CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS TO MARCH ON LONDON

Source : 11/09/1987 Northampton Chronicle and Echo

The Bugbrooke-based Jesus Army will be flying its colours in London at the weekend.

The controversial religious sect is launching a nine-day campaign in the capital with a huge rally on Saturday.

More than 1,000 'soldiers', wearing combat jackets and carrying flags and banners, will march from Battersea Park along the Kings Road, Chelsea.

Three Jesus Army coaches will tour the city and a new fleet of mini-buses, known as 'Help Units' has been enlisted to visit deprived areas.

The campaign will be centred on the 1,000-seater Golden Marquee at Battersea Park.

And 20 uniformed soldiers are due to 'pray for the nation' outside the Houses of Parliament.

The Jesus Army has held six campaigns in cities and towns in the Midlands this year and has recently opened new houses in London, Leicester and Hastings.

They claim to help drug addicts, alcoholics, criminals, prostitutes and the homeless by converting and adopting them.

The sect's radical theology and recruitment policy has continually called it into question and led to intense newspaper probes. Last year the movement was expelled from the Baptist Union.