Way back in June I started a discussion of The Salvation Army’s new Handbook of Doctrine, focusing on the section that deals with the Sacraments. I indicated then that I was working on an article for the Rubicon on this topic. The article turned into two short articles, and they’ve been posted in recent weeks, here and here.
The two posts point out two changes made in the new HOD: 1) a shift of emphasis, from divine agency to human agency, and 2) the addition of a claim to a divine calling to non-observance. Point #1 is not terribly concerning, although I prefer the more theocentric teaching found in the 1999 handbook, Salvation Story. Point #2 is a much more serious problem, because it touches on foundational issues of authority in doctrinal teaching.
I hope Salvationists will consider carefully whether or not they are willing to support the claim that God himself has called them to not observe sacraments. I am not willing to go along with this claim, because there is no way to establish it on the basis of scripture or Christian tradition. I could have written a lot more in my post on this issue, but I’ve tried to get to the heart of the matter and to state it succinctly. I’d welcome your comments and feedback.
James Pedlar 
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Hi James. I have not as yet gotten my hands on the newest version of the HOD to see for myself this claim of a divine command to not observe the sacrament of the Lord’s table. What are they using as a scriptural basis for this? I am assuming that they are at least attempting to attribute it to some twisting or other of the Word and not a vision or dream or other personal word from the Lord that we would know to be flat out false. For me it has always come down to this basic truth, the Lord said, “This do in rememberance of me.” Aside from that I’ve not seen any command that nullifies this command
Hi James. I have not as yet gotten my hands on the newest version of the HOD to see for myself this claim of a divine command to not observe the sacrament of the Lord’s table. What are they using as a scriptural basis for this? I am assuming that they are at least attempting to attribute it to some twisting or other of the Word and not a vision or dream or other personal word from the Lord that we would know to be flat out false. For me it has always come down to this basic truth, the Lord said, “This do in rememberance of me.” Aside from that I’ve not seen any command that nullifies this command
Hi Randy – there is no scriptural basis for the claim. I would say it is more of an inference from SA history. The claim is that the Salvation Army, specifically, was led by God not to have sacraments, and that this is a special prophetic calling that the Army has to witness to the possibility of sanctification without sacraments.
If you look at this pdf chart, you will see the most relevant sections that were added in 2010, in blue print, on pages 3 and 4: https://jamespedlar.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/comparison-of-salvation-story-and-handbook-of-doctrine-on-sacraments.pdf