Ronald Fangen's two-page press summary of the past twenty-five years in Norway, published the following May, was headed 'Into Nihilism and Out Again'. He wrote, 'The Oxford Group's decisive significance is that it has given us back Christianity as simple and clear, as rich in victory and fresh fellowship as it was in the first Christian era. Its mighty mission and power is to my mind the only hope in an age of nihilism. One cannot drive out demons with devils. Only a great experience of Christian power can convince men that there is a meaning in life, a wholeness and unity in circumstances, and that there are eternal laws and values which cannot be broken with impunity. It is this which is now happening.'15

After Christmas this issue was tested at the Technical and Engineering College at Trondheim, where most of Norway's engineers and architects were educated. As in Oslo University the most vocal and strategic element there was nihilist. 'At a meeting in the Students' Hall virtually all the 900 students were present,' recalls Svend Major, then studying there. 'We heard some Oxford students, Elizabeth Morris, a vivacious girl from America, and Randulf Haslund who, although officially a fundamentalist theological student, had led the largest drinking party of the year a few weeks before. Then Hamilton said that anyone who wished could stay and meet the speakers. Virtually no one left. Next day and for many days the Oxford Group was the main subject of conversation.' One of those who regained his faith at Trondheim was a son of Bishop Berggrav of Tromsø.

The author Carl Fredrik Engelstad, then a student and later head of the National Theatre in Oslo, says of this period: 'I experienced the climate in the student world changing radically. It did not mean that the Oxford Group was accepted all round - on the contrary. But it became possible to discuss religious issues seriously and on a broad basis.' He described the irruption of the Oxford Group into the cultural life of Norway in the thirties, 'with a wind of revival, a strong and direct challenge, absolute standards and, at the same time, vision, hope and a Christian confidence of faith - a Christian world revolution'.16*

(* This did not all take place without controversy. The newspaper Dagbladet took a consistently opposing view, as did writers like Helge Krogh and Heiberg, and later ten Norwegian and Swedish writers published jointly a book disagreeing with the Oxford Group, called Oxford and Ourselves.)

Larger social effects of the Oxford Group visit became the subject of observation and discussion. The London Spectator's Special Correspondent stated that' "converts" claim that religion has now become so much a part of the people's workaday lives that taxes are coming in more promptly, and debtors are more honest about paying tradesmen's bills. The political situation, they say, is less tense; the class war less ominous; a new idealism is breaking through.' The correspondent regarded such claims as 'exaggerated' but concluded, 'If the Groups succeed in imparting new values or new ideals to the political and social life of the country - and it is on this that the "converts" seem to be concentrating - much will have been gained.'17 Two weeks later a feature article by 'A Bergen Correspondent’ added, “A national awakening has sprung to life in eight weeks in a country where, according to one of the bishops 90 per cent of the people do not attend the churches. It has come through a challenge to the mind to think and to the will to take action. It has abundantly revealed that social regeneration comes as the fruit of changed lives.’18

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