AA: Christian or Occult Roots?
Occult! Christians continue to insist that Alcoholics
Anonymous is compatible with Christianity because of its so-called
Christian roots. That is because of its early connection with the Oxford
Group, which is now called Moral Re-Armament (MRA). The founders of AA
were involved in the Oxford Group movement during the early days, but
there is no record of either Bill Wilson or Bob Smith professing Jesus
Christ as their Savior and Lord or as the only way to the Father. Neither
is there a record of them believing or teaching that the only way of
salvation is by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ on the
cross.
Frank Buchman, a Lutheran minister, began a
movement which he originally called "A First Century Christian
Fellowship." In 1928 the name of the movement changed to the "Oxford
Group." The other leader of the movement, who was influential in the
development of AA, was Samuel Shoemaker, rector of an Episcopal church.
The thrust of the movement was experience rather than clear biblical
doctrine.
Buchman explained that "he never touched
any doctrine in any of his meetings, as he did not want to upset or offend
anyone."1 (Emphasis in original.) By
keeping his doctrinal beliefs to himself, Buchman was able to appeal to
people of all religious persuasions.
The following is Wilson’s description of the
Oxford Group:
The Oxford Group was a nondenominational
evangelical movement, streamlined for the modern world and then
at the height of its very considerable success. . . . They would deal in
simple common denominators of all religions which would be potent
enough to change the lives of men and women.2
(Emphasis added.)
However, there is some evidence that the
founders of AA did have opportunity to hear the Gospel,3
but instead of receiving Christ as Lord and Savior and experiencing
freedom in Christ and victory over sin through faith in Christ alone,
Wilson and Smith took only what they wanted from the Oxford Group. Here we
will examine three aspects of what AA borrowed: guidance, surrender, and
moral principles.
Occult Guidance
Members of the Oxford Group practiced what
they called guidance by praying and then quieting their minds in order to
hear from God. Then they would write down whatever came to them.4
Examples of such "guidance" are in the book God Calling,
edited by A. J. Russell of the Oxford Group.5
The book was written anonymously by two women who thought they were
hearing from God, but who passively received messages in the same way
spiritists obtain guidance from demons.
Members of the Oxford Group primarily found
their guidance from within rather than from a creed or the Bible. Buchman,
for instance, was known to spend "an hour or more in complete silence of
soul and body while he gets guidance for that day."6
J. C. Brown in his book The Oxford Group
Movement says of Buchman:
He teaches his votaries to wait upon God
with paper and pencil in hand each morning in this relaxed and inert
condition, and to write down whatever guidance they get. This, however,
is just the very condition required by Spiritist mediums to
enable them to receive impressions from evil spirits. . . and it
is a path which, by abandoning the Scripture-instructed judgment (which
God always demands) for the purely occult and the psychic, has again and
again led over the precipice. The soul that reduces itself to an
automaton may at any moment be set spinning by a Demon.7
(Emphasis his.)
Dr. Rowland V. Bingham, Editor of The
Evangelical Christian says:
We do not object to their taking a pad and
pencil to write down any thoughts of guidance which come to them. But to
take the thoughts especially generated in a mental vacuum as
Divine guidance would throw open to all the suggestions of another
who knows how to come as an angel of light and whose illumination would
lead to disaster.8 (Emphasis
his.)
In a very real sense their personal journals
became their personal scriptures. Wilson practiced this passive form of
guidance, which he originally learned through the Oxford Group. He and
Smith were also heavily involved in contacting and conversing with
so-called departed spirits from 1935 on. This is necromancy, which the
Bible forbids. During the same period of time, Wilson was practicing
spiritism in a manner similar to channeling.9
Thus, Wilson combined the Oxford Group practice of guidance with spiritism
or channeling, and this appears to be the process he used when writing the
Twelve Steps:
As he started to write, he asked for
guidance. And he relaxed. The words began tumbling out with astonishing
speed.10
Wilson was accustomed to asking for guidance
and then stilling his mind to be open to the spiritual world, which for
him involved various so-called departed spirits. Wilson does not identify
any specific entity related to the original writing of the Twelve Steps,
but he does give credit to the spirit of a departed bishop when he was
writing the manuscript for Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions,
which constitutes Wilson’s commentary on how all of the 12 Steps and 12
Traditions are to be understood, interpreted, and practiced.
