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Source: (consider it) Thread: God's Cadets: BBC documentary on the Salvation Army
seekingsister
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I wanted to comment on this program which I watched yesterday.

I really admired their attitude towards helping the poor and the needy - the painting of people drowing in the world's problems (e.g. alcoholism, poverty) and being saved by SA officers was really a good depiction of their beliefs (from what I understand of them). I have struggled with feeling like I'm not doing enough to help those in need so this was a good inspiration on that regard.

I think the producers of the documentary went out of their way to find people who had "unorthodox" views (e.g. the former salesman who had to give up the expensive watch, the Waitrose lady, the woman who said she and her husband couldn't cope with real jobs and paying rent).

The jargon was mindboggling. When the young cadet (Annemarie I think - the adopted one) was in the gift shop and going through the various ranks and titles I couldn't believe how complicated it all was.

There also seemed to be undue emphasis on appearing "perfect." The comments about not being seen to drink non-alcoholic ginger beer (I wonder if Salvationists may drink ginger ale), or not getting groceries from Waitrose, seemed to have nothing to do with faith but with image. Waitrose being part of John Lewis Group has one of the best employee profit-sharing programs in the UK, I would think spending a bit more to make sure workers are paid fairly is a good thing? Rather than buying from Tesco that sources clothing made in third world sweatshops and drives suppliers out of business.

Question for mudfrog - what of the cadets who aren't married or don't find a partner in college? Who do they end up marrying? Other Salvationists from their congregations? I was unclear as to whether officers are allowed to marry outside of the church.

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pydseybare
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Do married couples still share a rank in the Salvation Army? I could never get my head around that.

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"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."

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Baptist Trainfan
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quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
There also seemed to be undue emphasis on appearing "perfect." The comments about not being seen to drink non-alcoholic ginger beer (I wonder if Salvationists may drink ginger ale), or not getting groceries from Waitrose, seemed to have nothing to do with faith but with image. Waitrose being part of John Lewis Group has one of the best employee profit-sharing programs in the UK, I would think spending a bit more to make sure workers are paid fairly is a good thing? Rather than buying from Tesco that sources clothing made in third world sweatshops and drives suppliers out of business.

I think the "not buying ginger-beer" thing stems from the idea of "not causing the weaker brother to fall" - i.e. that someone from an alcoholic background will se them buying the stuff, think it's "proper" beer and then say, "Oh, it's OK to drink" and get entrapped by it. A bit silly I think. I had the same problem when serving a church in Africa when I was told to make sure that no-one saw me buying lemonade at a street bar!

You make a good point about the Waitrose thing; however I guess the thinking is that Waitrose is seen as "posh" or "pricey" and therefore looks extravagant to the poor people they are working with. Also the Army folk are living on a pittance. But I think it is wrong for fellow SA folk to criticise.

There is something here about the desire not just to refrain from evil but from every "appearance" of it. That's a good thing (especially in today's "do what you want" age) but it appears to lead to the possibility of legalism and pettifogging small-mindedness.

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Pomona
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Duh, the John Lewis Group are evil socialists who pay their employees a proper wage and we can't have SA officers endorsing that, can we?

I find the SA worryingly supportive of poverty - call me cynical, but why are they not shouting more loudly against structures that keep poverty happening? Is it because an end to poverty would mean an end to their job, and an end for them to be able to pat themselves on the back?

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pydseybare
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Lots of poor people shop in Waitrose. Their reductions on shrinkage food (at the end of the day) are often much greater than those from other leading supermarkets, and their stores are more regularly accessible by walking rather than having to drive to an out-of-town park.

It is entirely possible to live on a diet spending less money in Waitrose than you would in Aldi or Lidl - providing you are prepared to shop every day just before the shop closes and prepared to eat whatever is near the sell-by date.

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Enoch
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I think we are missing the point about Waitrose. I saw the programme too. I don't think it was being suggested anywhere either that nobody in the SA should shop in Waitrose or even that this was forbidden for Officers.

I think what that interviewee was getting at, was that because she came from a slightly more professional background, some of her fellow students who came from different backgrounds, - accentuated by the hothouse atmosphere of any training college - thought she was being a bit pretentious to shop there. I think that she was implicitly criticising them for this.

Mudfrog, am I right?

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Pomona
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quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Lots of poor people shop in Waitrose. Their reductions on shrinkage food (at the end of the day) are often much greater than those from other leading supermarkets, and their stores are more regularly accessible by walking rather than having to drive to an out-of-town park.

It is entirely possible to live on a diet spending less money in Waitrose than you would in Aldi or Lidl - providing you are prepared to shop every day just before the shop closes and prepared to eat whatever is near the sell-by date.

I'm a poor person who shops at Waitrose - along with their reductions, their Essentials range costs just the same as the major supermarkets and is better quality. My local Waitrose is also my nearest butcher, meaning I can save money by buying individual pieces of meat. It's also possible for poor people to prefer more ethical supermarkets and to approve of the John Lewis Group's business practices.

