Whatever YOU want “god” to be

The sorrows of those who have bartered after another god will be multiplied. (Psalm 16:4)

Let us acknowledge that A.A. has helped some people get sober. Some have even found Christ while attending Alcoholics Anonymous. Yet, this in itself has proved an effective decoy. It furthers the misconception that people should be encouraged into this all-gods religion because ultimately they will come to Christ. This rarely happens.

Throughout Scripture the Lord forbids spiritual fellowship with non-believers. He warned Solomon what would happen because of his heathen wives. (1 Kings 11); He approved of King Josiah’s agony over the false gods in the Temple. (2 Kings 22:8-23:24); He clearly commands us to be a separate people. (2 Corinthians 6:14-17) Belonging to the 12 Step religion, where all “gods” are seen as equal, is a grave insult to the Ancient of Days.

For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the Lord made the heavens. (Psalm 96:4-5)

Make no mistake—the success of A.A. is not in treatment effectiveness, which is limited, but in public relations and publicity. A.A. and other 12 Step groups have excelled not in bringing people to Jesus, but in weakening the Body of Christ, and steering the culture away from the God of the Bible.

America has accomplished much. We have guarded Israel. We have helped spread the gospel throughout many other lands. But now, the apostate church rises, with much of the coming one world religion in place in rudimentary form.

Contemplative spirituality, the emergent church, and 12 Step spirituality are intermingling. Heretical tendrils are shooting out and connecting.

Stay strong, servant of Christ. Perilous, perilous times…

Our God is faithful. Our God is triumphant. And our God is righteous. What will these emergent rebels say to the Holy One, Jesus Christ, the One they have fought to undermine all these years?

No meditative state or condition will save these contemplatives who have for so long diverted men and women from the gospel of Jesus Christ.  

Alcoholics Anonymous will continue to further polytheism, universalism, and the belief that “god” is in everyone. Christians who defend AA in spite of the clarity of Scripture, and those behind the “Christian” 12 Step industry, well, it would bless the Lord if you opened your eyes. And it would be far better for you.

It is one thing to be ignorant of these things, or to be a struggling alcoholic who seeks AA because he or she believes there is nothing else.

But to be a Christian who knows what the Bible says, and ignore it anyway…

So much fear. AA has convinced you that sobriety is not possible except through the 12 Steps.

Many Christians in AA praise Him with their lips but their hearts are far from Him, and they worship the idol of AA. Such fierce defenders! Such worldly arguments! Such twisting of Scripture!

And how will you answer the Lord? As this thing grows and grows and grows, how will you answer the Lord?

Time is short. Maybe shorter than you think.

The inconvenient truth about Alcoholics Anonymous

In ‘Seances, Spirits, and 12 Steps,’  http://mywordlikefire.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/seances-spirits-and-12-steps/ we examined the spiritualism of Alcoholics Anonymous cofounder Bill Wilson and, to a lesser extent, Dr. Bob Smith. We observed that Bill Wilson, the man who wrote the 12 Steps, was involved in psychic activity for decades. While some may attempt to claim Wilson as Christian or insist he was used by Jesus Christ, his spiritual service was in reality to the god of this world.[1] He was a man who cared deeply about his fellow alcoholics, but he was never a Christian.   

Why is this important? Alcoholics Anonymous has been successfully but incorrectly portrayed as Christian in origin. Although it is clear from Scripture alone that we are to have nothing to do with strange spiritual systems (2 Cor. 6:14-17), the misinformation about A.A.’s alleged Biblical roots has convinced many that Christians could and should attend 12 Step groups.

Biographer Robert Thomsen knew Bill Wilson personally. There are numerous biographies now, and it is significant that Thomsen’s biography of Bill W. was the very first.

In the book, ‘Bill W.,’ Thomsen takes us to Wilson’s life before Alcoholics Anonymous existed. To the time when Bill Wilson had been hospitalized yet again for his alcoholism. An amazing thing occurred in his hospital room. A white light, a sense of a Presence, and Wilson never drank again. Wilson describes this Presence as ”…the great reality. The God of the preachers.” (PASS IT ON, pg. 121))

But was it? The God of the Christians? Well, no. For years Wilson had been exposed to the Swedenborgianism of his wife and her family. This religion loves the Bible–but rejects Christ as Savior. Emanuel Swedenborg, whose interpretation of the Bible is the basis for the religion, believed he spoke with all manner of spirits and deceased beings from Martin Luther to Aristotle to the Apostles. 

