Less Buchmanism

Buchmanism's recent disastrous decline in both Britain and America was highlighted this month when it lost both its U.S. headquarters and its chief U.S. exponent. Rector Samuel Moor Shoemaker of Manhattan's Calvary Episcopal Church did this double job by ousting the cult from his parish house and declaring that

"after careful thought and prayer" he himself had quit the movement because of his "increasing misgivings."

Dr. Shoemaker's misgivings are not the first that have been felt about tony Evangelist Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman, who has led a series of hit-&-run house-party revivals, known successively as "Buchmanism," "A First Century Christian Fellowship," "The Oxford Group" and "Moral Re-Armament (MRA)." All have a free-&-easy panacea, best summed up in MRA's California drive last year: "You don't join anything, you don't pay anything, the idea is that you begin living the MRA standards."

One of these standards, "absolute honesty," British Humorist A. P. Herbert hoisted with devastating effect in the House of Commons last month by quoting Frank Buchman's varying entries in Who's Who between 1928 and 1939. Sample Buchman claim he riddled: "studied at Cambridge University 1921-22." That debate was a Waterloo for Buchmanism. Its 172 followers in Parliament (the fruit of two years' intensive lobbying) were all set to protest Labor Minister Ernest Bevin's refusal to exempt the Group's lay evangelists from military service. When Herbert and Bevin got through, not one of the 172 cared to reply.

Since then, secessions from the Group have landslided in Britain. Example: Sir Patrick Joseph Henry Hannon, industrialist, member of Parliament, ardent Group sympathizer. Last week Sir Patrick derided Buchmanite claims to have settled three impending work stoppages in the Midlands by urging Buchmanite principles on management and labor. Sir Patrick investigated, decided that the trouble had been cured by "sordid means like better pay and better hours."

In the U.S. Evangelist Buchman is losing followers not only through this recent setback in Britain but because many Buchmanites, including Dr. Shoemaker, now believe that he wants to form an independent sect. He has abandoned his onetime claim that Buchmanism simply makes Baptists better Baptists, Catholics better Catholics, etc. Result: he is rapidly losing the active churchmen he had in his ranks, recruiting few new members from the churches.

One tip-off on the Group's tobogganing is that publicity-wise Groupers, who for years not only welcomed but pursued the press, have lately avoided reporters like the plague both in Britain and the U.S. Evangelist Buchman, who is now trying to convert Maine to MRA, last week dodged correspondents everywhere he went. MRA has had little luck in Maine since its advent there last June. The general Down East reaction to its smooth, eupeptic preachers: "What's the catch?"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.