Talk:Moral Re-Armament

What Should This Article Be Named?

The original name was the Oxford Group. Then Moral Re-Armament spun off (sorta). Then Up With People (which does NOT redirect to this article) and finally Initiatives of Change. With each new name the organization became less prominent and thus less significant. The most influential time in their history was when they were known as the Oxford Group and that was the name they had when their influence helped inspire Alcoholics Anonymous. In view of this I think this article should be titled The Oxford Group and not redirect to Moral Re-Armament. Then the history of each new name/group could be covered in this article.

It seems awkward to me to have the Oxford Group redirect to the second (of four) names the organization has been known as and the fact that the major significance of this organization happened when it was known as the Oxford Group is important as well.

I am suggesting we rename this article to the Oxford Group or we kill the Oxford Group redirect to this Moral Re-Armament article. I think thre Oxford Group is worthy of its own article.

Any opinions? Mr Christopher 21:27, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

On second thought, maybe a better idea is to remove the Oxford Group redirect and create an independent article. Anyone have an opinion? Mr Christopher 05:08, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd also prefer an independent article Oxford Group, mostly because of its important role in the history of AA. The Oxford Group later spawned a surprisingly large number of other groups like the de:Marburger Kreis in Germany. Articles about any of these groups would refer to an Oxford Group article. This would reduce overlap between articles. --Arne Neem 13:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I am proposing we rename this article the Oxford Group. Any objections or opinions? I'll wait a while for comments before I proceed Mr Christopher 13:37, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd prefer your original idea: replace the redirect Oxford Group with meaningful text. --Arne Neem 16:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I think a separate article on the Oxford Group would be the best. Both articles need to be expanded though. - DNewhall

I agree we need to have two separate articles. Wiki (which means quick in Hawaii) Pedia (a well-rounded education). Wikipedia gives a quick, descriptive, well-balanced view. Which is setting the Standard of knowledge. In this case, I think that the Moral Rearmament movement needs to have two particular information for such a delicate subject.

Furthermore, Alan Watts in 1968 specifically complimented the title "The Moral-Rearmament Movement for being 'very significant'. (source: Alan Watts - Album: The World as just so, Track 8).--Yozef 04:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I just went along and changed Oxford Group from a redirect to a stub. There are still some loose ends to fix, though. --Arne Neem 16:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you kindly! Mr Christopher 17:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Working on some of the loose ends, I noticed that the article separation works well. While the Oxford Group considered itself a Christian movement, MRA and Initiatives of Change seem to be less confessional. Having separate articles makes it easier to describe each groups characteristics. --Arne Neem 16:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Buchmanism

Does anybody know, if "Buchmanism" refers to the Oxford Group or MRA? What exactly is "Buchmanism"? --Arne Neem 16:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Technically it refers to Frank Buchman (who founded both), or his teachings and ideas. Mr Christopher 17:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. :-) I'll change the redirect on Buchmanism accordingly. --Arne Neem 18:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Needs beefing up

This article is, not to put too fine a point on it, pathetic. While I wouldn't necessarly expect it to reach the comprehensive depths of this article, I could hope for something greater than what is here. I don't have the time for it, or I would be more than happy to dive in, as I was involved in the movement (briefly) in 1965-1966, and so I shall have to leave it to someone else to do. -- Glacierman 06:02, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Is this article biased?

My sense in reading through this article is that it has been modified/edited to present the subject in a positive light, and presents issues through the viewpoint of the subject itself. As an example of the first, in the discussion of the subject's positive statements about the Nazis, the article presents the contents of a Time magazine article only to contradict the point made in the article with counter-evidence. Later, the article uses the loaded term "lifestyle" to refer to an individual's sexual orientation - a technically inaccurate term meant to demean certain people, apparently in keeping with the ideology of the article's subject. There are numerous other, admittedly subtle, examples of these themes. As a whole, it reads as having been "cleaned up" by someone sympathetic with the subject with an eye to "public relations." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomdarch (talk • contribs) 17:14, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

MRA was a right-wing fascist cult that made its own propaganda of films and books. A few of its die-hards have scrubbed the article as much as possible. Their newest Incarnation, Initiatives of Change, never really took off. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AvocadosTheorem (talk • contribs) 17:34, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Oxted, you can't remove the Harvard Crimson reference without explanation. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/3/28/moral-rearmament-its-appeal-and-threat/ Emotion-based Sing-Out Offers Simple Answers AvocadosTheorem (talk) 20:55, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

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I agree, I think it's biased in favor of MRA. There should be some mention of Buchman's virulent homophobia, and pre-ww2 support of Hitler. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.76.159.132 (talk) 19:04, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Criticism of MRA

At present the article mainly presents the movement in its own light. It would be possible to improve the article by adding in external opinions of the organisation (positive and negative). Such additions would need to be sourced (see WP:RS) and reported in a neutral way WP:NPOV.Martinlc (talk) 10:21, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

The article is incomplete without mention of the fact that in the post-war years it was one of the leading anti-communist organisations in the West. Pelarmian (talk) 12:34, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Martinlc. I'm tempted to hit this with the "advert" tag. Nwebster84 (talk) 06:18, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I found this article due to an interview with Glenn Close, that reminded me of MRA. I had known of MRA decades ago as an anti-Communist, doctrinaire, cultish movement. I was amazed to see how blandly favorable the article is, except for a few lines of "Criticism". It reads like a publicity release from MRA or its descendant. It needs complete rewriting. I don't know who could do it, though. Zaslav (talk) 10:51, 17 December 2017 (UTC). I agree with that. When I was at school (fifty years ago) there was definitely the slogan "MRA or Communism"; it seems to me that MRA was some manifestation of the religious right, but you would not know that from this article.2A00:23C4:B419:EC00:79E8:8B7B:84FB:E7B9 (talk) 22:54, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Moral Re-Armament/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This article is much too favorable torward Moral Re-Armament. It has a false tone of even-handedness. Anyone who is not religious but who has studied this group should be shocked at how uncritical this article is throughout. For anyone who rejects the inherent "goodness" of top-down power or who does not believe in submission to a Judeo-Christian god, reading this is very much like reading an article about the Manson family that is uncritical or even complimentary. It may come as a shock that a large portion of educated people who have studied the life of Frank Buchman hold him in contempt. To make this article "fair" at all it would be good to at least give some extensive voice to the criticisms of Tom Driberg in his excellent book "The Mystery of Moral Re-armament: A Study of Frank Buchman and His Movement."67.101.39.95 (talk) 02:01, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 02:01, 26 September 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 00:25, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

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