How AA is weakening Christ’s people

In ‘The Fall of the Evangelical Nation,’ secular author Christine Wicker credits Alcoholics Anonymous with “hastening the fall of the evangelical church.”[6] (Bold mine)

 Indeed,  watered down understanding and lack of reverence for the Biblical God corresponds with the rise of the 12 Step religion.

Wicker states A.A.’s 12 Step program “slowly exposed people to the notion that they could get the [higher power] without the dogma, the doctrine, and the outdated rules. Without the church in fact.”[7] This has removed the authority and influence of “the preacher and the Bible and tradition.”[8]

After all, why bow to a God that always holds you accountable for sin? Why not cobble together a deity of your own? A “higher power,” so to speak.

“But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons…” (1 Timothy 4:2)

A strong argument can be made that A.A.’s 12 Step system is the most powerful religious force in the country. Likable emergent/apostate Phyllis Tickle notes,  “Not only did AA, almost by default, begin to supplant the pastoral authority of the professional clergy and open the door to spirituality in the experiencing of a nondoctrinally specific Higher Power, but it also revived the small group dynamic that would come to characterize later twentieth-century Protestantism….”  (The Great Emergence, pg. 93)

This emergent leader sees what many pro-A.A. pastors simply cannot, or will not come to grips with.  A.A. has severely weakened the church. We are watching, through AA and emergent systems, the rise of false “christs” such as the one written about in The Shack.

It is all beginning to blend. LINK: http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-3870

12 Steps, spiritualism, and Swedenborg

There shall not be found among you…one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whosoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you. (Deuteronomy 18: 10-12)

Although his name is unfamiliar to most, Emanuel Swedenborg was a great influence on A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson, and therefore a great influence on both Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 Steps.

As we learned in ‘The first version of the 12 Steps,’ Emanuel Swedenborg wrote of a spiritual ‘twelve steps’ long before the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous. http://mywordlikefire.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/the-first-version-of-the-12-steps/ 

Swedenborg (1688-1772) has been called the “Father of modern spiritualism” for good reason. Like Bill Wilson, Swedenborg communicated frequently with familiar spirits posing as deceased people or other spiritual entities.

An extremely talented man who excelled in many fields, Swedenborg in the 1740s was troubled by strange dreams. Then, in 1745, something incredible happened. As Professor George P. Landow writes, “that night in 1745 his visions began to invade his waking life as well. As he ate, he became aware of frogs and snakes crowding into his private dining room, and an unknown gentleman materialized in a comer to rebuke him for eating too much. Back home in Salisbury Court the stranger appeared again, and introduced himself as Christ, the man-God, creator and redeemer of the world. He then made an important announcement: humanity stood in need of a definitive explication of holy Scripture, and Swedenborg had been selected to provide it; moreover, to assist him in his labours, he was to be given unrestricted access to the entire spirit world.”[1] 

This false ‘christ’ gave Swedenborg “unrestricted access to the entire spirit world.” Swedenborg obediently spent years communicating and learning from demons posing  as Paul the apostle, Luther, Newton, entities from other planets, and many others.

Directed by these familiar spirits, he wrote what he believed was the real interpretation of Biblical Truth. Of course, since he was being taught by fallen angels, his teaching denies salvation through Christ alone. 

Thus, one of the Swedenborgian tenets of  the New Church states:

“Salvation is not dependent on the doctrinal specifics of the religion you have followed on earth. As long as you have lived a life acknowledging God and refraining from evil because it is against Him, you will be saved. Acknowledging God does not necessarily mean recognizing Him by name. A person can be ignorant of religion and still acknowledge God by living a life of goodwill. This is because the choices that we make on a daily basis are what determine whether we end up in heaven or hell. Yes, worshipping God is essential for admittance into heaven, but we worship Him through the actions of our lives.”[2] 

 Many people over the years have been fascinated with Swedenborg, or exposed to his teachings, and this certainly includes A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson. Wilson married into a Swedenborgian family.

Swedenborgians absolutely love and respect the Bible, even as they deny salvation through Christ alone. Swedenborgian influence seems to have affected Wilson in two major ways. First, he was now exposed to people, including his wife, who valued the Bible as Spiritual Truth, but did not interpret it as the literal Word of God.

