History Symposium highlights transforming power of generational choices
BY KIRRALEE NICOLLE
The largest number of international speakers to ever present and the first use of AI in the event’s history were just two of the many highlights of The Salvation Army History Symposium in Ipswich (Qld) earlier this month.
The biennial event brought speakers from New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the United States and across Australia to discuss important figures from the movement’s past, Salvation Army buildings across the decades and the work of corps in their historical contexts around the world.
Event organiser Garth Hentzschel said the food, fellowship and content were incredible, and it was exciting to feature so many published authors. He said in a first for the symposium, each speaker was introduced by their AI avatar to remind the crowd to keep the past in perspective of the future while listening to presentations. In another first, he jokingly said every presentation ran on time.
“I think [AI] was one of the reasons why we all kept to time because we didn’t need somebody else coming up and introducing us,” he joked.
Garth said looking ahead to the 2026 Symposium, he knew many Salvationists were becoming interested in what he called the ‘commencement narratives’ of The Salvation Army.
“When we come of age, we want to know where we’ve come from and are we true to that,” he said. “I think more and more people are looking at that even on a movement basis too. They’re understanding that history in the past has been written under the guise of great people, but more and more we’re finding that history was made by individual people [who] traditionally haven’t been discussed.”
Garth told how the symposium featured a presentation by Margaret Dean and Hazel Parker on Ernest James Allen, a son of British immigrants who, rather than following the example of his father Mark who, deserting his family in Adelaide, established a new family in Perth, instead joined The Salvation Army, married a fellow Christian and “established a home where there was stability, much love, laughter and a strong commitment to the cause of Christ”.
“You see that pivotal moment when Christ made a change in the family and then generations on have gone on to serve him rather than themselves,” Garth said.
To find out more about Salvation Army history, contact Garth at ajsahistory@gmail.com.
