‘This is the sum of all our hopes,’ say survivors of Hiroshima; ‘Here indeed is the way for nations to live in peace,’ writes a former German Communist; ‘ln this direction, lies the future of our continent,’ is the claim of young Africans.
These are a selection of comments to be heard on the activities of Moral Re-Armament. This book does not lay down principles, or proclaim a doctrine: it simply brings together the experiences of a large number of people.
M. Gabriel Marcel, the well-known French philosopher, Catholic, and Member of the Institut Français, asks us to listen first to his own reasons for his support of this work – to some people surprising – and then to stories of such different people as a Comintern delegate, a Brazilian docker, an African tribal chieftain, a Japanese pilot of ‘suicide torpedoes’, a militant French socialist, a Buddhist abbot, a Canadian industrialist, and a Nigerian political agitator. What is it that these widely different people have found which has completely altered their lives? Why do these people, living such distances apart, all join together supporting the ideals of Moral Re-Armament?
Why should a Prime Minister of Japan, or a President of the Philippines give their personal guarantee to Moral Re-Armament, thus demonstrating their belief that, it is only by restoring human values that one can hope to solve political problems? How does this force, this complete change of outlook and renewal of hope, break through men's individual lives into the sphere of politics and affect the destinies of nations? These are questions this book sets out to answer.
Dr. Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of Germany between 1949 -1963, writes of this book: ‘May it cause many people to think. Above all, may it make them realise that only a change in men’s own motives and living, can bring hope for a truly peaceful co-operation between the nations.’
Gabriel Marcel hardly needs introduction: his association with the school of Heidegger and Sartre has led him to a philosophy of ‘Christian Existentialism’. He is also well known in France as a playwright and dramatic critic. The central concern of all Marcel’s writings is the predicament of man today. It is in the light of this concern that he wrote of Moral Re-Armament in the French newspaper Le Figaro: ‘It is a hope. It is, perhaps, the Hope.’
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