Dick B.'s FYI Messages

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels The Comprehensive Oxford Group-Shoemaker Relationship with A.A.

Mon, 10 May 2010 07:41:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels The Comprehensive Oxford Group-Shoemaker Relationship with A.A. <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels The Comprehensive Oxford Group-Shoemaker Relationship with A.A.   Dick B. � 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved   The Two, Definitive, Relevant A.A. Books by Dick B.   This is the final article on A.A. 12-Step Parallels that came directly from Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., whom Bill Wilson described as a �cofounder� of A.A., whom Bill initially asked to write the 12-Steps, and whose Oxford Group ideas formed the heart of the life-changing program of action that Bill Wilson codified into A.A.�s basic text, Alcoholics Anonymous (affectionately known as the �Big Book�).   The most important research and resource book on A.A. and Shoemaker is Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., Pittsburgh ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1999). See <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/newlight.shtml"> www.dickb.com/newlight.shtml</a>; ISBN 1885803-27-3. Important Forewords were written by Karen A. Plavan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Counselor Education-Chemical Dependency, Pennsylvania State University, and Adjunct Professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Also by Nickie Shoemaker Haggart, LCSW, younger daughter of Dr. Samuel Shoemaker, Jr. And also by Mrs. W. Irving Harris, wife of Shoemaker�s Assistant Minister, long-time Oxford Group activist, and resident of Calvary House where Shoemaker lived in New York. There is no work on Shoemaker that comes close to this resource in detail or scope in that it is comprehensive (over 650 pages), is accurate, is filled with bibliographical and footnote documentations, and contains appendices supplementing the research and writing in the text. This is the book you will want to own and study in order to learn the extent to which Shoemaker�s books, articles, sermons, pamphlets, and ministry at Calvary Church in New York directly impacted on the writing and views and approach to recovery incorporated by A.A.�s cofounder Bill W. in the Big Book.   The second most important work is Dick B., The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works, new rev ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1998). See <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/Oxford.shtml"> www.dickb.com/Oxford.shtml</a>; ISBN 1885803-19-2. There is no other accurate, comprehensive work on the relationship between A.A. and the Oxford Group. The author read hundreds of Oxford Group books, pamphlets, and materials. He became a good friend of the leading, surviving Oxford Group leaders and writers in the United States and Great Britain. These included Garth Lean, Frank Buchman�s biographer; James D. and Eleanor Forde Newton, principal American Oxford Group activists of the 1920�s and 1930�s as well as personal friends of both Buchman and Shoemaker; and T. Willard Hunter�longtime Oxford Group employee and friend of A.A.   I undertook a definitive history of the Oxford Group as it related to A.A. and also laid out the 28 Oxford Group principles that impacted directly on A.A. This is a book you will want to own and study in order to learn the over-all influence of the Oxford Group on the life of its founder Dr. Frank Buchman, its principal American leader Dr. Samuel Shoemaker, and its Alcoholics Anonymous adherent William G. Wilson (Bill W.). The book is filled with Oxford Group language, biographies, and citations that show the immense amount of Oxford Group ideas incorporated into�and parallels that exist between the Oxford Group and�A.A.. It is a necessary complement to the New Light book on Shoemaker.   Other Dick B. Works That Fill in the Oxford Group-Shoemaker Picture   In 2006, Dick B. published the third edition of his voluminous bibliographical work on the spiritual roots of A.A. It is Dick B., Making Known the Biblical History and Roots of Alcoholics Anonymous: A 16-Year Research, Writing, Publishing, and Fact Dissemination Project, 3rd ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 2006). See <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/makingknown.shtml"> www.dickb.com/makingknown.shtml</a>; ISBN 1-885803-97-4. In this work, I laid out all of the Oxford Group, Shoemaker, biblical, and other books, materials, articles, and writings I had incorporated in my historical works. I indicated where they can be found today at such A.A. historical repositories as the Wilson House, Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, and St. Paul�s Episcopal Church in Akron. I specified the distinguished sources from which these materials had been acquired and/or purchased. And I assembled the largest-known, annotated bibliography of directly-relevant A.A. historical roots materials. The book is a must for those wanting the complete written sources of A.A. history.   In 2000, I also published a practical guide for the study and use of Oxford Group and Shoemaker books and materials in relation to the Twelve Steps, the Big Book, and A.A. history. The book garnered a Foreword by Ozzie Lepper, President/Managing Director of The Wilson House in East Dorset, Vermont. It is Dick B., By the Power of God: A Guide to Early A.A. Groups & Forming Similar Groups Today (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 2000). See <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/powerofgod.shtml"> www.dickb.com//powerofgod.shtml</a>. ISBN 1-885803-30-3. This book is in wide use by groups in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain who use it to study each of the Twelve Steps in company with the material from the Oxford Group, Shoemaker, biblical, and Anne Smith sources which gave rise to them.   