The Oxford Group
Movement
The Forerunner of AA

" . . . Many a channel had been used by Providence to create Alcoholics Anonymous. And none had been more vitally needed than the one opened through Sam Shoemaker and his Oxford Group associates . . . the early A.A. got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgment of character defects, restitution for harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Groups and directly from Sam Shoemaker, their former leader in America, and from nowhere else. . . . A.A. owes a debt of timeless gratitude for all that God sent us through Sam and his friends in the days of A.A.'s infancy."

—Bill Wilson in Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pp. 39—40

In order to understand Alcoholics Anonymous, it's first necessary to understand the movement which gave birth to AA: The Oxford Group Movement, also known as the Oxford Groups, Buchmanism, and, in its later days, Moral Re-Armament (MRA). The importance of the Oxford Group Movement to the structure, practices, and, especially, the ideology of Alcoholics Anonymous cannot be overstated. The two founders of AA, Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, were enthusiastic members of the Oxford Groups; the early AA-to-be groups in both Akron and New York operated as part of the Oxford Groups; and both Bill Wilson and "Dr. Bob" believed that the principles of the Oxford Groups were the key to overcoming alcoholism. Thus, AA's bible, Alcoholics Anonymous, the so-called Big Book, in large part reads like a piece of Oxford Group Movement literature, and the 12 steps, the cornerstone of AA ideology, are for all intents and purposes a codification of Oxford Group principles.

The Oxford Group Movement was very much the creature of its founder, Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman. He was born on June 4, 1878 in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, of conservative, apparently prosperous, Lutheran parents. He attended Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania and graduated in 1899. Following his studies at Muhlenberg, he entered Mount Airy Seminary (Pennsylvania) and graduated in 1902 as an ordained Lutheran minister.

Buchman's first parish was in Overbrook, now a section of Philadelphia, where shortly after his appointment he opened a small hospice for young men. The hospice apparently prospered, because in June 1905 the Evan­gelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States called upon him to open a larger hospice for young men in Philadelphia. He proceeded to do so, but the enterprise was plagued by financial problems. In 1908 Buchman became embroiled in a dispute with the Ministerium's Finance Committee and resigned his position in a huff.

Shortly after resigning, he went to an evangelical conference in Keswick, England. While there he had a "conversion experience" complete with "a poignant vision of the Crucified" while listening to a Salvation Army speaker at a local chapel. Following this experience, he wrote letters of apology to the six members of the Ministerium with whom he had quarreled. (In Oxford Group/Moral Re-Armament literature, much is made of the fact that he received not a single reply. But according to the superintendent of the Ministerium, Dr. J.F. Ohl, world-traveler Buchman didn't bother to put a return address on his letters.ⁱ) He also "shared" his experience with the family with which he was staying, thus making his first convert, their son.

After returning from England, he applied for and was given a position as YMCA secretary at State College, Pennsylvania effective as of July 1, 1909. At that time the "Y" was more than a series of health clubs; it was an active evangelical association with considerable influence on American college campuses. Buchman built a reputation at State College for conducting well­attended Bible classes and evangelical crusades, and for building up the membership of the YMCA. According to one report, he inflated "Y" membership figures by handing out "free" Bibles to incoming freshmen and then later billing them for "Y" dues.ⁱⁱ He also instituted the practice of the "Morning Watch" (later called "Quiet Time") in which devotees spent time reading the Bible, praying, and "listening to God."

In 1915 he resigned to go traveling once again, this time to the Far East with evangelist Sherwood Eddy. Upon his return in 1916, he was appointed Extension Lecturer in Personal Evangelism at the Hartford (Connecticut) Seminary. At first, he lived in the students' dormitory—a rather odd thing for a man of 38 to do—but he was asked to move out after students complained of his intrusive methods. He also began to rely on "guidance" (from God) to run his daily life, and encouraged students to do the same. In this way he developed a reputation for being unreliable—"God" would "guide" him to miss appointments, etc.—and students were supposedly "guided" to do things such as booking steamship passage to Europe without having the funds to pay for it.ⁱⁱⁱ One former Buchmanite (at a different college) later recalled, "I put my trust in guidance and failed my exami­nations."^iv Buchman also gained a reputation for dwelling on the importance of sexual sin in his dealings with students.

To make matters worse, he was having trouble with members of the faculty at Hartford. Buchman was an evangelical fundamentalist who emphasized emotional experience, and he regarded the classes of his col­leagues as not "vital." They returned the contempt by regarding Buchman as a simpleton.

