THE OXFORD GROUP

On the other side of the Atlantic, too, Henry van Dusen, a professor at Union Theological Seminary, was describing Buchman's work as 'perhaps the most powerful, and certainly the most striking spiritual phenomenon of our times'. Van Dusen expressed various criticisms, together with his assessment of Buchman's personality, in an article headed 'Apostle to the Twentieth Century' in The Atlantic Monthly.20 His main criticisms were that Buchman was disdainful of the efforts of other Christians, while being 'hypersensitive to any criticism of his own vision'; that he saw the task of 'life-changing' as the sine qua non for every Christian, whatever his gifts, and allowed no division of responsibility for different talents; that he was a name-dropper and 'paid an uncritical, almost childlike, deference to people of birth or social position'; and that he was prone to exaggerations of various kinds which clashed with his avowed standard of 'absolute honesty'. At the same time, his final paragraph describes Buchman as 'one of the most extraordinary men in a period which may be distinguished in the annals of history as the Begetter of Great Leaders'.

'As with all men of genius,' he wrote, 'the secret of Mr Buchman's influence is not easily defined. One thinks at once of obvious qualities which distinguish him and make their contributions to his effectiveness - a quite extraordinary skill in administration; personal attention to the importance of the minutest detail; infinite solicitude for each person's needs and idiosyncrasies; tireless resilience of body and nerves; playful and unclouded gaiety of spirit; financial sagacity, not to say shrewdness; tenacious memory; a sense of strategy which might quicken the jealousy of a Napoleon; exuberant and contagious optimism.

'But one is driven to conclude that none of these is the gift of inborn equipment: all are products of some deeper secret. The ultimate sources of Mr Buchman's personal power are, I think, four: uncanny pre-vision of the future, expert understanding of the inmost problems of the human spirit, unclouded certainty in his own procedure and the absolute deliverance of self - his hopes, his necessities, his reputation, his success - into the direction of the Divine Intention, clearly and commandingly made known to him. How far the first three are themselves the result of the last, no human analysis can reveal.'

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