Like the gnostics with their “special knowledge,” Swedenborgians believe only Emanuel Swedenborg was given the real truth of the Bible.  This is very important in terms of A.A.’s 12 Steps, because Bill Wilson began A.A. and the 12 Steps with the understanding that the Bible did not have to be understood in a literal, fundamentalist manner.

This, of course, is also what Emmet Fox taught. His heretical book, ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ was loved by both Bill Wilson and A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob Smith. While endorsing the Bible (?), the book denies the salvation of Jesus Christ, and was used as a teaching aid in A.A. until the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book was written![3]

As spirits gave Swedenborg his blasphemous interpretation of the Bible, so was Bill Wilson given the 12 Steps. While many desperately want them to be Christian, Wilson’s Steps never stated Jesus Christ is God. Based on their real spiritual origin, God’s people should not be using them at all.

…they have set their detestable things in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. (Jeremiah 8:30)

These, then, are profound Swedenborgian influences on Bill Wilson: As an unsaved person he learned Swedenborgian “understanding” of salvation and ”interpretation” of the Bible. Of equal significance, Wilson’s immersion in spiritualism was almost certainly triggered by exposure to Swedenborgianism.

When Wilson was being treated for alcoholism in Towns Hospital in December of 1934, he demanded that God show Himself. Wilson was, as they say in A.A., “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” 

This was the spiritual experience that that would forever change Bill Wilson’s life. He would never drink again. According to his official A.A. biography, Wilson cried, “If there be a God, let Him show Himself.”[4]

Wilson states, ”I became acutely conscious of a Presence which seemed like a veritable sea of living spirit. I lay on the shores of a new world. ‘This,’ I thought, ‘must be the great reality. The God of the Preachers.’”[5] But what God? What Preachers? This passage is often used by those who want A.A. to be Christian in origin.

Robert Thomsen is the author of ‘Bill W.,’ the very first biography of Bill Wilson. He personally knew Wilson. Thomsen’s book comes from his own conversations with the A.A. cofounder, and from historical documentation. [6]

What was Wilson’s understanding of God after this experience? Thomsen writes, “There could be no doubt of ultimate order in the universe, the cosmos was not dead matter, but a part of the living Presence, just as he was part of it.

“Now, in place of the light, the exaltation, he was filled with a peace such as he had never known. He had heard of men who’d tried to open the universe to themselves; he had opened himself to the universe. He had heard men say there was a bit of God in everyone, but this feeling that he was a part of God, himself a living part of the higher power, was a new and revolutionary feeling.”[7] (Bold mine)  

This is pantheism. It is not found in the Bible.

Francis Hartigan was the secretary for Lois Wilson, Bill’s wife, for thirteen years. He had many conversations with Lois about Bill. He writes, ““[A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson's] belief in God might have become unshakeable, but he could never embrace any theology or even the divinity of Jesus, and he went to his grave unable to give his own personal idea of God much definition. In this sense, he was never very far removed from the unbelievers.”[8] (Bold mine) 

In conclusion, many of the books promoting A.A.’s alleged Biblical origin are inaccurate. This is a grievous thing, because many have been lured into this system based on these books. If the 12 Steps are unholy in origin, does a Holy God want His people using them?

There is another bit of false history that has impeded our understanding of the 12 Steps. For, while downplaying–or ignoring–factors such as spiritualism and Swedenborgianism, some authors have made a cottage industry of portraying the neo-evangelical Oxford Group of the 1930s as a Christian/Biblical root of Alcoholics Anonymous.

This is simply not true. The Oxford Group had some Christian members–so does Alcoholics Anonymous. Please read Martin and Deidre Bobgan’s excellent ‘12 Steps To Destruction,’ which can be found online. Here is what they have to say about the Oxford Group: http://www.pamweb.org/e-books/12steps-ebk.pdf (Go to pg.104)

H.A. Ironside, a fiery and Biblical preacher of the 1930s, also had something to say about the Oxford Group:

“This movement appeals to both modernists and fundamentalists alike.   It appeals to people who reject the inspiration of this Book as well as to those who profess to believe it; it appeals to people who deny the Deity of Christ as well as to those who acknowledge it; to those who deny the eternal punishment of sin as well as to those who believe in it.   Here in our city it is openly indorsed by the Swedenborgians and by the leaders of the Unitarians, as well as by a number who belong to orthodox churches.   But it is silent as to the blood of Christ.”[9] (Bold mine)

Please note that Pastor Ironside mentioned both the Swedenborgian and Unitarian endorsement of the Oxford Group in his city. This alone indicates O.G. doctrine was not Biblical. The Oxford Group, in truth, had much in common with A.A. today. 