So, it seems probable that this was not an especially happy period in Buchman's life; and he must have been at least somewhat relieved when he received the "guidance" to resign his position. In 1922 he quit his job at Hartford in order to devote himself to "personal evangelism" and to living off the largesse of wealthy backers, activities which he would pursue for the rest of his life. Buchman remained unrepentant about his lavish lifestyle, and that of his close associates, to the end of his days. On many occasions he made remarks similar to one quoted in Time in 1936: "Why shouldn't we stay in ?posh' hotels? Isn't God a millionaire?"^v

While in Hartford, Buchman had much free time, and thus the oppor­tunity to travel. In Kuling, China in 1918 he organized his first "house­party," a type of gathering which was to become a Buchmanite trademark. Houseparties were in some ways a form of religious retreat and were, at least for their first decade or so, gatherings of no more than a few dozen people in spacious private homes or, more often, expensive inns or hotels. Partici­pants were normally invited to attend through friends or acquaintances already involved with Buchman's movement.

That atmosphere at houseparties was always informal, and activities ranged from Bible study and "quiet times" to bridge playing and golf. There were also voluntary general meetings in which attendees "shared," confessing their "sins" and offering witness to the "change" in their lives caused by adherence to Buchman's principles. A noteworthy feature of houseparties was the upscale economic status of their attendees, and the frequent well-advertised presence of prominent individuals. It was the norm for Buchman and his cohorts to go to great lengths to attract the rich and famous, and, when they were hooked, to shamelessly exploit their names, a tendency which would become more pronounced in the coming years.

While still at Hartford Seminary, Buchman began to hold houseparties at Ivy League colleges in the U.S. and at Oxford and Cambridge in England. This was entirely in keeping with Buchman's background as a YMCA secretary at State College and as a lecturer at Hartford Seminary. Through the mid-1920s, the focus of his ministry would be evangelical work at colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Bryn Mawr. Throughout this period—and indeed throughout his entire life—Buchman retained his obsession with sex. One Harvard graduate is reported to have said, "He started asking me intimate questions about sex before I'd been alone with him for five minutes. I left in a hurry."^vi

Strangely, some Oxford Group/MRA literature almost brags about Buchman's obsession with sex. Perhaps the best examples of this are found in Frank Buchman's Secret, a hagiography by Peter Howard (Buchman's successor as head of MRA) published a few months after Buchman's death in 1961. In describing one of Buchman's "soul surgery" victories, Howard records the following revealing scene:
   

Buchman said, "You have a very unhappy home."

The atheist answered, "Yes, I have. I hate my father. I always have since I was a boy."

Buchman then said, "You are in the grip of an impure habit which you cannot bring yourself to talk about with anyone."

The atheist answered, "That is a lie." There was silence.

Buchman said, "I must go." . . .

"No, don't go."

Buchman then said, "Well, I'll stay on one condition—that you and I listen to God together."

The atheist made a surprising reply. He said, ". . . I told you a lie a few minutes ago. I am in the grip of that habit."

Buchman said, "I know."^vii
   

In a later chapter, Howard records another instance of Buchman's "soul surgery":
   

[Buchman] literally shook with the strength of his feelings. "I may have the wrong details," he said, "but I have the right girl, the right diagnosis and the right cure. You are the girl, the diagnosis is that you are sex mad, the cure is Jesus Christ."^viii
   

In 1924, Buchman's sexual obsession and the obtrusive zeal of some of his converts caused Princeton University's president to ban him. As was usual in his campus crusades, Buchman's followers engaged in high-pressure attempts to get fellow students to "change," followed dubious "guidance" religiously—with predictable social and academic results—thought nothing of invading other students' privacy, and engaged in inappropriate "sharing," much of it of a sexual nature. One chronicler reports that a Buchmanite took "the young and rather innocent daughter" of a Princeton professor out on a date, and proceeded to "share" with her a confession of his sexual sins in fulsome detail.^ix

Such incidents did little to increase Frank Buchman's popularity with either students or faculty. Buchman himself, though, seems to have pre­cipitated his own banishment by telling John Hibden, Princeton's president, that 85 percent of Princeton undergraduates were either "sexually perverted or [self-]abusive."^x Hibden evidently didn't appreciate this assessment of his students, and soon declared Buchman persona non grata at Princeton.^xi While this undoubtedly annoyed Buchman, it certainly didn't deter him from pursuing his "good work" at other colleges. But by the mid-'20s, the in­fluence of the Buchman movement had peaked on American campuses, and Buchmanism quickly faded into obscurity at virtually every institution where it had taken root.

