The Open Secret of MRA
(An Examination of Mr. Driberg's 'Critical Examination'
of Moral Re-Armament) by J. P. Thornton-Duesbery, M. A.
(Master of St. Peter's
College, Oxford), copyright 1964, 142 pages.
The author tells what MRA is, how
it works, who finances it, and what it is out to do in the world.
Further to my earlier e-mail, I have discovered that Thornton
Duesbery was at
Rossall School, that his father was Bishop of Sodor and Mainly and that he was
Chaplain at Corpus Christi while he was there. Further information about him,
Streeter and Henson should be available in F.L. CROSS: The Oxford dictionary of
the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, 3rd ed., 1997.
Alistair Ricketts UK
soon hope to have more info on Tom Driberg's
two books on Oxford group and MRA
tom_driberg_mystery_moral_rearmament.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Driberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Howard_%28journalist%29
Knitting Circle Driberg Page .html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRdribergT.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/446305.s
New Driberg biog Page .html
this page has new biog of him and book review
from Tribune Magazine UK 1964
1964 The Mystery of Moral
Re-Armament by Tom Drieberg Within a month he had a scoop when he discovered the
arrival of the Moral Re-Armament movement. The story was run on for several days
starting on the front page on 28th. February, 1928. He continued to take an
interest in the movement and in the 1950s was invited to lecture on the
subject at Oslo and Göteborg universities. His friend David Ferrer of Secker
& Warberg commissioned the book which came out in 1964 as The Mystery of
Moral Re-Armament.
Driberg was an out homosexual.
sept 18 2012 yahoo aa history lovers (where I am banned and censored)
john I am the author of the page bill last sent you
about the book in question.
I am also the editor of the aa history website
www.aabibliography.com
I am banned from the yahoo aa history lovers by glenn c
see main page of site
there was a pro moral rearmament book written in response to
dribergs book (I have yet to obtain copy I would like pdf copy)
it is by thornton duesberry whose father was big in the church of england. Julian P Duesberry
The Open Secret of MRA (An Examination of Mr. Driberg's 'Critical Examination' of Moral Re-Armament-(see Dribert book listed below) by J. P. Thornton-Duesbery, M. A. (Master of St. Peter's College, Oxford), copyright 1964,142 pages. The author tells what MRA is, how it works, who finances it, and what it is out to do in the world.
he also wrote a sharing pamphlet which is very hard to find
Sharing by JP Thornton-Duesberry Oxford Group Pamphlet $110 -$150
I write this kind of jokingly but
in the mra book you have driberg almost called (outed) buchman as a homosexual several times. strange a queen outing a queen (buchman was very effeminiate in manners but I have never seen proof he was gay)
from the ken ragge book critical of aa
In the latter part of the 30s, it became important to AA to disassociate itself, at least in the public eye, from the Oxford Group because of the growing distrust and contempt the American public held for the Group. In August 1936, Frank Buchman was quoted by a major New York newspaper:
I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism.... Of course, I don't condone everything the Nazis do. Anti-Semitism? Bad, naturally. I suppose Hitler sees a Karl Marx in every Jew. But think what it would mean if Hitler surrendered to the control of God.... The world needs a dictatorship of the living spirit of God.... Human problems aren't economic. They're moral, and they can't be solved by immoral measures. They could be solved within a God-controlled democracy, or perhaps I should say a theocracy, and they could be solved through a God-control-led Fascist dictatorship.(56)*
* In The Open Secret of MRA, a defense of Buchman and Buchmanism, the complete text of the New York World-Telegram article is included. It is interesting to note the differences in the original from 1936 and AA's abbreviated version published in 1984 on pages 170-171 of Pass It On. AA quoted in a fashion that put Buchman in a much better light than even the Buchmanites had attempted to. Most of what is quoted here was left out of the AA version. Perhaps most interesting is that, in the AA version, "the control of" is dropped out of mid-sentence, changing "surrender to the control of God" to "surrender to God." Apparently Oxford Group language was still considered too hot to print in AA literature, even when quoting Oxford Group's leader, fifty years later.
These and other charges of Nazi sympathies,* didn't sit well with the American people. Frank Buchman and his organization's guidance were in serious question.
* The Buchmanites claimed complete innocence. After the war, they announced the matter settled with what they said was a copy of a document found by the Allies after the fall of Nazi Germany. Time magazine, with all its resources at its disposal, made a search for and, apparently, never could find any such document in the Allied records. Tom Driberg, in his The Mystery of Moral Re-Armament, quotes a story that was found in the Nazi secret police records that an ex-AA member might find amusing. A Swedish woman who had been angrily denouncing the Nazis, after attending an Oxford Group meeting, felt guilty and proceeded to "make amends," writing a letter of apology to the Nazi leader. Buchman's statements served notice on the American people how misguided and dangerous it can be to believe one's own thoughts are the Word of God.
Though they pale against the charges of Nazi sympathies, other criticisms were leveled against the Oxford Group. Most involved arrogance due to Oxford Group's belief that they alone were sane and getting direct messages from God and that others, even members of Christian churches, were lost sheep. These charges included blindness to thinking, undercutting churches, hypocrisy, self-congratulatory sanctimoniousness and an inability to tolerate criticism.
end kenn ragge quote