The merits of the Oxford Group Movement and the merits
of the recent agitation about the appeal for the exemption of eleven Group lay-evangelists from military service are two quite different things. It is difficult to think that the agitation will have done the movement anything but harm. To organise a petition signed by 170 M.P.s, to initiate debates in both Houses of Parliament, to charge the Government vs ith an " attack " on the Group movement—all this, about the exemp- tion of eleven young men from military service at a moment when the German armies are thundering towards the gates of Moscow preparatory to turning on Britain, is a proceeding with which the ordinary citizen will and should have little patience. The real point of the affair seems to have been rather missed. The question raised was whether the Group movement is a "religious organisation" within the meaning of the Act. That it is religious no one doubts. But how far is it an organisation, and what kind of an orgabsation is it? In an ordinary religious body the appointment of lay evangelists, like the Oxford Group eleven, is a fully regularised proceeding. They are appointed in due order, by a recognised procedure, and paid from funds set apart for the purpose and appearing in a general financial statement audited and published ; there are full guarantees of their fitness for their position, and they can be removed from it if cause should arise. Where the seat of authority in the Group Movement is has never been clear. Does it lie with Dr. Buchman in America? Is there a council controlling the movement? If so how is it appointed or elected? It was always claimed that there was no actual membership of the Group Movement. If so, how can it be an organisation? These are questions which the exemption-controversy obviously raises.
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