IDEOLOGY

During his period of convalescence in 1943 - the year of the Casablanca, Quebec, Cairo and Teheran conferences on the future of Europe - Buchman had time to think about and talk over what lay ahead for the world and for his work. The Soviet Union, it seemed to him, had an aggressive belief about how the earth should be run, a faith which had shown itself capable of winning adherents in every country. America, too, was originally a nation founded in a faith with a universal appeal. Yet that faith was seldom now related to practical affairs or politics, and seemed unlikely to be prominent in the public mind when it came to shaping the world after the war. How could this factor be brought home to the American people, and what should be done about it?

Michael Hutchinson, a thirty-year-old former Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, who was working with Buchman in North America, had talked to him about 'ideology'. ‘I don't think I'd use that word,' Buchman had replied. 'I would rather say "a big idea".' In fact, up to this point, Buchman had only used the word 'ideology' in a negative context, as something to he combated or overcome. But the more he pondered the matter, the more it seemed clear to him that any idea with a world-wide outlook and programme, and which made a total demand on a person, could properly be called an ideology. Christianity, as Christ preached it, was such an idea. Where it differed from the materialist ideologies of the day was that it prescribed a total obedience not to any person, but to God.

The word 'ideology', in fact, was neutral. It had acquired a bad name because it was being used almost exclusively by those materialist brands which, in practice, meant tyranny. Yet the word implied a degree and breadth of commitment which the word 'religion', through the half-heartedness of many religious people, had lost. Why should not America live out her original faith with such fire and thoroughness that it would offer an attractive and universally-recognised alternative to the materialist ideologies?

With such thoughts developing in his mind Buchman arrived back at Mackinac at the end of June. As he boarded the boat for the crossing he was, according to one of those with him, tired but gleeful. 'He sang what he imagined to be the "Mackinac Song" and looked long and lovingly across the waters as the island came in sight. It was an effort to get off the boat and to climb into the carriage which took him off to Island House.'1

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