The Oxford Group Today

[bballdad]

another post had some comments about the Oxford Group.A lot of people think they folded,but they are still alive today.

here is a article about them

Moral Re-Armament (MRA) was an international religious movement that, in 1938, grew out of the Reverend Frank N. D. Buchman's Oxford Group. Buchman headed the movement for 23 years, from 1938 until his death in 1961.

The movement, in its early years, was made up of Buchman's personal followers, and so the name change was incremental rather than abrupt and formal. One of the first uses of the term was in 1938, when H. W. Austin edited the book Moral Rearmament (The Battle for Peace). Buchman and his fellow Oxford Group leaders liked the new phrase, and the former Oxford Group developed into Moral Re-Armament. Buchman used the phrase when on May 29, 1938 he stated, "The crisis is fundamentally a moral one. The nations must re-arm morally. Morally recovery is essentially the forerunner of economic recovery."

The origin of the movement's name lay in the political climate of the late 1930s, in which the re-militarization of post-WWI Germany was a contentious issue. The rejoinder of the Oxford Group and MRA was that the world needed not military re-armament, but moral re-armament.

In 2001, the MRA movement changed its name to Initiatives of Change (IofC) and formed a non-governmental organization, IofC-International, for purposes of cooperation with organizations such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe.

Initiatives of Change - Building trust across the world's divides

[jimhere]

About the time the New York AA's split from the Oxford Group because of Buchman's interview that cast him as pro-Hitler, Sam Shoemaker left the group as well. Dr. Sam started Faith In Action. He wanted to get back to the small group, more personal style of the early Oxford Group before Buchman got the idea of converting "key people."

Faith In action is still in existence today. A few years ago an AA member from California who is also a member of Faith In Action came and led some of us on a weekend retreat. The retreat centered on practices of the early Oxford Group such as morning quiet time and seeking guidance as a group. He used pages 84-88 of the book.

Faith in Action has a website. I don't know the url but you can google it.
Jim

[bugsworth]

Sam Shoemaker wrote...I stand at the door

I Stand at the Door

By Sam Shoemaker (from the Oxford Group)


I stand by the door.
I neither go to far in, nor stay to far out.
The door is the most important door in the world -
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.
There is no use my going way inside and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where the door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind men,
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it.
So I stand by the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door - the door to God.
The most important thing that any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands
And put it on the latch - the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man's own touch.

Men die outside the door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter.
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live on the other side of it - live because they have not found it.

Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him.
So I stand by the door.

Go in great saints; go all the way in -
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics.
It is a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
Some must inhabit those inner rooms
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in.
Sometimes venture in a little farther,
But my place seems closer to the opening.
So I stand by the door.

There is another reason why I stand there.
Some people get part way in and become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them;
For God is so very great and asks all of us.
And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia
And want to get out. 'Let me out!' they cry.
And the people way inside only terrify them more.
Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled.
For the old life, they have seen too much:
One taste of God and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
To tell them how much better it is inside.
The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving - preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door
But would like to run away. So for them too,
I stand by the door.

I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not yet even found the door.
Or the people who want to run away again from God.
You can go in too deeply and stay in too long
And forget the people outside the door.
As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him and know He is there,
But not so far from men as not to hear them,
And remember they are there too.

Where? Outside the door -
Thousands of them. Millions of them.
But - more important for me -
One of them, two of them, ten of them.
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.

'I had rather be a door-keeper
So I stand by the door.

[jimhere]

Thanks Bugs. One of my favorites.

[bugsworth]

I like it too...

[Tazman53]

From reading that poem I can see what drew Bill W. to him.