As other documents on this web site suggest, Alcoholics Anonymous has
its roots in the Oxford Group Movement, a religious movement of the
1930s. (After 1938, it became known as Moral Re-Armament. Recently it
has changed its name to Initiatives of Change.) The little-known
movement has its own origins in Anglo-American evangelical Christianity
of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Its founder, Frank
Buchman, was a Lutheran minister and YMCA secretary. He also served as a
missionary in China and India. He brought together a variety of
influences to create a unique evangelical style.
In the decade after World War I Buchman developed a network of young
followers on prestigious university campuses in America and Britain. The
network focused on encouraging these young men-nominal Christians-to
have exciting religious experiences and find a deeper faith. His
confrontational evangelical style often caused conflicts on these
university campuses. It grated against many students' culture
Christianity; rebellious students objected to what they perceived as the
movement's moralism and exclusivity. In the end these conflicts led
Buchman and his followers to leave most of the universities.
My doctoral dissertation, "Disastrous Disturbances: Buchmanism and
Student Religious Life at Princeton, 1919-1935," tells the story of the
conflict on one prominent campus. More importantly, it places Buchman
and his work in the larger history of American religion (as well as the
history of American higher education). This larger context, I believe,
is an important contribution to the community of people interested in
Alcoholics Anonymous history. The work is also important because it
draws on archival materials not used by previous historians, including
the Moral Re-Armament records at the Library of Congress. 
(I am currently writing a history of Moral Re-Armament, 
which I hope tocomplete by 2004 or 2005.)
This dissertation is available through inter-library loan. (Several
libraries own printed or microfiche copies.)

 You can also buy a copy
from University Microfilm International (http://www.umi.com/).

 Go to
http://tls.il.proquest.com/hp/Products/DisExpress.html 

and request dissertation 1181091. You can buy the 
dissertation unbound, hardcover, softcover, or microfiche.


--
Daniel Sack
dansack@earthlink.net

more about Daniel Sack

http://www.materialreligion.org/participants/sack.html

          Chair: Charles Lippy, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

The Legacy of the Protestant Reformation in Modern Times: Frank Buchman and Moral Re-armament - Tyler B. Flynn, Jr., Pennsylvania State University
The Sophisticated Insiders and the Evangelical Outsider: The Buchman Incident at Princeton - Daniel Sack, Material History of American Religion Project, Vanderbilt Divinity School
Making America Protestant, Catholic and Jewish: Louis Finkelstein and America's Third Democratic Faith - Fred W. Beuttler, University of Illinois at Chicago

          Comment: Charles Lippy

http://www.muohio.edu/~relcwis/news/

http://www.materialreligion.org/objects/may97obj.html
this article is where I found Mr Sack!! Nice photo of Cavalry House  Manhattan