Oscar-Nominated Star Of 'The Wife' Glenn Close Grew Up In The Cult-Like Moral Re-Armament

At first, Close led an idyllic childhood; she grew up in Connecticut in a stone cottage owned by her grandfather, where she often rode her Shetland pony, Brownie. But when her father moved to the Congo, he relocated the Close family to Caux, Switzerland, near the MRA's headquarters. The group owned a large hotel called Mountain House, where the family lived for two years.

After conflict broke out in the Congo, Close didn't see her father for an entire year. She said the experience affected her childhood and her relationship with her family: "You’re totally pulled up from what your roots were, what you loved and your family is pulled apart."

Close's father worked as the Congo's health minister and was instrumental in containing a virus outbreak. He worked closely with Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, a leader who rose to power and eventually grew unprincipled.

During the time he was in the Congo, Close rarely visited her dad. He eventually left and moved to Wyoming, and Close moved back to the US when she was 15 to study at a boarding school in Connecticut. Close's father eventually distanced himself from the MRA, as did Close.

Close said her time in the MRA gave her a skewed perspective on the world. She told The Hollywood Reporter the group had strict beliefs, and members were chastised for what were deemed immoral feelings and desires:

You basically weren't allowed to do anything, or you were made to feel guilty about any unnatural desire... it has a profound impact on you. It's something you have to [consciously overcome] because all of your trigger points are [wrong].

The children and young adults who joined Up With People were seemingly taught not to question the MRA's beliefs. The Harvard Crimson reported in 1967 that if you asked a member about the group's practices, they'd recite a canned answer from the handbook, written by Peter Howard, who succeeded founder Frank Buchman.

The anti-intellectual organization eschewed critical thinking. They gave their young members easy answers to complex problems and promised them morality and strength of character would solve complicated sociopolitical issues. Close confirmed the group didn't let members think for themselves, saying the MRA "[dictated] how you're supposed to live and what you're supposed to say and how you're supposed to feel."

Close's dad was mostly responsible for his family's involvement in the MRA. A doctor and Harvard grad, he was working in the Congo when he decided to move the Close family to the group's headquarters in Switzerland. When the group lost influence after its two main leaders passed, Close said everyone in the family had to go through a process of forgiveness.

For Close, this meant sending her father an angry letter:

There came a point where I got very, very angry at my father and I wrote him this letter where I was absolutely honest with [him]... I said, "You don’t deserve to be called our father." I mean, it was so harsh. In fact, I read it to my mother, and I read it to my siblings, and I said, "I’m just going to send this to Dad," because he was a narcissist and he was brilliant, brilliant, but he definitely had a dollop of narcissism.

While Close also harbored some resentment toward her mother, she said, "I think in many ways my mom enabled [my father]... She was brilliant... [but] said to me, near the end of her life, ‘I feel like I haven’t achieved anything.’"

Close said she's forgiven her parents and believes she has some understanding now of why they joined the MRA.

In May 2021, Close shared on the Apple TV+ series The Me You Can't See how the cult has deeply affected the quality of her relationships:

Because of the devastation, emotional and psychological, of the cult, I have not been successful in my relationships and finding a permanent partner and I am sorry about that... It's astounding that something you went through at such an early stage of your life still has such a potential to be destructive.

The MRA was a right-wing organization founded on what leader Frank Buchman called the "four absolutes:" honesty, love, unselfishness, and purity. The group began as an evangelical movement, but eventually turned into a controlling and isolating organization with a rigid belief system. Buchman asserted those with "special guidance from God" couldn't sin and had a moral obligation to lead others.

Allegations circulated that Buchman supported Adolf Hitler - in 1936, Buchman allegedly praised the German leader as a check against communism. Furthermore, Buchman's successor, Peter Howard, ran unsuccessfully for Parliament under the New Party, whose founder later formed the British Union of Fascists.

Regardless of these connections, high-level diplomats and politicians attended MRA seminars post-WWII, and Buchman mainly targeted the rich for membership.