Oxford Group

The Oxford Group was a Christian organization founded by American Christian missionary Dr. Frank Buchman. Buchman was an American Lutheran minister of Swiss descent who in 1908 had a conversion experience in a chapel in Keswick, England and as a result of that experience he would later found a movement called A First Century Christian Fellowship in 1921, that eventually became known as the Oxford Group by 1931. The Oxford Group enjoyed wide popularity and success, particularly in the 1930s. In 1932 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, in summing up a discussion of the Oxford Groups with his Diocesan Bishops, said 'there is a gift here of which the church is manifestly in need'. Two years later William Temple, Archbishop of York, paid tribute to the Oxford Groups which 'are being used to demonstrate the power of God to change lives and give to personal witness its place in true discipleship.'

In 1938, Buchman proclaimed a need for "moral re-armament" and that phrase became the movement's new name.