Talk about the high expectations of new parents. On the morning that Eva Burrows was born in an Australian mining town, her father, a Salvation Army officer, was conducting a worship service. Within minutes the father returned to his home, held the newborn baby aloft and uttered a prayer dedicating her to the glory of God and the salvation of the world. "It was rather a tall order for a little baby," says Burrows with a grin.
Burrows, 56, faces her tallest order yet in her new post as general, or worldwide commander, of the Salvation Army. Chosen over six male nominees last month by the denomination's 48-member high council, Burrows is only the second woman to hold the top post since a military-minded Englishman (and former Methodist minister) named William Booth founded the evangelical Christian group in London in 1865.*
The Army, whose headquarters are still in the British capital, encompasses 86 countries in a social-welfare network that includes clinics, centers for alcoholics and drug addicts, homes for the down-and-out and the aged, food services for the poor, and mobile teams to aid refugees and disaster victims. Burrows faces the task not only of continuing such help but of pumping new life into an organization whose ranks are thinning. "If we're not growing, we must feel guilty, because we are not fulfilling Christ's demand," says Burrows.
Today the Army reports 1.5 million adherents worldwide and about 16,800 active officers (the equivalent of clergy), down from nearly 18,000 in 1968. Europe has fared the worst, losing 33% of its officers in the past 15 years. In the U.S., the officer ranks, the largest of any country, have declined slightly, to 3,703. The U.S. operation has 29,000 other employees, and 1985 revenues were estimated at more than $500 million.
What Burrows will not change is the Army's religious philosophy or its military structure. The revival-minded Protestant group holds strictly to an eleven-point orthodox statement of doctrine and a literal interpretation of the Bible. It is so insistent upon simplicity in worship that it shuns all services of baptism and communion.
In Army parlance, committed lay members are "soldiers," prayer meetings are "knee drills," and officers and soldiers take a pledge known as the Articles of War. Salva
tionists do not die; they are "promoted to glory." Burrows also has no intention of dropping the group's paramilitary uniforms, which vary from country to country. "Some people say the uniform is a Victorian appendage, but it is part of our awareness of being a militant church," says Burrows. *
The new general did not come to her vocation easily. One of nine children, she was impressed when her mother brought home destitute people to share the family's spartan meals. But as a teenager, she recalls, "I felt the Salvation Army discipline was too rigid, and for a good deal of time, I refused to go to church."