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Alcoholics Anonymous History A.A. – The Four Absolutes –The Facts Again!
Dick B.
© 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved.
Summary
The “Four Absolutes” of A.A.
were cherished “yardsticks” in earliest A.A.—standards for determining right
behavior as measured through God’s eyes. And A.A.’s Co-founder Dr. Bob made
that clear.[1] The Four Absolutes were
Honesty, Purity, Unselfishness, and Love.
Robert E. Speer: The
time-line for the recovery origins of these principles begins with
Presbyterian missionary leader Robert E. Speer. In 1902, Speer published The
Principles of Jesus.[2] Chapter 6 was titled
“Jesus and Standards.”[3] And Speer there spelled
out “some” moral principles that could be applied to determine and practice
what was “right or wrong.” Speer said the teachings of Jesus set up absolute
principles which didn’t allow men to measure their conduct by what they “thought”
was right or wrong. Jesus, he said, enabled men to have absolute standards of
conduct by which they were able to “know whether it is right or wrong, drag
it into Jesus’ presence, and see how He looks at it, and how it looks to
Him.”[4] Some have erroneously
stated that Speer fashioned the four standards from the teachings in the
Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 to 7). But his citations were much more broad.
Speer said that Jesus taught in a practical way in order to make people
understand, and the illustrations Jesus used were themselves such as to make
some principle perfectly clear. The teachings set up standards (Mark 9:33;
Matt. 5:34, 37; 6:16; Mark 7:15; Luke 9:60). Perfection was his standard
(Matt. 5:48). He had attained it (John 8:29). He demanded it. Right is to be
right. Thinking it right or thinking it wrong does not make a thing right or
wrong. Jesus, said Speer, set up an absolute standard of truth. He
said, if God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and
came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not
understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your
father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer
from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in
him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and
the father of it (John 8:42-44). Jesus set up an absolute standard of
unselfishness. Speer pointed to Mark 10:45: “For even the Son of man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a
ransom for many. Jesus set up an absolute standard or purity. He
tolerated no uncleanness whatsoever. . . . A hand or an eye, outer or inner
sin, must be sacrificed to the claims of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:29,
30). Jesus set up an absolute standard of love. Jesus said, “A new
commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another (John 13:34),
Henry B. Wright: Next in
line comes Yale’s Professor Henry B. Wright. And in 1909, Wright published The
Will of God and a Man’s Lifework.[5] Wright devoted this
teaching to the relation of the act of surrender of self in doing God’s will.
He contended that willingness to do God’s will is a necessary condition for
knowledge of it. He pointed to the Bible and Nature as the parts of God’s
will that every one may know.[6] Wright emphasized that
God reveals His Universal Will for the world in Jesus, the Living Word, and
in the Bible, the Written Word.[7] Then he asked if there
were “absolute standards of right and wrong; how Jesus found out the
particular will of God for himself, and said Jesus “always did the things
which were pleasing to God.” Citing Scripture, Wright pointed to verses in
the Bible dealing with purity (Matthew 5:29), unselfishness (Luke 14:33);
honesty (Luke 16:11), and love (John 15:2). Wright explained that Jesus was
sure of God’s presence and guidance; and Wright reconstructed the “absolute
standards of right and wrong” from the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.
Wright quoted Robert E. Speer as follows:
Mr. Robert
E. Speer has reconstructed from the teaching of Jesus the four standards in
regard to which he never allowed himself an exception and with reference to
which his teaching is absolute and unyielding. Jesus gives us no direct
teaching in regard to such things as smoking, drinking, card playing,
theatre, dancing, etc. He recognized that some men could decide one way and
others just the opposite on like questions and yet both sides be true Christians.
But in regard to four things there was no such option. A man must be pure, he
must be honest, he must be unselfish, he must express himself in deeds of
love or else he cannot see the kingdom of God. There is no exception to be
made on these four counts.[8]
Having discussed many
relevant verses applicable to the “Universal Will of God,” Wright then
explained that God also has a Particular Will for each individual man, He
suggested it rested on the “Fourfold Touchstone of Jesus and the Apostles.”
He suggested, as to the four touchstones, that there be a test of Purity,
Honesty, Unselfishness, and Love. He said that obedience provided the
assurance as to one’s duty and power to achieve results. Wright illustrated:
To every
problem, great or small, which presents itself in a small matter like one’s
bearing in a game of sport, in a large matter like the choice of a life career,
the Christian who is absolutely surrendered to God asks himself this
question: “Is the step which I had planned to take an absolutely pure one? Is
it an absolutely honest one? Is it the most unselfish one? Is it the fullest
possible expression of my love? If it fails to measure up to any one of these
four standards it cannot be God’s will and I must not take it, no matter what
the refusal may cost me in suffering, mental or physical. As he holds his
instrument of apprehension, the human will, resolutely to this standard, the
Christian is conscious of its becoming strong both to know and to do God’s
will and there comes the undoubted, the compelling conviction which guides
and impels him forward. . . . The mysterious meeting place in the prepared
and willing heart between the human and divine where precisely the will is
finally moved into line with God’s of these things knoweth no man, save only
the spirit of God.[9]
Discussing each of the four
“absolutes” in turn, and using purity as the first, he proposed the
following: “Is the step which I had planned to take an absolutely pure one?
