#oxford group

[whatisonthemoon]

Confession in the Unification Church

MUST LISTEN: The "Cult of Confession" episode of Blessed Child podcast

One Twitter user @kijinosu describes this episode and its content: 

"In this podcast, Renee describes a feature of thought reform that I hadn't seen elsewhere in my yet brief studies. Let me label it the Big Brother effect and put it out for discussion. Listen to ‘Cult of Confession with Renee'. I call it the Big Brother effect because, as I understand it, UC's incessant report-contact-consult practice combined with group confession causes the believer to feel that they are always being watched. In response to this feeling of always being watched, the believer creates a god that covers all of the demands of the collective. Because satisfying this god then satisifes all of the collective's demands, the believer focuses just on this god. The end result is self-reinforcing thought reform that is less dependent of the collective for maintenance.”

Confession in the Unification Church

Moon and Kwak on repentance, October 1989: 

Each one of us needs heavenly wisdom to solve the problem of our own burden. To be able to live a lifestyle in which we can confess and report things to a central figure can only bring us great fortune.

Hyo Nam Kim (Dae Mo Nim) on March 9, 2002:

In the Divine Principle, is there anything written about the removal of Original sin? In the first, original Blessings, to qualify we had to confess all of our sins and repent and accept pardon as part of the condition to receive the Blessing. Yet, from 6000 Couples Blessing on, our sins were forgiven upon easier and easier conditions. Father would say, subsequently, "I will not ask about your past... just repent and recommit..."

Sun Myung Moon on April 26, 1992:

"Even now you sometimes sneak a drink. Father understands this very well, these secret drinks taste the best. Raise your hands if you sneak a drink sometimes. If you do not confess, it will carry over to the Spirit World."

From the Interview and Confession Form for BC Matching/Blessing Applicants:

It is the responsibility of your District Director (or the designated church leader or STF Director), representing the Continental Director and True Parents, to make sure that you understand the value of the Blessing and that you are prepared and qualified to attend. This confidential meeting is also your opportunity to confess any sins and perhaps receive guidance so that you can go into the Blessing with a clean conscience, free from accusation. Sin came into this world through the fall and cut us off from God, therefore it is important to confess your sins. Do not try to hide your mistakes because they will eventually come out and cause even more pain. The confession pages will stay confidentially with a representative of the Blessing Department. All three pages must be submitted to the Blessing Department.

Conference with [Black] Heung Jin Nim - Takeru Kamiyama (1987)

Before he came to New York in November 1987, I had heard many stories about his new existence in the body of a black African young man, traveling around and hearing confessions. I wondered, how can this brother really be [Black] Heung Jin Nim? Members all over the world are claiming that [Black] Heung Jin Nim has spoken through them, but how can we know if he really did?

Black Heung Jin Nim in DC by Damian Anderson

"With my own eyes, I saw this man in the Washington DC church knock people’s heads together, hit them viciously with a baseball bat, smack them around the head, punch them, and handcuff them with golden handcuffs. I had seen enough. Todd Lindsay was the first to leave. His wife was due to have a baby any day. My wife was six months pregnant at the time, and we were next in line for “confession” to the heavy-handed inquisitor."

Heung Jin Nim’s Spiritual Work by Michael Mickler:

These lectures, punctuated by songs and testimonies or sometimes lively jumping and marching, also took hours, and there was no provision for sleep during the three days. Food also was not a problem since most members were placed on fasting conditions following their confessions. Heung Jin Nim showed special concern for infertile couples and called for couples willing to give birth to a child for them to adopt. There were “tears streaming from many eyes” as “the giving and receiving couples embraced with deep emotion.” At the close of each conference, “participants were given a detailed schedule for their…lives of devotion and attendance,” including time for morning and evening prayers and for study and discussion of the Principle. Many members experienced personal liberation. Public confession or confession with one’s spouse was a prominent feature of “Black” Heung Jin Nim’s conferences. They could unburden themselves of deeply held secrets and “separate from Satan.” Within an intensely supportive environment, they could repent, make restitution as needed, and have a “second chance” to become pure. Others achieved levels of spiritual intimacy, which had been lacking.