It is accurate to state that A.A. took general principles from the Oxford Group.

But not Jesus Christ.

Endnotes:
1.  George P. Landow, Professor of English and the History of Art, Brown University, http://www.victorianweb.org/religion/swedenborg2.html

2. http://www.newchurch.org/beliefs/salvation.html

3. Mel B., New Wine, pg. 111-112, 114

4. PASS IT ON, pg. 121

5. Ibid., pg. 121

6. http://www.lewrockwell.com/white/white45.html

7. Robert Thomsen, ‘Bill W.’  pg.223

8.  Francis Hartigan, ‘Bill W.,’ (pg.123)

9.  http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-Ironside.html

AA and 12 Steps not from Christ

A.A.’s Christian promoters and defenders are fierce and active. They are convinced-and have convinced others-that A.A. and the 12 Steps are Biblical in origin. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

 Before we proceed, remember that A.A. people are mostly unsaved, and in grave need of Christ. They are hurt, desperate, sinful people. In short, they are just as we were. As we wade through the swamp of this deceptive religion, it is important to remember this. Unsaved A.A. people are doing the best they can with what they have been taught-which is that anything and everything can be worshiped as a “higher power.” In A.A., any concept of “god” is valid.

According to the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book (the A.A. “bible”), “We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the Realm of the Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men. When, therefore, we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God.”[1] (Bold mine)

Well, that sounds very loving and reasonable. Yet Christ Himself warns us against such a thing. Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but through me. (John 14:6)

The Lord, in fact, specifically warns against the broad way. “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is BROAD that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.” (Matthew 7:13)

It is no coincidence that the A.A. Big Book again makes a direct reference to this spiritual Broad Highway: “If our testimony helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself, then, if you wish, you can join us on the Broad Highway. With this attitude you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you.”[2] (Bold mine)

In 2 Corinthians 6:14-17, we are told to separate ourselves. In Galatians 1:6-9, Paul says that he who brings another gospel is “accursed.” The Alcoholics Anonymous theology, wherein Christ is seen as one higher power among many, is most certainly another gospel.

If Christians were to base involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous on the Word of God-Sola Scriptura-we would not be at the meetings at all.

Why, then, are so many of us part of it? Most Christians believe A.A. and the 12 Steps have a Biblical beginning. Therefore, the reasoning goes, we can either “take back” the 12 Steps (Celebrate Recovery etc.), or attend A.A with Jesus as our “higher power.”

But there is no “taking back” something that never came from Christ.

When all is said and done, the spread of this false “Christian” origin can be largely credited to Richard Burns, better known as Dick B., author of numerous books on the   Biblical “roots” of A.A. and the 12 Steps. Through sheer repetition and volume, Dick B. has conjured up a Christian origin that simply did not happen.

 This is neither to attack nor impugn this author’s motives. Yet it is virtually impossible to address this issue without dealing with his well meaning but erroneous scholarship. His books are seemingly everywhere.

Rest of article: http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-4875/Brannon-Howse/John-Lanagan

AA’s pagan symbol

Okay, so where did the AA symbol come from?  Why did AA co-founder Bill Wilson choose the triangle within the circle?

In ‘Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age,’ he writes, “That we have chosen this symbol is perhaps no mere accident. The priests and seers of antiquity regarded the circle enclosing the triangle as a means of warding off spirits of evil, and AA’s circle of Recovery, Unity, and Service has certainly meant all that to us and much more.”

(Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age, pg.139, Bold mine)

RELATED ARTICLES

The AA history they have never told you: http://mywordlikefire.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/hard-truth-about-alcoholics-anonymous/

Alcoholics Unanimous: The Novel

Prologue: June 10, 1973

He was dying. Despite the open window the tiny bedroom smelled of sweat and ointments and long-term illness. He was forty years old, but now appeared well over sixty. His body was ravaged with the affliction that had inexorably consumed him for the last two years.

The pain, now beyond description, was almost over. But he was unafraid. And he had at last completed the task the Lord had given him. “Here,” he rasped to his attendant. “Here it is.”

Bob Drulledge nodded solemnly and picked up the hand written, four hundred page manuscript. “This is everything?”