If it is not, it cannot be God’s will for that life.” And as to each of the
four absolute standards, Wright would thus look at the question in terms of
purity versus impurity, and then cite applicable Bible verses that provided
definitions of God’s will, for example, as to fornication, uncleanness, passion,
evil desire, adultery. Furthermore, each absolute—purity, unselfishness,
honesty, and love—was to be related to the other three so that if something
were deemed pure, it must also be absolutely unselfish, absolutely honest,
and absolutely an act of love.
Frank N. D. Buchman and the
Oxford Group:
The Oxford Group’s Four
Absolutes can be found in the speeches of its founder Frank Buchman.[10] They can also be found
in books about Buchman, descriptions of Oxford Group principles, in Rev. Sam
Shoemaker’s writings, in A.A. General Services Conference-approved books
discussing the Oxford Group, in Anne Smith’s writings, and in some Oxford
Groups today.[11] As stated, the
historical chain begins with Robert E. Speer. Speer’s discussion and cited
verses were expanded by Henry B. Wright. And, according to Oxford Group
activist and long-time employee T. Willard Hunter, Henry B. Wright was the
most influential force in Frank Buchman’s life, other than Buchman’s mother.
Buchman’s biographer Garth Lean explained:
The moral
standards which he [Buchman] used as a test of directing thoughts also became
central to Buchman’s life and teaching: he took them as measuring rods for
daily living. Here again he was indebted to Henry Wright. “The absolutes” had
originally been set out, as a summary of Christ’s moral teaching, by Robert
E. Speer in his book, The Principles of Jesus. Buchman had several
times heard Speer preach at Mount Airy, but it was in Wright’s book that he
first found the summarized standards “in regards of which,” Wright
maintained, “Christ’s teaching is absolute and unyielding.” Wright defined
them as “the four-fold touchstone of Jesus and the apostles” and maintained
that an individual could apply them “to every problem, great or small which
presents itself . . . if (anything) fails to measure up to any one of these
four it cannot be God’s will.”[12]
Reverend Samuel M.
Shoemaker, Jr. became a colleague of Frank Buchman’s in the earliest 1920’s.
He was called in 1925 to be rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York.
He shortly became the Oxford Group’s most prolific author, Frank Buchman’s
chief lieutenant in the United States, and actually provided space in Calvary
House (adjacent to the church) for the Oxford Group’s American headquarters
where Buchman himself lived when he was in the United States. Shoemaker also
became a close friend of Bill Wilson, taught Wilson most of the spiritual
principles that were embodied in the Twelve Steps, and was dubbed a
“cofounder of A.A.” by Wilson himself.[13] Wilson actually asked
Shoemaker to write the 12 Steps, but Sam declined, saying they should be written by an alcoholic, namely Bill.
But Shoemaker did write
extensively on the importance of the Four Absolutes.[14] And the following is
indicative of his view:
We must get
to the point of whether the man is “willing to do his will” in all areas.
Take the four standards of Christ: absolute honesty, absolute purity,
absolute unselfishness, and absolute love. When people’s lives are wrong,
they are usually wrong on one or more of these standards. . . . By our own
frank honesty about ourselves and our willingness, under God as He guides, to
share anything in our own experience that will help the other person, and by
the willingness to ask God-inspired questions of them that carry the matter
right down to the roots, we shall get deep enough to know the real problems .
. . . If the person is honest with himself and with God, he will be honest
with us and be ready to take the next step, which is a decision to surrender
these sins, with himself, wholly to God.[15]
Early A.A.: In a few words,
we can summarize how the Four Absolutes were handled in early Alcoholics
Anonymous.
Bill
Wilson: Wilson was actively involved in Oxford Group activities from late
1934 through August, 1937. He and his wife attended many meetings, attended
Oxford Group house parties, and met Frank Buchman and Rev. Shoemaker and other
leaders such as Rev. W. Irving Harris and his wife Julia. Bill himself was
much involved in an Oxford Group team in late 1935 and early 1936. Bill said
he had heard plenty about the Four Absolutes. However, his wife Lois claimed,
the “Oxford Group kind of kicked us out [because] she and Bill were not
considered ‘maximum’ by the groupers.”[16] By October 30, 1940,
Bill said: “I am always glad to say privately that some of the Oxford Group
presentation and emphasis upon the Christian message saved my life. Yet it is
equally true that other attitudes of the O.G. nearly got me drunk again, and
we long since discovered that if we were to approach alcoholics successfully,
these [attitudes] would have to be abandoned.” [17] He wrote a laundry list
of 8 criticisms of the Oxford Group, including a condemnation of the four
absolutes, saying “when the word ‘absolute’ was put in front of these
attributes, they either turned people away by the hundreds or gave a
temporary spiritual inflation resulting in collapse.”[18] Despite these remarks,
Wilson did another turnabout. According to one historian, Wilson wrote in
1960:
In the old
days of the Oxford Groups, they were forever talking about the Four
Absolutes—Honesty, Purity, Unselfishness, and Love—trying to get too good by
Thursday. . . . Absolutes in themselves are not necessarily destructive.
