MORAL RE-ARMAMENT-WHAT IS IT?
by Basil Entwistle 
and John McCook Roots

Pace Publications, 1967, 241 pages..
30 with b&w photos, hardback book

The beliefs of the Oxford Group and later MRA have a fundamental basis in Christianity as Buchman had experienced in his life. The doctrine of the
Oxford Group is built on two fundamental actions: Sharing and Guidance. The first one is Sharing which includes confession and being a witness.
Confession is sharing one's sins with another man, because the Oxford Group believes that confession to a fellow man is an indication of true
repentance. Sharing can be either privately to another member of the group or semi-publicly in a group meeting or house party. Sharing witness is
giving testimony of one's own experiences and so relating to the troubles of another. Guidance is the leading by the Holy Spirit in all actions. God
makes his plan known to us, and we must come to surrender to God's will. There is blessing in reading the Bible, and blessing in meditating upon it. It
is through the Bible and prayer that we are able to know what God's Will is. 'Quiet time' is the moment when one tries to listen to what God says
applicable to present needs. Guidance includes, Loyalty which pertains to people obeying the commands of God and completely surrendering to
Christ. Whatever the Will of God might be one is to believe that where God guides, he provides. There are test to make sure one understands what
God is telling them. 

"There are four tests so that one can discover what is the true guidance of God.

(1)...Does it go counter to the highest standard or belief which we already posses? (2)...Does it contradict the revelations which Christ has already
made in or through the Bible? (3)...Is it absolutely honest, pure, unselfish, and loving? (4)...Does it conflict with our duties and responsibilities to
others? 

"Buchman's program consisted of personal evangelism with emphasis upon: 

...Both public and private confession of sin, with an emphasis upon sexual sin 

...Reception of divine guidance during quiet time 

...Complete surrender to this guidance 

...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 

...Practice of the Buchmanite four absolutes - purity, honesty, love, and unselfishness 

...Making restitution to those one has harmed 

...Carrying the message to those still defeated" 

MRA follows the foundations given by the Oxford Group but goes a step further to try to include all religions on universal moral grounds. MRA
aspires to be inter-denominational, domesticating itself within every description of ecclesiastical system. The aim is to give a whole new pattern for
statesmanship and a whole new level of responsible thinking. MRA believes that it is doing what you have always known in your heart you ought to
be doing - and doing it all day, everyday. MRA goes to the root of the problem - a change of heart. The goal is to have nations governed by men
governed by God.

In this connection we feel bound to express our criticism of Moral Rearmament, in so far as this movement still claims to be specifically Christian at all (a claim no longer, apparently, stressed by MRA propaganda in countries, such as India, in which other world religions are dominant). Here, as with some evangelists, the basic fault is that the task of Christianity is conceived to be that of individual conversion ("changing"), without any adequate regard for the religious obligation of improving the social conditions in which the individual lives. In effect, MRA maintains, all that is necessary is to "change" employer and employee - so preserving what may be an ethically unjust system. Such a theory underestimates the effect on individuals of their environment: as the Church Assembly report on MRA said, "MRA fails to make a profound enough analysis of the world's social problems… Christianity has always understood that evil is resident not only in individual men, but also in the 'powers of this world'… in institutions, groups, social structures". We agree also with other observations in this report - as that "a certain blindness to the duty of thinking is characteristic" of MRA.