A

BUCHMAN, FRANK N. D. 1878-1961

MINISTER

Founder of the Oxford Group Movement

A Pennsylvania-born Lutheran minister, Frank N. D. Buchman founded the Oxford Group Movement in 1921 in an effort to organize a "God-guided campaign to prevent war by moral and spiritual awakenings." In the following two decades he and his followers sought to change people through the use of home meetings where people came together to explore religious issues and make contact with God. The Oxford Group, as it came to be called, believed that those who experienced a conversion, the Change, would surrender their lives to God's control and that gradually the world would come under divine direction.

Controversy

The Oxford Movement aroused much controversy as it attracted increased public attention in the 1930s. The house parties, the informal format Buchman used to spread his movement, were held in large homes and expensive hotels in the United States and Europe and so gave the appearance that the movement was snobbishly directed toward the upper classes. Buchman, however, justified this target, insisting that if the world's leaders were brought under "God-control" through the Change, their nations would move under God-control, and so political problems, including war, could be resolved. A controversial aspect of his God-control was his insistence that his followers use a quiet time, preferably early in the morning, during which they would open themselves to God's direction. They would keep paper and a pen handy to write down the instructions that came into their heads in order to carry out the divine will. Critics wondered just what fleeting thoughts might be confused with this divine revelation.

Criticism

Another issue that was raised about the house parties was the assertion that participants were encouraged to confess their misbehavior to the other participants, especially their sexual activities. Critics found it easy to smirk at the titillation these revelations might give their listeners or even the power they might give over those who confessed. The Left found the upper-class ambience and focus on the trivial by the Oxford Movement repellent.

Troubling Statements

Buchman, like many religious leaders of the decade, was adamantly opposed to communism and the Soviet Union. In 1936 he gave an interview in which he was alleged to have said, u[T]hank Heaven for a man like Hitler who built a first line of defense against the Anti-Christ of Communism.… Think what it would mean to the world if Hitler surrendered to God.… Through such a man God could control a nation overnight and solve every last bewildering problem." This statement seemed to fit into his pattern of pandering to the powerful and supporting not only the status quo but also fascism. The fact that he and his entourage did not directly raise funds for themselves and their cause but depended on God's bounty, which always seemed to be provided by people from the upper classes, solidified liberal and radical criticism of him and his movement. He and his followers were subjected to close examination by the press and some governments as the decade wore on.

Moral Re-Armament

Buchman changed with the times. In 1938 in London he said, "The crisis [of war or peace] is fundamentally a moral one. The nations must rearm morally. Moral recovery is the forerunner of economic recovery.… We need a power strong enough to change human nature and build bridges between man, faction and faction.… God alone can change human nature." Around this time he and his followers began to call the movement Moral Re-Armament (MRA). Despite a shift in focus to exclusively social questions, the MRA remained suspect in many circles and lost members and influence in the war years. Only when the Cold War began would it once more become vital, as it focused its energies in building networks of Christians from Europe and the United States to the emerging new nations of the world.