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.