On the MRA’s use of confession

Encyclopedia.com on Frank Buchman’s use of confession in the Oxford Group Movement:

He organized his followers into small groups where participants could confess their sins and share their religious experiences in an intimate setting; members would then seek to convert others through one-onone evangelism. Buchman's followers listened for God's plans for their lives, and measured their behavior through a moral code centered on absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love (the Four Absolutes). During the 1920s Buchman developed an international network of these small groups that became known as the Oxford Group Movement.

Encyclopedia.com on Frank Buchman’s use of confession in the Moral Re-Armament Movement:

In 1938 he announced the campaign for Moral Rearmament (MRA), offering Christianity as an alternative to both communism and fascism. In the late 1930s MRA sought to prevent war by calling individuals on each side to confess their sins to the other and adhere to the Four Absolutes. During World War II it turned its energies to morale building, especially in industrial relations. MRA saw Christianity and communism as the world's two competing ideologies; during the Cold War it sought to defend the West, primarily by focusing on labor peace, strong families, and moral values. Through the 1950s the movement held international rallies and used the media skillfully; it achieved prominence by publicizing the involvement of world leaders, especially from the United States, the British Commonwealth, and Asia. 

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"OXFORD GROUP HERE FOR LIFE-CHANGING," Toronto Star. March 19, 1934. Page 3. ---- This touring team of the Oxford group, many of whom had been here, before, arrived in Toronto yesterday for a week's crusade of "life-changing. The team was headed by Rev. Frank Buchman. The team included members from Great Britain, United States, Germany. Russia and South Africa. Here are some of those present: (1) George Light of Warwick. (2) Elsie Burroughs of Ripen, Yorkshire, (3) LEFT to RIGHT-Basil Yates, Oxford: F. B. Bowdillon, London. and Bremer Hofmeyr. Rhodes scholar, Victoria College, South Africa. (4) Miss Helen de Trey of Zurich, Switzerland. (5) Clive Hicks, New York. (6) H. Ronald Hardy, Sussex, England, brick manufacturer and big game hunter. (7) Eleanore Forde. Montreal, (8) Miss Mary Goddie, Edinburgh, Scotland, and (9) J. Van Mien Walle de Bordes, secretary financial committee, League of Nations

[oeuvrinarydurian]

It’s just a fraction of a second at the end of this 15-second scene, but the look on Roger Allam’s face is so droll I had to share it for what I’m calling…

“Deadpan Dad”

[01libra]

DUKE HUMFREY’S LIBRARY | Old Bodleian, University of oxford, Hilary term 2023

[akosuaexe]

[vitaminctablet]

fuck the LNAT. what the hell even is the LNAT dude. what genius genuinely thought it was a good idea. making it you read passages and interpreting it through multiple choice questions bastardises everything about the humanities. there is by definition no right and wrong in the humanities dude. FUCK you.

[hillerska-official]

oxford comma ur a bad bitch im so sorry people are being mean to you

[lanistas]

Obsessed with the fact that Helen is technically six years older than Nikola. He really is the equivalent of an ambitious freshman having a crush on a classy postgraduate student. (And now I am in desperate need of modern AU for these two.)

Have so many headcanons about age gaps between members of the Five and how this difference in age influenced their dynamic in their Oxford days, especially before Source Blood. Would bet my money on the fact that Nikola was the youngest of the group.

[learningsanctum]

October 04, 2024

Studying constitucional law.

Back in February I had started this blog with the intentions of sharing my progress on the new and variated faculty subjects I was going to undertake in this new year. After all, I was finally at the higher education and things had to be different now, right? I wouldn't be barely passing subjects just like I did back in high school, would I?

Well, yes. The first semester was a fiasco of me barely passing and I had to retake most of my exams so I could score just enough not to have to take the subject again. It was disappointing but I didn't think much of it because in my heart and mind I had this hope and idea of doing things differently at the higher education system. I was going to make it right.