One additional recent book I wrote provides a suitable, utilitarian view of each of the Twelve Steps, their particular root sources, and how to study them in that perspective and really gain an understanding of the Steps as they were intended to be understood. This book is Dick B., Twelve Steps for You: Take the Twelve Steps with the Big Book, A.A. History, and the Good Book at Your Side, 4th ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 2005). See <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/12StepsforYou.shtml"> www.dickb.com/12StepsforYou.shtml</a>; ISBN 1-885803-98-2.   There You Have Them�A Compact Series on A.A.-12 Step Roots   Too often, writers have missed A.A.�s real Oxford Group connection. They erroneously think A.A.�s �program� came from the Oxford Group. They ignore the gross differences between the Akron A.A. Bible-based, �Christian fellowship� program founded in June 1935, and the New York A.A. Oxford Group text�i.e., the Big Book�published four years later in April 1939. They are often highly critical of the Oxford Group while ignoring the fact that its ideas were never discarded by Bill Wilson when he penned the Big Book. In fact, he incorporated them. And he laid the source at the feet of Rev. Samuel Shoemaker, a principal American leader of the Oxford Group. See The Language of the Heart: Bill W.�s Grapevine Writings (NY: The AA Grapevine, Inc., 1988), 298. Students of the A.A. Big Book and Twelve Steps now have the luxury of actually learning what Bill acknowledged about A.A.�s Shoemaker source. Far more important, this package of 5 books will enable them to research for themselves, study for themselves, and learn the real sources of the Twelve Step recovery ideas.   Gloria Deo</div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels from Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.--Steps 10 through 12

Sat, 08 May 2010 20:23:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels from Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.--Steps 10 through 12 <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels from Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.   Dick B. � 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved   Steps Ten through Step Twelve   We have many times documented the frequent statements by A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson that his friend Rev. Sam Shoemaker was the major source of the Big Book ideas and Twelve Steps.<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">1</a>   And you can find almost exact parallels between the language Bill Wilson used in the Big Book and the language Shoemaker wrote in his many Christian books, articles, and pamphlets. Sometimes Bill�s parallel language is found in the instructions of the Big Book for �taking� the Steps. Sometimes his language is found in the Steps themselves.   Here, Step by Step, are a few of those parallels. Key words and phrases appear here in bold face. Moreover, in a number of my books, I have carefully stated and reviewed every parallel quote I have found in Shoemaker�s many writings. Those books which contain the totality of my work on Shoemaker-Wilson language parallels are included at the close of this series of articles.   Here Are the Parallels in the Steps Ten through Twelve   Step Ten: Shoemaker wrote: �There is need for re-dedication day by day, hour by hour, by which progressively, in every Quiet Time, the contaminations of sin and self-will are further sloughed off (for they do have a way of collecting).�<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">2</a> �It may help to keep our object in view if we choose five words which will cover the usual stages of development: Confidence, Conviction, Conversion, Conservation [later changed to �Continuance�]�<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">3</a> �All the values of continuance would thus be conserved.�<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">4</a> �We believe entirely that conversion is the experience which initiates the new life. But we are not fools enough to think that the beginning is the end. All subsequent life is a development of the relationship with God which conversion opened.�<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">5</a>   Step Eleven: Shoemaker wrote: �Whatever be one�s theories about prayer, two things stand: man will pray as long as God and he exist, and the spiritual life cannot be lived without it. . . . But it is an art�the art of discerning God�s will�and one must learn it. . . . And we are praying best when we come quite empty of request, to bathe ourselves in his presence, and to �wait upon Him,� with an open mind, concerned far more with His message to us than with anything we can say to Him.�<a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">6</a> �Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.�<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">7</a> �I plead again for the keeping of the �Morning Watch��coming fresh to God with the day�s plans unmade, submitting first our spirits and then our duties to Him for the shedding of His white light upon both.�<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">8</a> �Contact with God is our normal condition, as normal as water is for a fish.�<a href="#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">9</a> And Shoemaker spoke specifically of: Being �in touch with God.�<a href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">10</a> A sense of the �power and presence of God.�<a href="#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">11</a> �God consciousness.