Why don Salvationists drink, smoke or gamble?
Salvationists believe that once we have entered into a relationship with God our lives become his temple, and so we must try to adopt a lifestyle that is beneficial to our well-being. Body, mind and soul are closely interrelated and what has an adverse effect on one may well affect the other. Alcoholic drink The misery and poverty of London’s East End, which was often exacerbated by excessive drinking, led the Army’s Founders to regard drink as a social evil. They made total abstinence from alcohol a condition of membership because abstinence rather than moderation seemed to them to be the most effective answer to the tragedies caused by drunkenness and alcoholism. Today, tragedies caused through excessive drinking are no less in evidence, and the Army feels it would be hypocritical to come alongside and try to help in such situations unless its own members practised abstinence from that which was the root cause of these problems. The Army would not judge people who see no harm in drin
