Chapter 12
The Short Version or abstract
The Oxford Group movement was a distinctive and typical of its time international revival movement that made a mark in Norway in the autumn of 1934, when Frank Buchman, initiator of the movement, and an international team visited the country. Its influence continued to be felt until the German occupation and was at its height 1934-35. After that it shrank in influence, but it was first and foremost with the launching of the slogan Moral Re-Armament in 1938, and the outbreak of war in the spring of 1940 that it diminished greatly. Buchman was the movement’s undisputed leader as long as he lived.
Here in Norway the work was led by Erling Wikborg, Fredrik Ramm, Sten Bugge, Sigmund Mowinckel and Eiliv Skard. Together they formed a national team. Ronald Fangen, Fredrik Ramm and Carl Joachim were those who were most seen publicly. The Oxford Group aimed mostly for individuals and it was prominent individuals who represented it and developed it further.
The Oxford Group was the name for a network of individuals who met in groups, either locally or in connection with different professions. The movement was in principle against building its own denomination, and achieved instead a loosely organized revival that became bigger than itself.
Some of the converted took an active part in the movement through groups and teams. Most people did not do this, but were instead active in their parishes, above all in the Norwegian Church. The Oxford Group network in Norway was probably made up of a couple of thousand people, but without member registration and clear reports of the work, it is impossible to establish exactly how many were involved. The Oxford revival was much bigger than the movement and it spread like wildfire.
Typical of the Oxford Group was the focus on particular audiences. Firstly, one aimed for leaders in different walks of life in the hope of achieving a social revival from the top down. It happened in a small way in Norway, where the revival was strongest in society’s upper and middle class. Politically, the Oxford Group in Norway had a bourgeois character, but in other places it varied. In Sweden, for example, it found a great response among workers, where several socialist leaders, the most well known of which was Harry Blomberg, joined the movement. The Oxford Group also had its greatest support in towns, with Oslo as the centre.
Buchman shaped the Oxford Group’s content and methods through choosing, adjusting and mixing together elements from different Christian traditions and congregations, and the movement was characterized by both pietist and liberal features. Like pietism, ‘Oxford theology’ emphasized that the individual needed their own experience of revival that followed a definite pattern, and personal stories and change had a prominent place in testimony and other preaching. The movement stood for an ethically orientated and culturally friendly piety, which attached importance to social and cultural responsibility and Christianity’s social message. It was reminiscent in that way of liberal theology and especially of the way the American ‘social gospel’ expressed things.
Several things differentiate the Oxford Group from other contemporary revival movements. It presented itself as undogmatic, but was characterized still through its teaching, ‘Oxford Theology’, which was summed up in the 4 absolute standards. The individual and society would be changed through a Christian world revolution which started with the individual’s confession of sin, with the will to put things right and change one’s lifestyle. Central in all this was the thought that the Holy Spirit in a concrete way, led people to the right choices for themselves and society. Even if the movement was ecumenical, it was part of the general Protestant revival tradition. In Norway it was marked by strong Lutheran characteristics because many ministers and members of the Norwegian Church were part of it. The Oxford Group also had strong corporative features, which meant that one aimed for professional groups. One had also one’s own secular terminology, which reflected the outward looking attitude that characterized the movement’s members and the unstable political context in which it had arisen. The Oxford Group can be called a man’s revival because relatively speaking more men were affected by it, and in comparison to other revival movements, took part in its work. The Oxford Group’s jargon was also very masculine, and used war-like metaphors.
In a methodical way the Oxford Group emphasized quiet times, confession, testimonies and counseling, and had its own ways of working with group meetings, teamwork, houseparties and campaigns. The first gathering in Norway, in Hösbjör, with many participants, was a new creation in Norwegian church history, and attracted a lot of interest in the media.
It was something new that celebrities were invited to a revival meeting in a fashionable hotel. Personalities such as Ronald Fangen and Fredrik Ramm experienced a Christian breakthrough during this houseparty, and during the following years Oxford Group people in Norway arranged more than 40 larger and smaller houseparties all over the country.