�<a href="#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">12</a>   Step Twelve: Shoemaker wrote: (1) About the �experience of God;�<a href="#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">13</a> �vital experience of Jesus Christ;�<a href="#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">14</a> �religious experience;�<a href="#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15">15</a> �spiritual experience;�<a href="#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16">16</a> �spiritual awakening.�<a href="#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17">17</a> �They have �got something.� That is an evasive phrase for saying they believe in and trust God.�<a href="#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18">18</a> �Before anything else is suggested about a change and a cure, the first impression that people of God ought to give is the impression of. . . �The Everlasting Mercy� . . . . When we know ourselves to be beyond the reach of any merely human help, the first Face of God we need to see is the Face of Love. . . .  Now there is just one answer for any sin and any need on the face of this earth. And that lies in the forgiveness of God for the past and the Grace of God for the future. I take that to be the spiritual angle of A.A. because it is the spiritual angle of all mankind.�<a href="#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19">19</a> (2) �You will never do effective work with individuals unless you have first fully caught their attention and made them want what you have.�<a href="#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20">20</a> �God help us to give freely, as He has given to us.�<a href="#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21">21</a> �The best way to keep what you have is to give it away.�<a href="#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22">22</a> �We must begin giving away what we have, or we shall lose it. One of the first impulses after we hear a good story is to find someone to tell it to. And one of the first impulses after we have had a real Christian experience is to want to impart it to others.�<a href="#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23">23</a> (3) �Faith without works is dead.�<a href="#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24">24</a> �Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own shelves.�<a href="#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25">25</a> �Pentecost was more than a promise to obey the Sermon on the Mount. . . . We shall not get past the rather matter-of-fact and spiritless Christianity so prevalent today until we learn that the Holy Spirit still guides and empowers.�<a href="#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26">26</a> �It is plain that the first thing America needs is to stop sentimentalizing over the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and face honestly the difference between ourselves and those essential laws.�<a href="#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27">27</a>   As stated, the foregoing are not the only parallels to each Step. We list many others in several of my titles covered at the end of this series of articles.   Meanwhile, the reader may enjoy some specific, itemized, and numbered word and phrase parallels between Shoemaker language and either Big Book or Step language as we have listed them in: Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism (148 parallels), pages 153-70; and Dick B., The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous (202 parallels from both Shoemaker�s and other Oxford Group writings�Shoemaker being the principal American Oxford Group leader in the 1930�s), pages 276-77, 341-64.   A Point to Remember about Shoemaker and A.A.   You do not have to agree with Shoemaker�s sayings, quotes from the Bible, and writings relevant to A.A. ideas and language. But you may want to learn what Bill Wilson was really trying to do when he digressed and led AAs away from the Bible-oriented Akron A.A. program to Shoemaker�s Oxford Group ideas. Bill was then using and talking about language he had heard day after day from Shoemaker and his circle in the days of Bill�s extensive Oxford Group involvement from late 1934 to 1937 and his continued discussions with, and fanning of, Shoemaker�s enthusiasm for helping drunks through Oxford Group life-changing ideas.   <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="mailto:dickb@dickb.com"> dickb@dickb.com</a>; <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/"> www.dickb.com</a>   Gloria Deo     <div style="mso-element:footnote-list">  <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn1"> <a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"> 1</a>               Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., Pittsburgh ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1999), 4-7, 8-9, 147-48, 152-53, 327-45, 359, 377-78, 393-95, 487, 531-40, 547-48, 551-52.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn2"> <a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2"> 2</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Conversion of the Church (NY: Fleming Revell, 1932), 79. </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn3"> <a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3"> 3</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Realizing Religion (NY: Association Press, 1923), 79-80.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn4"> <a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4"> 4</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Twice-Born Ministers (NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1929), 168.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn5"> <a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5"> 5</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Children of the Second Birth (NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1927), 16. A.A.