Salvation Army Citadel, Warrington

I was recently at the south Lancashire town of Warrington (now Cheshire) and was doing my usual thing of snooping around churches. Right after the macabre sight of the town’s spiritist premises, I was delighted to find the Salvation Army next door. One establishment led to darkness, the other to light.

Large ‘Sally Army’ premises like this were once called ‘citadels’, keeping with the organisation’s martial theme, but I could only find reference to the word in its email address. It is all rather modern with a charity shop and café, the latter of which I enjoyed patronising to the tune of an Earl Grey Tea and a toasted cheese and onion sandwich, most reasonably priced. I inevitably asked to be shown the meeting hall which, after the innocence of my explanation was accepted, the staff were pleased to do.

The worship space was airy and clean, neatly carpeted and pleasantly illuminated by clerestory windows. A large platform could accommodate a large group of musicians and their music stands, while a flag and Salvationist insignia were also prominent.  

The most peculiar feature of a traditional Salvationist building is the Mercy Seat. This is named after the cover of the Ark of the Covenant, but in the citadel’s case, it is a literal seat or bench, upon which supplicants and seekers may sit or kneel by. Victorian evangelists of Arminian theology (among whom the Booths were prominent) were keen on ‘altar calls’, by which those seeking salvation or deliverance from booze and dice would come forward for prayer and saving. Major Nigel Bovey writing in The War Cry (online but undated) explained:

"The mercy seat has become a place where addicts have stood up sober, the defeated have found victory, the troubled have found peace, and the sinner has found salvation."

One can tell why it would be given such a name: a seat at which one seeks and receives the mercy of a gracious God. Yet upon its namesake, the Ark, was not a seat but  a kaporet or lid/cover. Sinners waited outside while the High Priest sprinkled it with sacrificial blood. One needed not be actually present at the time and place of the blood meeting the Ark; similarly, we were not present at Calvary when our Saviour there bled. Whether we walk forward in a citadel and take our place on that wooden bench seeking God’s mercy, or pray in our own homes, or plead for grace as we lay dying, we find ourselves at the Mercy Seat, the sprinkled blood of Jesus Christ covering our shame and dispelling our judgement.

I wish well the Salvationists of Warrington, and I pray to God that many of the townsfolk will go there to find mercy, not just good food and lively music.

Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat. Leviticus 16:15