Throughout what could be termed the "collegiate" period of the Oxford Group Movement, Buchman's program was remarkably consistent. It con­sisted of "personal evangelism" with emphases upon: 1) both public and private confession of sin, especially sexual sin; 2) reception of divine "guid­ance" during "quiet times"; 3) complete surrender to this "guidance"; 4) the living of a "guided" life in which every aspect of one's actions, down to the choice of dinner entree, was controlled by God; 5) the practice of the Buchmanite "four absolutes"—purity, honesty, love, and unselfishness; 6) making restitution to those one has harmed; and 7) carrying "the message" to those still "defeated."

The "message" was delivered one-to-one by individual Buchmanite "life changers," also known as "soul surgeons," or en masse by "traveling teams" which ranged in size from about half-a-dozen to several dozen persons. These teams would spread the word on campuses through individual contacts and through the ever-popular houseparties. A notable feature of the Buchmanite movement at this stage was that it was directed at the "up-and­out" on prestigious campuses, and that its primary aim was to convert "key men"—football stars and other athletes, student body officers, and the sons of the prominent, the powerful, and the very rich.

During this period, four other key features of Buchmanism became prominent: its emphasis on nonprofessionalism; its antipathy toward formal organization; its complete disregard of social, political, and economic causes of individual social problems; and its virulent anti-intellectualism. The emphasis on nonprofessionalism was implicit in the concept of divine "guidance" available to all who would listen, and the accompanying command that all "guided" individuals should "change" others. The antipathy to formal organization was also implicit in the concept of "guidance." (If individuals are being directly controlled by God, what need do they have for formal organization?) In practice this led to dictatorial control of the movement by Buchman and a small clique surrounding him. The neglect of political, social, and economic factors as causes of individual and social problems was due to Buchman's belief that "guidance" in itself was sufficient to solve all problems, and to the implicit Buchmanite belief in social inequality—that there is nothing inherently wrong with coercion, domination and submission, with some giving orders and others taking them, and with an unequal distribution of wealth and income. And the anti­intellectualism of Buchman's message likewise stemmed from his fixation on "guidance" as a cure-all. Anything that could call "guidance" into doubt was inherently undesirable; thus logic, careful consideration of facts, and a questioning attitude were deadly enemies to the Oxford Group Movement. A Group axiom expresses this attitude succinctly: "Doubt stifles and makes abortive our attempt to act upon God's Guidance."^xii A former Buchmanite recalled that when he was a member of the Groups, "thinking seemed to me atheism."^xiii

Following the collapse of his campus movement in the U.S., Buchman moved his base of operations to England and conducted evangelical cru­sades at Oxford and Cambridge. It was through recruits garnered in these crusades that the group acquired its name. While the Buchman movement never attracted more than a small minority of students at Oxford, a traveling team consisting largely of Oxford students went to South Africa in 1929 where it was dubbed "the Oxford Group" by the press, and shortly after that Buchman and his minions began to refer to themselves as the "Oxford Group Movement." Whether this was "absolutely honest" is open to question: Buchman had never studied at Oxford University; he held no position there; and his movement had no official connection with the university and very limited influence among its students.

Nonetheless, the use of the Oxford name was very advantageous to the Buchmanites, suggesting as it did connection with a venerable and respected institution. Another advantage was that the centenary of the Oxford Movement—John Henry Newman's attempt to Catholicize the Anglican Church—was to be celebrated in 1933, and the names Oxford Movement and Oxford Group Movement would inevitably become confused in the public mind, much to the benefit of the Oxford Group Movement. The Buchmanites used the name "Oxford Group Movement" for a decade, and dropped it only in the opening days of World War II for all but certain legal purposes.^xiv

Concurrent with the transfer of his base of operations to England, Buchman began to shift the focus of his movement on both sides of the Atlantic from well-to-do students to their parents. In the early 1930s, the Buchman movement began to hold mass meetings which, like the much smaller meetings of the 1920s, were called "houseparties." For several years the Buchmanites held an annual houseparty in Oxford. Attendance in 1930 was 700; by 1935 it had risen to 10,000. In 1936, a houseparty in Birming­ham, England attracted 15,000 persons. The smaller ?20s-style houseparties were, however, also a prominent feature of the Oxford Group Movement throughout the 1930s.