�s Tenth Step reads: �Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.�</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn6"> <a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6"> 6</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Realizing Religion, 65-66.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn7"> <a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7"> 7</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Children of the Second Birth, 16.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn8"> <a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8"> 8</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Realizing Religion, 65-66.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn9"> <a href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9"> 9</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Gospel According to You (NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1935), 159.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn10"> <a href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10"> 10</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Conversion of the Church, 47-65.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn11"> <a href="#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11"> 11</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., With the Holy Spirit and with Fire (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 27.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn12"> <a href="#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12"> 12</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Twice-Born Ministers, 123. A.A.�s Eleventh Step reads: �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.�</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn13"> <a href="#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13"> 13</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Conversion of the Church, 113.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn14"> <a href="#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14"> 14</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Conversion of the Church, 109. </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn15"> <a href="#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15"> 15</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Realizing Religion, 9.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn16"> <a href="#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16"> 16</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Twice-Born Ministers, 10.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn17"> <a href="#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17"> 17</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Conversion of the Church, 134.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn18"> <a href="#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18"> 18</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Religion That Works (NY: Fleming Revell, 1928) , 62,</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn19"> <a href="#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19"> 19</a>             Quoting the remarks of Shoemaker at the A.A. International Convention in Long Beach in 1960. See Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism, 335.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn20"> <a href="#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20"> 20</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Conversion of the Church, 77.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn21"> <a href="#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21"> 21</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Conversion of the Church, 86.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn22"> <a href="#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22"> 22</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., They�re on the Way (NY: E.P., Dutton, 1951), 159.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn23"> <a href="#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23"> 23</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., How to Become a Christian (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1953), 80.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn24"> <a href="#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24"> 24</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., National Awakening ( NY: Harper & Brothers, 1936), 13.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn25"> <a href="#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25"> 25</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Gospel According to You, 44.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn26"> <a href="#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26"> 26</a>             Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., A Young Man�s View of the Ministry (NY: Association Press, 1923), 26.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn27"> <a href="#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27"> 27</a>             Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., God and America (NY: Book Stall, 61 Gramercy Park North, New York, n.d.), 21.</div> </div> </div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels from Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.--Steps 7 through 9