Every sound theological system contains them. When we say that our destiny is
to grow in the likeness and image of God, we are stating a healthy relation
between a relative and an absolute state of affairs. Therefore when writing
the Twelve Steps, it was necessary to include some sort of absolute value or else
they wouldn’t have been theologically sound. . . . That could have been
unfortunate and as misleading as we found them in the Oxford Group emphasis.
So in Steps Six and Seven, and in the use of the word God, we did include
them.[19]
Dr. Bob
Smith: His position was and remained the opposite of Bill’s. In his last
major address to AAs, Dr. Bob said:
The four
absolutes, as we called them, were the only yardsticks we had in the early
days, before the Steps. I think the absolutes still hold good and can be
extremely helpful. I have found at times that a question arises, and I want
to do the right thing, but the answer is not obvious. Almost always, if I
measure my decision carefully by the yardsticks of absolute honesty, absolute
unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love, and it checks up pretty
well with those four, then my answer can’t be very far out of the way.[20]
Dr. Bob’s
wife Anne Ripley Smith: In her journal from which she shared with early AAs
and their families, Anne spoke repeatedly about how to apply the four
standards. She said:
Test your
thoughts. It is possible to receive suggestions from your subconscious mind.
Check your thoughts by the four standards. . . . Make the moral test. 4
standards. . . . Basis of an interview. Is a challenge on the four standards.
. . . Why I had been absolutely honest but not living. . . . Follow
Christ’s absolute commandment. . . . Absolute honesty demands that we
no longer wear a mask. . . . Sharing. . . It is being honest even after it
hurts. . . . Every time we register aloud the new attitude and change of
heart with absolute honesty, another bridge is burned behind us and another
stake is driven in to mark our progress. . . . Check your life constantly by
the four absolutes.[21]
Clarence H.
Snyder who founded Cleveland A.A.: Many might conclude that when Clarence
Snyder (who got sober in February, 1938, and remained sober until his death
years later) founded Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio, he took the
best of A.A. there. The best at that time! He embraced the Bible, the Four
Absolutes, the Big Book, and the Twelve Steps. AAs achieved a 93% success
rate.[22] Clarence said:
New people
were told they had to read the Bible—The King James Version of the Bible.
They were instructed to do this on a daily basis. Clarence said that
newcomers were also told to read The Upper Room and to read the Sermon
on the Mount by Emmet Fox. Clarence said the new people were then
instructed on the Four Standards. These were the Biblical principles the
Oxford Group people had taken from the teachings of Jesus Christ found in the
Bible. These “Four Standards” were also called the “Four Absolutes”—Absolute
Honesty, Unselfishness, Love and Purity.[23]
Clarence frequently took
newcomers through the newly written Twelve Steps in two days time. He wrote a
pamphlet on going through the Steps to guide them.[24]
What Happened to the Four
Absolutes?
Bill Wilson framed the
“moral inventory” items in Step Four. In that Step and in Steps Ten and
Eleven, he proposed testing conduct for resentment, fears, selfishness, and
harms done to others. He also claimed that the A.A. program called for
grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.[25] The Absolutes, as such,
simply vanished from the Big Book program of recovery. What can be said is
that those, like myself, who have visited A.A. meetings and members all over
the United States and reviewed thousands of pieces of A.A. literature,
frequently encounter mention of the Four Absolutes, especially among those
who have great respect and affection for Dr. Bob or Clarence Snyder. However,
the idea of relating each of the standards to a teaching of Jesus has usually
been replaced by pamphlets or discussions of what, in the opinion of the
particular writer, constitutes conduct consistent with this or that absolute.
Also, the writers and speakers often omit the critical part of the Four
Absolute tests. Those applying them were also to look to God and His Word for
illustration and understanding and also to ask God for the wisdom in applying
them to proposed action (James 1:5-8).
Gloria Deo
[1]
The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their Last
Major Talks (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1972,
1975), 17.
[2]
Robert E. Speer, The Principals of Jesus: Applied to Some Questions of
To-Day (New York: Association Press, 1902).
[5]
Henry B. Wright, The Will of God and a Man’s Lifework (NY:
Association Press, 1924). Copyrighted in 1909 by The International Committee
of Young Men’s Christian Associations.
[11]
For a thorough review of these statements, the supporting bibliography, and a
discussion of the Oxford Group and the Four Absolutes, see Dick B., The
Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works New
Rev. ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1998), 237-46.
[13]
These statements are documented and thoroughly discussed in Dick B., New
Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A. Pittsburgh ed. (Kihei,
HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1999).
[14]
Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism, 55, 56, 97, 98, 101, 107-09, 117,
142-43, 159, 167, 234-35, 239, 241-42, 312, 314, 393, 414, 419-20, 432-33,
455, 462, 523,
[15]
Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., The Church Can Save The World (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1938), 110-14; Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism,
56-57.
[19]
Ernest Kurtz, Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous.(Center City,
MN: Hazelden, 1979), 242-43.
[20]
The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches: Their Last
Major Talks (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1972,
1975), 17.
[21]
Dick B., Anne Smith’s Journal 1933-1939:A.A.’s Principles of Success.3rd
ed, (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1998), 32-33.