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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:


Question for mudfrog - what of the cadets who aren't married or don't find a partner in college? Who do they end up marrying? Other Salvationists from their congregations? I was unclear as to whether officers are allowed to marry outside of the church.

In 1999 there was a huge overall of officership (which is, of course, our ordained ministry) and one of the things that we in the UK did was to get rid of the rule that officers must be married to officers.

We now have officers who go into the ministry being already married to people who are not called to that vocation.
We get officers who do meet other officers and get married and who then share a joint ministry.
We have officers who, having been ordained, subsequently marry non-officers.

I'm not sure why it was even mentioned in the programme; it's an irrelevance to today.

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Do married couples still share a rank in the Salvation Army? I could never get my head around that.

A finer detail:

There was a time when the officer-wife would always share her husband's rank. If for example a female Captain married a Major, she would be promoted. If however she, a Major, married a male Captain, she would be demoted.

That rule is long gone and I know of a male Lieutenant who has married to a female Major.

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G.K. Chesterton

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by seekingsister:
[qb]There also seemed to be undue emphasis on appearing "perfect." The comments about not being seen to drink non-alcoholic ginger beer (I wonder if Salvationists may drink ginger ale)...

Nope, it was all nonesense and I have no idea where this cadet got that criticism from, of him drinking ginger beer.

The ONLY rule is that we will abstain from alcoholic drink. Only a FOOL would believe that ginger ale, ginger beer or ginger wine (very popular in SA circles in North East UK) were alcoholic drinks and an even bigger fool would criticise someone for drinking it.

I think there has been a small misunderstanding from some simple soul who didn't know the difference between this and real beer and the cadet in the film, being new to the Armty, thought it was a big issue.

I drink ginger beer, root beer, ginger wine and (though I don't like it much) Becks Blue which is an alcohol free beer. My wife and I will often drink alcohol free wine. It all looks and tastes like real wine but 0%

I have sat in a pub with Salvation Army Majors drinking Becks Blue.

I really don't know what the fuss is about. Sad.

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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton

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pydseybare
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Well there is an alcoholic ginger beer, perhaps that created the confusion.

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I think we are missing the point about Waitrose. I saw the programme too. I don't think it was being suggested anywhere either that nobody in the SA should shop in Waitrose or even that this was forbidden for Officers.

I think what that interviewee was getting at, was that because she came from a slightly more professional background, some of her fellow students who came from different backgrounds, - accentuated by the hothouse atmosphere of any training college - thought she was being a bit pretentious to shop there. I think that she was implicitly criticising them for this.

Mudfrog, am I right?

Bit of inside knowledge. She was referring to maybe a pastoral interview with tutors or pastoral staff who had maybe suggested she was spending too much on other things as well. Sometimes people coming from well-paid jobs have trouble 'downsizing' their spending habits and we have had high earners suddenly getting into debt.
It wasn't a question of image and Waitrose not fitting the image - it was more a question of her spending priorities in other ares. I can't say more than that.

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G.K. Chesterton

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Well there is an alcoholic ginger beer, perhaps that created the confusion.

Yes but it's a very narrow, specialist market and most people - from Enid Blyton onwards - would know that ginger beer is a soft drink.

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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton

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pydseybare
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Bit of inside knowledge. She was referring to maybe a pastoral interview with tutors or pastoral staff who had maybe suggested she was spending too much on other things as well. Sometimes people coming from well-paid jobs have trouble 'downsizing' their spending habits and we have had high earners suddenly getting into debt.
It wasn't a question of image and Waitrose not fitting the image - it was more a question of her spending priorities in other ares. I can't say more than that.

First, I'm not sure how appropriate it is to speak of 'inside knowledge' about a person who is not here to defend and/or put their own slant on what happened.

Second, are you seriously telling me that the Salvation Army tells recruits how they should spend their money?

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Bit of inside knowledge. She was referring to maybe a pastoral interview with tutors or pastoral staff who had maybe suggested she was spending too much on other things as well. Sometimes people coming from well-paid jobs have trouble 'downsizing' their spending habits and we have had high earners suddenly getting into debt.
It wasn't a question of image and Waitrose not fitting the image - it was more a question of her spending priorities in other ares. I can't say more than that.

First, I'm not sure how appropriate it is to speak of 'inside knowledge' about a person who is not here to defend and/or put their own slant on what happened.

Second, are you seriously telling me that the Salvation Army tells recruits how they should spend their money?

Firstly I haven't told you any more than she has said.

Secondly, in the college training situation the college is merely advising on personal and pastoral issues that might impact on ability to ministry. It's not intrusive and neither is it prescriptive.

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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton

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pydseybare
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Firstly I haven't told you any more than she has said.

