The Oxford Group Movement BY THE -REV'. F. R. BARRY
(Vicar of The University Church, Oxford).
1_ T HAVE been asked to give some account, together with some critical appraisement of the now much discussed religious movement known to its own members as " The Group." It is often referred iciai the " Oxford " Group, and sometimes canonized by its admirers by the title of the New Oxford Movement—which has caused some not unnatural resentment. The name is to some extent a misnomer. It is not a movement that chiefly exists in Oxford, though it does seem to be true at the moment that its directing spirits reside there. One of the impressive things about it is the way in which its members succeed in establishing new " Groups " wherever they go ; but there seems to be no centralized organization, nor apparently, any roll of membership. It is not, however, an indigenous growth, and the Oxford connexion is more or less fortuitous.
The Group's opponents refer to it as " Buchmanism," in reference to Dr. Frank Buchman, a Lutheran pastor from the United States; who is in a rather undefined sense the " onlie begetter " of the movement. " F. B. " passed through a crisis of conversion and has spent many years, first in American colleges and subsequently in other parts of the world, in " personal work " among young men and women of the well-to-do social classes. The Group was born out of his activities and its technique is largely of his creation. The American and Puritan background serves to explain many things about it, and it has still a marked American colouring—in its prohibitionism, for instance, and the peculiar argot it uses, as well as in deeper and more important matters to which reference will be made later. It spends lavishly, more amerkano.
The claim which the Group makes on its own behalf is perhaps most fairly expressed by a phrase in one of its own publications, where it is described as a " first- century fellowship." The implications are obvious and challenging. The Group is a quite informal association of men and women—chiefly younger people—hungry for personal religion and direct; vital simplicity of faith, who try to recapture and realize anew the immediacy of New Testament Christianity. Immediacy is here the significant word. For the central emphasis of the whole movement is on personal religious experience—personal apprehension of Christ and personal surrender to His will. (Surrender is one of their characteristic words ; some of us would prefer to express it otherwise.) As it is finely contemptuous of compromise, so it is apt to be unappreciative of the mediation of faith to the believer by the long disciplines of life and history, or the stored-up riches of Churchly institutions. It speaks of Christ freely, of God seldom. Its members are drawn from many denominations, and many are gathered out of the slough of despond and " changed " through their contact with the Group. Its aim is to make faith in Christ real to them, as no mere creed and no mere conformity but a liberating Personal reality, controlling and vivifying life. To many, tired of formal religion, it has come with a shock of new discovery, and it has genuinely " changed lives." (It is true that the other thing also happens, and people like myself see the casualties. It is not by any means everybody's medicine.) To be " changed " is the pass- word of the fellowship.
The Group . believes that a- vivid Christianity will flourish best in its original climate ; and it sets itself to revive the spontaneity of the first, Kornai.. Its members, indeed, have all things common " in the sense that there is no experience which is not to be " shared " With the Group-. " Sharing " is the key-note of its method.
It desires to " break down religious reserve " ; willingness to " share " is the acid test, and some pressure is exercised to this end. Of course, this makes some Christians shudder, as a violation of their innermost sanctities ; but it is, for the Group, the sure test of Grace. They desire to learn Christ in frank, open fellowship, and between Christ's friends there must be no reserves. Hence every- - thing must be " opened " to one another, sins com- mitted and sins overcome no less than new spiritual discoveries and mental, moral and religious difficulties. The method of edification within the Group consists thus mainly in " sharing experiences " ; that of evangelization outwards from it turns very largely on " giving testi- mony " : the past is exposed and the new birth described, with the motif, what Christ (or the Group) has done for me. " The House-party " is simply a gathering for the - sharing of Christian experience. It will be seen that this has close affinities both with the classes of Methodism and with the Catholic system of confession—though deprived of many of its Catholic safeguards. For, unfortunately, the confessions leak out ; they are even reported in the Press, and some of the testimonies are repeated until they are known almost by heart. But the suggestion that " sharing " of personal difficulties is preoccupied with sexual temptations is, to the best of my knowledge, libellous.
The high value set on spontaneity leads them to place overwhelming emphasis on direct, immediate and ad hoc " guidance " in every contingency, trivial or momentous; and this may claim New Testament authority, given .the New- Testament conditions. But it may degenerate into mere banality, and is plainly open to ludicrous misuse. Further and most commendable stress is laid on the daily devotional period—the " quiet time " in the idiom of the Group—in which members seek for divine guidance. (It is a trite but not needless criticism that this may be self-centred, not God-centred.) Finally, every member of the Group feels himself an apostle of its cause and is pledged to seek recruits among his acquaintance. This may lead them to take themselves too seriously, and to be rather tiresome to other people who may know much more about God than they do. Nevertheless it commands respect ; and is a standing rebuke to a dead conformity.
