LAY PREACHERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24733, 9 October 1941, Page 8

LAY PREACHERS

THE OXFORD GROUP NO EXEMPTION FROM SERVICE MINISTER REPLIES TO CRITICS RUGBY, Oct. 7. Criticism of the Minister of Labour's refusal to exempt ■ Oxford Group lay preachers from military service was voiced in the House of Commons by Mr G. Mathers (Lab.), who said the question was one of principle, not one of pleading for conscientious objectors. Strong opposition to Mr Bevin's decision had come from every section of the forces. The suggestion that they were not men with a serious call to Christian duty, but merely young idlers anxious to avoid military service, was a lying innuendo, said Colonel Courthope (Con.). Eight of the 11 men concerned were specially commissioned for evangelistic work in 1933. The Archbishop of Canterbury supported his opinion that this was religious work where men should be reserved, he had written to Mr Bevin to that effect.

Mr Bevin, replying to the speakers, said: " This is not' a question of religion at all. Speaking as Minister of Labour, and I believe with the full concurrence of my colleagues in the Government, we are not prepared to abandon either our obligations or duties to an Anglican bishop or anyone else. I and my advisers consider that by no stretch of imagination could these men be brought within the terms expressed as exemptions in the Act. Bodies like Toe H and the Y.M.C.A. have been told that they do not come within the definition, and patriotically accepted the decision. Let it once get into the heads of the people of Britain that any minister ran away because of religious organised or any other form of pressure and you have lost the war. I would advise this group to be a little more careful. Oxford Groupers told a provincial Mayor that my attitude could be understood because I am 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.'" MR A. P. HERBERT'S ATTACK " RUTHLESS ORGANISATION " (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 7. Mr A. P. Herbert congratulated Mr Bevin, but said he had hoped that 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 and ruthless organisation, which is able at this moment to flood the country with fourpage printed leaflets of expensive paper with no name of the printer in accordance with the law. I am tired of hearing about persecution. The tone of the language and the technique of the Oxford Group Company, Ltd., is strikingly and sadly similar to that of the Nazis. Mr Buchman is not a friend of Britain. He loves Hitler as well as he loves us, and his teaching tends to flabbiness on the one-hand and Fascism on the other. The bulk of these boys are good, but there is a sparkle of dangerous infection and the flabbiness of Fascism in the people we are discussing, namely, the evangelists. I have a letter saying the movement in Denmark is the principal force spreading defeatism. Mr Buchman is credited with saying, 'Thank God, there is a man like Hitler.' Never since the outbreak, in spite of challenges, has the remark been denied or corrected, and I invite Mr Mathers to ask Mr Buchman to cable, 'Hitler must be defeated and Hitlerism destroyed.' If Mr Buchman does not reply in reasonable time, I will go to Mr Churchill and ask for severe measures in relation to this company. I will ask that members of the group be told to choose between Mr BUchman and Britain, and if they do not the Government should prohibit the society as potentially dangerous to the State.'"