What is The Salvation Army?
The Salvation Army is a Christian church and registered charity seeking to share the good news of Jesus and nurture committed followers of him. We also serve people without discrimination, care for creation and seek justice and reconciliation. We offer practical support and services in more than 700 centres throughout the UK. Go to salvationarmy.org.uk/find-a-church to find your nearest centre.
What is the War Cry?
The Salvation Army first published a newspaper called the War Cry in London in December 1879, and we have continued to appear every week since then. Our name refers to our battle for people’s hearts and souls as we promote the positive impact of the Christian faith and The Salvation Army’s fight for greater social justice.
WAR CRY
Issue No 7631
Editor: Andrew Stone, Major
Deputy Editor: Philip Halcrow
Production Editor: Ivan Radford
Assistant Editor: Sarah Olowofoyeku
Staff Writer: Emily Bright
Staff Writer: Claire Brine
Editorial Assistant: Linda McTurk
Graphic Designer: Rodney Kingston
Graphic Designer: Mark Knight
Email: warcry@salvationarmy.org.uk
The Salvation Army United Kingdom and Ireland Territory
101 Newington Causeway
London
SE1 6BN
Tel: 0845 634 0101
Subscriptions: 01933 445445 (option 1, option 1) or email: subscriptions@satcol.org
Founder: William Booth
General: Brian Peddle
Territorial Commander: Commissioner Anthony Cotterill
Editor-in-Chief: Major Julian Watchorn
MONDAY marked the 50th anniversary of World Environment Day, an event held annually on 5 June to inspire positive change and bring together millions of people in more than 150 countries who are working to protect and restore the Earth.
Also on Monday, The Salvation Army joined a growing number of organisations in declaring a climate emergency. Doing so recognises that urgent action is required to address climate change.
In this week’s War Cry, we speak with Major Heather Poxon, The Salvation Army’s environmental officer, who explains how faith has played a key part in motivating the church and charity to take this action.
‘We are a Christian organisation,’ she tells us. ‘This world belongs to God, it doesn’t belong to us and we have a responsibility to love the world as much as God loves the world.’
She continues: ‘We’ve trampled on the Earth and used it as if it’s our own to just abuse. We’ve forgotten that this is our home and, if we abuse our home, we won’t have one.’
Heather outlines some of the projects that The Salvation Army runs to help take better care of the planet, including making wildflower seeds available to individual members.
Elsewhere in this week’s issue, we also highlight the work that The Salvation Army is doing to recycle clothing and fabrics through the 8,100 clothing banks it has throughout the UK. In our How to… series, we discover how even tatty clothes that can no longer be worn may still be recycled and used.
Perhaps it sometimes feels as if the climate emergency is so big a problem that, as individuals, there is very little we can do to help. But if we all do what we can do, making small changes that will improve our own impact on the environment, then we can know that we have played our part in protecting the planet for future generations.
