Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 28, No. 6. 1965.

Holyoake And Moral Re-Armament

page 16

Holyoake And Moral Re-Armament

The Friday before last, Moral Re - Armament presented "We Are Tomorrow" in the Wellington Town Hall.

"Opening Performance in the presence of the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Keith Holyoake," the advertisements proudly stated.

This is not in itself indicative of very much. Mr. Holyoake has been known to attend the opening night of Extrav.

What adds significance is a statement made to the MRA conference just finished in Wanganui.

Moral Re-Armament is now coming to the front, the conference was told. It is the superior ideology that will save China, Asia, and the world. The speaker was Dr. Daniel Lew, the Ambassador of the Republic of China (Formosa) in New Zealand.

"I know for a fact," he said, "that it is a major part of the philosophy of leadership in New Zealand."

If Dr. Lew is correct—and he has been in New Zealand six years —this is disturbing. It is the aim of this article to show why.

It is not easy to find material on Moral Re-Armament. MRA has flooded the world with literature—one pamphlet, "Ideology and Co-Existence," went, by their own estimation, in 20 million homes at a cost of 5,000.000 dollars—but critical assessments of the movement are found mainly in periodical journalism.

Thus the organisation's claims are well spread, but the opposite viewpoint not so well.

Take the claim that MRA agents reconciled he Prime Minister of Eastern Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, with Professor Eyo Ita. This claim was first made over half a dozen years ago.

Writing in the "Hibbert Journal" —a respectable and well-known magazine—J. Ferguson had this to say:

"To us in Nigeria MRA's claim is laughable in view of the continued division between those gentlemen, and this fact leaves us somewhat suspicious of similar claims where we do not know the facts."

Indeed, in most cases we do not know the facts. Even in the early history of MRA we must rely on its founder, one F. N. D. Buchman, for many of the details.

'a certain blindness to the duty of thinking'

In 1921. Buchman went to Oxford to help his friend's brother. He was then 42 and an ordained Lutheran minister.

For some time he had carried a message—the world must change, but first people must change. He founded a group, known first as the First Century Christian Fellowship and later as the Oxford Group.

The original title embraced the basic aim of the group—a return to the fundamental Christianity of the first century after Christ.

As the Oxford Group, it flourished before the Second World War, despite such notorious public utterances as:

"Human problems aren't economic. They're moral. And they can't be solved by un-moral measures.... I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front-line of defence against the anti-Christ of Communism" (1936).

Even then, its methods aroused public concern.

It was condemned by the Bishop of Durham at that time. Dr. Hensley Henson.

"It is notable," he said, "for its toadying on rich and prominent individuals, its unscrupulous use of well-known names, the grotesque exaggeration of its advertisements, the unseemly luxury and extravagance of its travellers, the artificiality of 'sharing' (a form of 'group therapy practised by Buchmanites), the mystery of its finance and the oracular despotism of 'Frank'."

It was not till shortly before the war that the movement gained the name Moral Re-Armament, yet these criticisms of the Oxford Group are valid even today.

Anyone who has read the skilful prose of their full-page advertisements in our daily papers will know what exaggerations, what toadying, what unscrupulous use of well-known names the Bishop was referring to.

The most recent example here was the elaborate tribute to Peter Howard, an English journalist who succeeded to Buchman's position when the latter died, and who in turn died a short while ago.

Coupled with the customary columns of high—flown prose were messages from prominent people, Mr. Holyoake included.

It is worth considering what these messages really mean. On the surface, they may look like endorsement of MRA—they pay tribute to the man who used to be its head.

It is worth remembering that when a man dies, a time come for sincerity. The Russians send condolences when a Western statesman dies.

In fact, any political figure will produce a few words of sympathy on the death of a well-known person. Some well-known statesmen will endorse almost anything—the photo of Emperor Haile Selassie holding a "Coke" bottle is perhaps the best known case.

Yet, once they get a message— any message—MRA will display it till the last advantage has been obtained, the last waverer impressed.

It is easy enough to obtain the messages. For MRA is no longer; just a fundamentalist Christian movement. It has become an anti-communist one.

"World War III has begun," their pamphlet 'Ideology and Co-Existence' began. The opposed battle forces are, we learn, MRA and Communism. One or the other must win. What could be more respectable than this, easier to get endorsements for?

Some Mra claims are almost laughable. In Wanganui, the group modestly claimed credit for settling the Mt. Isa dispute—well, helping to. They took their play "We Are Tomorrow" to Mt. Isa, and tempers cooled so that an atmosphere was created in which the dispute was solved.

Presumably the play has not yet been produced in Vietnam.

This emphasis on labour relations is one of the movement's features. If Labour would only turn to face the enemy—Communism, all difficulties would be solved. This naive view was well dealt with by the former Labour daily, the Southern Cross, when it said in an editorial in 1947:

"To say that the class war is a theory is to imply that it could be abolished if only the workers would refrain from subscribing to it. ... Since the employer naturally wants to make as much profit as possible, and the workers want to be paid as high a wage as possible, and since these two aims are opposed, a conflict of interests is inevitable ..."

In 1960 the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions sent a memorandum to its members. In part it said:

"Having heard further statements showing that MRA, in spite of repeated trade union protests, has continued to interfere in internal trade union affairs, and to pursue interests opposed to those of the workers ... the executive board unanimously agrees, in view of the continued interference of MRA in industrial matters, to advise trade unionists to sever all connections with that movement."

The Church of England, not exactly a left-wing body let alone a communist one, has been unimpressed by MRA. A report made to the Church Assembly concluded, amongst other criticisms, that one of MRA's characteristics was "a certain blindness to the duty of thinking."

The duty of thinking. If it were only on this count, we would be entitled to dread any MRA influence on the New Zealand Government. It is to be profoundly hoped that Mr. Holyoake, having seen his name played with over the past fortnight by the owners of Tomorrow, will learn the lesson.

Happily, this blindness has not permeated Victoria to any noticeable extent. MRA did attempt, earlier in the year, to persuade the Students' Association to sponsor lectures in the Memorial Theatre. Executive very sensibly declined.

It will take an informed student body to keep it this way.

H.B.R.

The Section purchased for additions to Vic "A" hostel with vic "A" extension hostel, opened this year, on the right.—Don Laing Photo.

The Section purchased for additions to Vic "A" hostel with vic "A" extension hostel, opened this year, on the right.—Don Laing Photo.