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The Spiritual Vision of Frank Buchman. By PHILIP BOOBBYER.

2014; Oxford University Press; Volume: 65; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/jts/flu118

1477-4607

Anders Jarlert,

American Constitutional Law and Politics

This is the first effort to write a critical, spiritual biography of Frank Buchman (1878–1961), the founder of the Oxford Group and the Moral Re-armament movement, with emphasis on his ideas rather than on the details of his life. Dr Boobbyer's book contains many clarifying observations on Buchman's life and work, leaving some questions yet to be answered. Buchman's great and main concept was that ‘the Holy Spirit could teach people how to think and live and through that transform the character of national and international life’. However, the author never clinches Buchman's monopolistic claims for his concept. People who left the OG or MRA sometimes did so replying that ‘God has other agencies as well’. Buchman emphasized that there was no organization, and that people joined by living a life. As I noted even in 1995, this was a big problem, since Buchman in practice wanted people to identify themselves not only with the living principles of the Oxford Group, but also with the fellowship as such. To many, for example Swiss theologian Emil Brunner or Norwegian writer Ronald Fangen, this became a real difficulty: if there was no ‘organization’ and no ‘membership’, why did they have to identify themselves not only with a life, but also with a ‘fellowship’?