Hello All,

In a long post (Re: Alcoholics Anonymous challenged to take part in an
open debate, 11/21/2007) Gill accused me,

"You cut/paste and write out of context, what, should I believe your crap?"

Aside from having no clue what he is talking about because I had cut
_nothing_ from the thread, here is the report from the New York World
Telegram on an interview with Frank B, Bill Wilson's and Dr. Bob's
spiritual leader.

Nothing has been cut out which is probably just as well because it
sounds even worse in its entirety.

I am awaiting further silly response from Gill to distract from the
issues at hand.
__________________________________________________

Frank Buchman's New York World Telegram Interview

HITLER OR ANY FASCIST LEADER CONTROLLED BY GOD
COULD CURE ALL ILLS OF WORLD, BUCHMAN BELIEVES

By William A. H. Birnie,
World-Telegram Staff Writer

To Dr Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman, vigorous, outspoken,
58-year-old leader of the revivalist Oxford Group, the Fascist
dictatorships of Europe suggest infinite possibilities for remaking the
world and putting it under "God Control".
"I thank Heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a
front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism, " he said
today in his book-lined office in the annexe of Calvary Church, Fourth
Ave and 21st St.
"My barber in London told me Hitler saved Europe from
Communism. That's how he felt. Of course, I don't condone everything the
Nazis do. Anti-Semitism? Bad, naturally. I suppose Hitler sees a Karl
Marx in every Jew.
"But think what it would mean to the world if Hitler
surrendered to the control of God. Or Mussolini. Or any dictator.
Through such a man God could control a nation overnight and solve every
last, bewildering problem."
Dr Buchman, who is directing an Oxford house-party tonight at
the Lenox, Mass. estate of Mrs Harriet Pullman Schermerhorn, returned
from Europe aboard the Queen Mary, after attending Oxford meetings in
England and the Olympic Games in Berlin.
A small, portly man, who doesn't smoke or drink and listens
quietly to "God's plans" for a half hour or so every day, usually before
breakfast, Dr Buchman talked easily about world affairs while eight or
nine Oxfordites -- good-looking young fellows in tweeds -- sat on the
floor and listened.
"The world needs the dictatorship of the living spirit of
God," he said and smiled, adjusting his rimless glasses and smoothing
the graying hair on the back of his head. "I like to put it this way.
God is a perpetual broadcasting station and all you need to do is tune
in. What we need is a supernatural network of live wires across the
world to every last man, in every last place, in every last situation...
"The world won't listen to God but God has a plan for every
person, for every nation. Human ingenuity is not enough. That is why the
isms are pitted against each other and blood falls.
"Spain has taught us what godless Communism will bring. Who
would have dreamed that nuns would be running naked in the streets?
Human problems aren't economic. They're moral and they can't be solved
by immoral measures. They could be solved within a God-controlled
democracy, or perhaps I should say a theocracy, and they could be solved
through a God-controlled Fascist dictatorship."
He looked around the room at the eight or nine young men
drinking in his words, and straightened the crimson rose in his button hole.
"Suppose we here were all God-controlled and we became the
Cabinet," he said. "You" -- pointing at the reporter, who seldom
ventures off the pavements of Manhattan -- "You would take over
agriculture. You" -- a Princeton graduate beamed -- "would be Mr Hull.
Eric here, who has been playing around with a prominent Canadian who's
Cabinet is material1, would be something else, and this young lawyer
would run the Post Office.
"Then in a God-controlled nation, capital and labour would
discuss their problems peacefully and reach God-controlled solutions.
Yes, business would be owned by individuals, not by the State, but the
owners would be God-controlled."
The Oxford Group has no official membership lists, no
centralised organisation, but Dr Buchman estimated that "literally
millions" listened in to his recent world broadcast from the meeting in
England attended by 15,000 persons. Finances?
"God runs them," he smiled. "Don't you say every day, Give us
this day our daily bread? And don't you receive?"
The group is built on the simple thesis that there is a
divine plan for the world and that human beings, with faith and
devotion, can receive God-given guidance in a "quiet time" of communion.
Most Oxfordites write down their guidance and then check it against the
"four absolutes" -- absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute
unselfishness, absolute love.
"Those are Christ's standards," Dr Buchman explained. "We
believe that human nature itself can be changed by them. We believe in
answering revolution by more revolution -- but revolution within the
individual, and through the individual, revolution in the nation, and,
through the nation, revolution in the world. It's as simple as that --
Christian simplicity. And it's fun, too. We call each other by our first
names and our meetings are always informal.
"I held meetings at the Republican and Democratic
conventions. What Washington needs is God-control. Landon talks about
divine guidance. Why doesn't he apply it? And the finest thing Roosevelt
ever said was this -- 'I doubt if there exists any problem, political or
economic, which would not melt before the fire of spiritual awakening'.
"Oxford is not a one-way ticket to heaven, although that's a
splendid thing and lots of people need it. It's a national ticket, too.
That's the ticket we should vote in this coming election -- God's ticket."
Dr Buchman is unmarried, a graduate of Muhlenberg College,
which awarded him a doctorate of divinity in 1926. He said he was
"changed" -- Oxfordites use the word to mean complete surrender to God
control -- by a gradual process.
"I was in England and I began to realise I was a sinner and
there was an abyss between Christ and me," he said. "I was resenting my
lost power and I was confessing others' sins when the real problem was
mine. Then I went to church.
"A vision of the Cross. Of Christ on the Cross. An actual
vision. I was changed then, but I've been changing ever since. A little
even today, I suppose."
"And when was the vision, Dr Buchman?"
"Let's see," he said, and rustled some pamphlets in his hand.
"Let's see -- what year was the vision?"
He looked around at the faces turned toward him. "What year
was the vision?" he repeated. One of the young men spoke up. "1908,
wasn't it, Dr Buchman?"
Dr Buchman smiled at him.
"Of course," he said. "That was it. 1908."