Moral Re-Armament

Moral Re-Armament (MRA) was an international Christian moral and spiritual movement that, in 1938, developed from the American minister Frank Buchman's Oxford Group. Buchman, a Lutheran, headed MRA for 23 years, from 1938 until his death in 1961. Since 2001, the organization has been succeeded and developed differently as Initiatives of Change.

History

In its early years, the movement was made up of Buchman's personal followers from the Oxford Group. Its name change was incremental rather than abrupt and formal. Buchman may have coined the phrase "moral rearmament" as early as 1925 on trips to Australia, while MRA was still known as the Oxford group. Others maintain that the first use of the term in the literary world was in 1938. The British tennis star H. W. Austin edited the book, Moral Rearmament (The Battle for Peace), which sold half a million copies.^[1] Buchman and his fellow Oxford Group leaders liked the new phrase, and soon adopted it for their group. Buchman notably used similar language on May 29, 1938, when he said, in reference to military re-armament in Europe, "The crisis is fundamentally a moral one. The nations must re-arm morally. Moral recovery is essentially the forerunner of economic recovery."^[2]

When war broke out, MRA workers joined the Allied forces in large numbers, and were decorated for valour in many theatres of war. Others worked to heighten morale and overcome bottlenecks, particularly in war-related industries. Senator (later President) Harry Truman, Chair of the Senate Committee investigating war contracts, told a Washington press conference in 1943: "Suspicions, rivalries, apathy, greed lie behind most of the bottlenecks. This is where the Moral Re-Armament group comes in. Where others have stood back and criticised, they have rolled up their sleeves and gone to work. They have already achieved remarkable results in bringing teamwork into industry, on the principles not of "who's right" but of "what's right"."^[3]

At the end of the war, they returned to the task of establishing a lasting peace. In 1946 MRA bought and restored a large, derelict hotel at Caux, Switzerland. They used it as a centre for reconciliation across Europe, and the group brought together thousands of Europeans, including German Chancellor Adenauer and French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman.^[4] The historians Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson described the work as an "important contribution to one of the greatest achievements in the entire record of modern statecraft: the astonishingly rapid Franco-German reconciliation after 1945."^[5]

MRA began holding conferences on Mackinac Island, Michigan in 1942, first in a leased hotel and then at the island's Grand Hotel. By the early 1950s they acquired considerable land holdings on the island. Between 1954 and 1960 constructed an extensive training center including a theatre and soundstage. The facility hosted conferences and served as the location for the planning and launching of MRAs "Up With People" touring group. The soundstage was used for the production of motion pictures, including The Crowning Experience, Voice of the Hurricane, and Decision at Midnight.

When the MRA relocated its operation to Switzerland in 1966, it deeded much of the property on the island to Mackinac College. Several new facilities, including a classroom building and library were constructed. This independent and non-sectarian institution of higher education operated from 1966 until 1970. It developed programs in statesmanship and leadership, as well as more traditional curricula.

In the 1950s and 1960s, MRA's work expanded across the globe, particularly to the African and Asian countries moving toward independence from colonial rule. Many leaders of these independence struggles have paid tribute to MRA's contribution to bringing unity between groups in conflict, and helping ease the transition into independence. In 1956 King Mohammed V of Morocco sent a message to Buchman: "I thank you for all you have done for Morocco in the course of these last testing years. Moral Re-Armament must become for us Muslims as much an incentive as it is for you Christians and for all nations."^[6] In 1960 Archbishop Makarios and Dr Kucuk, President and Vice-President of Cyprus, jointly sent the first flag of independent Cyprus to Frank Buchman at Caux in recognition of MRA's help.^[7]

Beliefs

The movement had Christian roots, but grew into an informal, international network of people of all faiths and backgrounds. It was based around what it called 'the Four Absolutes' (absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness and absolute love) and encouraged its members to be actively involved in political and social issues. One of the movement's core ideas was that changing the world starts with seeking change in oneself.

Rename to Initiatives of Change

Main article: Initiatives of Change

In 2001, the MRA movement changed its name to Initiatives of Change (IofC). It formed a non-governmental organization based in Caux, Switzerland, Initiatives of Change International, to serve as the legal and administrative entity to federate the national bodies of Initiatives of Change, for purposes of cooperation with the entities such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe.^[8].

