natural, not so much in the sense of the miraculous ac complishments of it, but in the sense that it was itself a great miracle because only God Himself could have created it. Original Christianity, true Christianity for all time, is not a matter of man’s reaching up to find God, but of God’s reaching down to find man; not a matter of man’s trying to live up to a moral code which he be lieves is pleasing to God, but of man’s responding with his whole nature to the mercy and kindness of God. “What did Paul begin with? Listen to him talk to the Corinthians (I Cor. 15:3ff): ‘For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day accord ing to the scriptures’. He began, not with his own con version, not with the new life he had found in Christ, though that for him was the turning point of his life; he began with the crucified and risen Christ. H e began with the atonement and the resurrection. They were facts—like stars, or the passing of time—about which he could do nothing. He would accept the facts only. His own conversion, his own effect as a preacher upon his hearers, were nothing apart from those facts which came first. His life of intense spiritual service was all a tiny footnote to the resurrection. Paul was terribly concerned about what kind of life he himself, and the Corinthians, and all his other churches, lived; but the great back ground of it all was that Jesus had died for their sins, and had risen again for their justification.” Princeton Episode The president of BIOLA, Dr. S. H. Sutherland, also had a personal experience with the Oxford Group but this, unlike my contact with the organization, took place in his college days. He thus relates what he observed: “When I was a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, a new movement swept across the campus of Princeton and also had repercussions in the Theological Seminary there. It was then known as Buchmanism. “ Reactions to the movement were quite varied among the students of the Seminary; a few of the theological students became quite enamored of the movement, feel ing that perhaps it was an answer to the decadent spirit ual condition of Protestantism even in those years when modernism was first beginning to make itself felt in the life of the churches throughout the entire country. “The dangers of the Buchman movement were clear ly evident from the start because of several features which were stressed by the leadership. (1) A definite minimizing of the atoning work of Jesus Christ on Cal vary’s cross, (2) A definite stress on the so-called four absolutes which are essential to their concept of a holy life which are to be obtained through one’s own efforts rather than by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart, (3) The advocacy of the empty mind, which condition was the goal of each fol lower of Buchman, so that the Holy Spirit might fill the mind with His own thoughts. These thoughts were then put down in ‘the little black book’ and became the individual’s Bible for the day. As the days were added up, this ‘bible’ became almost as significant, if indeed not more so, than the Word of God, itself, (4) The practice of the confessional meetings, using as a basis the scripture passage, “ confess your faults one to another and pray for one another.” These confessionals became merely a sordid expose and many of the students turned away from the movement for that reason as well as be cause of the other dangers which were revealed even in those early years of the movement.” (To be continued next month)
Moral Re-Armament also makes much of confessing, and we will go into this more fully as we discuss the teachings and techniques of this group, but it fails to make clear that confessing alone does not do away with sin, not even confessing to God, and certainly not con fessing our faults one to another. What power is there in merely admitting our sins? There is a certain psycho logical therapy in getting it out in the open and off one’s chest but no sin was ever put away in that manner. It is “ the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son” that “ cleanseth from all sin.” “ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all un righteousness.” We never get beyond the cleansing blood, and we never get anywhere with our sins till we get to that fountain opened by God on Calvary for sin and un cleanness. That blood was shed for our salvation. We trusted in His sacrifice on our behalf, and we were saved. As Christians now, we go to God for daily cleansing of our walk and on the very same basis of the shed blood. The Bishop of Durham, H. H. Henson, one of the early critics of the Oxford Group, when speaking of the emo tional confessions of Oxford Groupers made under the impact of public meetings, said they did not “wear well” and the reason was that “It cost more than that to redeem their souls.” How very true! It took the death of Christ and His shed blood to redeem every soul, and there is no other way. “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!” There is no other life-changing power in earth or heaven or any other name by which we may be saved. Our lives are not changed by hearing what God has done for someone else. True, a testimony may cause us to turn to God and seek Him for ourselves. But unless we do that, we can listen to and read all our lives of what He has done for others without its making a whit of differ ence in our standing with God. And unless we know the Word of God and are able to lead another person to Christ Himself, we are not faithful witnesses of God, and not soul-winners at all. Just getting someone into a Group— any Group— is not salvation. Over the years of Oxford Group history, some have de fected from the Group. Among these the most influential was Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, pastor of Calvary Epis copal Church of New York, who in the early days had traveled extensively with Dr. Buchman as part of his “team,” had become the American representative of the Group, and knew the system from the inside out. This defection is thus explained by Walter Huston Clark in his excellent objective appraisal of the Group: “The Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., announced in the fall of 1941 that after ‘careful thought and prayer,’ he was quitting the Group because of his ‘increasing misgiv ings’.” * What these “misgivings” were is elaborated upon by Mr. Shoemaker’s own statement in the January 1942 Moody Monthly**: “We have appropriated to ourselves a convenient moral summary of Jesus, through which He was trying to create a picture of how His followers behaved toward other people, and we have made it the be-all and end-all of the Christian religion. And then we have the supreme effrontery to tell ourselves and others and even God that it exactly describes our ideals, and that is the way we live, too! . . . Some of us have never caught original Christianity by the hem. For original Christianity began with the announcement of something that God had done, something that God had given. It was wholly super- *Used by permission of Twayne Publishers, Inc. New York, from The Oxford Group, Its History and Significance, by Walter Huston Clark. **Used by permission of Moody Monthly, Chicago, Illinois.
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OCTOBER, 1961
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