While Wilson was not a Swedenborgian per se, he was very much inflluenced by Swedenborg’s spiritualistic accounts, and by his rejection of a Biblical, fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. Wilson also learned (?) through New Thought advocate Emmet Fox, some years later, that the Bible was not as the fundamentalist Christians interpreted it. 

It is understandable if a Christian, upon reading this quote about “The God of the preachers” would assume Bill was referring to the Biblical God. Wilson never accepted Christ.

Wilson’s own wife Lois had a grandfather who was a Swedenborgian preacher. Swedenborgians believe, among other things, that no religion has an exclusive path to salvation.

Here, in the first biography of Bill Wilson, Thomsen describes the “god” Bill Wilson experienced: “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.” (Bill W., by Robert Thomsen, pg.223, Bold mine)  

This is pantheism.

From this point on Wilson was a sober man, and some months later cofounded Alcoholics Anonymous. Again, there is no doubt Wilson and A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob Smith were trying to help alcoholics. But A.A. has served to point many away from the God of the Bible.

Something rarely recognized, but very profound, happens to people in A.A. It is as if great, invisible chains are placed on those looking for help. For, once in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, Christians and nonbelievers are taught that sobriety is only possible through the 12 Step religion. 

There are other invisible chains as well. For thousands of Christians, Alcoholics Anonymous has become an idol.  Many believers literally have more faith in A.A. and the 12 Steps than in Jesus Christ.

Have Christians ever considered—truly examined—the spiritual message of Alcoholics Anonymous? People are taught it is acceptable to believe in something, anything, some higher power to help one overcome alcoholism. By no means does this have to be Jesus. If someone wants to believe in Allah, fine. An unnamed spirit, fine. Yet Christians in A.A. are expected to pray and worship with those who exalt other gods. Let’s read what Paul states about this in Galatians 1:6-8:

“I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!” (Galatians 1:6-8)

Paul is not done. This man, who was changed so dramatically by the same God who frees alcoholics, continues:

“As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, he is to be accursed!” (Galatians 1:9)

The power and the horror of the A.A. mythology is the belief that it alone can help. Our churches are full of people who have been delivered by Christ, and who know they have no need of A.A. or the 12 Steps. The ministry Setting Captives Free[3], for example, is a Biblical approach, very effective, and can be found online.

God’s people have the right—and the obligation—to understand A.A.’s origin is a mixture of anti-Biblical elements. Our erroneous view of A.A’s cofounders, promoted so aggressively by certain Christian authors, has actually done much damage to the Body of Christ. They should not be celebrated or portrayed as Christians, but rather recognized as men who were used to spread a spiritual darkness that has overtaken many.

As covered elsewhere, the official A.A. biography of Bill Wilson, ‘PASS IT ON,’ documents many of Wilson’s forays into Biblically forbidden activities such as spiritualism. These were so frequent he describes the following as “the fairly usual experience.”[4] He writes:

“The ouija board got moving in earnest. What followed was the fairly usual experience—it was a strange mélange of Aristotle, St. Francis, diverse archangels with odd names, deceased friends—some in purgatory and others doing nicely, thank you! There were malign and mischievious ones of all descriptions, telling of vices quite beyond my ken, even as former alcoholics. Then, the seemingly virtuous entities would elbow them out with messages of comfort, information, advice—and sometimes just sheer nonsense.”[5]  

A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob Smith, portrayed as a devout, Bible believing Christian in numerous books by author and A.A. apologist Dick B. and others, was also committed to these prohibited activities.

According to early A.A. member Tom Powers, “Now these people, Bill and Dr. Bob, believed vigorously and aggressively. They were working away at the spiritualism; it wasn’t just a hobby.”[6] No one would know this better than Tom Powers. He participated in many of these psychic incidents alongside the A.A. cofounders.

“As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists, to play the harlot after them, I will also set My Face against that person and will cut him off from his people. You shall consecrate yourselves and be holy, for I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 20:6-7)

Dr. Bob, while a consistent Bible reader, did not interpret the Bible as the Word of God. Rather was he more in line with the heretical New Thought interpretation of Emmet Fox.[7] This has been a source of confusion for many who have wondered about the spiritual origin of Alcoholics Anonymous.