Now there is something genuinely splendid in the underlying conception of the movement. These gather- ings of young men and women meeting in unselfconscious sincerity to re-learn and possess Christianity in its unsophisticated simplicity, in the conviction that it is a faith to live by, should be as inspiring as they are challeng- ing to our cumbrous and middle-aged traditionalism. This is a living movement of young believers and it should have genuine gifts to bring the Churches. The Churches need this kind of thing desperately. It seems to one that one secret of its appeal is that it gives young men and women —especially. women—of the student class a direct mis- sionary responsibility and an inspiring sense of being wanted—which the Church of England has not yet learnt to do. -But the Group desperately needs the Churches, and most of all it needs AngloCatholicism and something, as well, from the Student Christian Movement. " Experi- ence " cannot subsist in a vacuum, as all similar move- ments have had to learn ; and without a strong stiffening of theology-and the steadying framework of institutional discipline the Group will soon be faced with a real danger of becoming a sect of peculiar people. It repudiates— quite sincerely—the idea of forming another Christian sect, which is partly why it dislikes the name Buchman- ism ; and it overlaps with many affiliations. But here is one of the sharp reefs ahead of it. If the Churches welcome the Group, and if the Group will reciprocate the welcome, this would result in mutual enrichment. Unfortunately the Group does, at present, find it extremely hard to co-operate with or even to recognize as authentic Christians those who have not come in by its own gate- way. This at times makes it appear arrogant and patron- izing to those who move less confidently.
I am asked whether I " oppose " the Group. The answer is that I oppose nothing which can assist any man or woman to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God. (I have lived long enough for that, I hope.) When people have found the reality of Christ they have made a discovery and a decision beside which all our wise saws . are futile. The Group has brought help to a great many people who have been left cold by other religious influ- ences : and I say this thankfully and most sincerely. But sugary and uncritical laudation is the worst disservice to any honest enterprise. It is in no hostile or unfriendly spirit that I feel compelled to call attention to some obvious moral and spiritual dangers against which the Group needs to take precautions. (No doubt at all, its responsible leaders are as keenly alive to most of these as I am : but I know that some of the rank and file are not.) It is easy to ridicule the business of " guidance " ; but the Group is itself aware of some of its pitfalls and some of them arc in practice partly safeguarded—though it is, by -a startling inconsistency, at the price of submission to such an authority as the Pope might envy but could never possess. But more important, and less superficially visible, is the quite appalling danger of self-deception to which the whole method exposes people. In the company of others who affirm it a man may believe that he has been " re-born " ; but he may, in reality, only have ex- changed the more obvious and disreputable sins for the mortal disease of spiritual pride. After all, the argument from the " changed life " is for other people to draw, not the subject. Re-birth is never a momentary process, and even when it appears to be so it is not. It costs too much to redeem men's souls. There are many Christians in the way of salvation—in the painful process of being re-born—who could not honestly speak about having " been changed." It should not be assumed that they are less good Christians. Moreover, the strange (if formally " scriptural ") notion, that once a man has passed through re-birth sin has no more dominion over him, opens the door to frightful possibilities. People may think they have had this experience and may act accordingly—but suppose they have not ? This was really the case of the " Judaisers." St. Paul seems never to have understood it, and I rather wonder whether the Group has, either. To put it quite frankly, when people tell us that their lives are now " a hundred per cent. Christian," observation does not always support the claim. What people are saved from we all know ; we want to know what they are saved into.
Further, religion is not the whole of life. It is possible to be so much concerned with it as to make it self-conscious and introverted and the source of unhealthy neuroses. The English instinct is not so far wrong in connecting religion mainly with doing things.. I venture, therefore, to hope that the Group will recognize that, as it takes all sorts to make a world, so it takes the whole human race to possess the Christian experience. Not all Christians are of the same type ; and there arehundreds of thousands of young Englishmen who will not, and in my submission should not, be brought to Christianity by the Group's method. The " religious reserve " which it desires to " break down " may be something deserving deep respect. The best kind of Englishmen tend to be made like that. And the Kingdom of God has a place for the once-born.
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