National initiatives include "Hope in the Cities" in the United States, the "Caux Forum for Human Security" in Switzerland, the "Centre for Governance" in India, and "Hope Sierra Leone".

Spin-offs

In 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous was formed through people, notably William Wilson and Dr Robert Smith, who recovered from their alcoholism through a combination of the Oxford Group (the forerunner of MRA) and medical treatment. Before adopting the name "Alcoholics Anonymous," AA was called "the alcoholic squadron of the Oxford Groups."

The twelve steps of AA are, in part, a derivation of Oxford Group principles, with significant changes. It abandoned the "four absolutes" in favour of the principle of "progress not perfection," and opened the AA movement to many alcoholics, including some non-Christians, by use of the term "a power greater than ourselves." In contrast to the Oxford Group/MRA, AA explicitly limits its mission to helping alcoholics to recover and avoiding outside issues. It has declined to associate with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution.

In 1965, Up with People was founded by members of MRA and with MRA support.

In 1965 The National Viewers and Listeners Association was set up in the United Kingdom by pro-censorship advocate Mary Whitehouse, who wrote that "without its (MRA's) ideals I cannot see that I would have been interested in starting this campaign"."^[9]

Controversies

At the beginning of the 1930s, Buchman kept in close touch with Germans active in the Oxford Group. Churchill and Karl Barth were ready to give German National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus) a chance to prove itself as a democratic political movement, despite its obvious and repeated denunciation of democracy. Hitler had, at first, presented himself as a defender of Christianity, declaring in 1928: "We shall not tolerate in our ranks anyone who hurts Christian ideas."

Buchman was convinced that without a change in the heart of the National Socialist regime a world war would become inevitable. He also believed that any person, including the German leaders, could find a living Christian faith with a commitment to Christ's moral values.^[10]

He tried to meet Hitler but was unsuccessful. He met with Himmler three times, and recommended him to members of Parliament as 'a great lad',^[11] the last time in 1936. To a Danish journalist and friend^[12] he said a few hours after the final interview that the doors were now closed. "Germany has come under the domination of a terrible demonic power. A counter-action is absolutely necessary."^[13]

As study of Gestapo documents has revealed, the Nazis watched the Oxford Group with suspicion from 1934 on. A first detailed secret Gestapo report about The Oxford – or Group Movement was published in November 1936 warning that it had turned into a dangerous opponent of National Socialism'.^[14] The Nazis also classified the Stalinist version of Bolshevism and non-Nazi, proto-fascist groups such as Catholic Action as dangerous to Nazism.^[15]

Upon his return to New York from Berlin, Buchman gave a number of interviews. He was quoted as reportedly saying, "I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defence against the anti-Christ of Communism."^[16] The Rev. Garrett Stearly, one of Buchman's colleagues from Princeton University who was present at the interview, wrote, "I was amazed when the story came out. It was so out of key with the interview." Time magazine ^[17] also noted that Buchman seemed to have a favourable opinion of dictatorship, if only of the right people. Buchman chose not to respond to the article, feeling that to do so would endanger his friends among the opposition in Germany.^[18]

After World War II, further Gestapo documents came to light; one from 1939 states: "The Group preaches revolution against the national state and has quite evidently become its Christian opponent." Another, from 1942, states: "No other Christian movement has underlined so strongly the character of Christianity as being supernational and independent of all racial barriers."^[19]

Some from the Oxford Group in Germany continued to oppose the Nazi regime during the war. In Norway, Bishop Fjellbu of Oslo, who was imprisoned for his resistance, said in 1945: "I wish to state publicly that the foundations of the united resistance of Norwegian Churchmen to Nazism were laid by the Oxford Group's work."^[20]

In Britain the Oxford Group was active throughout the country. The novelist Daphne du Maurier published Come Wind, Come Weather, stories of ordinary Britons who had found hope and new life through the Group. She dedicated it to "Frank Buchman, whose initial vision made possible the world of the living characters in these stories," and added, "What they are doing up and down the country in helping men and women solve their problems, and prepare them for whatever lies ahead, will prove to be of national importance in the days to come." The book sold 650,000 copies in Britain alone.^[21]

About 30 Oxford Group workers were exempted from military service to continue this work. But, when Ernest Bevin became Minister of Labour in 1940, he decided to conscript them. Over 2,500 clergy and ministers signed a petition opposing this, and 174 Members of Parliament put down a motion stating the same. Bevin made clear that he would resign from the Government if he was defeated, and the Government put a three-line whip upon its supporters. As a result, the Oxford Group workers were excluded from the Exemption from Military Service bill. Among Bevin's supporters was Tom Driberg, who described Buchman as a "soapy racketeer who never repudiated his admiration for Hitler and Himmler.")^[22] Driberg was left-wing, though anti-Communist, and a High Church anti-evangelical.^[23] In 1964 Driberg published a well-researched, critical study of Moral Re-armament entitled The Mystery of Moral Re-Armament.

In the 1950s MRA was regularly attacked by Moscow Radio's overseas service. For instance, in November 1952 it said, "Moral Re-Armament supplants the inevitable class war by the 'permanent struggle between good and evil'," and "has the power to attract radical revolutionary minds."^[24]

Buchman was a pioneer of multi-faith initiatives. As he said, "MRA is the good road of an ideology inspired by God upon which all can unite. Catholic, Jew and Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Confucianist – all find they can change, where needed, and travel along this good road together."^[25]

The Catholic theologian John Hardon claimed that the movement's political ideas were naive, since they appeared to assume that moral awakening would solve "social problems that have vexed humanity since the dawn of history". He also criticised the emphasis on personal revelations, on the grounds that, "if each member of society is allowed to hear the voice of God through personal revelation, the variety of interpretations of the divine will become infinite.".^[26] Many Catholics took a different approach. In 1993 Cardinal Franz Koenig, Archbishop of Vienna, wrote that "Buchman was a turning-point in the history of the modern world through his ideas."^[27]

References

1. ^ Lean, Garth Frank Buchman – a life, p279
2. ^ Buchman, Frank N.D., Remaking the World (London, 1955), p. 46.
3. ^ Lean, Garth. Frank Buchman – A Life, p. 324
4. ^ Lean, Garth. Frank Buchman, p 382
5. ^ Johnston and Sampson, Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft, Oxford University Press, 1994
6. ^ Lean, Garth. Frank Buchman, p 454
7. ^ Lean, Garth. Frank Buchman, p 524
8. ^ Official Website of Initiatives of Change
9. ^ Obituary: Mary Whitehouse, The Daily Telegraph, November 2001
10. ^ Lean, Garth Frank Buchman, pp. 233-237
11. ^ The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,Jeff Sharlet,2008
12. ^ Jacob Kronika, Berlin correspondent for Nationaltidende, Copenhagen and Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm, and Chairman of the Association of Foreign Journalists in Berlin
13. ^ Article by Kronika in Flensborg Avis, Denmark, 2 January 1962
14. ^ Leitheft Die Oxford- oder Gruppenbewegung, herausgegeben vom Sicherheitshauptamt, November 1936. Geheim, Numeriertes Exemplar No. 1
15. ^ The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,Jeff Sharlet,2008
16. ^ New York World-Telegram, August 26, 1936
17. ^ Religion: Moral Rearmament, 19 September 1938
18. ^ Lean, Garth. Frank Buchman, p240
19. ^ Lean, Garth. Frank Buchman, p. 242
20. ^ "Sermon in St Martin-in-the-Fields," London, 22 April 1945
21. ^ Lean, Garth; Frank Buchman, p 300
22. ^ "Return of the Prophet", Time Magazine, March 13, 1946
23. ^ Tom Driberg, Ruling Passions (Quintet 1978), and Simon Ball, The Guardsmen, Harold Macmillan, Three Friends and the World They Made, (London: Harper Collins, 2004)
24. ^ Lean, Garth. Frank Buchman, p. 418
25. ^ Buchman, Remaking the World, p. 166.
26. ^ An Evaluation of Moral Rearmament, by Fr. John A. Hardon , S.J.
27. ^ Lean, Garth. Frank Buchman, p 2

• "Moral Rearmament", Religious Movements, University of Virginia Library
• Preliminary Guide to the Albert Heman Ely, Jr. Family Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Materials document the 1930 meeting of Ely and his wife, Constance Jennings Ely with Frank Buchman, and their subsequent involvement in the Moral Re-armament movement, Yale Library.

External links

• Initiatives of Change, successor of MRA
• Timeline of the organizations' history, Initiatives of Change