The bedridden man nodded back. He took several shallow, laborious breaths, seemingly willed oxygen into his lungs, and wheezed, “Yes. All of it…the demonic activities…how Alcoholics Unanimous has deceived Christians.”

Bob Drulledge fought to keep from smiling. Deceived indeed. He pointed to the large cardboard box perched precariously on the bedstand. “All your proof is in there? Every single document?”

The man in the bed nodded once again.

“Sir, I know you’re hanging on by sheer will alone, so I’ll make this quick. It’s been quite rewarding being your attendant these past months.”

“Thank…you,” the dying man gasped.

“But I’m afraid I’m not going to be typing your manuscript. Christians will never learn the truth about Alcoholics Unanimous. In fact, the manuscript and these documents”–he pointed a sallow, nicotine stained finger at the box–”well, destined for the shredder, I’m afraid.”

Bob Drulledge had spent long months envisioning the dying man’s reaction-the shock, disbelief, and horror that would appear on that wasted, chalk-white face. Yet the dying man simply stared at the attendant. Stared at him for long moments with…what?

Compassion?

Unsettled, Drulledge stammered, “All this work for nothing. You’re going to die knowing you’ve failed your precious God.”

The man never took his eyes off Drulledge. His frail chest rose and fell as he fought for breath. “I have served His purpose. He…will raise up others.” With one last, pain-wracked effort to gather oxygen, he said in a voice so loud and clear that Drulledge literally flinched, “Alcoholics Unanimous will be exposed.”

He died staring at his attendant.

Bob Drulledge stayed in the deceased man’s room for a long, long time. And remorse began to grow in his cold, black heart.

 

Where did the 12 Steps come from?

“A.A.’s official biography indicates Bill Wilson received the details of the 12 Steps through spirit dictation. Does anyone see a simple, idolatrous problem here?” writes T.A. McMahon of The Berean Call.

McMahon then addresses the well meaning effort to offer “Christ centered” 12 Step support groups.  “But what about evangelicals just using the methodology the familiar spirit gave to Bill Wilson? Simple again: God condemns the source, and the approach is contrary to the way He wants to transform our lives. Furthermore, why turn to such a spiritually toxic system? Where are the evangelical pastors’ heads in this?”

Here is a considerably darker, more accurate origin to the 12 Steps than what you may have heard. Seances, spirits, and 12 Steps: http://mywordlikefire.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/seances-spirits-and-12-steps-3/

Why does AA exist?

Alcoholics Anonymous exists to point the unsaved away from the Savior, and to water down the Body of Christ. It is here to contradict the Word of God. This is its purpose. I cannot say it any more plainly, and I am sorry if that offends you. I have been to at least one thousand AA meetings, and have known many who belong to 12 Step spirituality.

Most of the mythology around Alcoholics Anonymous serves to keep people in bondage to this system. One of the first thing an alcoholic learns in AA is that only AA can help. The Big Book (the AA “bible”) states, “We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not.” (pg. 58)

The above passage is from “How It Works,” which is read to the alcoholics at every single meeting. One of the goals in the meetings is to build up unwavering faith in AA and the 12 Steps.

Another goal is to discourage alcoholics from seeking help within the Body of Christ. Remember, we are dealing with dark, spiritual forces here. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

It is common to hear Christians in AA–Christians!–parrot the line that church people don’t understand, that church can’t help, that AA is the only answer. Yet, this contradicts the Bible. We are warned, Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the Kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6: 9-10) 

That is a hard teaching, huh? But then–and this is why we can know that our King was delivering drunkards long before AA came around–the Bible tells us, Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6: 11)  

Sometimes it is good for those in bondage to alcohol to go away for a time, to seek Him. Read the Word, pray, get the alcohol out of the system. But to be sent into a system that attempts to reduce Jesus to just one more “higher power” among many? No. A thousand times no.

On this blog you can find documentation about the AA co-founders’ heretical activities. They were not Christians. You can read about the familiar spirit’s gift of the 12 Steps to Bill Wilson. You will find many Biblical passages that forbid us from joining in with this non-Christian, polytheistic religion.

But, honestly, there will only be an increase in acceptance of 12 Step spirituality. At the very least AA is, as Martin and Deidre Bobgan pointed out many years ago, a prototype for the coming one world religion.

It is amazing to watch these systems, like hissing and writhing serpents, as they intertwine and entangle. Emergent, contemplative, 12 Step spirituality…be very careful, servant of Christ.

