of Durham is named, who with the support of the Salvation Army’s founder, General Booth, fought against prostitution, which is these days treated as almost a respectable occupation and as the stuff of mainstream television comedy, and campaigned to raise the age of consent from 13 to 16, which is now effectively a dead letter due to the refusal of those with the power to do so to enforce it from 13 upwards.

He and it alike stood in the tradition of the Temperance Methodists who even then were beginning to build the Labour Party in order to counteract brutal capitalism precisely so as to prevent a Marxist revolution, whereas the coherence of the former with the cultural aspects of the latter now reigns supreme.

So supreme, in fact, that the Salvation Army is now complicit in the immorality and criminality of workfare. General Booth founded the first labour exchange. But now, this.