The life of General Paul Rader, a ‘weighty spiritual leader’
BY MAJOR PETER FARTHING*
It was a sad time in London. My wife Kerrie and I had been down to see the oceans of flowers spread around Buckingham Palace in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales. Then, on the day after Diana’s funeral, we were leading the meeting at The Salvation Army’s Regent Hall corps, when in walked the tall and dignified figures of General Paul and Commissioner Kay Rader, the international leaders of The Salvation Army. When the meeting finished, the General chatted with us and our children, giving a first-hand account of the funeral which he had attended.
A few days later, Kerrie and I received an invitation to lunch at the General’s office. We went nervously, dressed in full uniform, sat at a small formal table in a little alcove beside the office, and enjoyed conversation with two very impressive people.
Paul Rader was Promoted to Glory this January 2025, aged 90. He was, I believe, a very consequential leader.
Heritage
Paul’s father, Colonel Lyell Rader, never fit the mold as a Salvation Army officer and spent much of his life in either revival work or youth work. In the 1980s I happened to be at a big Army meeting in Ocean Grove, New Jersey when he was awarded the Army’s highest honour, the Order of the Founder.
Studies
In a small town in Kentucky, at Asbury University, young Paul Rader met a girl named Kay Fuller. She had never encountered The Salvation Army until she met Paul. “Earlier on in my walk with the Lord I felt a call to missionary service,” she once said, “So the worldwide Salvation Army appealed to my sense of calling to serve the needy of the world.” And Paul had that same heart for missionary service.
Fast-forward to the winter of 1961. By then, Paul Rader had earned a theology degree from Asbury Theological Seminary, plus an MTh with a focus on mission studies. And now they were new Salvation Army officers, and in Korea.
Korea
They were, “very sensitive to the feelings of the Koreans”, said one of their peers, Commissioner Peter Chang. “Paul and Kay would learn all the right things to do . . . and did them, all the time . . . while they made themselves one with us as Koreans, eating and enjoying Korean meals, attempting to do everything the way it was done in Korea, so they earned great respect and much love from their fellow officers and comrades. We knew they did it because they really loved the Lord and The Salvation Army. This was their calling.”
As South Korea recovered from the Korean Conflict, its economy began to boom. And at the same time, the Christian church in Korea boomed in a full-scale revival. Churches were growing at a prodigious rate; The Salvation Army had flat-lined.
Around that time, Paul discovered the writings of Donald McGavran. ‘This might be the answer,’ he thought. He knew that Fuller Theological Seminary in California had launched an Institute of Church Growth in which they taught McGavran’s ideas. Paul decided he should study for the Doctor of Missiology degree at Fuller.
Fuller
Taking homeland furlough in 1971, Rader called at the Army’s headquarters for his territory in New York. He knew the Army was not approving doctoral studies. The esteemed Education Secretary said she couldn’t see why he needed to go to California to study. No doubt Paul and Kay were praying hard.
Paul asked for a two-year study leave. The territorial commander said, “We cannot agree with your going to Fuller.” Instead, he offered a corps appointment, maybe with time for study in New York. But Paul was convicted about Fuller for the sake of his work in Korea.
He and Kay offered to go out on their own, take a leave of absence, and take on the financial responsibility for the degree themselves. The commissioner didn’t budge. “You must either accept this appointment or go on ‘without appointment’ status for a year, which protects your officership,” he said.
Physically and emotionally spent, Kay slid into depression and hurt. They returned to her family in Georgia. When the course commenced, Paul left the family and flew to California alone. As they had no income, Kay took a job as a teacher.
Eventually, after protests from some officers and some open-minded thinking, the Western Territory gave Paul an appointment which only required weekend work, and Kay an appointment with youth in the Pasadena Corps. The Eastern Territory picked up Paul’s tuition fees.
When Dr Paul Rader returned to Korea in 1973, he had a strategy. It called for revitalised congregations, and crucially, for many new corps. And a shift to self-support.