[22]
Mitchell K., How It Worked: The Story of Clarence H. Snyder and The Early
Days of Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio (Washingtonville, NY: AA
Big Book Study Group, 1997), 108.
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Contact: Dick B. P.O. Box 837 Kihei, Hawaii 96753-0837 Ph/fax: (808)874-4876 dickb@dickb.com © 1999-2012 Paradise Research Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. |
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Wednesday, February 29, 2012
A.A. History - The Four Absolutes - Again!
Monday, February 27, 2012
A Big Book Seminar
A Big Book Seminar
What It Did and What It Still Can Do
Dick B.
Copyright 2012
Anonymous. All rights reserved
My Joe and Charlie Sacramento Beginning
There was a guy named Tony who showed up at all the Beginner’s Meetings on Friday
in Larkspur. He was one of the first to hand me his card and phone number when
I came in. He sponsored a number of my newcomer friends, and he always had them
sitting in the front row with Big Books open throughout the meeting. They were
serious. They were sober. And they stayed sober and began sponsoring others.
One of those great examples I had at the beginning.
But then there was the matter of the Big Book:
Tony always had his sponsees come to his home on Sunday and
read the Big Book with him. Neither my sponsor nor his sponsor ever even
offered to do that. Tony knew how to take people through the Twelve Steps, and
you could tell it from the relevant points they shared. My sponsor and his
sponsor never explained to me once how to take the Steps. And I went to Big
Book study after Big Book study meeting, and Step meeting after Step meeting,
and—with my fuzzy brain and confused thinking, I was a poor example of how the
learn and apply the solution of A.A.
One evening, Tony came to the Beginner’s Meeting. He
announced that there was a Big Book Seminar in Sacramento; and he said this
seminar was a “must” for those who wanted to learn the program of recovery. I
went. I sat in front. My book was open. I heard Frank Mauser, archivist from
General Services in New York give an hour talk on A.A. history. And then I
followed Joe McQuany and Charlie Parmley line by line through the Big Book. And
the light went on.
In fact, as the years rolled on, I insisted that each of my
sponsees go to Sacramento in September and attend the Big Book Seminar. Usually
there were about 800 in attendance. As I did with every function involving my
sponsees and meetings, I was always there, and they were staying in a motel
with me throughout the sessions. The same was true for Tony and his
ever-flowing tide of eager newcomers.
What Came of It?
I learned what to look for in the “problem,” in the
“solution,” and in the “practical program of action” that in all made up the
program of recovery through the Steps. So did the men I sponsored. And they
passed on to their newcomers the same information. I might add that neither my
own sponsor nor his sponsor ever attended these events.
I became a good friend of the GSO archivist Frank Mauser. He
introduced me to Joe and Charlie. I became good friends with all three and
actually met with Joe in Little Rock twice and at Founders Day once where we
discussed the history, the Big Book, the Steps, God, the Bible, prayer, and
recovery. Later, Frank said he could no longer do the history segment and
suggested that I take over his slot at the seminars—something that never
happened because the “voice” of the Seminar” decided he wanted the task.
However, I was hot on the history trail by then. Frank invited me to stay in
his apartment while I was meeting Nell Wing, researching at World Services
headquarters, and going up to Bedford Hills to research at Stepping Stones.
Frank facilitated it all. Nell Wing was very helpful. And Frank even put me in
touch with Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, with whom I met. And he suggested T.
Willard Hunter as a speaker and as a friend of A.A. thoroughly knowledgeable of
A.A.’s Oxford Group roots.
What’s The Important Lesson?
At this point, my four friends are dead. I believe Frank
died first. Then Nell. Then Joe. And finally Charlie. But in my own life, all
four had sown the seeds that produced a deep conviction that there were at
least three deep holes in A.A. as I inherited its benefactions on April 23,
1986.
The first hole was the need for those who were not merely
serious about permanent sobriety, but also realized that the Big Book suggested
much more: (a) The need to “find” God. (b) The need to establish a relationship
with God. (c) The need to see what Bill and Bob saw in the book they authorized
in 1939—the need for a “spiritual experience” that would enable permanent cure
and a live of service to God and those about us. This could not be done without
a good teacher or teachers with clear minds who—like Joe and Charlie—had
thoroughly studied the Big Book, achieved long term sobriety, and had the
clarity of mind to teach others with laughter, sincerity, and effectiveness.
The second hole was one that both Joe and Charlie—as well as
Frank Mauser and Nell Wing—urged me to pursue and encouraged me by their help
and suggestions. That hole was the huge gap in the history of A.A. and the
sources and application of its biblical roots.