Then the new semester started and I was still not studying and sleeping on my free time, tired from working from 07am to 02pm and then going to classes from 07pm to 10pm. Still, I have a gap between 02pm and 07pm I could have been using and had planned various time to use it... only to end up sleeping the whole afternoon.

Please, do understand, I'm not the most health person in the world, much on the contrary, going to the GYM is a habit I have been postponing with the same excuse I had to studying "I have so little time and I am so exhausted", but I realized I had to start creating new habits if I wanted to become a healthy person.

A word to the wise I'd like to share before anyone thinks I suddenly came up with strength and studied all my subjects at once, I didn't. I started therapy about three months ago and you wouldn't believe how the mere fact of knowing I have one hour at week just to talk about myself to someone is relieving. Specially since I'm a very introverted person on general and really dislike bothering my friends with my problems. Therapy helped me to rescue myself from the dangerous trap I was setting up around myself; I was able to identify and actually think about me be going about life and days in a survival mode. I was so deep into surviving and not thinking that somewhere amongst the trenches I lost the sense of what I really wanted in life.

What do I want? That's what I had to stop to ponder about. Did I even remember? It was surprising to see that yes, I definitely remembered what I wanted.

My biggest dream was to go to study abroad. I wanted Cambridge and Oxford. Books, libraries, coffees and burying myself in study for hours a day.

Then came the next, most terrifying question: how could I achieve it? I used to be a golden child, know-it-all, teacher's pet and a goddamn academic weapon! And I had long fallen from grace. I started slacking at seventh grade when I swapped the private hard and thriven education system for the basic public one. I was a star in the public system because everything they were learning I had learnt already in primary. it, of course, came to bite my ass in high school since I assumed I didn't need to study anymore. And I know damn well that if I want a Russell Group university I will have to gain an scholarship. My country's money is worth nothing near the big European pounds.

All things considered I started searching about going to Oxford. Months of research and weeks trying and asking even AI about scholarships available for me to pass to university. Turns out only "Reach Oxford" is available in my country. And tons of people made sure to throw it at my face and say Brazilian acceptance rates in this scholarship were almost inexistent. I didn't give up. I have become set on my goals already.

Then I did what all girls wanting to bounce back into academic life do: I made a mood board, applied to a higher position then the one that I was (I passed!) and started to change my mindset. Day by day. Month by month. A long and torturous process that took a tool on me but was necessary. I had lots of setbacks and just this week I discovered the process to enter Nottingham university through foundation year is easy (if I get the desired grades) since it's an automatic progression pathway, but I have to pay a money that I don't have and believe in my current situation I won't be able to make anytime soon. Still I haven't given up.

Today, at my lunch at work - and it's important to me to talk about my work because while some people have the privilege to sit and study eight hours per day, here in my country, most low class people have to work to study and this ends up in a destructive exhaustion since classes are at night and work usually takes up all the morning and afternoon leaving almost no time to study - I had time to research more and I decided to prepare myself to study once I got home.

I though that since today I didn't have any classes because it's an election day and my faculty will serve as voting spot I would study the much I could for the subject I supposedly should be having today. I decided that even if I can't take IGCSEs and A-levels now because I'm very short on money then I would start studying for what I have in hands, which is my law faculty at my hometown. it's all I have so I might as well be my hometown's good before I become Oxford good.

All of this to say that I am happy to inform that today I studied one whole hour the subject of constitutional law and am able to answer few - even though more simple - questions about the subject. It means my therapy is paying off and it means that my hard work in changing my mindset is giving me the expected result, not only accepting that I might not have what I want now but also motivating myself to use the resources I have to make the best out of my situation. This might as well prepare me for when I finally am able to sit through hours at a library at Oxford to write a paper, no? ;)

And from this, if you have read this far, I would like to say that yeah... maybe you can't study like that one girl from the internet who doesn't do anything but studying... but sometimes half an hour is all you need to keep yourself motivated and to... honestly? Change your whole damn mindset.

[incomingalbatross]

I'm EXCITED.

