Oxford Group Under Test In Regard To Loyalty

Northern Advocate, 8 October 1941, Page 6

Oxford Group Under Test In Regard To Loyalty

(Received 2 run.) LONDON. October 7. CRITICISM OF THE REFUSAL BY THE MINISTER FOR LABOUR (MR. ERNEST BEVIN) TO EXEMPT THE “OXFORD GROUP” LAY PREACHERS FROM MILITARY SERVICE, WAS VOICED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS BY MR. G. MATHERS (LABOUR, LINLITHGOW), WHO SAID THE QUESTION WAS ONE OF PRINCIPLE, NOT ONE OF PLEADING FOR CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS. fttyoiicv opposition to Mr. Bovin’s decision had come from every section of the forces, Mr. Mathers said. Tlie suggestion that the lay preachers were not men with a serious call to*Christian duty, but were merely young idlers anxious to avoid military service, was a lying-innuendo.

Archbishop’s Support < Mr. G. L. Courthope (Conservative. Rye) said eight of the 11 men concerned were specially commissioned for evangelistic work in 1933. The Archbishop of Canterbury adhered to his opinion that this was religious work, and that these men should .be reserved. He had written to Mr. Bevin to that effect. Mr. Bevin, replying to the speakers, said this was not a question of religon at all. “Speaking as Minister for Labour, and, I believe, with the full concurrence of my colleagues in the Government,” he said, “we are not prepared to abandon either cur obligations or our duties to an Anglican bishop or to anyone else. Others Accepted Position “I and my advisers consider that by no stretch of the imagination could ihese men be brought within the terms of expressed exemption in the Act. Bodies like Toe H and the Y.M.C.A., when told they did not come within the definition, patriotically accepted the decision. “Let it once get into the heads of the people of Britain that any Minister ran away because of organised religious or any other form of pressure and you have lost this war. ' “I would advise this group to be a little more careful. Oxford Groupers told a provincial mayor tnat my attitude could be understood because I was an atheist. “That is going a bit too far. I say to the Oxford Group: ‘You will win the confidence of Britain if you are prepared to take your corner in the great struggle.’ ” Herbert Outspoken Mr A. P. Herbert (Independent, Oxford University) congratulated Mr Bevin, but said he hoped he would have gone further because the Government, like the previous Government, had been weak in this affair “I know what I am up against in this vast, wealthy, ruthless organisation, which is able at this moment to flood the country with four-page printed leaflets on expensive paper with nc name of the printer in ccrdance with the law,” he said. “I am tired of hearing about persecution. The tone of the language and the technique of the Oxford Group Co., Ltd., are strikingly and sadly similar to those of the Nazis. “Flabbiness, Fascism” “Dr. Buchman (the leader) is not a friend of Britain. He loves Hitler as well as he loves us. His teaching tends to flabbiness on one hand and Fascism on the other. “The bulk, of these boys are good, but there is a sparkle of the dangerous infection and flabbiness of Fascism in the people we are discussing, namely, the evangelists. I received a letter saying that the movement in Denmark was the principal force of spreading defeatism. Challenge to Buchman “Dr. Buchman is credited with saying, ‘ Thank God there is a man like Hitler .’ “Never since the outbreak of war, despite challenges, has this remark been denied or corrected. I invite Mr Mathers to ask Dr. Buchman to cable: ‘ Hitler must be defeated and Hitlerism destroyed.’ “If Dr. Buchman does not reply in a reasonable time’ I will go to Mr Churchill and ask for severe measures in relation to this company. “I will ask that rriembers of the Oxford Group be told to choose between Dr. Buchman and Britain and if they don’t that the Government prohibit the society as potentially dangerous to the State.”