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Salvation Army, deemed threat to government, may have to shut down in Russia
The Moscow City Court has ruled that the Salvation Army cannot register with local authorities—which it would have had to do to comply with a controversial law requiring churches and religious organizations to register with the state by the end of the year or face expulsion. "Since we have the word 'army' in our name, they [the court] said we are a militarized organization bent on the violent overthrow of the Russian government," said Colonel Kenneth Baillie, commander of the Salvation Army's Russian operations. And since the ruling comes so close to the December 31 registration deadline, the church may not have time to appeal to the Supreme Court before being expelled. "There's a general wariness and suspicion of foreigners. That's part of Russian culture and certainly part of the religious culture. But we do know that we have been specifically targeted and it's unclear why," Baillie tells The Moscow Times. (See more from the London Telegraph, a May Christianity Today piece about the Salvation Army in Chechnya, a 1997 story by Radio Free Europe on how the religion law might affect the Salvation Army, and a 1998 Chicago Tribune story about the Salvation Army's work in Russia.) Meanwhile, the Salvation Army is also facing a fight in Chicago, as it tries to renovate and expand its facilities in a regentrifying neighborhood. "The Salvation Army was there first. Get over it," says a ChicagoTribune editorial. "If an organization such as this has the rare good fortune to be able to renovate, the only issue should be how to get out of its way fast enough to let it happen."

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December (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44