Men Want Something Real

In 1925 a Princeton University alumnus told a group of faculty that “men want something real.” He felt that students at Princeton and other universities were trapped in institutions historian George Marsden later described as increasingly secularized and secularizing. Their education was too theoretical and their Christianity was too conventional. Caught in such a place, young men wanted some kind of real‐life experience, unmediated by books or instructors. They wanted excitement and intensity, the kind their predecessors found in the Great War. In place of immorality, or conventional Christianity, evangelist Frank Buchman organized a cell group movement where men could get an exciting religious experience. He repackaged Anglo‐American evangelicalism so it would appeal to modern young people. The movement began in America, but soon included elite college students in Britain as well. It focused particularly on “key men,” vital to Buchman's goal of remaking the world

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• B. H. Streeter and the Oxford Group

  Open Access•Philip Boobbyer•The Journal of Ecclesiastical…•2010

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