Paul Rader
A Mini-Biography
Peter Farthing
It was a sad time in London. 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. The published tributes to his life have been full of praise, and yet they mostly list his roles and appointments. I think a fuller biography might be of interest, even if it is a mini-biography. I did not know him well, but Carroll Ferguson Hunt wrote a fascinating biography of the Raders titled If Two Shall Agree. I am going to draw from that along with other published works.
Heritage
He came from an interesting family.
His great-uncle, also called Paul Rader, was a famous American evangelist, pioneer radio preacher, and football coach.
His grandfather, Lyell Mayes Rader, became a successful industrial chemist, lost his faith in God, met The Salvation Army, came back to God, and became a chaplain.
Paul’s father, Colonel Lyell Rader, never fitted the mold as a Salvation Army officer and spent much of his life in 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.
When I was a young father, I listened to his tapes on family life. ‘Officer dads,’ he said, ‘if you are in your office and one of your children comes in and wants your attention, put down your pen. Stop doing what you are doing. Give them eye contact. Give them your full attention.’
He and his wife Gladys raised five children who all served long years in missionary service, in Zimbabwe, Zambia, India, Sri Lanka and Korea. I once heard a woman say, that when their son Damon Rader prayed in public, she could feel the presence of God.
Studies
Go now to mid-1950s America; to prosperity, big cars, the Cold War, a young Elvis, the South before the Civil Rights era, and in a small town in Kentucky, at Asbury University, young Paul Rader met a girl named Kay Fuller—picture those dresses which girls wore in the 50s. 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. Officers with advanced education—that was appreciated 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. ‘Worse, one could extrapolate trends to its inevitable demise,’ wrote Paul Rader.
Writes Carroll Hunt: ‘New ideas and issues stirred in Paul Rader’s mind and heart toward the end of the 60s. On his rounds in Seoul, and over dinners with other missionaries, Paul began to compare what he was learning about the growth of churches in other denominations with the growth of Salvation Army corps, and he didn’t like what he saw. They needed to know why the Salvation Army wasn’t growing, and what could be done about it . . . They had to find some answers.’
‘This might be the answer,’ Paul thought as he closed Donald McGavran’s book, How Churches Grow, ‘We were persuaded,’ Rader said, ‘that the Army could grow—and must if its God’s given mission was to be fulfilled and its future secured.’
He knew that Fuller Theological Seminary in California had launched an Institute of Church Growth, taking up 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 Korea’s sake.
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.
Kay
Meanwhile Kay Rader was struggling with persistent health issues. And with depression. She had a bitterness over past decisions, such as the way Paul received far more help in learning Korean than she did. And the decisions about Paul’s study. And with the way she was treated as a woman—when Paul was made the Education Secretary, she received no appointment at all. She felt ignored, bypassed overlooked. ‘I was angry with God,’ she recorded later. ‘I had not resolved that anger. There was bitterness in me about some things.’
‘Why should I even stay?’ she asked herself.
A long, exceedingly hard struggle followed, until finally Kay Rader went to the Cross, died to herself, and gave herself to God the service in the Army.
She was set free. Her depression lifted. ‘The power of the Holy Spirit came over her,’ Paul said. ‘It was evident to everyone in our family that something powerful and deep was happening.’
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. 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.
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There had never been an American general before. It was my impression that some of the older Brits on International Headquarters were a little resistant to an American leader.
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Some may also have struggled to get used to the way Commissioner Kay stepped forward as a leader.
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Out in the territories, on the other hand, it was a different story. ​Carroll Hull writes 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.’
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‘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.”’
The Raders were definitely respected on IHQ. They had a dignity, a reserve, a seriousness of purpose, an intellectual firepower and a deep spirituality which made you stand and admire.
When I arrived to edit The Officer magazine, General Rader called me down to his office. ‘It’s time to modernise the magazine,’ he said. ‘See what you can do. I give you a free hand.’
He then pulled out an article which had been offered for the magazine and sent to him for approval. It was somewhat of the critical approach to Scripture. ‘We are not going to print this,’ he told me. ‘These people had their day in the 1960s; not now.’ He was astute that way.
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. The theme was often, ‘Let’s rediscover the Army’s radical roots, let’s be full-on disciples of Jesus, and find fresh ways to do the Army’s mission.’ 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. And more on that emphasis followed.
The General then set up a Latin America Strategy Commission, under the direction of Commissioner David Edwards.
Commissions
How does a Salvation Army general influence the international Army today? ​He or she cannot simply issue commands.
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Among other things, Paul Rader employed a powerful approach: he called together commissions and symposiums.
There was, first of all, the International Spiritual Life Commission, chaired by a young future commissioner, Robert Street. Outstanding and thoughtful Salvationists from around the world met in London more than once, wrestling with how the Army’s spiritual life could advance. The ’calls’ they issued at the end, were widely published. And a book, Called to be God’s People, followed.
And then came the International Commission on Officership, chaired by Commissioner Norman Howe. Paul Rader retired before that commission finished its influential work.
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And there was the International Education Symposium, convened by Colonels Phil and Keitha Needham.
Those measures definitely worked. They brought progress.
Retirement
Paul Rader retired as an officer in 1999. But he had more to do. Soon he took the position of president of the Asbury University and led that body for six years. Says the university, ‘Rader set a goal to make Asbury more diverse and reflective of the kingdom of God.’ That was typical of Paul Rader.
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And now he has gone to Glory.
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He was a remarkable man. A weighty spiritual leader.
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If you would like to watch him interviewed in retirement about his associations with Billy Graham, go here:
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