When someone calls the A.A. cofounders Christian, let them know Dr.Bob and Bill Wilson used a heretical book by Emmet Fox, a book that denies the Salvation of Christ, as an A.A. teaching tool. The book is deceptively titled, ‘The Sermon On The Mount.’[8]

Author Emmet Fox writes, “The ‘Plan of Salvation’ which figured so prominently in the evangelical sermons of a past generation is as completely unknown to the Bible as it is to the Koran.” [9]

No believer would share such heresy with hurting alcoholics—but the A.A. cofounders did. Dr. Bob loved this book.

Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob looked to the Bible for general principles. They were not saved and sanctified individuals hungry for God’s Holy Word. This is why they could so easily violate His prohibitions about communication with the dead.

According to author Susan Cheever, Dr. Bob “began every morning with meditation and prayer and twenty minutes of Bible study. Like Bill, Bob believed in paranormal possibility, and the two men spent time ‘spooking,’ invoking spirits of the dead.”[10] 

Because the Body of Christ continues to be flooded with literature claiming A.A. is Christian in origin, it is necessary to politely but strongly correct Dick B., author ‘The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous,’ The Good Book and the Big Book: AA’s Roots in the Bible,’ and many others.

A prolific writer, Dick B. has his fans. On his website under ‘Endorsements,’ Dick B. had listed, for quite some time, an enthusiastic message from…Robert Schuller.

Celebrate Recovery, the well known “Christ centered” 12 Step group, was founded in Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. Celebrate Recovery is full of sincere people who are doing the best they can with the system given to them by those they trust. But, again, are the 12 Steps intended to help the church–or to serve as a decoy?

In his book, ‘The Truth War,’ the 12 Steps are addressed by John MacArthur. He writes, “Others would formally affirm Christ’s sovereignty and spiritual headship over the church, but they resist His rule in practice. To cite just one instance of how this is done, many churches have set various forms of human psychology, self-help therapy, and the idea of ‘recovery’ in place of the Bible’s teaching about sin and sanctification.” …”So wherever the work of God’s Word is being replaced with twelve-step programs and other substitutes, Christ’s headship over the church is being denied in practice.” (pg.159)

Dick B.’s belief is that use of the Bible, the A.A. cofounders’ involvement with the allegedly “Christian” Oxford Group, and Anne Smith’s “Quiet Time” and “Guidance” demonstrate some of the Christian beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous. As shall be pointed out in future articles, these incorrect claims have served to link the Body of Christ with the New Age fundamentalism of A.A’s 12 Step religion.

One of the most misleading factors in the origin of Alcoholics Anonymous is the Oxford Group. Founded by Frank Buchman, the Oxford Group was a pseudo-Christian movement that eventually became the MRA (Moral ReArmament), an organization that reached out to all faiths. But, in truth, this is also what the Oxford Group did. 

Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith both attended Oxford Group meetings before they were introduced to one another. The great preacher H.A. Ironside said of the Oxford Group:

“It appeals to people who reject the inspiration of [the Bible] as well 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 those who believe in it. Here in our city it is openly endorsed by the Swedenborgians and by leaders of the Unitarians, as well as by a number who belong to orthodox churches. But it is silent about the blood of Christ.”[11] In other words, it was very much a forerunner of Alcoholics Anonymous. And equally deceptive.

Well, wait a minute, bottom line, don’t people get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous? Not as often as you might think. A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson himself tried to find alternatives for those for whom A.A. was not effective. Including, unfortunately, LSD.[2] The good news, the secret that should not be a secret, is that Christ has been delivering people all along.

Some years ago Alcoholics Anonymous conducted a triennialsurvey and found that only five percent of the people still attended meetings one year after initial attendance. I don’t think A.A. has done any research since, because that is not an impressive success rate, and doesn’t speak very highly of its effectiveness. If you know of an updated study, please send it this way.  

In the coming weeks we shall be examining the Oxford Group and Anne Smith’s role and understanding of “guidance.” We will do our best to confront and correct false information and misunderstandings. With so many books about A.A.’s supposed Christian beginnings in circulation, only the Lord God can straighten this mess out. Only He can expose darkness to the Light.

Yes and Amen.

Endnotes:

1.     Alcoholics Anonymous Cofounders Were Not Christians http://www.christianworldviewnetwork.com/article.php/3537/Brannon-Howse/John-Lanagan

2.     PASS IT ON,        Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. pg.369-70

3.     http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com/home/our_courses.php

4.     PASS IT ON, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., pg. 278

5.     Ibid., pg. 278

6.     Ibid., pg.280

7.     http://www.christianworldviewnetwork.com/article.php/3537/Brannon-Howse/John-Lanagan

8.     Emmet Fox, The Sermon On The Mount

9.     Ibid., pg. 5-6

10. Susan Cheever, My Name Is Bill, pg. 197

11. http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-Ironside.html H.A. Ironside, The Oxford Group Movement: Is It Scriptural?