Ah right, not inside knowledge at all then.

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Firstly I haven't told you any more than she has said.

Ah right, not inside knowledge at all then.
well it's inside knowledge because I'm inside the organisation and I know what the procedures are; I also know that the programme was heavily edited and out of the hundreds of hours filming over an entire year you got far less than 90 minutes of interview actually screened. I'm simply saying that her words about being inappropriately middle-class 'because she shopped at Waitrose' do not reflect all that she said, not the accuracy of, context of, or indeed the pastoral procedures that the 'accusation' were part of. I can honestly say that the extremely rich people in my session of trainees when I was a cadet, were never accused of being like this young woman. I think the film maker has made her out to be something she's not maybe. She certainly has had all her words of explanation aired.

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G.K. Chesterton

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Baptist Trainfan
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Whenever an institution or group of people agrees to let the film cameras in, it is then at the mercy of whatever slant the Director may put on it - just think of the furore over the current series "Benefits Street". And any programme has to be selective; it will usually choose to focus on the folk who it feels are the most interesting or have the best story.

Personally I (as a non-Salvationist) felt that the programme was pretty good. And some of the narky comments were reminded me of ones I heard in my own Bible College.

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Sleepwalker
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I have yet to see the programme but having read this thread I'm going to watch it on iPlayer before it disappears.

Mudfrog, a question for you. Why do the Sally Army not visit pubs anymore? While I was a young adult, giving to the Sally Army in a pub was a venerable tradition and pretty much everyone dug into their beer money.

I've always admired the Sally Army. They routinely get their hands dirty while most of us keep ours firmly tucked in our gloves.

I also used to love hearing the local Sally Army band as Christmas approached. They've gone too, which I find a bit of a shame really.

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by Sleepwalker:
I have yet to see the programme but having read this thread I'm going to watch it on iPlayer before it disappears.

Mudfrog, a question for you. Why do the Sally Army not visit pubs anymore? While I was a young adult, giving to the Sally Army in a pub was a venerable tradition and pretty much everyone dug into their beer money.

I've always admired the Sally Army. They routinely get their hands dirty while most of us keep ours firmly tucked in our gloves.

I also used to love hearing the local Sally Army band as Christmas approached. They've gone too, which I find a bit of a shame really.

There are still places where War Cry is sold in pubs. The problem is that many pubs have changed over the years - too noisy, unwilling landlords, etc. A lot of War Crys are now sold on the streets.

Bands still play on the streets at Christmas though sadly there are fewer of them.

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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton

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betjemaniac
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Sleepwalker:
I have yet to see the programme but having read this thread I'm going to watch it on iPlayer before it disappears.

Mudfrog, a question for you. Why do the Sally Army not visit pubs anymore? While I was a young adult, giving to the Sally Army in a pub was a venerable tradition and pretty much everyone dug into their beer money.

I've always admired the Sally Army. They routinely get their hands dirty while most of us keep ours firmly tucked in our gloves.

I also used to love hearing the local Sally Army band as Christmas approached. They've gone too, which I find a bit of a shame really.

There are still places where War Cry is sold in pubs. The problem is that many pubs have changed over the years - too noisy, unwilling landlords, etc. A lot of War Crys are now sold on the streets.

Bands still play on the streets at Christmas though sadly there are fewer of them.

I've been sold a War Cry in a pub in the last week. Despite being a deeply Anglican Anglican, I was brought up to and continue to buy the War Cry on sight (probably family folk memory of hard times in the east end of London at the turn of the last century).

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fluff
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I just watched the program on Iplayer. Though I don't agree with some of the SA's views (on gay issues, amongst others, no doubt) I thought they came across quite well: sincere and committed. It's a shame some people in the SA are upset by it, as I thought it gave a reasonably positive picture, particularly in terms of their social work, and lack of venality. The fact that people were happy to talk about problems - the SA's introversion, feeling a bit jaded - contributed to this positive impression. Maybe it's the sign of a healthy organization if people are able to openly discuss its downsides and difficulties?

I used to pass the big training centre featured in the program over and over again on the bus, when my family lived around that area, so it brought back memories. The statues of Catherine and William Booth used to be clearly visible from the top deck. Fascinating to find out what does on in there!

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Moo

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This is not about the present-day SA, but I thought you all might be interested in this poem about William Booth.

Moo

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fluff
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What a perfect elegy. Love the transformation of the wretched into "sages and sibyls". I get the impression that Vachel Linsay was moved by the death of Booth and his example.
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mark_in_manchester

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Rather late to this party - but just watched the prog on I-player. Mudfrog, I felt the thing came over very very well - struggles openly aired, but/and an inner peace and strength often clearly in evidence. Every now and again I meet people like that - chatting about nothing much, coming across as nothing-much kind of people, but then suddenly moving onto something about which they have real personal conviction, and peace and love shine out of them. I was rather moved.

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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)

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