|
Previous Article [ Article
24 ]
Next Article
What Is a Power greater than ourselves?
Another New god in A.A., or Our Creator?
By Dick B.
Click Here Adobe Acrobat PDF Version
(Printable-See Help at bottom of page)
An Early A.A. Experience I’d Like to Share
Let me introduce you to Rich. He’s a young newcomer I met at my Wednesday
night Home Meeting more than ten years ago. A friend of mine named John came up
to me, pointed to Rich (who was sitting alone), and asked me to talk to him. I
asked why. John replied: Because he came out of the same treatment center I did.
He’s fresh out. And I know you like to work with newcomers. So approach Rich I
did. He was about twenty-one years old, had a job, had just gotten out of
treatment, and was following their instructions to go to a meeting.
After the meeting, I asked Rich to come to my apartment where we could talk
more about A.A. He did; and, after some general questions and comments, I asked
him if he believed in God.
Rich’s immediate comment was: They told me it could be a tree. And I’d
heard that one before.
I asked Rich to step over to the big window in my apartment. The window
looked out on a beautiful forest of Redwoods, Oaks, Bays, and other indigenous
trees. I said: Rich. Look out there. What do you see? He replied: Trees. I
asked: Do you think any one or all of those trees created the heavens and the
earth? He said: I get your point. And that was the last I heard of trees from
Rich. In fact, he’s been sober for many years now. He’s over 30, married, has a
great job, and has a youngster on the way. I’m hoping he will name the child
Richard. The problem is that, if he does, it could be named after Rich or
myself. Either way, I’ll probably claim the credit.
Rich has gone to thousands of meetings, just as I have. He’s been a speaker
at, and secretary of, many A.A. meetings. He’s been to A.A. Conferences, to Big
Book Seminars, and to lots of fun events like A.A. dances, camp-outs, and visits
to comedy shows. I was his A.A. sponsor for several years and took him through
the Twelve Steps. In turn, he’s sponsored many men in their recovery and taken
them through the Twelve Steps. He took Bible classes, became a born again
Christian, and attended our Bible fellowship. His aunt is a Roman Catholic Nun.
His sister is married to a Jew. I’ve never heard him criticize either religious
denomination.I guess he’s had good exposure to several now because his wife is
also a Christian. But I’ve never heard him talk about a tree.
In fact, a few years ago, Rich was coming to Hawaii to get married at a
beautiful site on the North Shore of Oahu. He phoned and asked me to be his Best
Man. We went to the wedding site, which was surrounded by flowers, rocks, a
creek, a beautiful waterfall. And trees. But I never heard either Rich or the
officiating minister say a word about a tree–even during the prayers. And, since
I keep in touch with him, I can say that I’ve never heard Rich talk about trees
and God since that long ago day in my apartment. But when I ask him: Who loves
you? He still answers: God does, and you do, Dick. And we do.
A brief look at Wilson’s Power in Early A.A.
Prior to publication of the First Edition of the Big Book in 1939, Bill
Wilson prepared a number of draft manuscripts. In what purports to be the very
first draft of the Second Step, here’s an alleged statement of what Bill then
wrote:
[Allegedly in the very first draft of the Twelve Steps. . . This is an
approximate reconstruction of the way he first set them down (quoting the
original draft of Steps 2 and 3)]: 2. Came to believe that God could
restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our wills and our lives
over to the care and direction of God (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, p. 198).
Dr. Bob died. Wilson decided to write his own essays and his own history. And
these were edited with a fine tooth comb by two Jesuit priests, Father John C.
Ford and Father Ed Dowling. Bill inserted his new idea: You can, if you wish,
make A.A. itself your ‘higher power’ (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., p. 27)
In his history, Bill added his own, expanded version of the change from God
to Power in the Second Step:
In Step Two we decided to describe God as a Power greater than
ourselves. . . . Such were the final concessions to those of little or no
faith; this was the great contribution of our atheists and agnostics. They
had widened the gateway so that all who suffer might pass through,
regardless of their belief or lack of belief. God was certainly there
in our Steps, but He was now expressed in terms that anybody–anybody at
all–could accept and try (italics in the original) (Alcoholics
Anonymous Comes of Age. New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services,
Inc., 1957, p. 167).