The third hole was the greatest and most overlooked. Nobody
seemed to have spent any significant time finding out where the biblical and
other Christian ideas so prominent in early A.A. had come from. They never
talked about: (1) The great Christian evangelists like Moody, Meyer, Sankey,
and Billy Sunday. (2) The important conversions and revivals conducted by lay
brethren of the Young Men’s Christian Association. (3) The key elements of the
acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior by those derelicts and drunks –
like Ebby Thacher and Bill Wilson—who had gone to the altar and been born
again. (4) The unique exemplary techniques of the early Salvation Army workers
in the slums of London and then America. (5) The program of the Young People’s
Society of Christian Endeavor—whose principles and practices became those of
the early Akron A.A. program. Nor had anyone devoted time to seeing how the
foregoing Christian organizations and people—plus the Christian churches,
Sunday schools, parental influences, prayer meetings, Bible studies, daily
chapel, and the Young Men’s Christian
Association as well as the revivals had impacted on the Christian upbringing of
Dr. Bob. Finally nobody seemed to pick up on the fact that the first three
AAs—Wilson, Smith, and Bill Dotson—all believed in God, had accepted Christ,
had studied the Bible, had turned to God for help, had immediately learned to
get busy helping others, and who never, ever drank again. All this before there
was a Big Book. Before there were Twelve Steps or Twelve Traditions, Before
there were drunkalogs. And before there were meetings of the kind that exist
today.
What’s the Future for the Big Book, the History, and the Bible in
Recovery?
It is fair to say that every alcoholic or addict (and Bill
W. and Dr. Bob were both alcoholics and addicts) needs permanently to quit
pursuing and trying to control alcohol and drug use. Forever! With a sane mind
restored, why would they want them or the disasters they bring. They don’t need
them. They don’t need the misery created for themselves and others through the
excessive use of them. And their lives, entrusted to and guided by the power,
love, forgiveness and deliverance of God and His Son Jesus Christ, hold promise
of an abundant life and an everlasting life. That’s the starting point – going
to any lengths to overcome the alcoholism and addiction.
The Big Book is filled with biblical references that most
AAs would never recognize. It is filled with language that encourages reliance
on God, prayer, study, and helping others. To stand on sound ground, the
oldtimers need to learn and teach that language. And the newcomers need to hear
it repeated, learn it, and act on it. Without that foundation, the retreat to
“acceptance,” “spirituality,” nonsense gods, and even not-god-ness. They just
don’t know their own Big Book.
The history? Few realize what a devilish battering ram has
been propelled at alcoholics. It is pushed by a wide and diverse group of
enemies. Christians who think that A.A. is not of the Lord. Who think you will
go to hell if you enter an A.A. meeting. And who condemn any Christian who
dares set foot in a room peopled with atheists, unbelievers, those with other
religious or no religious beliefs. No matter that this diverse group of
suffering people need help and, at the beginning, gladly receive it whether
tendered by Christians or former derelicts.
The anti-AA hostility is pushed by those who try to paint
the fellowship as ungodly, unchristian, and unworthy because of the sins of its
cofounders and others. The anti—AA hostility today is motivated by men and
women of science, of proponents of First Amendment prohibitions, of psychiatric
and pharmaceutical approaches, and by “rational” recovery—recovery without God.
Then there are the AAs themselves who cry out against the
mention of God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and of
some denominational belief.
The Bible? People just don’t know the biblical practices
that have helped suffering people for centuries, that were employed by
Christians in the 1800’s, and that were commonplace in the early A.A.
fellowship
The Future and The Hope Can Be Embellished by Big Book Seminars
As stated, Joe and Charlie were teachers. Frank Mauser, the
archivist, was both historian and teacher. Joe and Charlie insisted on line by
line study. They salted it with humor and sagacity.
They had done their homework and preparation. They had
long-term sobriety. And they loved A.A. and its program of recovery. Their talk
exuded confidence in the subject matter.
Today, there are a host of Big Book studies, groups, and
seminars. I receive their literature, their email notices, and their website
materials with great frequency.
Are they valuable?
They, of course, are no better than the wisdom, teaching
ability, experience, and attention to detail of those who conduct them. Like
A.A. itself, they are becoming more and more available.
And, even if badly organized, presented, or taught, they at
least get newcomer and oldtimer alike to put his eyes on the Big Book, use his
growing return of mental capacity, and distinguish between the sluggard and the
grey beard. If it’s bad, he can vote with his feet. If it’s fair, he can
improve it. If it’s good, he can foster attendance at it.
Is there a future? Yes. I needed help in the 1980’s, and I
sure got it at the Big Book Seminars conducted by the two drunks from the State
of Arkansas. God Bless them. And God bless those who try to emulate their
achievements, perhaps even improve on them, today.
Gloria Deo
Sunday, February 26, 2012
"A First Century Christian Fellowship" - Model for Recovery Today
A First Century Christian Fellowship
Major Sources for Observing Early A.A.’s
Apostolic Principles, Practices, and Resemblance to First Century Christianity
at Work
By Dick B.
© 2012 Anonymous. All
rights reserved
A Common Observation about “Old-School” Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous History: A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob called
the first A.A. group (known as “Akron Number One”)—founded on July 4, 1935—“a
Christian fellowship.” [DR. BOB and the
Good Oldtimers (New York, NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.,
1980), 118]
Of the five Rockefeller people—including John D.
Rockefeller, Jr—who met the early AAs, listened to Dr. William Silkworth, and
read the report that Frank Amos had given to them in February 1938, all said
something to the effect, “Why this is First Century Christianity at work. What
can we do to help?” And they did help.
But long before that, Christian evangelists were telling New
Englanders and many in other parts of the world how the Apostles not only found
salvation, but taught and lived Christianity—healing drunks, addicts, and
derelicts along the way.
