Moral Re-Armament: The Reinventions of an American Religious Movement

(Palgrave MacMillan) Moral Re-Armament, a spiritual movement combining elements of American evangelicalism, popular psychology, and show business, has attracted followers on six different continents and boasts celebrity supporters from Mohandas Gandhi to Mae West. Yet while its advocates hail it as the most important spiritual movement of the 20th century, critics have denounced it as naïve and possibly dangerous. Some have called it a front for corporate power, others believe that it is “cozy” with fascism, and still others consider it a cult. In this book, Sack traces Moral Re-Armament’s reinventions over 50 years from its Ivy League beginnings to its spiritual heirs, Up with People and Alcoholics Anonymous. Sack is a historian of American religion and an administrator at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture .