In February 2007, General Shaw Clifton announced the establishment of the International Social Justice Commission and appointed Commissioner M. Christine MacMillan, a Canadian officer then serving as territorial commander for Canada and Bermuda, as the first international director for social justice. The commission was launched on July 1, 2007, and is based in New York City.
Commissioner MacMillan is the Army’s principal international advocate and advisor on social, economic and political issues and events that give rise to the perpetuation of social injustice in the world. She and her unit assist The Salvation Army to address social injustice in a systematic, proactive and Christian manner, consistent with the purposes for which God raised up The Salvation Army.

How would you describe yourself?
I’m a thinker, but coupled with that, I value ideals. I’m more people-focused in terms of thinking and outcomes than task-focused. I’m also an introvert, and that allows me to go deep and struggle with God.

Were you always in The Salvation Army?
I was dedicated in The Salvation Army but then moved around a lot. As a teenager, I made a deliberate decision to leave the Army for a time. It was not a rebellion; it was about wanting the Army to take its identity seriously. However, I now want to be in the world with the Army.

What do you remember of your early faith experiences with God?
My first strong awareness of God came when I was three. I was in a Salvation Army Sunday school singing Jesus Loves Me. We were walking around in a circle and I was playing a triangle while being watched by adults who sat around us on chairs. Suddenly an awareness came over me. I ran out of the room into a dark hallway, knowing in that moment that the words I was singing would have everything to do with my life or nothing—knowing they were words to be reckoned with!

And the path to Salvation Army officership?
I was in my late 20s when I was called. I knew it would be a cost for me to be a Salvation Army officer in terms of my lifestyle as a single woman. I was a social worker before I became an officer. In my officership, I’ve always had a sense of wanting to connect to marginalized people—I’ve been magnetized to these people.

When I think about Jesus, I visualize him being with people who didn’t have all the answers. That makes complete sense to me as an officer. Any time in life that we capture a sense of being in control, we’re in danger of losing our sense of faith.

Is social justice an addendum to Salvationist faith or central to it?
Justice is not an attribute of God; it is his essence. God saw the injustice in a world that fell, and his heart responded in sending his Son. So justice is not a sideline characteristic of God or our faith.

I do think that justice has to be redemptive. It requires changes, such as holiness of life. The “branding” of social justice within The Salvation Army has to be as much about us as about social justice. We need to brand it in our life—that is, as holiness of life.

Social justice is living our life in such a way that it’s not a legalistic righteousness connected with just a code of conduct for myself; it is a righteousness that is concerned with those outside my own domain.

Is there a danger of social justice being compartmentalized into social services or activism, for instance, and finding no connection with evangelism and worship?
Social justice has got to be part of the Salvation Army mainstream! If it departs from that and starts it own track, we’ve not heard what God says.

Social justice is part of our worship—it is God’s message to the world that he wants to embrace the broken-hearted. We only have to go back to the Scriptures, to our Salvation Army history books and to the life of Jesus to see this. As we do, we should ask, “What does God want The Salvation Army to be to the world?” If we look at the start of charity in The Salvation Army, we see that William Booth brought around him social-justice thinkers and strategizers. If you want to quarrel with the concepts of social justice, you’ll have to quarrel with Jesus.

God wants us to look into the darkest parts of our world and help people find ways out. The best way to do that is through a social-justice framework involving faith—one that develops communities, speaks up for those who have no voice and has concern about the inequity of life. There are people who are already well attuned to this, but we want to take the whole Army with us. This is not some new revolution; it’s here to stay.

Do you see justice as “fairness”?
No, it’s more than fairness. It’s more than about getting even—it’s about grace. We could never create a society where everybody has the same as the next person. God is far more creative than that! He knows what we need individually.

How do you see freedom and poverty linked?
Poverty and freedom are intimately connected. You’re free when you’re not trying to amass what you think will provide freedom—those things will become a noose around your neck. When I was in Papua New Guinea as territorial commander, I discovered what true community was, without all the material crutches of what we think will make us the person we want to become.

We need people around us—we need community. So, looking at justice, it’s not just about more things; it’s about creating an environment where there is trust.

Why is this the right time for the establishment of a Salvation Army Social Justice Commission?
We’re at the point where the world requires an overarching response on all sorts of global issues. So it is timely that The Salvation Army has created a global resource to be strategic worldwide.

What is needed in the world is a model of interdependence, and The Salvation Army is beautifully placed for that because our governance structure is the same across the world and because we believe the same things.

The Army has a solid apolitical stance. We don’t adhere to any one political party, but we do work through political means. By that, I mean that the Army is not divorced from political conversation, so we can speak to the party in power and the one that is not. Political entities have power, and The Salvation Army can and does influence that power for good.

The experience of the commission so far is that governments are reaching out to us because The Salvation Army has something to offer—we are rich in experience, we have a lot of savvy about how to work with people and situations.

However, there is a challenge for us in this: We know how to sing together—do we know how to speak together out in the world? As Salvationists, perhaps we need to develop a deeper appreciation of the Army’s presence in the world and the strength that gives us.

You’ve said that it’s key that those in the developing world are “at the table” as The Salvation Army considers issues of social justice. Why is that so important?
Democracy is about hearing voices. An example of this is people having a vote. We often don’t appreciate in the Western world how much freedom we have to speak. However, in the Western world, we also often assume that we know what people want, and we don’t always take the time to engage with them on what their solutions are.

The International Social Justice Commission is about trying to reclaim those voices. The Salvation Army believes in the power of testimonies, so if there’s an issue—particularly in world hunger or sexual trafficking—the Army wants to hear from those experiencing these issues. Our purpose is to advocate for human dignity and social justice with the world’s poor and oppressed. One of the ways that we will do that is by engaging interns from developing nations so that they are around the table with us.

What are some of the key issues that the commission is addressing?
We’re discovering that social justice as a subject is not well understood, so we’re developing tools and resources (including brochures and a website). These will provide reflections on the theological foundations of social justice. We want social justice to be within the theological core of who we are in The Salvation Army, since Jesus enacted this in his lifestyle.

At the same time, we’re out “at the tables” with people over these issues, taking the wonderful experience of The Salvation Army in 115 countries. We’re learning from others and working alongside them, but we’re also sharing Salvation Army models to relieve injustice.
I would also see our unit doing applied research—field research—so we’d look at a process of attacking one issue with the best thinking at the table. There will be great learnings from that approach.

What are the strengths of your particular role within the commission?
I have direct access to every territorial commander in the world. I can work together with Salvationists and other non-governmental offices regardless of territorial boundaries, drilling down deep and getting a solution that we wouldn’t get without sitting at the table together.

But does the commission have sufficient “teeth” to drive social justice change?
Our “teeth” is in our opportunity to work globally and in our willingness to work together. The “teeth” is not in telling people what to do!

Contact details for the International Social Justice Commission
E-mail: ihq-isjc@salvationarmy.org
Website: www.salvationarmy.org/socialjustice

Interview conducted in April 2008 by Major Christina Tyson, territorial communications secretary, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga Territory, during the territory’s Just Action ’08 Conference.