A feature common to both types of houseparty was the ostentatious use of the names of the rich and famous. One friendly observer noted, "No feature of the Oxford Group Movement so strikes the casual observer . . . as its studious attention to position, title, and social prestige. No meeting is properly launched without its quota of patrons of rank and social standing."^xv In the U.S., prominent—and trumpeted—supporters included Russell Firestone, Mrs. Thomas Edison, Admiral Byrd, Mr. And Ms. Cleveland Dodge, Mrs. Harry Guggenheim, and Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford. As this list suggests, money, power, and prestige were what mattered to Buchman and his followers, not politics (as long as the powerful and prestigious didn't hold "communist" views). If politics had mattered to the Buchmanites, it's highly unlikely that they would have publicized their association with the prominent, vocal anti-semite and Nazi sympathizer, Henry Ford.^xvi

Another notable feature of the Oxford Group Movement in this period (and indeed throughout its history) was its routine and extreme exaggeration of its own importance and influence. The Groupers' estimation of their in­fluence in South Africa is illustrative. During the years following 1929, when Buchman accompanied the "team" (and the Buchman movement acquired the name "Oxford Group" ), "traveling teams" visited South Africa many times. In his estimate of the Buchmanites' influence, Deputy Prime Minister J.H. Hofmeyr, who had fallen under Buchman's sway, stated that Buch­man's 1929 visit had "started a major and continuing influence for racial reconciliation throughout the whole country, white and black, Dutch and British."^xvii Similar estimations appeared after every "traveling team" visit.

The South Africans, curiously, didn't seem to notice the effect of the Buchmanites. Writing in the South African religious newspaper, The Church Times, on September 14, 1934, the Cape Town correspondent stated: "The English Newspapers continually bring us news of the wonders which the Group Movement is effecting in South Africa. To it they ascribe the formation of the coalition Government, and the melting away of the barriers between Dutch and English, European and native, Indian and Bantu; . . . It is curious that in South Africa we should know so little of these wonders. It seems clear to us that the coalition Government came into being through sheer weariness of strife; certainly it was never attributed here to the influence of the Groups. And the Groups have long since ceased to attract any attention to speak of."^xviii

Undeterred by facts, Oxford Group Movement/Moral Re-Armament (MRA) spokesmen continued to give glowing accounts of their effectiveness in healing racial divisions in South Africa over the coming years. In 1955, South African delegates attended a Moral Re-Armament World Assembly in Washington, D.C. The Allentown Morning Call, Buchman's hometown newspaper, reported: "Speakers from South Africa said MRA was replacing racial supremacy and bloody revolution with ?a new dimension of racial unity.'"^xix As late as 1960, Frank Buchman wrote in his birthday message, "A Hurricane of Common Sense," that "White and black leadership in South Africa want their Cabinet and the whole country to see this movie [the MRA film, The Crowning Experience]. They say it holds the secret that alone can cure the racial divisions that are tearing South Africa apart, dividing her from other countries, and undermining her economic life."^xx This was written when the apartheid system had already been in place for over a decade, and less than a year before the Sharpeville massacre. Yet Buchman makes no demand that the apartheid system be dismantled; in fact, he makes no criticism of it at all. In his view it was enough that the South Africans see his MRA film.

Such political naïvete was nothing new to Buchman. In 1936, at the height of his movement's prestige and influence, he stated in an interview published in the August 26, 1936 New York World Telegram:
   

I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defence against the anti-Christ of Communism . . .

Of course I don't condone everything the Nazis do. Anti-semitism? Bad, naturally. I suppose Hitler sees a Karl Marx in every Jew.

But think what it would mean to the world if Hitler surrendered to the control of God. Or Mussolini. Or any dictator. Through such a man God could control a nation overnight and solve every last, bewildering problem . . . Human problems aren't economic. They're moral and they can't be solved by immoral measures. They could be solved within a God-controlled democracy, or perhaps I should say a theocracy, and they could be solved through a God-controlled Fascist dictatorship.^xxi

It's worth noting that Bill Wilson and his fellow AAs-to-be must have known about this interview, which caused a public furor, yet they continued to work as part of the Oxford Groups for more than another year in New York and another three years in Akron.

It's also worth noting that AA, in its official "Conference-approved" biography of Bill Wilson, Pass It On, treats this matter in what can only be described as a dishonest manner. This is all the more surprising and dis­appointing in that the book's dust jacket proclaims, "Every word is documented, every source checked."

In the section of Pass It On dealing with Buchman's remarks, the anony-mous author states:
   

In August [1936], the New York World Telegram published an article about Buchman, charging that he was pro-Nazi. The newspaper quoted Buchman as saying: "Thank Heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler who built a front-line 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 and solve every problem. Human problems aren't economic, they're moral, and they can't be solved by immoral measures."

While most discussion of the incident, even by Buchman's critics, have since vindicated him, the article brought the group into public controversy.^xxii
   

There are several remarkable features in this passage. The first is that the World Telegram piece is referred to as an "article" when in fact it was an interview in which Buchman's comments comprised well over half the text, with almost all of the remaining text consisting of descriptive passages, transitions between Buchman's statements, and uncontroversial background information on Buchman and the Oxford Group Movement. There is a tremendous difference between an "article" in which Buchman was "charged" with being pro-Nazi and an interview in which he himself clearly expressed pro-Nazi opinions, a fact which undoubtedly was not lost on the author of AA's official Wilson biography.

