Spiritual Revolution Started in Birmingham

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 32, 8 February 1937, Page 12

Spiritual Revolution Started in Birmingham

HUNDREDS OF RECRUITS FOR GOD CONTROL “The Oxford Group will never leavft Birmingham. It has become part of if! ” That statement, made at an Oxford Group meeting at the Birmingham Town Hall, seemed well founded. Oncel again the Town Hall was crowded, and an overflow meeting in the low r er hall was attended by 400 people. Every night recently—despite the fog —the Oxford Group’s campaign to make Birmingham a God-controlled city has attracted thousands of people to the Gentral Hall or Town Hall. Hundreds of Birmingham people have decided to identify themselves with tho movement which has spread from two to fifty countries in the past ten years, and special meetings for business men, business girls, teachers, parents and other groups are being held in the city. May Save the World * 1 We are not just out to repair existing . conditions. We exist to bring about a really radical revolution. Already it-has begun,’ ‘ said Mr Roger Hicks, who led the meeting. “In factories, schools, hospitals and homes in Birmingham, men and women are coming into a real experience of the power of God in their own lives, transforming them and the work of which they are part. “They have realised that the Christian must be more revolutionary than anyone else. This is a revolution by which the Cross of Christ might yet save tho world.” The first speaker was Mr Ivenaston Twitchel, of Princeton University, U.S.A. “Wo have tried pacts and treaties and agreements, we have tried moralising, wo have tried lecturing other people . . . and where are we?” he askea. “One tlAng we have not tried, Christian revolution.” „ The . only hope for the world was changing human nature on a mammoth scale. Nothing else would work. Everything would crumble unless there was at the centre life which Christ alone could give. Iu the Oxford Group, men and women were finding: A new friendliness in their homes. A new purity of social lii«. * A new honesty and sense of responsibility in business. A new education in schools which was training the whole man and not merely pouring facts into the children’s heads. A new national defence in earning the love and gratitude of neighbouring countries. Race With Moral Decay It was a race with mocal dry rot. A minority of determined ‘people united under God’s control coiild swing a majority. “It is either Christ of chaos,” said Professor Arthur Norval, of South Africa. “We havo to choose and we have to choose quickly.” The choice rested on facing realities. It lay in nothing sloppy and sentimental. Through the Oxford Group he had found the reality of God and the solution for every problem and conflicting desire. From the Irish Free State came Mr Derek Barton. Because of the Oxford Group, he said, a Republican gunman, a Commonwealth Party candidate, a Southern Irish Unionist and a staunch, Ulsterman were working together to bring Ireland under God’s control. Mr Cuthbert Bardsley said that it was more serious that England had gone off tho God standard than the gold standard. Men had lost their faith in God and because of that, lost their dare, their vision, their sense of purpose, their common unity. A team of young speakers who told of adventurous living for God included Mr David Fiennes (whoso father was a former editor of tho Birmingham Gazette), Mr Stewart Smith (President of tho Glasgow University Union), Miss Marie Clarkson (Oxford), Mr Jim Warnc (an apprentice at the Austin Motor Works), Miss Wistaria Jolly (Edinburgh), and Mr Alastair Dow (Glasgow). “A Supreme Positive” Mr Arthur Baker, chief of the The Times Parliamentary staff, said ho had found the supreme positive in a world of negatives. He had never come across a problem which could not be solved if he was willing to ask for God’s guidance and act upon it. Another Fleet street journalist, Mr George Christ, who is a gossip writer, said he had put his life and his work under God’s control. Could the Press do anything to bring peace on earth? It could do a tremendous lot of good if it was God-controlled but .to a. large extent it reflected the public miud and thero wus a need for a coro of the community living under God’s control. Then could bo born n new century which would bring the world to the place where it became the Kingdom of God. Other speakers included Mr Harry Addison from one of the distressed areas, who said he had seen the problem of moral deterioration which came from continued unemployment solved permanently iu tho lives of men under God’s control. Economic adjustment followed God’s control. The challenge of the group was also presented by Father Jack Winslow, of India, and Mr Farrar Vickers, a prominent Yorkshire industrialist. It was a case of “Which side are you on?”