(I know, I know, yet another one pulled from the Archives.)

Emergent leaders: AA weakened the Body of Christ

“As Phyllis Tickle has noted, the development of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) probably did as much as other, more celebrated events to undermine our concept of religion. Emerging in the late 1930s, AA made it acceptable to talk about a generic God–a ‘higher power.’” (bold mine)

You can find the above quote  in ‘A Heretic’s Guide To Eternity,’ by Spencer Burke (The Ooze) and Barry Taylor, pg. 34-35, foreword by Brian McClaren.

Burke and Taylor further note what AA has brought on us. Of course, they see it as a good thing: “Consequently, a generation of people began speaking about God in new ways not previously sanctioned by the consensual illusion–and traditional religious perspectives began to change as a result.”

The Bees are dropping like flies

Chuck Missler writes, “A new study by the National Academy of Sciences suggests that scientists still do not know the exact cause of the disorder that has resulted in the mysterious disappearance of billions of honeybees. However there is some evidence that the bees may have been infected with multiple viruses that combined to create ‘the perfect storm.’”

These bees are critical to our food supply. Missler notes, “In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about one-third of our food supply comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination.” Chuck Missler’s article: http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-5408/Brannon-Howse/Chuck-Missler

Butterflies’ Alcoholics Anonymous Testimony

This is my AA Testimony–

Who is my accuser? Every time you go to a meeting you are defeated. “Hello my name is ——-I am an addict or alcoholic.” Think of how cleverly devised Satan’s scheme is here, you are never free, you are always sick, you are always afflicted with Alcoholism. There is no cure!

Of course as one learns the Word of God one quickly realizes this goes against the word of God …how can that be? How can I have victory in Christ if I’m always condemning myself to failure?
Truth is truth..what is God mainly concerned with? Your soul. You may stumble, you may fall, but carry your cross–follow Him. That is what we are called to do: we are called to abide in Christ. Now if we are in this program you may be clean and sober but with a lost soul! Think about how many clean and sober hell bound people who just don’t need anything but AA or NA . What a clever plan of Satan!

A true Follower of Jesus who reads scripture will begin to see the Word of God.. and the workings of NA and AA. The “bible” of AA [the Big Book] begins to collide with your faith. It is absolutely undeniable. Being in those rooms does not make any sense.

How in the world can your god (everybody’s higher power is different) and your god…a room full of gods have the power to keep you clean and sober? Your god isn’t real!

Butterflies isn’t through. Here is the link. She is the second post: http://www.rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=108993

AA and pantheism

Robert Thomsen was a friend of AA co-founder Bill Wilson, and wrote the very first biography of Wilson. Some months before the creation of AA, Wilson was in the hospital due to alcoholism. He had a supernatural encounter, and never drank again.

While some revisionists have portrayed this as an experience with the Biblical God, this was most emphatically not the “God of the preachers.”[1]

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 [Wilson] 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 men say there was a bit of God in everyone, but this feeling that he was part of God, himself a living part of the higher power, was a new and revolutionary feeling.”[2](emphasis mine)

This is pantheism.

And what, you ask, is pantheism? According to gotquestions?org,

“Pantheism is the view that God is everything and everyone and that everyone and everything is God. Pantheism is similar to polytheism (the belief in many gods), but goes beyond polytheism to teach that everything is God. A tree is God, a rock is God, an animal is God, the sky is God, the sun is God, you are God, etc. Pantheism is the supposition behind many cults and false religions (e.g., Hinduism and Buddhism to an extent, the various unity and unification cults, and “mother nature” worshipers). Does the Bible teach pantheism? No, it does not.”[3]

Endnotes:

1. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., PASS IT ON, pg.120-121

2. Robert Thomsen, ‘Bill W.,’ Harper and Row, pg. 223

3. http://www.gotquestions.org/pantheism.html

John MacArthur on Purpose Driven Life

“That is a gospel that I will tell you will contribute to apostasy.” Pastor John MacArthur

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI9EzMWZoag

Hindus believe…

I have always enjoyed meeting the peoples of India. This article by Dr. Jim Eckman is a straight-forward and easy-to-understand presentation of Hinduism.