There may be lots more history about what and why Bill did what he did with
his new group-Power substitution for God. But the foregoing will suffice in
light of our two previous articles on higher power and our article to come on
God as we understood Him. The simple fact is, that under pressure from a
couple of atheists–perhaps only one–Bill had boldly reversed the original A.A.
idea of a restoration and cure by God Almighty.
For illustrations of the pioneer original attitude, see Alcoholics
Anonymous, 3rd ed:
God had restored his sanity, p. 57; Your Heavenly Father will never
let you down!, p. 181; and Henrietta, the Lord has been so wonderful to
me, curing me of this terrible disease, that I just want to keep talking
about it and telling people, p. 191).
Had Bill Wilson evicted our Creator from the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous
subsequent to 1939? From my standpoint, of course, that was and is impossible.
Still, was A.A. no longer a place for restoration to sanity by God? For a cure
of alcoholism by the Lord? Had the A.A. rooms been opened to somethings, not
gods, any gods, the group, or somebody else as restorative, healing agents?
Not if you could receive or had received the restoration, healing, and
deliverance that Dr. Bob did. That Wilson said he did. That the pioneers
did. That I did. Like those pioneers, I relied on our Creator, and here I am.
But what of this Power greater than ourselves that has turned so many 12 Step
people toward light bulbs, chairs, groups, radiators, and Ralph. Quite frankly,
I don’t know. Bill Wilson is dead, and he can’t tell us. Yet many of his
successors at the helm of A.A.’s publishing arm appear to think you can be
healed by a lightbulb or a radiator or the other idols. Thankfully, however,
there is plenty of room for some homework–research that will enable a full,
frank, and accurate comparison of these revisionist interpretations of the
Power greater than ourselves phrase with some of the very clear original Big
Book language about that Power, which is God (See Alcoholics Anonymous,
3rd ed., p. 46, for example). Then you–inside or outside of Twelve
Step Fellowships–can choose the radiator or the living God for recovery. And
do so with knowledge that the radiator didn’t come from God or the Bible or
early A.A..
Revisionist ideas about Power-greater-than-ourselves-ism
A.A. worked! Forty pioneers–real alcoholics all–had recovered from their
medically incurable malady of alcoholism. They had used no Steps because there
were no Steps. Their parent group–the Oxford Group–had helped alcoholics with no
steps, no six steps, and certainly no Twelve Steps. In the words of A.A.’s own
literature:
(1) They [the forty pioneers] had the Bible, and they had the precepts
of the Oxford Group (DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers. New York:
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980, p. 96).
(2) We already had the basic ideas, though not in terse and tangible
form. We got them. . . as a result of our study of the Good Book, said Dr.
Bob (DR. BOB, supra, p. 97).
(3) Dr. Bob, noting that there were no Twelve Steps at the time. . .
said they were convinced that the answer to their problems was in the Good
Book. ‘To some of us older ones, the parts we found absolutely essential
were the Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 5-7], the 13th chapter of
First Corinthians, and the Book of James,’ he said (DR. BOB,
supra, p. 96).
(4) . . . the Book of James was a favorite with early A.A.’s [said Bill
Wilson]–so much so that The James Club was favored by some as a name for
the fellowship (DR. BOB, supra, p. 71).
(5) [As to the Oxford Group influence] Emphasis was placed on prayer and
on seeking guidance from God in all matters. The movement also relied on
study of the Scriptures and developed some of its own literature as well. At
the core of the program were the ‘four absolutes’: absolute honesty,
absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love (DR. BOB,
supra, p. 54).
(6) We had much prayer together in those days and began quietly to read
Scripture and discuss a practical approach to its application in our lives
(DR. BOB, supra, p. 111).
(7) In November of 1937, Bill Wilson was in Akron. Bill’s writings
record the day he sat in the living room with Doc, counting recoveries. ‘A
hard core of very grim, last-gasp cases had by then been sober a couple of
years,’ he said. ‘All told, we figured that upwards of 40 alcoholics were
staying bone dry’ (DR. BOB, supra, p. 123).
(8) Meeting at T. Henry Williams’s house in Akron, the alcoholics had a
long, hard-fought session. But together Bill and Bob persuaded a bare
majority of 18 A.A.’s gathered at T. Henry’s. . . to accept Bill’s package
and allow Bill to write a book of experiences that would carry the message
of recovery to other cities and other countries (DR. BOB, supra,
pp. 123-24).
