Oxford Group - Moral Re-Armament

Moral Re-Armament

In 1938 Buchman made a speech in East Ham Town Hall, London, in which he stated: "The crisis is fundamentally a moral one. The nations must re-arm morally. Morally recovery is essentially the forerunner of economic recovery." The same year the British tennis star H. W. Austin edited the book Moral Rearmament (The Battle for Peace), which sold half a million copies. Gradually the former Oxford Group developed into Moral Re-Armament.

In Britain the Oxford Group/Moral Re-Armament 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.

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. About 30 Oxford Group workers were exempted from military service to continue this work. However, 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 it 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.

In the United States, where Moral Re-Armament was doing similar work, 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".'

At the end of the war, the MRA workers returned to the task of establishing a lasting peace. In 1946 MRA bought and restored a large, derelict hotel at Caux in Switzerland, and this became a centre for reconciliation across Europe, bringing together thousands including German Chancellor Adenauer and French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman. Its work was described by historians Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson 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.'

In the following decades, MRA's work expanded across the globe, particularly into the African and Asian countries moving towards independence from colonial rule. Many leaders of these independence struggles have paid tribute to MRA's contribution towards 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.' 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.