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons… (1 Timothy 4)

More on AA co-founder’s rejection of Christ

According to Mel B., author of My Search For Bill W., “What did [AA co-founder Bill Wilson] believe about life after death? He expressed the view that ‘there is no death’ and he also referred to this life as ‘a day in school.’ One of his close associates told me that Bill believed in reincarnation, though he certainly kept this out of his writings about AA. He was also interested in psychic phenomena, but he shared this only with close friends.”[1] (Bold mine)

And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment. (Hebrews 9:27)

In a July 2, 1956 letter to Mel B., Wilson makes an incredible statement–incredible, at least, for people who have mistakenly believed Wilson to have been a Christian. According to Wilson, “We have the conscious, the unconscious or subconscious, the world of psychic phenomenalism which suggests our Father’s house of many mansions, and finally the ultimate reality, glimpses of which all mystics seem to have had. To me, this makes good theological sense.” [2] (Bold mine)

All mystics? Good theological sense?

Then, a little later in the letter, Wilson states, “Christ is, of course, the leading figure to me. Yet I have never been able to receive complete assurance that He was one hundred percent God. I seem to be just as comfortable with the figure of ninety-nine percent. I know that from a conservative Christian point of view, this is a terrific heresy.” [3] (Bold mine)

Indeed it is. Back to the subject of reincarnation. It is interesting that Emmet Fox, the new thought adherent who was greatly admired by both Bill Wilson and fellow AA co-founder Dr. Bob Smith, also believed in reincarnation.

Fox’s heretical book, Sermon on the Mount, was actually used as a teaching manual in AA before the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book was completed. Fox taught that Jesus Christ was not Savior, and Bill and Dr. Bob used and recommended the book anyway.[4] This says it all, if we have the courage to face facts.

According to Emmet Fox, “…you have lived before, not once, but many, many times, and that in the course of these many lives you have thought and said and done all sorts of things, good and bad…”[5]

It is unfortunate that many, many people in AA do experience a rebirth of sorts. Not in terms of reincarnation but theology. While AA is relatively ineffective as a means of treatment, it has been deadly in its ability to point people away from Jesus Christ. It keeps the spiritually dead locked in the bonds of their spiritual death.

But that is not all. Many Christians have been watered down by belonging to this polytheistic religion–without ever realizing what has happened. If we were to be honest about it, we would see that “recovery” for many replaces sanctification.

Never have we been Biblically instructed that it is all right to place the Ancient of Days, our great and glorious King, amongst tin gods and false beliefs. And we are suffering for doing so. It is, frankly, now just a matter of warning. We are too far toward the End of Days. The 12 Step spirituality will continue to rise, humming and hissing with false gods, even false “christs,” and  will join with contemplative and emergent systems–and many other systems as well.

And all the while a loving Christ tells His people, “Come out and be separate.” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17)

Too many of us who follow Christ also worship the idol of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The people answered and said, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods.” (Joshua 24:16)

Endnotes:

1. Mel B., My Search For Bill W., pg. 137

2. Ibid., pg. 20-21

3. Ibid., pg.21

4. Alcoholics Anonymous Co-founders Were Not Christians http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-3537

5. Herman Wolhorn, Emmet Fox’s Golden Keys To Successful Living, pg. 102-103

Alcoholics Anonymous and Contemplative Spirituality

Having just finished the excellent Castles in the Sand by Carolyn A. Greene, a novel about the spread of spiritual formation in a Christian college, here is how contemplative spirituality is being spread through Alcoholics Anonymous. Greene’s fiction is true–this AA piece, on the other hand, is a factual article, and not half as interesting as her novel.

AA and Contemplative Spirituality

“For our struggle is … against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

The elements of the false church continue to take shape. Some, it seems, are already here. Striving to unite into one smooth apostasy, spiritual forces behind emergent and contemplative heresy continue to mix, and mesh, and blend with other systems. One such system is the 12 Step spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous. This powerful, theological chameleon has already done much damage to the Body of Christ.

