The Blood and Fire in Canada: A History of the Salvation Army. Rev. ed.

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., editor of the
Canadian Evangelical Review, and an instructor of Liturgy, Anglican
Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C.

This revised edition of The Blood and Fire in Canada, updating the
original 1977 text, traces the history of the Salvation Army in Canada
from its formal beginnings in 1882 up to the present.

In Part 1, “The Formative Years,” Moyles gives a solid history of
the first decade of the Army’s arrival and rapid advance, particularly
in Eastern Canada. There is a sense of excitement and adventure as he
tells of marches, persecutions, and successes (there was even a mission
to the Klondike during the gold rush).

Part 2, “The Years of Consolidation,” traces the origins of social
service ministries, initially for alcoholics and “fallen women,” and
how this created a two-part Army, with the “church” or
“evangelical wing” slowly moving apart from the “social
outreach” wing. In this period, from the 1890s to the 1960s, the
public perception of the Army moved from seeing it as a street-corner
evangelism organization to the Red Kettle agency.

Part 3, “The Adjustment Years,” deals with the 1970s to the
present. Despite the fact that the Salvation Army went through a
significant rethinking of both its wings, Moyles devotes only a small
portion of the book to this period. Yet a thorough examination of the
period would considerably advance our understanding of the Army as it
currently exists. For example, in the evangelical wing’s move from
city-centre temples and citadels to suburban community churches, how did
the Army deal with its traditional avoidance of the sacraments of
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper? Hints but not substantive details are
given about the social service wing’s loss of government funding for
public services it provides. What sort of thinking and debate about
principles occurred within the Army, and where will this position the
Army in the future? Information from recent decades is lacking, and that
weakens the book as a whole.