Further proof of just how homophobic and bigoted The Salvation Army is not just in the United States but worldwide came apparent in an interview with LGBT journalists Serena Ryan and Pete Dillon, interviewed a senior Salvation Army official Major Andrew Craibe, the Salvation Army’s Territorial Media Relations Director for the Southern Territory in Victoria, Australia who stated in an interview that non-celibate LGBT people should be put to death.
Ryan told Craibe that she prepared for the interview by reading all 170 pages of Salvation Story: Salvationist Handbook of Doctrine, a manual published by the group’s international headquarters in London and available online. Ryan then proceeded to point out chapters that she found disturbing, including a section called “The problem of evil”which cites Romans 1:18-32, the section of the Bible containing an infamous and violent condemnation of homosexuality which included death.
Ryan was shocked that the official Salvation Army handbook cites a scriptural passage which calls for the execution of LGBT people and asked Major Andrew Craibe about it. His answers are unbelievable:
RYAN: . . . that says, according to the Salvation Army, that [they] deserve death. How do you respond to that, as part of your doctrine?
CRAIBE: Well, that’s a part of our belief system.
RYAN (cutting in): So we should die.
CRAIBE: You know, we have an alignment to the Scriptures, but that’s our belief.
RYAN: Wow. So we should die.
They then discussed the handbook’s section on sin which cites the same passage from Romans.
RYAN: It’s going into Romans again . . . I accept that you’re out there wanting to help people . . . I don’t accept that this sexuality that is part of my DNA is a choice. I also don’t accept the support of any religion in a financial sense, and this is what the gay community is up in arms about: that you’re proposing in your religious doctrine and the way that you train — this is partof your training of your soldiers — that because we’re gay, that — we must die. If you go to Romans, book 1, 18-32, it’s all there, mate. I mean, how can you stand by that? How is that Christian?
CRAIBE: Well, well, because that is part of our Christian doctrine –
RYAN (interrupting): But how is that Christian? Shouldn’t it be about love?
CRAIBE: — that’s our understanding of that. Well, the love that we would show is about that: consideration for all human beings to come to know salvation –
RYAN: Or die. . .
CRAIBE: Well, yes.
The article written of this shocking interview by John Becker of Truth Wins Out is truly unbelievable in full and shows just how heinous and anti-gay an organization The Salvation Army really is here and abroad.
It seems that The Southern Poverty Law Center should put them on their hate list.
I live in Boystown in Chicago. It has always bothered me that the Salvation Army College for Officer Training is only a few blocks from where I live. They are on Addison between Halsted and Broadway. I have lived in this neighborhood for over 15 years and have never (and I mean NEVER) seen any signs of life in their highly secured compound although there are cars in the parking lot. This is our PRIDE weekend and of course they will not participate. They also do not participate in the Halsted Street Market Days which is a two day event in August. I never see them in the grocery store that is directly across the street. These people live a cloistered button down existence yet our alderman (who is a big old queer) let them build a 4 or 5 story building for housing a few years ago.
These people are almost cult like and very mysterious.
It is a strange situation. I am not much for organizing but I am surprised the large gay community here does not hold regular protests outside their property.
They are very creepy.
Bob. You live in Boystown? GREAT!
Give my love to the World Famous Bijou Theatre. Now that place and the story behind it is a piece of LGBT history