(9) Investigating the Akron Program in some depth, Frank Amos–later an
A.A. trustee–reported to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., on the program’s details
(DR. BOB, supra, p. 131-36).
With such a backdrop of recoveries and a developed Program that had worked
for forty tough, medically incurable cases, Bill began writing his Big Book.
He was fashioning a how it worked program from the Akron success with the
Bible and the precepts of the Oxford Group. Certainly not supported by his own
failures on the New York scene (See Dick B., Turning Point: A History of
Early A.A.’s Roots and Successes, pp. 109-16). There was not one warped or
distorted word, in Wilson’s earliest drafts, about a higher power, a power
greater than ourselves, or God as we understood Him. Not when he first
started, that is. There was God! Creator. Maker. Spirit. Father. Yahweh–Who had
been the subject of Bill’s three months of Bible study with the Smiths at their
home in Akron in the summer of 1935. Then things began to change–even as the
drafts changed and were re-oriented by Bill. And Yahweh–Whose name was holy and
not to be profaned–began to get new names and attributes affixed.
And, over sixty-five years later, here is what others have said Bill
meant to say about this program that worked and the Creator upon whom its
adherents had placed their reliance.
Terence T. Gorski:
[Step Two.] There is something more powerful than I that can help me to
stop drinking. I can’t, but somebody else can (Terrence T. Gorski.
Understanding The Twelve Steps: A Guide for Counselors, Therapists, and
Recovering People (Missouri: Herald House/Independence Press, 1989, p.
75).
In Step Two we develop a sense of faith that there is someone or
something bigger and more powerful than we are. There is someone or
something out there that knows more about addiction and about recovery than
I do. There is someone out there that has the answer, someone who can tell
me what to do to recover from my alcoholism. A power greater implies that
this something is greater than we are. There are some people who claim
that a Higher Power can be anything, even a Coke bottle. I personally have
trouble with that (Gorski, Understanding, supra, p. 95).
Marianne W. Gilliam:
A.A. correctly anticipated the problems they would encounter in placing
reliance upon a Higher Power and so decreed that a Higher Power could be
anything we interpret it to be, even a tree. However, the focus was still on
something outside ourselves. But I was starting to discover that in order to
find our own inner power we needed to find that personal aspect of God
WITHIN us. . . . I believe we have God’s energy manifesting in us every day
of our lives (Marianne W. Gilliam. How Alcoholics Anonymous Failed Me: My
Personal Journey to Sobriety Through Self-Empowerment. New York: William
Morrow and Company, Inc., 1998, p. 45).
Saul Selby:
AA’S STEP TWO: CHRISTIAN ADAPTATION: To experience Jesus as personal and
available (Saul Selby. Twelve Step Christianity: The Christian Roots and
Application of the Twelve Steps. MN: Hazelden Foundation, 2001, p. 25).
Martin and Deidre Bobgan:
The Power greater than ourselves can be anybody or anything that seems
greater than the person who takes Step Two. It can be a familiar spirit.,
such as Carl Jung’s Philemon. It could be any deity of Hindu-ism, Buddhism,
Greek mythology, or New Age channeled entities. It could be one’s own
so-called higher self. It could even be the devil himself. The extreme
naivete of Christians comes through when they confidently assert that their
higher Power is Jesus Christ. Since when did Jesus align Himself with false
gods? Since when has He been willing to join the Pantheon or the array of
Hindu deities. Jesus is not an option of one among many. He is the Only Son,
the Only Savior, and the Only Way (Martin and Deidre Bobgan. 12 Steps To
Destruction: Codependency Recovery Heresies. California: East Gate
Publishers, 1991, p. 115).
Ken Ragge:
The reading of the sacred text [A.A.’s Big Book] is also a part of every
meeting. The Oxford Group, being more spiritual than religious, but still
(in Christian countries) acknowledging it Christian roots, used the Bible
for readings. Alcoholics Anonymous, being spiritual, not religious,
doesn’t use the Bible at all; rather it uses another sacred text, the
inspired Word of God as expressed through Bill Wilson, the Big Book. . .
.Unlike the Oxford Group, which claimed salvation and redemption by Jesus
through the Oxford Group, AA proclaims recovery by one’s Higher Power
through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Ken Ragge. The Real AA:
Behind the Myth of 12-Step Recovery. AZ: Sharp Press, 1998, pp. 82-83).
