12 Steps to Another Gospel?
http://www.psychoheresy-aware.org/12steps1.html
Part One
Tyndale House Publishers advertises their Life
Recovery Bible with these words: "Imagine having
Abraham, King David, and the Apostle Paul in your
12-step group." The ad continues: "Like you, they found
recovery by trusting in a power greater than
themselves." Besides presenting a psychological, 12-step
biased "character profile" of Abraham, David, and Paul,
this adulterated version of the Bible includes
"fascinating 12-step notes on almost every page,"
"recovery themes at the beginning of each book,"
"12-step devotions, serenity prayer devotions, and much,
much more." The ad assures the reader that "every study
help has been written by a biblical scholar who has
personally experienced the 12 steps."
When Christians seek to combine the ways of the world
with Christianity they end up with a distorted gospel at
least, but more often it ends up being another gospel
and another form of sanctification. Twelve-Step programs
originated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Now they are
embraced and followed religiously by numerous other
groups, including Al-Anon, Adult Children of Alcoholics,
and Co-dependents Anonymous. Churches have housed AA
meetings for years and now many leading Christians are
promoting various Twelve-Step programs. We wonder if
they have explored the history of AA’s Twelve Steps and
the implications of programs centered around any
unspecified higher power. The following excerpt from our
book 12 Steps to Destruction:
Codependency/Recovery Heresies gives a brief
background of AA in terms of its religious roots and
goals.
Alcoholics Anonymous Religion.
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous,
originally written by Bill Wilson, came from his own
personal experience and world view. Step One, "We
admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives
had become unmanageable," expresses the relief he
experienced when his doctor convinced him that his heavy
drinking was caused by an "allergy" over which he was
powerless.
Thus, when Wilson completed his drying out treatment,
he thought his problem was solved. He had been relieved
of guilt for moral failure and had been diagnosed as
having a disease. The cure was simple. Just don’t take
another drink. Nevertheless, his confidence in his newly
found sobriety did not last long. In spite of his belief
that his excessive drinking was not his fault, but
rather due to an "allergy," Wilson felt doomed.
During this bleak time Wilson received a phone call
from an "old drinking buddy," Ebby Thatcher. They hadn’t
seen each other for five years and Thatcher seemed like
a new man. When Wilson asked him why he wasn’t drinking
and why he seemed so different, Thatcher replied, "I’ve
got religion." He told Wilson that when he had prayed
God had released him from the desire to drink and filled
him with "peace of mind and happiness of a kind he had
not known for years."1
Wilson was uncomfortable with Thatcher’s testimony.
Yet he desired Thatcher’s freedom from alcohol. Wilson
drank for several more days until he reached a point of
great agony and hopelessness (the full intensity of Step
One). He then returned to the hospital for
detoxification treatment.
Wilson’s Conversion.
Wilson’s religious experience occurred at the
hospital. He deeply desired the sobriety his friend had,
but Wilson still "gagged badly on the notion of a Power
greater than myself." Up to the last moment Wilson
resisted the idea of God. Nevertheless, at this extreme
point of agony, alone in his room, he cried out, "If
there is a God, let Him show Himself! I am ready to do
anything, anything!"2
Because Wilson believed he was helplessly afflicted
by a dread disease, he cried out to God as a helpless
victim, not as a sinner. He had already been absolved
from guilt through the doctor’s allergy theory. Thus he
approached God from the helpless stance of a victim,
suffering the agony of his affliction, and commanded God
to show Himself. Here is Wilson’s description of his
experience:
Suddenly, my room blazed with an indescribably
white light. I was seized with an ecstasy beyond
description. Every joy I had known was pale by
comparison. The light, the ecstasy—I was conscious
of nothing else for a time.3
He saw an internal vision of a mountain with a clean
wind blowing through him. He sensed a great peace and
was "acutely conscious of a Presence which seemed like a
veritable sea of living spirit." He thought, "This must
be the great reality. The God of the preachers." He
said:
For the first time, I felt that I really
belonged. I knew that I was loved and could love in
return. I thanked my God, who had given me a glimpse
of His absolute self. Even though a pilgrim upon an
uncertain highway, I need be concerned no more, for
I had glimpsed the great beyond.4
The experience had a profound effect on Wilson. From
that point on he believed in the existence of God and he
stopped drinking alcohol. Thus, Steps Two and Three
read: "Came to believe that a Power greater than
ourselves could restore us to sanity," and "Made a
decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care
of God as we understood Him."5
(Emphasis in original.)
While this experience included God as Bill Wilson
understood him, there is no mention of faith in the
substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ and salvation
from sin based upon Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Rather than attempting to understand his experience in
the light of the Bible, Wilson turned to William James’s
book The Varieties of Religious Experience.
Philosopher-psychologist William James (1842-1910)
was intrigued with mystical, existential experiences
that people reported to him. He contended that such
experiences were superior to any religious doctrine.6
He did not care about the religious persuasion of
mystics as long as they achieved a personal experience.
James says:
In mystic states we both become one with the
Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is
the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition,
hardly altered by differences of clime or creed. In
Hinduism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian
mysticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring
note, so that there is about mystical utterances an
eternal unanimity. . . .7
It is easy to see how such a description fit Bill
Wilson’s experience. The mystical experiences reported
by James also followed calamity, admission of defeat,
and an appeal to a higher power. The official AA
biography of Wilson says:
James gave Bill the material he needed to
understand what had just happened to him—and gave it
to him in a way that was acceptable to Bill. Bill
Wilson, the alcoholic, now had his spiritual
experience ratified by a Harvard professor, called
by some the father of American psychology!8
(Emphasis in original.)
Most people assume that the founders of Alcoholics’
Anonymous were Christians. After all, Wilson talks about
God, prayer, and morality. On the other hand, Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior is absent from his spiritual
experience. There is no mention of Jesus Christ
providing the only way of salvation through paying the
price for Bill Wilson’s sin. Wilson’s faith system was
not based on Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Nor is
there any mention of Jesus Christ being Lord of his
life.
Not only is there clear evidence that Bill Wilson did
not embrace Jesus Christ as His Lord and Savior and as
the only way to the Father, but Wilson was also heavily
involved in occult activities in his search for
spiritual experiences. These are the roots of Alcoholics
Anonymous rather than Christianity. Part Two of this
article discusses Wilson’s spirituality and occult
practices.
Notes:
1 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. 111, 115.
2 Ernest Kurtz. Not-God: A History of Alcoholics
Anonymous. Center City, MN: Hazelden Educational
Services, 1979, p. 19.
3 Pass It On, op. cit., p. 121.
4 Ibid.
5 Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. New York:
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1952, 1953,
1981.
6 William James. The Varieties of Religious
Experience (1902). New York: Viking Penguin Inc.
1982, p. xxiv.
7 Ibid., p. 419.
8 Pass It On, op. cit., p. 125.
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