The Salvation Army
Holiness · 1865–1878 · Britain; worldwide
The Booths' holiness mission to the urban poor, reorganized on quasi-military lines in 1878; distinctive for not practicing the sacraments and for women's ministry from the start (Catherine Booth, influenced by Phoebe Palmer's Promise of the Father).
The Salvation Army was formed between 1865 and 1878, as a process rather than a single event. The Salvation Army continues today. The Salvation Army's institutional line runs back through Methodism, Church of England, Roman Catholicism to the post-apostolic church. No body on this tree is the assembly of Acts 2; where a body claims that, the claim appears in the claimed-lineage layer.
Between the post-apostolic church and The Salvation Army stand 3 divisions along the institutional line, counting separations and disputed forks, not mergers, renewals or national organizations.
At a glance
- Formed
- Between 1865 and 1878, as a process rather than a single event
- Family
- Holiness
- Region
- Britain; worldwide
- Key figures
- William Booth, Catherine Booth
- Cause tags
- Doctrine, Governance
- Also known as
- Christian Mission (1865–1878)
What it separated from
- Separated from Methodism. William Booth, a Methodist New Connexion minister, left settled ministry for the East End mission.
On the tree
Solid lines are separations and unions; dashed lines are renewals that began inside a body; dotted gray lines are national organizations of one communion; a diamond marks a fork event where neither side is drawn as the one that left. Every line runs back to the post-apostolic church; no body descends from the assembly of Acts 2.
Adherents
About 1,700,000 adherents (official census, as of 2021).
Source: TSA international statistics (via Wikipedia): 1.7M+ salvationists, 133 countries; ~1.5M soldiers + junior soldiers (official, 2021)
Sources
Research compiled July 2026. Page data built 2026-10-10.