And then there was the Oxford Group and that American
sparkplug of its early period, Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. Bill Wilson called
Shoemaker a “cofounder” of A.A. Bill discussed the proposed Big Book and Step
contents with Shoemaker. He even asked Sam to write the 12 Steps, but Sam
humbly declined. Yet the very language of the 12 Steps paralleled Sam’s
teachings—teaching founded on basic ideas in the Bible that Dr. Bob said were
the foundations for the Steps.
Shoemaker and many other early Oxford Group people called
their life-changing group and groups “A First Century Christian Fellowship” and
defined what that phrase meant to them and their groups.
“A First Century Christian Fellowship”
At the times Bill W. (1934-1937) and Dr. Bob (1933 until at
least 1939) were involved with the Oxford Group, it was actively using the name
“A First Century Christian Fellowship.” And here are some of the ways people
described the personal work with others of members of that important A.A.
predecessor, the Oxford Group.
In his popular book, Life
Changers, Harold Begbie (who had written Twice Born Men and much more about General William Booth and the
Salvation Army) described the Group this way:
Above all, the Group was a
Fellowship—a first-Century Christian Fellowship controlled by the Holy Spirit.
[Dick B., The Oxford Group &
Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 31]
We discuss and cite precise sources for the following
statements:
. . . Frank Buchman’s formation of
what he and his friends called “A First Century Christian Fellowship.” Buchman
had said, “It is an attempt to get back to the beliefs and methods of the
Apostles.” He said, “We not only accept their beliefs, but also decided to
practice their methods” [Dick B., The
Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 286]
In Life Changers, author
Begbie also wrote:
Since those words were written he
has paid a visit to the United States in company with F. B, . . .
----
In his last letter written from
America he tells me that he is entering with others into “A First Century
Christian Fellowship,” explaining that they wish to get back to the type of
Christianity which was maintained by the apostles—“We not only accept their beliefs,
but are also decided to practice their methods.”
He announces in detail the
elemental beliefs of a First Century Christianity. He believes in:
The possibility of immediate and
continued fellowship with the Holy Spirit—guidance.
The proclamation of a redemptive
gospel—personal, social, and national
salvation.
The possession of fullness of life—rebirth, and an ever-increasing power and
wisdom.
The propagation of their life by
individuals to individuals—personal
religion.
Out of these
beliefs proceeds the method of propagation:
Love
for the sinner.
Hatred
of the sin.
Fearless
dealing with sin.
The
presentation of Christ as the cure for sin.
The
sharing and giving of self, with and for others.
“We are more concerned,” he writes,
“with testifying to real experiences, explicable only on the hypothesis that
God’s power has brought them to pass, through Christ, than with teaching an
abstract ethical doctrine.”
Rev. Samuel Shoemaker spoke of the Group as “A First Century
Christian Fellowship” as follows:
The Spirit can communicate His
truth to a spiritual fellowship of believers in ways He cannot communicate to
individuals: it is another phase of Christ’s meaning when He said that “where
two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
He is wherever a believer is; but He is present in heightened reality in the
fellowship. [Dick B., The Oxford Group
& Alcoholics Anonymous, 293]
In his first significant book, Realizing Religion, Shoemaker had the following to say about the
days “when the Church had martyrs in it.” Shoemaker wrote at page 67:
I believe that originally this was
the spiritual impulse, entirely apart
from considerations of ecclesiastical order or the founding of a brotherhood by
Jesus, which welded Christians together in the days when the Church had martyrs
in it. The value of united prayer and worship, of inspiring and instructing a
group bent on one object, the constant impact of the words and the
interpretation of Jesus, has often been dwelt upon. . .
The Acts of the Apostles
In Acts chapters 1 to 6, there are a number of descriptions
of what the First Century Christians did, what they had received, and how they
fellowshipped together. Here we will just quote two segments.
The first from Acts 2:38-43, 46-47:
Then Peter said unto them, Repent,
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission
of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
For the promise is unto you, and to
your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God
shall call.
And with many other words did he
testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.
Then they that gladly received his
word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three
thousand souls.
And they continued stedfastly in
the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in
prayers.
And fear came upon every soul: and
many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. . . .
And they, continuing daily with one
accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their
meat with gladness and singleness of heart.
Praising God, and having favour
with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be
saved.
The second segment
from Acts 4:29-32:
And now, Lord, behold their
threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may
speak thy word.
By stretching forth thine hand to
heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child
Jesus.
And when they had prayed, the place
was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with
the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. And the multitude
of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul. . . . And with great
power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and
great grace was upon them all.
The Keys to Applying First Century Christianity in Recovery Programs
Today
Our latest title is:
How
to Conduct “Old School” 12-Step Recovery Meetings Using Conference-Approved
Literature: A Dick B. Guide for Christian Leaders and Workers in the Recovery
Arena.
In a small number of pages, this new book—very succinctly
and very specifically—covers the ground above and then shows how the successful
“Christian fellowship” practices of the First Century and of the early A.A.
group in Akron can be applied today and fully supported by Conference-approved
literature published by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. And how those
who join together in Christian fellowship can attain healing and a whole life
in the same way the Apostles did and that the old school AAs did.
