James W. Fifield
Reverend James W. Fifield was minister of First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, and for a time the US leader of Moral Re-Armament.
Fifield joined the church when it had a debt of three quarters of a million dollars, during the great depression. In eight years he managed to wipe out the debt and increase church membership from 1,000 to 4,500.
During the 1930s, Fifield started a movement to campaign against the New Deal on a religious level. In 1940, he established a company to promote his views, called Spiritual Mobilization, Inc. By 1948, it had a new board of directors composed of businessmen, and with the financial support of many of the country's top corporations it published a monthly journal which was sent to 22,000 clergymen across the country, with the message that only a free-market economy was consistent with Christian principles.
On the board of Fifield's church was Leonard Read, founder of the Foundation for Economic Education.
References
- http://www.thetintypeshop.com/church/
- David Danzig, "The Radical Right & the Rise of the Fundamentalist Minority", Commentary, Vol. 33, No 4, April 1962.
- http://www.mises.org/wardlibrary_detail.asp?control=4578
- http://www1.minn.net/~nup/4aug2001.htm
