Word: mra
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This is the kind of guilt MRA plays on. This is the stranglehold it has on the Sing-Out Kids. They are straight, they say. No drinking, no smoking, no dating. There are no rules against such vices in the organization, but no one indulges. In the handbook Moral Re-Armament: What is It? it is made very clear that these are evils. They pollute your mind and sap your energy, draw it away from the Cause...
What do the Sing-Out Kids know about all this? Not much. Ask them a question and they quote the answer verbatim from the MRA handbook. Even the leaders like Sayre do that. Most of the handbook was written by Howard, and it is gospel even though his answers are often incredible non-sequiturs. But the Kids study it and repeat it. The answers are right there and there is no use thinking about...
...help you catch on. First, Frank Buchman, the founder, and Howard tried lectures and books. That was in the 1930's. Then there were plays and movies. They had appeal, but it was limited. Howard thought up Sing-Out in 1965 and all of a sudden MRA caught on. The success was sensational. In just a year and a half, the three national troupes and the numerous foreign troupes have sung before two million people all over the world: South and Central America, Africa, Japan and Korea, and throughout Europe. They have been at 84 military bases, and Sayre reports...
...Sing-Out is no haven for draft dodgers. Most of the boys in the cast have given up 2-S deferments anyway by leaving college. There is much more to MRA's appeal. Many of the kids have had some sort of bad experience, either with sex or with liquor or with petty law-breaking, and joining MRA becomes a cleansing action. The show itself looks almost like a purification rite or a Southern Christian Revival service...
...they want that sincerely. Political power they shun for the time being, but they realize that Sing-Out, mobilized behind some party or candidate, could be a fantastic force. Right-wing discontent, the search for simple answers to complex problems, and the American tradition of evangelism all make MRA frightening appealing...