Eckman writes:

“Hindu theology is complex and difficult for the western mind.  Foundational to Hinduism is the concept of Brahman.  Brahman is the unchanging reality of the universe.  It is the unity that is in the universe and yet beyond it.  All objects, animate and inanimate, are included in it.  Gods, humans, demons, animals, etc. are all part of Brahman.  (The term “Brahman” derives from a root which means “to expand,” denoting an entity that cannot be limited in magnitude or expansion.)”  FULL ARTICLE: http://www.issuesinperspective.com/2009/sep/09sep05-06_2.cfm

Missing the heresy in AA’s origin

“Now what of “New Thought” and “New Age?” Most AAs probably don’t even know what those ideas involve. I’ve already written that, earlier on in my research and writing, I missed the boat on the significance of new thought ideas in early A.A,” writes Dick B., author of many books and articles on the alleged Christian beginnings of AA and the 12 Steps. http://www.dickb.com/AABigBook-StepSources.shtml

But what of the many years that these books and articles circulated, where people had no idea Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, AA’s cofounders, were so heavily influenced by New Thought advocate Emmet Fox? Here, once again, a historical correction: http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-3537

AA’s cofounders allowed heretical teaching?

“…Emmet Fox, whose 1934 book The Sermon on the Mount became one of the society’s most useful guides until the publication of ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ [the Big Book] in 1939,” writes Mel B., author of New Wine. ( pg.111,bold mine)

What was this book that was used by Alcoholics Anonymous as a teaching tool? Written by New Thought advocate Emmet Fox, the book denies that Jesus Christ is Savior.

According to Emmet Fox:

“…Jesus taught no theology whatever.” (pg.3)

Regarding the doctrine of original sin, Fox states, “Then a far-fetched and very inconsistent legend was built up concerning original sin, vicarious blood atonement, infinite punishment for finite transgressions.” (pg.4)

Fox writes, “The ‘Plan of Salvation,’ which figured so prominently in the evangelical sermons and divinity books of a past generation is as completely unknown to the Bible as it is to the Koran.” (pg.4-5, bold mine)

Incredibly, Fox proclaims, “In the Bible the term “Christ” is not identical with Jesus the individual. It is a technical term which may be briefly defined as the Absolute Spiritual Truth about anything.” (pg.124)

This book was appreciated and used by A.A.’s cofounders, Bill Wilson, and Dr. Bob Smith, which indicates they were not Christians at all. Can you imagine introducing such heresy to a sick alcoholic to “help” that person?

Dr. Bob’s enthusiasm for Emmet Fox’s sweet-sounding but heretical book, The Sermon on the Mount,[7] is something Christians need to examine.  

Forgive us for repeating ourselves, but this is no minor point, since this book denies that Jesus Christ is Savior. The book was used as a teaching tool by Alcoholics Anonymous before the Big Book was written.

Since Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson have been proclaimed as Christians over and over by pro-AA author Dick B., it would be good if he could explain their use of this heresy in a satisfactory manner.

In The Sermon on the Mount, author Emmet Fox states there is no such thing as original sin; that the account of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden is not intended as literal history. In Fox’s theology, Jesus never walked on the water as the Son of the Biblical God, but as a man who had learned how to tap into the source of divine power.

He writes, “The ‘Plan of Salvation’ which figured so prominently in the evangelical sermons of a past generation is as completely unknown to the Bible as it is to the Koran.”[8] (Bold mine)

Fox instructs, “In the Bible the term ‘Christ’ is not identical with Jesus, the individual. It is a technical term that may be briefly defined as the Absolute Spiritual Truth about anything.”[9]

Fox was an eloquent adherent of the New Thought religion. This belief system teaches that our thoughts determine our reality, and that we too can learn to tap into the same divine power that Jesus the man harnessed.

As scholars Anderson and Whitehouse note, “New Thoughters are fond of such affirmations as… ‘The Christ in me salutes the Christ in you.’ Rather than viewing Jesus as the first and last member of the Christ family, many New Thoughters believe that Christ is a title that we can all earn by following Jesus’ example.”[10]

The Sermon on the Mount is based on Fox’s heretical interpretation of Scripture. Again, why would Bible-believing Christians have anything to do with such a book? Would a Christian cofounder of AA really participate in using it as a teaching tool? Or place such heresy in the hands of another alcoholic?

AA cofounder Dr. Bob Smith did just this. ARTICLE: http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-3537