Buchmanism Renewed

Monks in tail coats, friars traveling in Pullman cars, Franciscans on house-parties --anomalous in a mechanistic age yet curiously understandable are a band who call themselves ''The Groups" and "A First Century Christian Fellowship." Begun some 13 years ago by Rev. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman, a Lutheran minister who became Y. M. C. A. secretary at Pennsylvania State College, the movement gained its impetus at that theological-philosophical hothouse, Oxford University. In the U. S. its progress was for a time viewed by many a religious and educational leader as lurid, sensational (TIME, Oct. 18, 1926). "Buchmanism" and "Buchmanite" were suspected of being unnatural. Buchman-ese was supposed to include mysterious expressions like "washout" (mutual confession of sin) and "fresh fish for breakfast" (impromptu, divinely inspired discourse). The Buchmanite method of evangelism, practiced at mixed houseparties as well as in college dormitories, was to create a tense emotional atmosphere for confessions of misdeeds, especially sexual. Unfavorable publicity resulted, and the eventual expulsion of Frank Buchman from the campus of Princeton University.

This year the movement has made its strongest impress upon three places: last March upon Asheville, N. C.; last April upon Louisville, Ky.; last week upon Manhattan. Calling themselves simply The Groups, its leaders work independently, but in spiritual fellowship with Frank Buchman, who is now in England. No longer are sexual difficulties stressed, nor indeed is any credo or evangelistic theory followed. In The Groups all is simple, straightforward, personal: one is offered salvation unmuddled by latterday theology or evangelical hullabaloo. Called by Sir Michael Sadler of Oxford a "peripatetic League of Nations," the fellowship is informal: no one is asked to join anything or contribute any money; it is as unorganized and spontaneous as any Early Christian band.

In the South-- Last October Mrs. Helm Bruce, prominent Presbyterian, asked Rev. Ray Foote Purdy, a leader in The Groups, onetime Princeton Y. M. C. A. secretary, to visit Louisville. He went for ten days. He had asked friends to accompany him; they had all been unable to come--until the last minute: then, they said, God had sent them.

In Louisville last April, says Editor Edward A. Jonas of the Louisville Herald-Post, "were many, a great many, piteously at loose ends, pathetically seeking guidance. ... A personal feud-- had ruined great institutions, closed banks, precip- itated a general bankruptcy. And still its fury raged. . . ."

Came then 90 of The Groups, invited by the Louisville Council of Churches. Month before they had left Asheville, where also many a bank had failed. For ten days they worked. Welcomed at their first meeting by Bishop Charles Edward Woodcock of Kentucky, they attracted 2,500 their last evening. Their expenses were not guaranteed; no collections were taken, but at the end there was no deficit. They prayed (at "Quiet Time") for money and their prayers were answered--unsolicited checks in their mail from total strangers in far cities!

"Here, at long last, is leadership," editorialized the Herald-Post.

In Manhattan. Commended in a telegram from Bishop William Thomas Manning of the Diocese of New York, last week's meeting was held in the swank Hotel Plaza. Present as guests were Suffragan Bishops Arthur Selden Lloyd and Charles Kendall Gilbert of the Diocese of New York, Dr. Dubois S. Norris of Manhattan's Central Presbyterian Church,f District Attorney Thomas C. T. Grain, Lawyer & Mrs. Herbert Livingston Satterlee, William Jay Schieffelin, Lawyer Samuel Scoville Jr. of Philadelphia, Mrs. Robert E. Speer and some 1,000 more. To hear direct testimony, to see Buchmanism at first hand had they come. They found it exuberant, direct, its testimonies as heartfelt as those heard in oldtime Bowery missions, only here the witnesses were young people of culture and refinement-- college students, city preachers, businessmen, a polo player, a Junior Leaguer--a group which no cheap or sexy revivalism could have won.

Said Ray Foote Purdy, chairman of the meeting: "We are unmobilized and the foe ... is insidious. ... It is called sin."

Rev. Samuel Moor Shoemaker Jr., rector of Calvary Church, one of Princeton's first Buchmanites, declared: "Frank Buchman . . . did more than any other man to bring me to Christ."

President Jean Barker of the Junior League of Louisville a year ago went to a Junior League meeting at the Hotel Plaza and arising "with knees as weak as water," was barely able to whisper her name. This year her timidity was gone: she said that she had been impressed "terrifically" with the "real happiness, sharing happiness" of The Groups.

Frank Bygott, captain two years ago of Wadham College Boat Club at Oxford, said: "I was bored . . . [then] I found that winning people to Christ is the greatest adventure in life."

Mrs. A. Cameron Wilson who came from Aberdeen, Scotland to attend the meeting said: "I have attained a peace that material things, even loss of money, cannot influence."

* Between Judge Robert Worth Bingham, publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal & Times, and James B. Brown, editor & publisher of the Herald-Post. Publisher Brown is president of National Bank of Kentucky which, involved with the Caldwell-Lea crash (see p. 19), was closed along with other local banks. Now to reopen, it promises payment in full.

/- Onetime missionary, associated with the church for 32 years, he resigned as assistant pastor last week after the elders of the church had asked him to discontinue his Buchmanist teachings.

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