Some of these were directed exclusively towards Oxford Group folk, others to special professional groups, but most were open for all, which according to the arrangers should make up the majority of the participants. These so called houseparties were important for recruitment, education, fellowship and identity between people from different parts of the country and other lands. The revival grew in the beginning mostly through big campaigns in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim. These gatherings were bigger than earlier revival meetings both regarding numbers, differentiation and publicity. The common meetings broke all the bounds in the country’s largest meeting places and churches. There were separate meetings also for men and women from different professions, a new type of meeting between individuals, and in addition a seemingly inexhaustible need of counseling. Journalists kept themselves closely informed about the different arrangements and the bourgeois press had positive references. Dagbladet and Arbeiderbladet were critical. Whatever the assessment, the Oxford Group was a media event 1934-35. Gradually the Oxford Group altered its content during this period. In 1934 the main emphasis was on the individual’s change. The clear revival preaching and revival wave that followed in its tracks meant that several conservative Christian leaders didn’t know how to relate to the movement. To begin with many were cautious and perceived the Oxford Group as theologically vague and far too liberal. Many of those who belonged to the liberal faction joined or sympathized with the movement. In the summer of 1935, the Indremisjon distanced itself officially from the Oxford Group because it lacked a ‘teaching’ or ‘the Cross’, and at about the same time the revival quietened down somewhat. When the political situation in Europe worsened, the Oxford Group attached an ever growing importance to change in society. The slogan, Moral Re-Armament was launched in 1938, and the movement developed gradually towards an ideology that aimed to give democracies a religious-ideological alternative to the totalitarian ideologies of the time.
That led to interest in the movement cooling somewhat, but up until the German occupation, one can, supported by facts, still call the Oxford Group a revival movement. The occupation became the turning point. Activity stagnated, ‘Group folk’ in Norway became isolated from each other and their international contacts. Internationally the movement changed substantially during the war years, and after the war MRA did not appear as a clear Christian revival movement. Affiliation to the movement in Norway never again reached the same levels as between the wars.
In contrast to pietist revivals, the Oxford Group was open to cultural life and was culturally optimistic. ‘Group folk’ wanted to re-Christianize cultural life through engaging with it. In comparison to earlier revival movements, cultural personalities and artists joined the Oxford Group and actively tried to influence the media, literature and other art. Ronald Fangen introduced a new literary genre, the Oxford demonstration, which also spread to other Nordic countries. The forward thrusting cultural approach led to hard opposition from the culturally radical, who also reacted negatively to the movement’s focus on individuals and the lack of concrete political solutions. There have hardly been earlier any Norwegian world movements, which in the course of such a short time have been so unilaterally negatively assessed and so caricatured as the Oxford Group.
Even if the Oxford Group only existed for a few years in Norway, it did characterize Norwegian cultural and Christian life both then and later. Many people of initiative and resources joined it and received impetus from it that they used in other Christian work. Because this took place at an individual level it can be difficult to identify the movement’s influence on cultural and Christian life after the war. It is no less important because of that, and Christian cultural institutions such as the paper Vårt Land (Our Country) and the Norwegian Church Academy received in their time meaningful help from ‘Group folk’. The same applied to the Kristelig Folkeparti (Christian People’s Party).
The Oxford Group was an original, individual centred, contextual, composite and bourgeois world movement. It was bigger in its time and more important for the future than has appeared in church history. It was not a failed revival that left no trace, but it was different, challenging and open to changes. It was well suited to the religious market between the wars, and for many people a rational choice. It changed itself during and after the Second World War. During the war other religious offerings with fixed frameworks appeared more attractive, and few revival movements actually survived a longer time if they did not have fixed frameworks. When the Oxford Group evolved towards an ideology it lost more of its market than it gained, and many wanted a clearer Christian connection than MRA and later ‘Initiatives of Change’, as a cross religious ideologically characterized movement could offer. It was harder to recruit to an ideologically orientated movement than to a Christian revival movement. That does not alter the fact that ‘Group people’ have influenced Norwegian Christian and cultural life, whether they continued in the movement or distanced themselves from it. Figuratively speaking it is a fact that Buchman and his co-workers set Norway ablaze 1934, even if the fire reached its peak, the Christian world revolution did not materialize and the revival subsided.
The Oxford Group vitalised parts of Norwegian cultural life through people who had experienced a revival or renewal and engaged themselves outside the movement. In addition, many Christians opened themselves more to cultural life and gained a more ecumenical attitude through meeting the Oxford Group. There are still glowing embers after the ‘Oxford fire’ in several Norwegian organizations and institutions.
Translation: Alison Wetterfors
Norwegian Bokmål