Gloria
Deo
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Shoemaker's Contributions to the 12 Steps
Dick B.
© 2005. All rights reserved
Studying the Steps and
Looking at Sam Shoemaker’s Language
The Teachings of Rev. Sam Shoemaker That
Inspired Each Step
[For more specifics,
see my latest title, Twelve Steps for You; http://www.dickb.com/titles.shtm]
Every AA who stays in our fellowship long enough to be
exposed to its Big Book , its Twelve
Steps, and its meeting buzzwords will readily recognize thoughts that seem to
have come directly from the books and other writings of Sam Shoemaker.
These include: (1) Self-surrender. (2) Self is not God. (3)
God either is, or He isn’t. (4) “Turning
point.” (5) Conversion. (6) Prayer. (7) Fellowship. (8) Willingness. (9)
Self-examination. (10) Confession of faults to God, self, and another. (11)
Amends. (12) “Thy will be done.” (13) Spiritual Experience. (14) Spiritual
Awakening. (15) The unmanageable life. (16) Power greater than ourselves. (17)
God as you understand Him. (18) The “Four Absolutes”-- honesty, purity,
unselfishness, and love. (19) Guidance of God. (20) “Faith without works is
dead.” (21) “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” (22) Clear references to Almighty
God (using Bible terms) as our “Creator,” “Maker,” “Father,” “Spirit,” “God of
our fathers,” and “Father of Lights.” (23) The Lord’s Prayer. (24) Jesus’s
“sermon on the mount.” (25) Self-centeredness. (26) Fear. (27) Grudges. (28)
Quiet Time. (29) Reliance on God. (30) Relationship with God. (31) “Giving it
away to keep it.” (32) “News, not views.” (33) God has a plan. (34) Seeking God
first. (35) Belief in God. (36) Born again. (37) Marvel at what God has done
for you. (38) Let go! (39) Abandon yourself to Him [God]. (40) “Not my will but
Thine be done.” And many others.
You can find, in my title “New Light on Alcoholism: God,
Sam Shoemaker, and A.A.,” a list of 149 Shoemaker expressions that very
closely parallel A.A. language. Many more can be found in specific quotations
from Shoemaker’s books—books which have been fully reviewed in my New Light
on Alcoholism title on Shoemaker.
Shoemaker and our Twelve Steps
Make no mistake. Whatever Bill
Wilson may have said or implied from time to time, Sam Shoemaker was not the
only source of A.A.’s spiritual ideas. Wilson Bill
never mentioned A.A. specifics from Dr. Bob, Anne Smith, the Bible, Quiet Time,
God’s direct guidance or Christian literature that was daily fare in early A.A.
Remember also! Dr. Bob said he did not write the Twelve
Steps and had nothing to do with writing them. Those Steps represented Bill ’s personal interpretation of the spiritual
program that had been in progress since 1935. Dr. Bob emphasized, on more than
one occasion, that A.A.’s basic ideas had come from study of the Bible. Dr. Bob
studied the Bible. Daily, for three months, Anne Smith read the Bible to Bill and Bob. Bob read the Bible to AAs. He quoted
the Bible to AAs. He gave them Bible literature. And he frequently stressed
Bible study, stating that the Book of James, 1 Corinthians 13, and Jesus’s
sermon on the mount (Matthew 5 to 7) were considered absolutely essential in
the early spiritual recovery program. Bill
Wilson and Dr. Bob both said that the sermon on the mount contained the
underlying philosophy of A.A.
Nonetheless, Sam’s own imprint is on the Steps. Every one of
them. His imprint was on the presentation of Oxford Group ideas that Ebby
Thacher made to Bill Wilson in Towns Hospital
Step One:
Shoemaker spoke of the gap between man and God which man is powerless to
bridge, man having lost the power to deal with sin for himself. As to the unmanageable
life, Sam referred to the prayer in the Oxford Group so often described in
“Victor’s Story” and quoted by Anne Smith in her journal: “God manage me,
because I can’t manage myself.”
Step Two:
Sam spelled out the need for a “Power greater than ourselves.” He
quoted Hebrews 11:6 for the proposition that God is. He declared: God is
God, and self is not God; and that man must so believe. Sam urged
seeking God first, from Matthew 6:33. He espoused the “experiment of faith”
by which man believes that God is; seeks God first in his actions,
and then knows God by doing God’s will, and seeing that God
provides the needed power. For this idea, Sam frequently cited John 7:17.
Step
Three: Sam taught about the crisis of self-surrender as the turning
point for a religious life, quoting William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience. Sam said it involved being born
again; and declared that man must make a decision to renounce sins, accept
Jesus Christ as Saviour; and begin Christian life in earnest. Sam
illustrated the surrender using language similar to that in A.A.: namely, a
“decision to cast my will and my life on God.” Many times, Sam said one need
only surrender as much of himself as he understands to as much of God as he
understands. A clear precursor of A.A.’s “God as we understood Him”–which
has unfortunately been misunderstood and has been attributed to other sources.