Step Two, to the uninitiated, appears to be mostly about finding faith in
God. While there may be some truth in this, working this Step is more a
matter of defining God in AA’s image (Ragge, The Real AA, supra,
p. 117).
William L. Playfair, M.D.
They [the Twelve Steps] do not derive exclusively or even primarily from
truths or concepts found in either the Old or New Testament. One cannot find
anything even remotely similar to the Twelve Steps in the writings of
ancient or modern Christian theologians. The secular nature of the Twelve
Steps is, in fact, freely admitted by A.A. groups. Al-Anon, for instance,
plainly asserts: The Twelve Steps . . . although spiritually oriented, are
not based on a specific religious discipline. They embrace not only the
philosophies of the Judeo-Christian faiths and the many religions of the
East, but nonreligious, ethical and moral thought as well. . . As a matter
of fact, AA’s Twelve Steps are more akin to the Bahai faith than to Biblical
Christianity (William L. Playfair. The Useful Lie. Illinois: Crossway
Books, 1991, p. 87).
This any power of AA and the recovery industry is really just
that–any power, imagined or real. Continuing its message to the clergy, AA
concedes that: Some members of the clergy may be shocked to learn that an
agnostic or an atheist may join the Fellowship, or to hear an AA [member]
say: I can’t accept that ‘God concept’; I put my faith in the AA group;
that’s my higher power, and it keeps me sober. The idea of the AA group as
the Higher Power or god of an AA member should not be shrugged off as
hypothetical or even all that exceptional. Recovery industry literature is
replete with testimonials of this kind (Playfair, The Useful Lie,
supra, p. 91).
Jan R. Wilson and Judith A. Wilson:
There are many different ideas of a Higher Power. The chapter on Step Two
in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions describes several types of experiences
with God before getting into a recovery program. Some are what one might
call a traditional idea of God and some are very nontraditional. All that
seems to be required is that the Higher Power be someone or something that
you can relate to that is more powerful than your addiction. . . . Some
people have such negative reactions to the traditional ideas that for a
while they have to think of GOD as Good Orderly Direction, from wherever
it comes. Some even say their Higher Power was just a Group Of Drunks (Jan
R. Wilson and Judith A. Wilson. Addictionary: A Primer of Recovery Terms
and Concepts from Abstinence to Withdrawal. New York: A Fireside/Parkside
Recovery Book, 1992, pp. 181-82).
Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham:
The use of the phrase Higher Power–his, hers, yours, or
mine–rather than the word God, reminds members of A.A.’s tolerance of
individual differences in religious belief and spiritual inclination. The
most basic understanding of the concept Higher Power within Alcoholics
Anonymous is that which keeps me sober. In a sense, this is to
out-James William James; it is the ultimate pragmatic concept of God. For
alcoholics who have tried and failed time after time to stay sober by
themselves, for alcoholics who have tried and failed after using any one of
innumerable techniques, that which finally does keep one sober
becomes God. (Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham. The Spirituality of
Imperfection: Modern Wisdom From Classic Stories. New York: Bantam
Books, 1992, p. 208).
But Where Did It Come From
Above, in the quotes, you have it all. From Yahweh to Something. From God to
Group Of Drunks. From our Creator to Somebody Else. From Bible to Baloney. From
Baptist to Bahai. From Bible-believing to power-greater-than-ourselves-ism!
I’ll not spend much time on where Power greater than ourselves really came
from. I just don’t know. And, as usual, its author Bill Wilson didn’t us. But it
sure didn’t come from God. And it sure didn’t come from the Bible.
Truthfully, I would frankly assert that the ill-defined, distorted, utterly
confusing it is the product of whole-cloth manufacture. A product fashioned by
the combined forces of atheists, booksellers, salaried service writers,
iconoclasts, uninformed clergy, misguided Christian writers, treatment programs,
therapists, angry bleeding deacons, frustrated failures, and probably the
just-plain-ignorant. But certainly not by Dr. Bob, nor Anne, nor Henrietta
Seiberling, nor T. Henry or Clarace Williams.
Yet I personally have heard all the weird names in the rooms of A.A. or
recovery literature; and–desperate for deliverance, recovery, and freedom–I
picked these bizarre appellations and really toyed with them for far too long.
