Catherine Booth: Laying the Theological Foundations of a Radical Movement

Description: Catherine Booths achievements--as a revivalist social reformer champion of womens rights and with her husband William Booth co-founder of The Salvation Army--were widely recognized in her lifetime. However Catherine Booths life and work has since been largely neglected. This neglect has extended to her theological ideas even though they were critical to the formation of Salvationism the spirituality of the movement she cofounded. This book examines the implicit theology that undergirds Catherine Booths Salvationist spirituality and reveals the ethical concerns at the heart of her soteriology and the integral relationship between the social and evangelical aspects of Christian mission in her thought. Catherine Booth emerges as a significant figure from the Victorian era a British theologian and church leader with a rare if not unique intellectual and theological perspective: that of a woman. Endorsements: Catherine Booth is rightly honored for the crucial role she played in shaping the Salvation Army and for her contribution to social reform and womens rights in the second half of the nineteenth century. Despite that recognition in-depth academic studies of her life and work have been thin. So John Reads scholarly and eminently readable book is a very welcome volume. It deserves to be widely read. --Chick Yuill author of Moving in the Right Circles Many books describe Catherine Booth the person but no one has demonstrated her pivotal role in shaping the spirituality of the Salvation Army better than Read. His penetrating reading of primary sources identifies the core evangelical and theological convictions that underpin her spirituality. Booth was not only the theological founder of the Army; she was a far more important practical theologian than many have imagined. Reads book is lively and persuasive. --Kent Brower Senior Research Fellow Nazarene Theological College John Read has produced an outstanding study of Catherine Booths theology which he argues underlies her Salvationist spirituality. . . . Read shows convincingly how Catherine shaped Army self-understanding and was its leading apologist. He offers important new perspectives on the intellectual development of a radical Christian movement. --Ian Randall Senior Research Fellow International Baptist Theological Seminary About the Contributor(s): John Read is a Salvation Army officer currently serving as the Armys ecumenical officer for the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.