Another remarkable feature of the passage just quoted from Pass It On is that Buchman's statements are carefully edited to put his best possible face forward. The anonymous AA author took fragments separated by hundreds of words and patched them together as if they were a single statement, while dropping a number of words within the fragments. For example, by drop­ping the word "But" before the words "think what it would mean . . . ," the author made the fragments appear to fit together snugly—thus hiding the fact that the "statement" is a patchwork.

In normal literary practice, it's considered proper to separate patched­together fragments with ellipses if the intervening material doesn't alter the meaning of the quoted material. If the intervening material does alter the meaning, as it does in the "statement" cited in Pass It On, it's considered unethical to quote it even with ellipses, and blatantly dishonest to quote it as if it were a single unitary statement. It should also be noted that the author of Pass It On quoted Buchman's "statement" in such a way as to leave the impression that it was the only such "statement" in the "article."

Perhaps most remarkably, the anonymous AA author concludes that, "most discussions of the incident, even by Buchman's critics, have since vindicated him." One remarkable aspect of this statement is its deliberate fuzziness. What was Buchman "vindicated" of? Of making pro-Nazi statements? Of being pro-Nazi? Our AA author leaves that crucial matter unresolved.

Further, I've done my best to read all of the widely circulated criticisms of Buchman's remarks, and none "vindicate" him of making pro-Nazi statements. I should also point out that Buchman never denied that he made the statements quoted in the World Telegram, and that he never repudiated them.^xxiii (Since he believed that he was "guided" to make the remarks, if he had repudiated them it would have been a tacit admission that the "guidance" he received was in error; and that would have brought down his whole ideological house of cards, built as it was on the infallibility of "guidance.")

As for "vindicating" Buchman of being pro-Nazi, several of his critics pointed out that Buchman was a political simpleton who believed—as Buchman himself stated in the World Telegram interview—that the world's problems could be solved through "a God-controlled democracy," a "theocracy," or a "God-controlled Fascist dictatorship." It must be ad­mitted, though, that in the World Telegram interview, Buchman showed decided enthusiasm for the latter option.

As The Christian Century pointed out two weeks after Buchman's remarks were published:
   

Indeed the worst thing about a religion which undertakes to be purely individualistic and to concern itself not at all as to the way in which the corporate life of society is organized is that it cannot succeed in that undertaking—it is forced to take a political position, and its utter lack of understanding of political realities predetermines what that position shall be.

Such a religion enters the social arena inevitably on the side of reaction. God works through individuals it [Buchmanism] argues. The way to make institutions good is to make the individuals who run them good. The fewer these individuals are, the simpler the operation. The only way to make a good government is to convert the governors, and if there could be but one governor dictating the policies of the nation under God's guidance, the ideal type of state would have been achieved. Individualism in religion thus leads by the straightest of roads to fascism in politics.^xxiv
   

If this is "vindication" of Frank Buchman, it's vindication of a very strange sort.

Another "incident" is also revealing of Buchman's attitude toward the Nazis. At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Buchman offered to introduce British MP Kenneth Lindsay to Heinrich Himmler, who Buchman referred to as "a great lad."^xxv At the time, that "great lad" was the head of the Gestapo. It should be remembered, however, that Buchman always took great pains to ingratiate himself with "key men" of all political persuasions (except Communists). It seems probable that in this incident Buchman was revealing no special love for Himmler, but was simply being his normal, oily self.

Not quite two years after the World Telegram interview, Buchman launched his "Moral Rearmament" campaign in Britain on May 28, 1938 in a speech in London. The implication of the slogan "Moral Rearmament" seemed to be that if the people of Britain relied on "guidance" they had no need to physically rearm to fend off Hitler. Three weeks before the Munich conference, Buchman coined the slogan "Guns or Guidance" and— remembering that the influence of Buchman's movement was strongest among rich Tories, that is, members of the ruling class—one can only speculate on the possible contribution of Buchman's Moral Rearmament/ Guns or Guidance campaign to Chamberlain's policy of appeasement.

(Remarkably, in the years since World War II, Moral Re-Armament has attempted to paint Buchman as an advocate of preparedness. The lead sentence in an article posted on MRA's official web site baldly states: "Throughout the 1930's [sic], Frank Buchman continued to arouse the European democracies to the danger of totalitarianism of Left and Right, and to fight strenuously for the concept of true democracy."^xxvi And in Moral Re-Armament: What Is It?, the authors assert that "Buchman's efforts in the 1930s led in many European countries to . . . [an] awakening to the realities of the aims of both Hitler and Stalin . . ."^xxvii How this jibes with Buchman's "Guns or Guidance" campaign and his enthusiasm for "a theocracy . . . [or] a God-controlled Fascist dictatorship," they don't explain.)

