M.R.A. Debate

Man rarely bites dog at an Assembly of the Church of England; the slashes and clashes in that arena are usually so politely modulated as to be inaudible to the untrained ear. But last week's Assembly in Westminster's Church House was different. The Social and Industrial Council's report strongly criticizing Moral Re-Armament (TIME, Feb. 14) was coming up, and for days M.R.A. literature and letters had made a rip tide across the desks and breakfast tables of churchmen and editors.

Absolute Praise? When the motion to receive the report was made, another motion popped up just as fast: "That the Assembly pass to the next business." From his presiding chair the Archbishop of Canterbury evenly remarked that he had the names of 25 people who wished to speak and that he would not "frustrate the desire expressed by all these speakers."

Sir Wilfrid Garrett, the Anglican layman (a retired colonel) under whose chairmanship the report had been prepared, opened the debate with a defense of the report against charges of "Machiavellian plotting or external influence." He bluntly accused Dr. Frank Buchman's M.R.A. of "political-pressure-group tactics." Said the Bishop of Colchester: In addition to its "Four Absolutes" of honesty, love, purity, and unselfishness, M.R.A. was trying to add a fifth--"absolute approval or absolute praise [of its work] . . . That in all seriousness," said the bishop, "is the root of all the trouble caused by this report." Top M.R.A. supporter was Major General Sir Colin Jardine, one of the two council members who had refused to sign the report. "I doubt if the Social and Industrial Council is the body which should properly be charged with the task of appraisal of M.R.A.," he said. "It is not their function to pass judgment on the theology and psychology of M.R.A. . . . I know many members of M.R.A. I find them wholehearted, courageous, disciplined and kind Christian men and women."

Absolute Pressure? The debate went on all afternoon, and was resumed the next morning. At last an M.R.A. supporter moved an amendment that the Assembly send the report back to the council. Then the venerable Archbishop of York rose to a standing ovation in honor of his 80th birthday. "I have had experience of what is meant by pressure groups," he said.

"But I have rarely experienced such concentrated pressure as during the last few days from those who are associated with M.R.A., trying to influence me in what I was about to say. I have been inundated with papers which could only have been produced by a movement with great sums of money behind it . . . If we send the report back to the council, it would be widely assumed to mean that the Assembly has given way to pressure from M.R.A." When the votes were counted, the Assembly rejected the motion to return the report: the House of Bishops by 29 to five, the Clergy by 218 to 34, the Laity by 151 to 68. But having received the report, the Assembly resolved with typical Anglican caution not "to record any judgments whether upon the merits or upon the demerits of this movement, remembering that every church and every movement stands always under the judgment of Almighty God . . ."

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