The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army does not observe the traditional Protestant sacraments. This practice is based upon a sacramental theology that rejects the idea that God's gracious actions can be limited by certain means of grace (such as baptism and the Lord's Supper). Instead, all of life can be a sacrament if Christ's presence is acknowledged and celebrated.

Sacramental Worship by Non-Sacramentalists The Salvation Army's nonobservance of the traditional Protestant sacraments in worship is based, not upon a Gnostic theology that disparages the material creation, but upon a sacramental theology that disparages any attempt to limit the work of grace to prescribed rituals. The Salvationists' sacramental worldview, combined with a strong doctrine of practical holiness, results in a view of all of life as sacramental and each experience as a potential conveyor of grace. Their nonobservance of the sacraments in worship is consequently a witness to the sacraments of ordinary life. If Christ is incarnate today in the midst of the world and if he deigns to dwell and work out his will in the life of the believer, then the sacrament belongs not as much on the high altars of sanctuaries as in the everyday life of societies where the church lives and witnesses. The sacrament is being offered daily, hourly, moment by moment. The Christian's daily life is a constant dipping into the baptism of the Spirit and a constant fellowshiping with his or her Lord and the Lord's family at the Table. The Salvationists' nonobservance of the sacraments in worship is consequently not based upon any criticism of observance of sacraments in the worship of other communities. It is, rather, the affirmation of the realities to which the sacraments point and the celebration of those realities as a part of, and not apart from, everyday life. This position is strengthened by the fruits of research, first, of the Biblical texts traditionally referred to as scriptural injunctions to observe the sacraments and, second, of theological developments in the early centuries of Church history. The interpretation of biblical texts as containing commands of our Lord to observe baptism and the Lord's Supper have now been called into question by responsible scholarship. Furthermore, eminent New Testament scholar C. K. Barrett has noted that whereas the scriptural evidence indicates that initiatory washings and shared fellowship meals occurred early in the New Testament church, there is no evidence that this took place with a specific theology in mind. Indeed, says Barrett, it would be wrong to read back into the early New Testament accounts of baptism and fellowship meals sacramental doctrines that developed later (Church, Ministry and Sacraments in the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985]). The tendency to read back later theologies is very understandable in light of the gradual infusion of Greek presuppositions into Christian theology, as well as the establishment and clericalization of the Church, bringing the institutionalization and formalization of grace-conveying rituals. The Salvationists' nonobservance of these specific rituals is therefore not a critique of them. Rather, it is a testimony to scriptural freedom with respect to them. It is also an endorsement of the grace-filled character of life to which they give witness and an assertion that this grace is conveyed within a much broader spectrum of observances and experiences. The two key points, then, in understanding the Salvationists' non-sacramentalist worship are the following. First, all of life is a sacrament. Second, the sacramental character of life calls for freedom in sacramental expression in worship. First, to assert that all of life is a sacrament is to insist on a direct link between worship and life. In no way ought there to be a great divide between life in the church and life in the world—a divide that has been fed historically by the institutionalization of the church and the clericalization of ministry. In no way ought formal worship to be seen as a different or higher order of spiritual life, which is a view that strengthens the divide. In no way ought some mystery to be celebrated or evoked, other than the same mystery that is present in life's commonest experiences. The Salvationists' nonobservance of the traditional sacraments is an affirmation of the accessibility of grace through any means God chooses and a refusal to limit that accessibility to formal worship and its prescribed rituals. What this means for the Salvationist is that a sacrament can take place over a common meal where Christ's presiding presence is recognized and celebrated. It can take place where, in a contemporary or equivalent form, someone's feet are lovingly washed. It can take place wherever Christ reveals his redemptive presence in the midst of life. The second key to understanding the Salvationists' non-sacramentalist worship is that this understanding of the sacramental character of life calls for freedom in sacramental expression in worship. Salvationists believe that since Christ did not institute specific sacraments to be observed as such, worship—while maintaining the essential elements of adoration and praise, Scripture teaching, and opportunities for response—is not bound by culturally conditioned and institutionally prescribed forms. In other words, the essential character of worship is not dependent upon any certain practice. It is dependent upon openness to God's self-revelation in Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit in whatever ways, consistent with scriptural teaching, that revelation comes. Every means by which this happens in worship is a sacrament.