When he wrote the essays on each of the
twelve steps, he sent some to Ed Dowling, a Roman Catholic priest, to
evaluate. In his accompanying letter of July 17, 1952, Wilson says, "But I
have good help — of that I am certain. Both over here and over there."11
Then he explains that one spirit from "over there" that helped him called
himself Boniface. Wilson says:
One turned up the other day calling himself
Boniface. Said he was a Benedictine missionary and English. Had been a
man of learning, knew missionary work and a lot about structures. I
think he said this all the more modestly but that was the gist of it.
I’d never heard of this gentleman but he checked out pretty well in the
Encyclopedia. If this one is who he says he is—and of course there is no
certain way of knowing—would this be licit contact in your book?12
Dowling responds in his letter of July 24,
1952:
Boniface sounds like the Apostle of
Germany. I still feel, like Macbeth, that these folks tell us truth in
small matters in order to fool us in larger. I suppose that is my lazy
orthodoxy.13
One can see the stretch of years during which
Wilson received messages from disembodied spirits. The official biography
of Bill Wilson says, "One of Bill’s persistent fascinations and
involvements was with psychic phenomena." It speaks of his "belief in
clairvoyance and other extrasensory manifestations" and in his own psychic
ability.14 This was not a mere
past-time. It was a passion directly related to AA.15
The manner in which Wilson would receive messages not of his own making
was definitely channeling.16
The records of these sessions, referred to as "Spook Files," have been
closed to public inspection.17
Satan can appear as an angel of light and
give guidance that may sound right because it may be close to the truth or
contain elements of truth. A discerning Christian would avoid any guidance
that comes through occult methods. Therefore, this aspect of the Oxford
Group, further contaminated by spiritism, cannot constitute any "Christian
root" condoning Christians using and promoting AA.
Surrender
Step Three of AA is "Made a decision to turn
our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him."
While many in the Oxford Group placed their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord
and Savior, there was much leeway given. Shoemaker, a leader of the Oxford
Group, says that "the true meaning of faith is self-surrender to God." He
further explains:
Surrender to whatever you know about Him,
or believe must be the truth about Him. Surrender to Him, if necessary,
in total ignorance of Him. Far more important that you touch Him than
that you understand Him at first. Put yourself in His hands. Whatever He
is, as William James said, He is more ideal than we are. Make the leap.
Give yourself to Him.18
Aside from capitalizing the "H," which
Christians do to refer to the God of the Bible, "Him" could refer to any
god of one’s own making. The reference to the psychologist William James
emphasizes Shoemaker’s faith in the power experience over the truth of
God.19
Shoemaker believed that people would come to
know God by experiencing Him through surrender and through following
certain moral principles. He says, "The new life begins by utter
self-dedication to the will of God. All of us can do that, and must."20
One can see how surrender to a god of one’s
own creation found its way into the Twelve Steps of AA. When a person is
not clear about the Gospel, who Jesus is and what He did to save sinners,
he is not presenting a Christian message. AA picked up the idea of
surrender, but without Christ and without the whole counsel of God.
Surrendering to anyone but the God of the
Bible constitutes idolatry. AA is another religion with its own forms of
piety, including surrender to a nebulous higher power. This pious
surrender does not constitute a "Christian root" that can justify
Christians using and promoting AA.
Moral Principles and Their Source
In describing itself as an organization, this
is what MRA (formerly called the Oxford Group) says about itself:
MRA is a world wide network of women and
men who have started with themselves to bring the changes they want to
see around them.21
Here’s how they start with themselves:
To start with yourself, you measure how you
are now living by absolute moral standards of honesty, purity,
unselfishness and love. (For Christians these are in the Sermon on the
Mount; they are also found in other major religions.)22
(Parenthesis in original.)