[whatisonthemoon]

Religion: God-Controlled Dictatorship (1936)

Time Magazine Monday, Sept. 07, 1936

When the followers of Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman wish to emphasize the fact that the Oxford Groups include all sorts of people, they often speak of their "former Communist" colleague, Scotsman James Watt. The Oxford Groups lay no claim to having a "former Fascist" in their midst, and German Buchmanite baronesses hedge when asked how the movement works in the case of German Jews. Last week, to a stray interviewer from the New York World-Telegram, brisk Dr. Buchman readily declared himself on Fascism, now No. i bugaboo to practically all U. S. churchmen.

"I thank heaven," exclaimed Grouper Buchman, "for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front-line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism. My barber in London told me Hitler saved all 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 God. Or Mussolini. Or any dictator. Through such a man God could control a nation overnight and solve every last, bewildering problem. . . . Spain has taught us what godless Communism will bring. 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."

First religious journal to plumb the implications of Dr. Buchman's plea was Zion's Herald, influential New England Methodist weekly which editorialized: "Just what would happen if Adolf Hitler, shorn of all his pagan power, were suddenly to become a St. Francis of Assisi? Would not such a conversion immediately mark the end of all bluster, swashbuckling, regimentation, coercion, intolerance, and persecution? Dictatorship would instantly fade away at the touch of Christ, whose whole method was teaching and persuasion.

"God-controlled Fascism! The terms are mutually exclusive. As well talk of a God-controlled hell! When God controls, Fascism is thereby ruled out."

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"PATTULLO WELCOMES OXFORD GROUPERS," Vancouver Sun. May 28, 1934. Page 7. ---- GREAT INTEREST IN MOVEMENT, SAYS PREMIER ---- VICTORIA, May 28. - "This vast audience is evidence of the great interest that is being manifested in the Oxford Group movement. We are probably living in a period of far reaching importance a period of evolution in the history of the world. We are perhaps too close to the situation to grasp all its implications," Premier T. D. Pattullo said, in his opening remarks, when welcoming Dr. Frank N. D. Buchman, founder and leader of the movement, and his Colleagues to Victoria, at a meeting held in the Royal Victoria Theatre, Sunday night.

"It is rather an anomaly that all the nations of the world should be advocating international goodwill and peace, and yet all adopting an opposite course of action," the Premier continued.

"If we are to produce good will among nations, then we have to have good will in the hearts of the individuals. I find myself in great sympathy with all endeavors inculcated with the spirit of goodwill."

More than one hundred members of the group from London arrived in Victoria Saturday. They are on tour of Canada and the United States and held meetings here at various churches throughout the day.

Their final meeting was held at the Empress Hotel Sunday evening and the groupers left at midnight for Vancouver.

Leader HALLEN VINEY, M.A. Once a chaplain in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserves, Hallen Viney, one of the best known members of the Oxford Group's International Team, is an M.A. from Downing College, Cambridge University. A leader in the organization work of the group, he made a wide circle of acquaintances during his first visit to Vancouver with the Oxford Group team a year ago.

[siriuslymcfly]

the oxford university propaganda in maxton hall 💀 guys that place is literal hell they have to tape off this tower on campus every exam season to stop people jumping off it no joke

[what-is-infinite]

I recently finished Babel by RF Kuang, and then I read Evil Eye by Etaf Rum.

I haven’t stopped crying since 🥲.

[mablikethequeen]

I kinda feel like Charlie is going to go to Oxford

[hjemne]

Oh I know a guy from Bogotá who has spent a lot of time doing research in small, remote south American villages & he knows a lot of people with these types of names! As well as the more traditional names, people are also named after a lot of things & people that their families have heard about. Lots of tractors, batteries, European sports teams, 20th c historical figures... And it's mostly fine because people in these communities usuallyyyy stay in or immediately nearby their homes & don't necessarily interact with people who know about WW2 and might inform them about the global connotations of the name Hitler

As an aside, the stupidest name my friend knows isn't actually Hitler or Lenin or Liverpool or Tractor, but is held by an English guy called Dick Wang.

what was wrong with this guy's parents