Step
Four: Sam wrote of a self-examination to find where one’s life fell
short of the Four Absolute Standards of Jesus: honesty, purity,
unselfishness, and love. One was to write down exactly where he had
“fallen short.” There was a “moral obligation” to face these facts,
recognize these as blocks to God, and be “ruthlessly, realistically honest.”
Step
Five: Shoemaker taught of honesty with self and honesty with God, quoted
James 5:16 for the importance of confession to others, and stressed the need
for detailed sharing of secrets.
Step Six:
Though the fact of Bill ’s borrowing
of this “conviction” step from the Oxford Group 5 C’s seems to have been
overlooked, Shoemaker taught often about the need for man’s conviction that he
is suffering from spiritual misery, has (by his sins) become estranged from
God, and needs to come back to God in honest penitence. Sam urged willingness
to ask God exactly where one is failing and then to admit that sin.
Step
Seven: Sam clarified this as the “conversion” step of the 5 C’s. It
meant a new birth, he said. It meant humility. It meant, for
Shoemaker, the assumption upon ourselves of God’s will for us and the
opening of ourselves to receiving the “grace of God which alone converts.”
It meant “drawing near and putting ourselves in position to be converted.
. . utter dedication to the will of God.” Shoemaker often defined “sin”
as that which blocks us from God and from others.” So, originally, did Big Book language. And each of the foregoing
life-changing steps hangs on early A.A.’s definition of sin and the “removal”
process of examining for sin, confessing sin, becoming convicted of sin, and
becoming converted through surrendering it. The conversion experience,
according to Shoemaker and early A.A., established or enabled rediscovery of a
“relationship with God” and initiated the new life that developed from the
relationship with God which conversion opened. Since both the Sixth and Seventh
Steps were new to A.A. thinking and added something to the original
“surrenders” to Jesus Christ, these Steps cannot easily be understood at all
without seeing them in terms of the complete surrender, the new relationship,
the new birth, and giving the sins to God, as Shoemaker saw the process and as Bill attempted to write it into the recovery path.
Step
Eight: Wilson Bill also incorporated the Shoemaker talk of “willingness”
to ask God’s help in removing the blocks, being convicted of the need
for restitution, and then being sent “to someone with restoration and
apology.”
Step
Nine: Sam said the last stand of self is pride. There can be no talk
of humility, he said, until pride licks the dust, and one then acts
to make full restoration and restitution for wrongs done. As AAs in
Akron did, Sam also quoted from the sermon on the mount those verses enjoining
the bringing of a gift to the altar without first being reconciled to one’s
brother (Matthew 5:22-24). Restitution was not merely a good deed to be
done. It was a command of God from the Bible that wrongs be righted as part of
the practicing the principle of love. If one understands Shoemaker, one can
understand the absurdity of some present-day AAs’ guilt-ridden suggestions
about writing a letter to a dead person or volunteering help for the
down-trodden or making a substitutionary gift to some worthy cause. Sam
taught that the required amends were not about works. They were not about guilt.
They were about love!
Step Ten:
This step concerned daily surrender and the Oxford Group idea of “continuance.”
Sam taught it was necessary to continue self-examination, confession,
conviction, the seeking of God’s help, and the prompt making of amends. This
continued action was to follow the new relationship with God and others that
resulted from removal of the sin problem in the earlier steps.
Step
Eleven: Sam wrote eloquently about Quiet Time, Bible study,
prayer, and “meditation” (listening for God’s guidance). Sam urged daily
contact with God for guidance, forgiveness, strength, and spiritual growth.
So does A.A.’s Big Book . Quiet Time
was a “must” in early A.A. And Shoemaker defined every aspect of Quiet Time
from the necessity for a new birth to a new willingness to study, pray, listen,
and read rather than to speak first and lead with the chin.
Step
Twelve: This step comprehends: (1) A spiritual awakening, the exact
meaning of which Shoemaker spelled out in his books and in his talks to AAs. He
said it required conversion, prayer, fellowship, and witness. (2) A message
about what God has accomplished for us, a phrase which Shoemaker
himself used, saying, in several ways: “You have to give Christianity away
to keep it.”(3) Practicing the new way of living in harmony with
God’s will and in love toward others, an idea easily recognized from Sam’s
teachings that a spiritual awakening comes from conversion. And that the gospel
message concerns God’s grace and power. And that the principles to be practiced
are defined in the Bible. Accordingly, our Twelfth Step language, without input
from Sam’s own writings, has become ill-defined and illusory. For A.A. Big Book students know that none of the three 12
Step ideas is set forth or explained in the chapter of the Big Book dealing with the Twelfth Step. To be frank,
A.A. left Christianity in the dust. In so doing, AAs lost an understanding of
what Sam Shoemaker taught and Dr. Bob emphasized: That conversion, the gospel
message, and love and service were defined in the Book of Acts, the Four
Absolutes, 1 Corinthians 13, Jesus’ sermon on the mount, the Book of James, and
other specific parts of the Bible.
For a comprehensive study of Sam Shoemaker’s role in the
Steps, Big Book , and Fellowship of
Alcoholics Anonymous, see Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker,
and A.A. 2d ed (http://www.dickb.com/newlight.shtml)
END
Dick B., PO Box
837 , Kihei , HI
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