In 2008, two influential contemplative advocates, Fr. Richard Rohr and centering prayer pioneer Fr. Thomas Keating, facilitated a conference “to demonstrate to those in 12 Step fellowship ways to embrace the invitation of the 11th Step to improve our conscious contact with God….[This] will offer us all a wonderful opportunity to deepen our contemplative practices.”[1] (italics mine)

In 2007, Fr. Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation presented ‘How Do We Breathe Underwater?? The Gospel And 12 Step Spirituality.’[2] Rohr has also authored ‘The 12 Steps as Coded Gospel.’[3]

Such subject matter sounds very Biblical. Yet Fr. Rohr is a proponent of interspirituality via meditation. He believes, like many contemplatives, that God is in all, and all is in God.

Fr. Thomas Keating has introduced thousands to centering prayer. His book, Divine Therapy and Addiction: Centering Prayer and the Twelve Steps, demonstrates “the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve-Step method and its connections to, and similarities with, the Christian mystical traditions of centering prayer and Lectio Divina.”[4]

So what is going on here? Why such interest in 12 Step spirituality? Contemplatives recognize the meditative Silence–”thoughtless, empty, and void”[5]–that has been simmering in Alcoholics Anonymous since its inception.

Much like farmers kneeling in rich, fertile soil, Rohr, Keating, and other contemplatives are tending a meditative garden that has already produced much fruit. There are now 12 Step groups for everything from overeating to sexual addiction. Literally millions of people have already experienced meditation as part of their 12 Step program.

AA’s 11th Step states: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

“Meditation is something that can always be further developed. It has no boundaries, either of width or height,” writes AA co-founder Bill Wilson.[6] This is equally true of 12 Step theology–there are absolutely no boundaries when it comes to defining the “higher power.”

In the Bible, we are clearly told, “I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.” (Isaiah 42:8)

According to Alcoholics Anonymous, “We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the Realm of Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men. When, therefore, we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God.”[7]

This undefined “god” is meant, of course, to help. Tormented people, in the grasp of some overwhelming bondage, enter a 12 Step group and are told they must turn to a higher power. It doesn’t matter what you believe in, they are told, but it is crucial you believe in something.

So they do. They choose a spirit, perhaps, or a self-designed deity, or decide to worship the universe, or St. Jerome, or virtually anything else. But they surely reach out to something.

Then, when they reach the 11th Step, they seek through prayer and meditation even deeper communion with whatever idol–or entity–they have invited into their lives. As instructed, they ask for knowledge. What does the deity want them to do? They ask for power. And some enter the silence.

While the silence has always existed in the thorny undergrowth of 12 Step spirituality, Rohr, Keating, and others would like to see this become an integral part of the 11th Step. Thus the contemplatives have brought the tools of their trade. They have introduced the repetitive word (mantra/centering prayer), and repetitive phrase (Lectio Divina), and breath prayer at their contemplative/12 Step conferences and workshops.

Roger Oakland writes, “When [someone] is introduced to meditation, which produces a feeling of euphoria and well-being, he mistakes this for the presence of God. And thus the foundation of his faith is not on Christ or the Word of God, but rather on this feeling.”[8]

“No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” (2 Corinthians 11:14)

Historically, around the world, much has been experienced in the meditative silence. Bliss. Spirit-guides. A higher self. Oneness. And there have been false “christs,” wrapped in shining deception, communicating instructions and “wisdom” to some.

We can see the effect of one such false “christ” through the Oxford Group book, God Calling, in early AA history. Alcoholics Anonymous came out of Dr. Frank Buchman’s neo-evangelical Oxford Group of the 1930s. Buchman is credited with spreading meditation on every continent.[9]

AA co-founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith attended Buchman’s Oxford Group meetings together and separately. They poured Oxford Group meditative practices, along with its generic spiritual principles, into the bubbling stew of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Walter Martin, in Kingdom of the Cults, places Oxford Group founder Frank Buchman alongside cult figures such as Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy.[10]

Pastor H.A. Ironside, who preached during the 1930s and 1940s, was familiar with the Oxford Group in his own city. He had grave concerns about its meditative practices:

“Each [Oxford Group] member is urged … to sit quietly with the mind emptied of every thought … waiting for God to say something to them…. Sometimes they tell me nothing happens, at other times the most amazing things come. Tested by the Word of God, many of these things are unscriptural. They lay themselves open for demons to communicate their blasphemous thoughts to them.”[11] (italics mine)

Oxford Group member (and minister) C. Irving Benson cautions about this Quiet Time/guidance and notes use of the Bible during this meditative period. Nevertheless, he writes, “The silence becomes a sacrament wherein God comes to us.”[12] Benson also states, “I wait in self-forgetting silence, contemplating the presence of God.”[13]

This brings us to God Calling, a book written by two women who identified themselves simply as “Two Listeners.”[14] Receiving Quiet Time “guidance” in the manner taught by the Oxford Group, they believed they recorded the words that Jesus Christ gave them daily.