But no more! I can this very day be a certified, recovered, delivered, happy,
joyous, free, Bible-studying, Christian, ex-real-alcoholic within the halls of
Alcoholics Anonymous. Just think! Within the halls of A.A.! I don’t have to
worry about whether a radiator is a power or whether I need to understand
radiators to get well.
When I finally plunged in to my Oxford Group research, I found the expression
was in common usage in the Oxford Group, and probably was devised as a way of
rejecting Biblical usage in favor of Buchman usage–without really intending to
change the Bible itself. That, of course, is something I don’t think can or
should be done. It gives rise to the same nonsense we have quoted above. But for
your reading pleasure, here are some of the possible sources. Almost all, I
believe, were written well before the Big Book was published in the Spring of
1939:
The Rev. Canon Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., D.D., S.T.D.–Co-founder of A.A.
A vast Power outside themselves (Shoemaker, A Young Man’s View of the
Ministry, p. 42).
A Force outside himself, greater than himself (Shoemaker, If I Be Lifted
Up, p. 176).
Only God, therefore, can deal with sin. He must contrive to do for us
what we have lost the power to do for ourselves (Shoemaker, If I Be
Lifted Up, p. 133).
We talked of daily Quiet Time, of Bible study, prayer and listening, and
of the power of God to lead and guide those who are obedient enough to be
led (Shoemaker, Children of the Second Birth, pp. 148-49).
I have done wrong. I know I need to be changed, and I know some Power
outside myself must do it (Shoemaker, God and America, p. 19).
Victor C. Kitchen–Oxford Group writer, colleague of Sam Shoemaker, friend of
Bill Wilson
A power within yet coming from outside myself–a power far stronger than I
was (Kitchen, I Was a Pagan, p. 63).
Higher Power (Kitchen, I Was a Pagan, p. 85).
It was this power of the Spirit flowing into me that. . . gave me not
only the courage [but also] the strength . . . I needed (Kitchen, I Was a
Pagan, p. 94).
It takes the power of God to remove these fears and mental conditions
(Kitchen, I Was a Pagan, p. 143).
It takes the power of God to remove the desire for these indulgences
(Kitchen, I Was a Pagan, p. 143).
Many did hesitate to call this force the power of God (Kitchen, I Was a
Pagan, p. 16).
Stephen Foot, British Oxford Group writer, author of best-selling Life Began
Yesterday
New power and direction came to her when she started listening to God
(Foot, Life Began Yesterday, p. 150).
This Power by which human nature can be changed . . . and through this
Power problems are being solved (Foot, Life Began Yesterday, p. 22).
There is at work in the world today a Power that has for many generations
been neglected by masses of mankind (Foot, Life Began Yesterday, p.
22).
I will ask God to show me His purpose for my life and claim from Him the
power to carry that purpose out (Foot, Life Began Yesterday, p. 11).
Harold Begbie, author of one of the earliest, popular Oxford Group books:
The future of civilization, rising at this moment from the ruins of
materialism, would seem to lie in an intelligent use by man of the ultimate
source of spiritual Power (Begbie, Life-Changers, p. 22).
K. D. Belden–longtime Oxford Group leader and writer:
Only the Power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead can, and will,
raise us from our old nature and begin to form in us the new (Belden,
Reflections on Moral Re-Armament, p. 28).
What a Ride!
I can and do speak for myself and perhaps for a few other rationally
recovered believers in A.A.. I’ve been taken on a royal ride. I came to A.A.
sick, sorry, bewildered, terrified, and guilty. I believed in God, and I still
do. I believed in what His Son Jesus Christ accomplished for me, and I still do.
I believed His Word contained the truth about these things, and I still do. But
I have put out the foregoing quotes just to show you how many roadblocks
appeared on my ride, confused me at the outset, resulted in many a critical
comment from A.A. friends, and caused me to hold back in my work to help others.
Now that I know just how much nonsense has been poured into the Power greater
than ourselves mold, I’ll never take or invite anyone to take that ride again.
And, to those, who offer a trip on the royal something or any power or
group train, I’ll say for myself (and for those I try to help) to
those who are the engineers: Jesus answered them and said unto them, Ye do err,
not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God (Matthew 22:29). Bill and Bob
were not selling snake oil. They were selling Scripture. And I bought it–after
an unneeded delay; and I was healed by the power of God in Alcoholics
Anonymous, just like the forty pioneers were. You can also be healed. Your
Heavenly Father will never let you down!
END
|