John MacArthur 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.” (Bold mine) — From The Truth War, pg.159
How Christians have been deceived! Take for instance, this egregious statement in SERENITY: A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery. This is one of the many “recovery” Bibles for alcoholics and addicts. Authors Dr. Robert Hemfelt and Dr. Robert Fowler claim, “We must remember that this growth is a process with one of the growth directions being toward God. Bill Wilson left the door open, saying, ‘It’s God as I understand Him,’ but he was very explicit about who his God was. He was the God of our fathers and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (pg.78)
Wrong!
Do you understand why so many Christians believe this about AA co-founder Bill Wilson? Pro-AA author Dick B. and others continue to make this claim. Before we–once again–repudiate this, let’s see what other spiritual nuggets Hemfelt and Fowler foist upon us. “We may start out as agnostics. We may then come to view the group or recovery process as our higher power, looking to other people for strength. Gradually we accept a vague notion of god, which grows to a more specific monotheistic god. We may even begin to pray or dialogue with this god. Eventually, we come to know the One True God.” (pg.78)
This is simply not the case. Relatively few people come to the Biblical Christ in AA, but this is presented to Christians as if it happens all the time. Most in AA end up with an AA “god.” This can be anything–wind, water, the universe, St. Jerome, or anything else.
Our churches have many who have overcome the sin of bondage to alcohol or drugs without bowing to 12 Step spirituality. There are also those outside the church who have quit alcohol without AA. Quite often they have been harmed by AA, and view religion in light of their experience with the “higher power” people. These are folks who need our prayers, that they may come to know Christ.
As for Bill Wilson being a Christian, Mel B., author of My Search For Bill W., writes, “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.” (pg. 137)
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.” (pg. 20-21) (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.” (pg.21) (Bold mine)
That is correct. Bill Wilson cared about the alcoholics in and out of AA. Give the man his due. But for authors like Dick B., Hemfelt, and Fowler to present him as a Christian is a terrible disservice. If you pick up a book that claims this, beware.
You may have read about Bill Wilson’s drunken trek to the mission’s altar. Dick B. uses this as “evidence” that he came to Christ.
Biographer 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.”(Bold mine) –From ‘Bill W.’ by Francis Hartigan, pg. 123
Thank you again for your tireless efforts to expose AA as an anti-religious cult. The appeal of AA for most members, it seems to me, is precisely because it is anti-religious. It is true that destructive drinking draws people in, but 95% leave before one year, making it obvious something other than “sobriety” is involved. The term “sobriety” itself, like so many other special terms in AA, is loaded language and means nothing less than total submission to the AA way of life. That it means abstinence as well is of secondary importance.
AA appeals to those who would have the consolation of religion without the consequences of its teachings; that is, it will be on their own terms or none at all. “I will not serve,” therefore any god will do in AA, in which subjectivism reigns supreme, making a mockery of the Truth in practice, as one narcissist after another gushes “my truth,” reducing the absolute truth of the Gospel to one of many equally valid, relativistic variants of AA’s New Age-ism. AA started out as theosophical, from what I can tell, but has degenerated into the self-idolatrous quackery of New Age-ism. The best thing one could say about AA’s “spirituality” is that it teaches religious indifferentism.
When the topic turns to spirituality, a significant number of members begin by denigrating the religion of their upbringing before moving on to praising AA’s dogmatic Twelve Step approach. I say this after 15 years in AA and after attending thousands of meetings. Some time ago, one Catholic, a retired professional with real standing in the group, said his religion was “mostly rituals,” while in AA he found true spirituality. Some months before, another professed Christian said, “I’ve found more spirituality in these rooms than I ever did in church,” and added, “and more spirituality in the Big Book than in all the religious books I’ve ever read.” I won’t comment on the incomprehensible ignorance of these men, except to say that they are all too typical and generally believe that their occultist founder, Bill W., was divinely inspired when he wrote both the Big Book and the canonical guide to “working” the Steps, “The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.” In fact, other articles on this site make it clear that Bill W. admitted to having received the Steps from a spirit calling itself Boniface while in a trance. I challenge anyone calling himself a Christian to dare bring this up in a meeting, and I’d love to be there to see the reaction if he did.
Newcomers must be made aware that the most fanatical true believers in a group will pounce on them to become their sponsor, and I’ve found this self-appointed cadre of sponsors to comprise the most mentally unstable people in any group. They will say they go to one Christian church or another, but the newcomer must not be so easily duped, and listen carefully to what they “share” in meetings to determine their beliefs. I assure you that what professed Christians “share” about spirituality will more often than not be frightening. Over the years, the brazen hostility voiced at meetings toward “organized religion,” which is more loaded language and the all-purpose euphemism for Christian churches, has caused me to get up and walk out in disgust. The handful of actual Christians are generally either too meek or too intimidated to do the same, and so they tolerate this abuse, year in and year out.
“AA intends to become your life, for the rest of your life.” If one study by Harvard is correct, however, and AA is no better than no treatment at all, then making AA one’s life for the rest of one’s life is surely one existentially hellish price to pay for the descent into total insanity. This is only one person’s belief and therefore I also challenge any Christian to raise his hand whenever someone bashes religion–and the only religion meant will be the Christian faith–to demand the the leader rule that any blasphemy or comments offensive to Christians are out of order. Now that would be offensive to a good many of the members of the many groups I’ve been a part of.