Within three years of Buchman's launching the Moral Re-Armament campaign, the Buchmanites had abandoned the name Oxford Group Movement for all but certain legal purposes, and they began calling them­selves Moral Re-Armament, or MRA. Coincidentally with the adoption of the MRA name, the Buchmanites shifted their emphasis from "personal evangelism" to mass propaganda through full-page newspaper advertise­ments, worldwide radio broadcasts, mass distribution of Buchmanite books and pamphlets, and the holding of huge public rallies. This shift in emphasis did little to reverse the declining fortunes of the movement, which had been on a downhill slide since the time of Buchman's "thank heaven for Hitler" remarks in 1936.

A contributing factor to the decline of Buchmanism was the fact that in both the U.S. and Britain during World War II, several dozen Oxford Group members attempted to obtain exemptions from the draft on the grounds that they were "lay evangelists" and that their work was essential to national morale. None of these "lay evangelists" were pacifists or conscien­tious objectors; they actually favored the war, but had been "guided" not to take part in it because of the importance of their "work." Their "work" consisted of the production of heavy-handed MRA morality plays with titles such as "You Can Defend America." The authorities were impressed by neither their arguments nor their "chicken hawk" attitude, and the Buchmanite "lay evangelists" were soon sporting khaki and crewcuts and marching in lock-step with other conscripts.^xxviii

The "Moral Rearmament" campaign, the attempts at draft evasion by MRA members, and Buchman's 1936 interview in which he thanked heaven for Hitler contributed to marked public disenchantment with Buchman and his Groups. A good indication of the decline in interest can be found in the number of articles on the Groups listed in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. From first mention with only three articles in the January 1929 to June 1932 volume, the total quickly rises to 38 in the July 1932 to June 1935 volume, nosedives to 12 in the following volume, and ultimately bottoms out at zero in the July 1943 to June 1945 volume.^xxix

Following the war, Buchman's fortunes revived somewhat, and wealthy backers bought luxurious hotels for his movement at Mackinac Island, Michigan and Caux, Switzerland. This isn't surprising. Buchman's doctrine of individual responsibility for all personal and social ills posed absolutely no threat to the wealth of his backers, allowed them to feel virtuous while retaining their privileges, and even showed some prospects of further domesticating the labor movement.

That was a difficult task given the corrupt, hierarchical, and visionless nature of most American and British unions, but the Buchmanites felt them­selves up to the job. From the mid-1930s on, one finds numerous Oxford Groups/MRA claims of successful interventions in labor struggles. The scenarios outlined by MRA were often drearily the same: one of the parties in a dispute, often a labor "leader," was "changed" by the Buchmanites, realized his wrongs, confessed them to someone on the management side who was so touched by the confession that he confessed his wrongs to the original wrongdoer, and the conflict was peacefully resolved; and wages, working conditions, and productivity all improved sharply.

Needless to say, these scenarios were usually pure fantasy. In The Mystery of Moral Re-Armament, Tom Driberg cites numerous examples of MRA's false claims. One example is a claim made at the January 16, 1952 MRA "Assembly of the Americas" in Miami, Florida, where a British delegate, "Bill Birmingham, Union Secretary of the Mosley Common Pit, Lancashire," stated that because of MRA activity at the mine "production had increased from 11½ to 15 tons per man per shift," while wages had increased from 37 to 52 shillings per day. According to figures from Lord Robens, chairman of the National Coal Board (which oversees all mine operations in Britain), production had actually increased from 2110 pounds per man in 1947 to 2190 pounds per man in 1952, while wages increased from 27 shillings 6 pence to 38 shillings per day.^xxx

But fallacious claims of successful interventions in labor disputes were nothing new to the Buchmanites. More than a decade before the Miami Assembly, even Time magazine had seen fit on two occasions to make snide comments about Oxford Group Movement/MRA false claims in the labor­dispute field.^xxxi And MRA's outrageous claims in this area have persisted to the present day. In the previously cited article posted on MRA's web site, one finds the claim that "One group of men, for instance, tackled unemploy­ment [in Denmark in the late ?30s] which was running at over 20 per cent. It was reduced eventually to 4.7 per cent."^xxxii How and when MRA ac­complished this amazing feat is not revealed. Perhaps MRA's success occurred during World War II, when Adolf Hitler "tackled [Danish] unem­ployment" and drastically reduced it through forced labor.