The timing was perfect because Korea was soon to have its first Korean-born territorial leader, Commissioner Chun Young-sup. Together, they and other leaders led a transformation – self-support became the goal.
The change did not come easily or fast. By 1975, the territory was still not growing. At a church growth conference of key leaders and local officers held in 1976 the mood was depressingly negative. Until the Field Secretary, Colonel Kim Soon-bae declared, “We can, if we will!” The mood changed dramatically. Before long, scores of red markers were placed in a large map of Korea, indicating communities where a corps plant might be possible.
When Paul Rader became the Chief Secretary the following year, he and the TC aimed to double the number of corps and soldiers within 10 years.
[The Korean Territory did eventually grow, and now boasts 210 corps with 45,644 senior soldiers, 3970 adherents and 6464 junior soldiers. There are 624 active officers in the territory].
America
In 1983, somewhat reluctantly, they returned to the USA after serving in Korea for 22 years. Then, in 1989, when Paul was 55, they became the territorial leaders for the USA Western Territory.
Now the missionary was in multicultural western USA. He applied what he knew, launching an aggressive growth initiative called MISSION 2000.
During his term he also emphasised integrated missions – that is, a natural oneness of caring and evangelistic ministries.
Planting new congregations was a priority – Paul knew from his mission studies that planting is a major way the kingdom of God advances. I have been told that Rader gave the planters permission to start churches without the large commitments to social work which is standard in American corps. During the period of the Rader’s leadership, the territory saw a net gain of 64 corps.
General
In July 1994, Paul Rader was elected General of The Salvation Army, the first General from the United States.
Kay was also featuring heavily. Carroll Ferguson Hunt writes in If Two Shall Agree, her biography of Paul and Kay, that at congress meetings and conferences around the world:
It was not expected that Kay would speak unless for a woman’s meeting or to give a brief testimony before the General took the podium. This was tradition, after all. The Raders decided that Kay should speak in all meetings, that her ministry should be a regular feature of every event. “We had to revise programs sent to us, because it wasn’t anticipated that this would be true,” the General said.
He added: “The reason for this was to empower and affirm all the gifted women out there who rarely saw a married woman leader do these things. Seeing us in action, they might decide, ‘Hey—it’s okay for me to get up and do these things.’ They needed to see that. We felt the point needed to be made, and it was not lost on them.”
Youth
In their welcome meeting in London, General Paul launched the Million Marching campaign, a call for major commitment to the recruitment of senior soldiers around the world. “Everywhere we went, we would bang away at that,” he said.
During his term he also emphasised integrated missions—that is, a natural oneness of caring and evangelistic ministries.
In those years a number of gifted leaders rose up among young Salvationists around the world. Conferences were held, training offered, missions started in inner city areas. Groups and leaders from different nations began to network.
General Rader perceived the Holy Spirit at work. He referred to that stirring as a ‘renewal movement.’ To fan the flame, he called together 500 young people from around the world to an International Youth Forum, in Cape Town, South Africa.
The General then also set up a Latin America Strategy Commission, under the direction of Commissioner David Edwards.
Commissions
Some of Rader’s largest impact came through the commissions and symposiums he set up. In these he found a remarkable way to influence the Army around the world. In fact, they mark his unique contribution.
There was, for example, the Spiritual Life Commission chaired by Colonel Robert Street. It issued a series of ‘calls’ which were widely circulated. And the book, written by Street, Called to be God’s People, spread the word further.
Retirement
Paul Rader retired as an officer in 1999. But he had more to do. Soon after, he took the position of president of the Asbury University and led that body for six years. "Rader set a goal to make Asbury more diverse and reflective of the kingdom of God,” the university wrote in its obituary. That was typical of Paul Rader.
And now he has gone to Glory.
He was a remarkable man. A weighty spiritual leader.
*Major Peter Farthing is a retired officer of the Australia Territory. This article is an edited version of Peter’s full article on General Paul Radar found here.
If you would like to watch General Paul Rader interviewed in retirement about his associations with Billy Graham, click here.