The false “christ” that was channeled through these women advised, among other things, “Cultivate silence. ‘God speaks in silences.’ A silence, a soft wind. Each can be a message to convey MY meaning to the heart, though by no voice, or even word.” (January 7)

And, “Seek sometimes not even to hear me. Seek a silence of spirit-understanding.” (Feb. 27)

An ex-Oxford Group member named Richmond Walker, years later as an AA member, compiled prayers and meditations into one little book. Much of it was based on the demonic writings found in God Calling.

Walker, however, eliminated every reference to the Two Listeners’ “jesus” in favor of universal spirituality. The book, Twenty-Four Hours a Day, begins with an ancient Sanskrit proverb. “Twenty-Four Hours a Day” has been read by–and has influenced–millions of AA members.

According to an AA history website,
“[The book] explained how to practice meditation by quieting the mind and entering the Divine Silence in order to enter the divine peace and calm and restore our souls.”[15]

This meditation book also resonates with the New Age teaching that God is within: “There is a spark of the Divine in every one of us. Each has some of God’s spirit that can be developed by spiritual exercise.” (April 30)[16]

Do Christians in AA realize this New Age teaching can also be found in the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book (the AA “bible”): “We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis, it is only there He can be found.”[17] (italics mine)

This belief that God is in all people is rapidly spreading. Alcoholics Anonymous and contemplatives like Rohr and Keating are wrong–God’s indwelling is not possible without receiving the Salvation of Christ. (Ephesians 1:13, 1 Cor 15:50, John 14: 15-17)

Yet Christians who embrace the 12 Steps are in error as well (2 Corinthians 6:14-17, Galatians 1:6-9). Cultural acceptance of higher power theology already has us on the verge of universalism; this growing fusion of contemplative/12 Step spirituality will produce, and ultimately proliferate, the great and terrible delusion of man’s divinity.

For more on Alcoholics Anonymous: http://www.mywordlikefire.wordpress.com

Endnotes:
1. Inner Room Conference promotional material http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/
2. “How Do We Breathe Underwater?? The Gospel And 12 Step Spirituality,” Center for Action and Contemplation, promotional material
3. Fr. Richard Rohr, “The 12 Steps as Coded Gospel”
4. Fr. Thomas Keating, “Divine Therapy and Addiction: Centering Prayer and the Twelve Steps,” promotional material
5. Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, Lighthouse Trails Publishing, pg. 15
6. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pg. 101
7. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 46-47
8. Roger Oakland, Faith Undone, Lighthouse Trails Publishing, pg.112
9. Dave Hunt, Adaptation of Occult Invasion, 1998
10. Walter Martin, Kingdom of the Cults, Bethany House Publishers, pg. 30
11. H.A. Ironside, The Oxford Group Movement: Is It Scriptural? http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-ironside.html
12. C. Irving Benson, The Eight Points of the Oxford Group: An Exposition for Christians and Pagans, Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, pg. 67
13. Ibid., pg.69
14. Two Listeners, God Calling, Barbour Publishing, Inc.
15. AA History–The 24 Hours a Day book http://www.barefootsworld.net/aa24hoursbook.html
16. Richmond Walker, Twenty-Four Hours a Day, Hazelden Foundation, Meditation for the Day, April 30
17. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 55

Masked mystery hikers

I have walked those trails for years. I have walked them with congestive heart failure, with arthritis, with my beautiful wife, and with my hilarious grandkid.

I have only been on the trails twice since the surgeons carved out a dime-sized chunk of my nose. The Lord is so good to me. They got the melanoma, and the surgeon has my restructured nose looking almost normal–unless you’re a little kid looking up at my two different shaped nostrils…

I have always loved the sun. Now I can’t go out in it. Three or four times in the past few years, I have been on the trails when a mysterious, swathed figure has approached.  Covered from head to foot, the person has walked rapidly past me.

Even the face was covered. It was very odd. Now, however, I understand.  There are three, maybe four, of these masked mystery hikers. These are skin cancer survivors. I guess this is just what I am going to do. Life goes on, and if I have to be wrapped like a Christmas present to hike, pass the paper and ribbon.