People are told to make a list and then "give
all you know of yourself to all you understand of God, and ask God’s help
to put right those things beyond your own power to change." So far there
is no information about which god one is to choose, since one can follow
any religion or no religion.
While some in MRA may read the Bible, as they
did in its early Oxford Group days, the primary source of knowledge is the
"inner voice." Here are the instructions given in the MRA brochure:
Take time to listen every day to the inner
voice, write down your thoughts, and obey those that conform to these
standards.23
Even though a follower of MRA attempts to
follow moral standards from the Bible or the moral teachings of any other
religion, his primary light is that inner voice and his primary goal is
self-improvement. No cross is necessary; no shed blood is required. Like
AA, MRA is a religion of works. Here is what MRA says about its "religious
affiliation":
It has always been a Christian based,
interfaith work. It brings together people of all backgrounds and
cultures in a program of effective change using principles that are
accepted by every major faith.24
Aside from the words "Christian based," that
definition sounds like a description of AA. But how can it be truly
"Christian based" when it is without the cross and without a Lord Jesus
Christ, who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh
unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6)? Rather than faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, MRA is a religion of self-improvement and
subjective mysticism.
One can indeed see the similarity between the
Oxford Group (MRA) and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Both allow Christians to
participate as long as they do not preach Christ and Him crucified or dare
to say that He is the only way to the Father. Both appeal to an
unidentified god, both rely on mysticism, and both aim for
self-improvement. What AA got from the Oxford Group was clearly not
Christianity. There are no "Christian roots." Because the central core
doctrines of Christianity are absent, AA constitutes a counterfeit
religion, not a neutral organization with "Christian roots."
(For more information about AA, see 12
Steps to Destruction by Martin and Deidre Bobgan.)
1. William C. Irvine. Heresies Exposed.
New York: Loizeaux Brothers, Inc., 1921, p. 54.
2. Wilson quoted in Pass It On: The story of Bill Wilson and how the
A.A. message reached the world. New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World
Services, Inc., 1984, pp. 127,128.
3. Samuel M. Shoemaker. Courage to Change: The Christian Roots of the
12-Step Movement. Bill Pittman and Dick B., eds. Grand Rapids, MI:
Fleming H. Revel/Baker Book House Company, 1994, pp. 11-24.
4. Ibid., p. 198.
5. A. J. Russell, ed. God Calling. New York: Jove Publications,
1978.
6. William C. Irvine. Heresies Exposed. New York: Loizeaux
Brothers, Inc., 1921, pp. 58,59.
7. J. C. Brown quoted by Irvine, ibid., p. 49.
8. Rowland V. Bingham quoted by Irvine, ibid., p. 50.
9. Pass It On, op. cit., pp. 275-283.
10. Ibid., p. 198.
11. Robert Fitzgerald, S.J. The Soul of Sponsorship: The Friendship of
Fr. Ed Dowling, S.J. and Bill Wilson in Letters. Center City, MN:
Hazelden Pittman Archives Press, 1995, p. 59.
12. Ibid., p. 59.
13. Ibid., p. 59.
14. Pass It On, op. cit., p. 275.
15. Ibid., p. 280.
16. Ibid., pp. 278,279.
17. Ernest Kurtz. Not God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Center City, MN: Hazelden Educational Materials, 1979, p. 344.
18. Shoemaker, op. cit, p. 44.
19. See Bobgan & Bobgan. 12 Steps to Destruction: Codependency/Recovery
Heresies. Santa Barbara, CA: EastGate Publishers, 1991, pp. 88,89.
20. Ibid., p. 46.
21. "What is MRA?" Moral-Re-Armament, 1885 University Ave. W. #10, St.
Paul, MN 55104.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
PsychoHeresy Awareness
Ministries, 4137 Primavera Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93110
www.psychoheresy-aware.org
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