Despite the exaggerated and often wholly unrealistic claims made by MRA, Buchman's movement did have some influence in the upper echelons of the labor bureaucracy. MRA publicly bragged of this influence: "Illus­trations of the effectiveness of this ideology in industry could be taken from all around the world. One of the ?five giants of American labor' lay dying. [MRA never identifies the "giant."] He said to a Senator, ?Tell America that when Frank Buchman changed John Riffe [Executive Vice-President of the CIO], he saved American industry 500 million dollars."^xxxiii In April 1953, 13 years after he fell under Buchman's influence, Riffe listed his aims for American labor. One of them sounded as if it could just as easily have been issued by a leader of a Nazi or Soviet official trade union: "With the united strength of labor and industry to back the government in a foreign policy that will win all nations.^xxxiv

MRA's focus on labor was but one part of its post-war strategy to present Moral Re-Armament as the only alternative to Communism. In Ideology and Co-Existence—a Moral Re-Armament pamphlet distributed by the millions in 1959 in the U.S. and Britain—its anonymous MRA author states: "There are two ideologies bidding for the world today. One is Moral Re-Armament . . . ; the other is Communism . . ."^xxxv This is a rather grandiose self­assessment, but hardly a surprising one from an organization whose members and leadership believed that it was guided by God.

One ideological prong of MRA's post-war strategy was its emphasis on influencing organized labor; the other two prongs were a McCarthyite brand of anti-Communism and crude homophobia. The Buchmanites could not conceive of anyone disagreeing with them, much less attacking them, unless he or she were under Communist influence or otherwise morally tainted—a fact abundantly obvious from reading their literature of the period. One 1950s MRA book states: "Moral Re-Armament cannot be honestly opposed on intellectual grounds because it is basic truth . . . Opposition to Moral Re-Armament has special significance. It always comes from the morally defeated."^xxxvi Like many other MRA pronouncements, this statement is very arrogant, but hardly surprising. MRA believed (like many deranged murderers—"God told me to do it") that it had a direct line to the Almighty, and hence The Truth; and who but someone morally tainted would opposed God's chosen spokesmen? This is the cardinal article of faith in every religious fanatic's creed: s/he has The Truth, and anyone who criti­cizes that Truth, or its bearer, must be immoral.

MRA really did believe that there was a Communist under every bed (and a "pervert" in it). In Ideology and Co-Existence, we read that "Chiang Kai-Shek was sold out and the mainland and Manchuria lost to Red China . . . Men, later found to be giving the Communist Party line, were successful with their deceptions and achieved the change of direction in American policy [which led to the "loss" of China]."^xxxvii

An even clearer echo of McCarthy—but in reference to homosexuals, "security risks," in MRA terms—can be found in a book written by Peter Howard, Buchman's successor as head of MRA, which was published a few years after Ideology and Co-Existence: "At one point, 264 homosexuals were reported to have been purged from the American State Department. Many of them moved from Washington to New York and took jobs in the United Nations . . ."^xxxviii This startling information appears in a chapter titled "Queens and Queers." It's very reminiscent of Joe McCarthy's famous speech in Wheeling, West Virginia on February 9, 1950, in which he said: "I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who are, nevertheless, still working and shaping policy in the State Department." (Despite repeated challenges, McCarthy, of course, never produced the "list.") Another example of Buchmanite homophobia can be found in a 1963 advertisement in the New York Times in which Moral Re-Armament attacked "sexual deviants in high places who protect potential spies."^xxxixxl

MRA's attacks on homosexuals were not always purely venomous; at times they were also ludicrous. A 1954 Moral Re-Armament tract instructs readers on how to spot homosexuals:
   

There are many who wear suede shoes who are not homosexual, but in Europe and America the majority of homosexuals do. They favor green as a color in clothes and decorations. Men are given to an excessive display and use of the handkerchief. They tend to let the hair grow long, use scent and are frequently affected in speech, mincing in gait and feminine in mannerisms. They are often very gifted in the arts. They tend to exhibitionism. They can be cruel and vindictive, for sadism usually has a homosexual root. They are often given to moods.

. . . There is an unnecessary touching of hands, arms and shoulders. In the homosexual the elbow grip is a well-known sign.^xli

Moral Re-Armament's virulent homophobia and obsession with homo­sexuality seem odd at first glance, but they make sense when one realizes that Frank Buchman was quite probably a "closeted" homosexual, per­petually at war with his own desires. Thus, in all likelihood, his own inner battle (against homosexual inclinations, or "perversion," as he often called it) ultimately became MRA's battle.

