SPREADING THE WORD VIA POP AND PLAYBOY

GENERAL FFEDERICK COUTTS, C.B.E., International Leader of the Salvatior Army is not the kind of man you would normally expect to find mixed up with pop groups and the Playboy Club. But, as the General says, you have t( take the Gospel to the people, where the people are.
And since he beams its Leader in 1963 tilt Army, never an organission to shirk the pubs aid back streets, has becone even more determined .o go out and get 'em in matter where they happei to be.
The `Joystrings' — "A little beat goes a long way with me," says the General -were first off the mark with a religious song in the Top 20 and more recently the highly successful "For God's Sake Care" campaign has embraced some junketing among the Bunnies for the Press.
General Coitus is not always to be found among the revellers himself, but you can be sure he's somewhere there in the background, encouraging each effort to push the frontiers of Christianity a little further forward.
He is 68, scholarly and modest: the sort of man who attributes all his successes to other people but takes the kicks himself. He had been a Salvation Army officer for 43 years when the Army's High Council elected him in a secret session that is not unlike the process for electing a new Pope.
Since then General Coutts has travelled to Salvation Army outposts all over the world. He tries to strengthen the Army's ties with other Christian bodies wherever he goes because, he says, "there is no reason why we should not share fellowship without sharing total convictions."
The Salvation Army is growing and more and more young people are finding themselves attracted to it. "These young people are addressing themselves to current problems," General Coutts says. "All this talk of Christianity being dead is not even factually true as you can see by looking around you.
"I suppose it is just possible that church attendance in ttie Western world may show a decline, but I believe that those who do now go to church do so because they are convinced Christians, whereas in the past church-going was so often just a social necessity."