High Council Musings

As a regular reader of the Journal of Aggressive Christianity I was delighted to see the latest article from Danielle Strickland relating to the lack of married women as nominees for General. As the husband of a wife, I can understand why this is concerning to many people, and the fact that no married woman has yet reached a senior position in The Salvation Army is a problem that I hope will be addressed in future.

However, for me there was an even bigger issue. Of the 7 nominations for General there were 2 Canadians (interestingly both the women nominees), 2 Americans, 1 Brit, a Dane and a Swede! Not one of the nominees came from a part of the world where TSA is seeing its strongest growth! To me this is a far bigger issue than that of no married women, as at least there were some women nominated.

According to the information that I have, no recent General has ever been elected on their first nomination for the post. This means it is unlikely that we will see a change next time round, although the General-elect is young enough that many of the current ‘front-runners’ will have retired by the next High Council.

I truly believe that the right person has been appointed as the new General as I look back at past Generals and see that they were the man or woman for the time. However, I am genuinely concerned that we are still looking to the traditional strongholds for our leadership.