Buchman certainly exhibited many signs of being a "closet case": 1) he never married; 2) it was never even hinted in any of the numerous books and magazine articles written about him and his movement that he had sexual relations with women; 3) he was obsessed with sexual "sin," specifically self-"abuse" and "perversion"; 4) from the time he was ordained in his early 20s until he was nearly 50, his primary concern was working with young men; 5) he apparently relished discussing intimate sexual matters with young men; and 6) he was markedly homophobic, which is often a defense mechanism used by "closet cases" to conceal their true desires from both themselves and others.

As well, I've uncovered some slight direct evidence that Buchman was indeed homosexual: shortly after publication of the first edition of this book, the son of a member of Buchman's inner circle told me that among that circle "Buchman's homosexuality was taken for granted."^xlii This all makes Buchman's and MRA's obsession with "purity" and "perversion" much easier to understand.

Frank Buchman died in Freudenstadt, Germany on August 6, 1961, and his long-time disciple, Peter Howard, took the reins of Moral Re-Armament. MRA continued much as it had under Buchman for the next few years, but the loss of its guru was a blow from which it never recovered. Howard died suddenly in 1965 without designating a successor, and the organization quickly shriveled.

The leadership vacuum and the unsavory reputation Moral Re-Armament had acquired through its red-baiting and gay-baiting evidently combined to nearly put an end to MRA. By 1970 the organization had effectively ceased to exist in the U.S.^xliii; and by 1972 it was in serious decline in Britain. At that point, its reputation was so tarnished that the liberal Protestant weekly, The Christian Century, reported that MRA, through its actions, had acquired "a sinister mafia image, and to be identified with it in any way remains a serious liability for anyone seeking public support."^xliv At present, Moral Re-Armament continues to exist in both Britain and the U.S., but only as a shadow of its former self. (A few MRA books have been published over the last quarter century, and MRA currently publishes a slick, expensively produced monthly magazine, For a Change; as well, MRA maintains offices in Washington and London, retains its conference/hotel complex in Caux, Switzerland, and has added conference centers in India and Zimbabwe. But MRA has been out of the public spotlight for decades, and its membership is undoubtedly but a small fraction of what it was during its heyday in the 1930s.)

In the U.S., Moral Re-Armament lived on in the form of Sing Out!/Up with People!, the cloyingly wholesome kiddie vocal group cum traveling pep rally, whose "message" was, and is, taken straight from MRA. For well over a quarter century, Up with People! performances have been inflicted upon many millions of high school students (including the author on one dreary afternoon in the late 1960s).

Sing Out! was founded in 1965 by MRA member J. Blanton Belk, at Peter Howard's behest, and for its first two years was sponsored by MRA and the Reader's Digest Foundation. It retained its original name for roughly two years before becoming Up with People! in 1967. Sing Out!/Up with People! was almost certainly intended to be MRA's "antidote to hippies and peaceniks," as the Dallas Times Herald put it in 1967. The group's formal ties with Moral Re-Armament were, however, short-lived, probably because its association with MRA created fundraising difficulties.

Following its incorporation in 1968, Up with People! became organi­zationally independent of Moral Re-Armament, though MRA's influence was, and still remains, obvious. One former cast member from Sing Out!'s early days told me that boys and girls were forbidden to sit together on buses because of "purity" concerns, and that he distinctly remembers one as­sembly for male cast members, the specific purpose of which was to warn them against taking warm showers lest they become aroused and engage in self-"abuse." Another area where MRA's influence is evident is in Up with People!'s inflated self-concept. In 1967, Calvin Trillin archly commented, "Any place that ?Up with People!' has visited tends to sound like a battleground in the struggle . . . the show always seems to have arrived in a foreign country ?just weeks after violent demonstrations'; the names of Negro urban areas are normally preceded by ?the streets of,' so that cast members talk of having sung in ?the streets of Watts.'"^xlv

In 1990, Up with People!'s annual budget was $19 million, much of it contributed by corporations such as General Electric, Coca-Cola, and Volvo. Members of the cast and their sponsors (often Rotary Clubs or the like) kicked in the rest. In 1990, cast members were expected to pay $9,200 for the privilege of being in the group for one year, though more than 30 percent of them received financial help from the organization.^xlvi In all likelihood, Up with People! will be around for some time, as the messages in its songs are music to corporate ears.

Today, Frank Buchman, the Oxford Group Movement, and Moral Re-Armament are nearly forgotten. Probably not one person in a hundred under the age of 50 would recognize Buchman's name or the names Oxford Group Movement or Moral Re-Armament; and probably not one in a thousand could provide even the meagerest information about Buchman or his groups. But the influence of Frank Buchman and his minions lingers on. His doctrines are almost certainly more widely adhered to and more influential now than they ever were during his lifetime—even if not one person in a thousand knows their origin.