Sat, 08 May 2010 17:52:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels from Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.--Steps 7 through 9 <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels from Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.   Dick B. � 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved   Steps Seven through Step Nine   We have many times documented the frequent statements by A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson that his friend Rev. Sam Shoemaker was the major source of the Big Book ideas and Twelve Steps.<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">1</a> In 1955, Newsweek named Shoemaker one of the ten greatest preachers in the United States.<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">2</a> Shoemaker was known as a great communicator, and was described by his associate Rev. W. Irving Harris as a �Bible Christian.�<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">3</a>   There are many persuasive instances where you can find almost exact parallels between the language Bill Wilson used in the Big Book and the language Shoemaker wrote in his many Christian books, articles, and pamphlets. Sometimes Bill�s parallel language is found in the instructions of the Big Book for �taking� the Steps. Sometimes his language is found in the Steps themselves.   Here, Step by Step, are a few of those parallels. Key words and phrases appear here in bold face. Moreover, in a number of my books, I have carefully stated and reviewed every parallel quote I have found in Shoemaker�s many writings. In each case, the parallels are present, and the examples are numerous. Those books which contain the totality of my work on Shoemaker-Wilson language parallels  are included at the close of this series of articles.   Here Are the Parallels in the Steps Seven through Nine   Step Seven: Shoemaker wrote: �Self-surrender has always been and must always be regarded as the vital turning point of religious life.�<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">4</a> �Let go. Abandon yourself to Him. Say to Him, �Not my will but Thine be done.�<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">5</a> �God in mercy strip us this day of the last vestiges of self reliance, and help us to begin anew trusting to nothing but His grace.�<a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">6</a> �The heart of surrender does not lie in asking God to take our problems and solve them for us because we have been unable to do so. It lies in giving ourselves to Him for the doing of His will.�<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">7</a> �There is, I dare say, no moment of comparable importance to the soul�s history to this, when in humility and honesty we tell God in prayer that we want Him to take us over, remove ours sins, and change our lives.�<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">8</a>   Step Eight: Shoemaker wrote: �For most people there is wrapped up in the decision to surrender to God the necessity to right all wrongs with men, and it generally means a specific wrong or act or  attitude toward somebody in particular. This is the hurdle of restitution.�<a href="#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">9</a> �. . . over in the corner of their minds and memories, motionless but not dead, is an old resistance against someone. Vaguely we know we are in for a difficult letter, or visit. But we put it off. . . ..�<a href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">10</a>  �The soundest approach I know to religious discovery is found in St. John�s Gospel, chapter 7, verse 17: �If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.� We are always busy getting �willing to do His will,� and this means changing many of our ways.�<a href="#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">11</a>   Step Nine: Shoemaker wrote: �The first necessity is to get straight with all other people: those we have written off our list, those we dislike and disapprove of, those with whom we come into daily but not always wholly loving and honest contact.�<a href="#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">12</a> �We are usually guided to see our part in the wrong. The other person may have been primarily responsible for the trouble, but if our resentment, anger, self-pity was wrong, let us share that.�<a href="#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">13</a> �What reception we find in the other person is not our responsibility�only that we go to him in love and in honesty and clear away any wrong on our side.�   As stated, the foregoing are not the only parallels to each Step. We will list references to them all as can be found in our various titles. This will be done in the final article in this series.   Meanwhile, the reader may enjoy some specific, itemized, and numbered word and phrase parallels between Shoemaker language and either Big Book or Step language as we have listed them in two titles. See Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism (148 parallels), pages 153-70; and Dick B., The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous (202 parallels from both Shoemaker�s and other Oxford Group writings�Shoemaker being a principal American Oxford Group leader in the 1930�s), pages 276-77, 341-64.   Again, we have not listed each and every parallel here because there are many many specific examples in Shoemaker�s writings. And, as to each of those listed in this series on Steps Seven through Nine, the relevant footnote contains a citation to the page where you can find the Shoemaker-Oxford Group language quoted in the specified Shoemaker title.   <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="mailto:dickb@dickb.com"> dickb@dickb.com</a>; <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/"> www.dickb.com</a>   Gloria Deo <div style="mso-element:footnote-list">  <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn1"> <a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"> 1</a>               Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., Pittsburgh ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1999), 4-7, 8-9, 147-48, 152-53, 327-45, 359, 377-78, 393-95, 487, 531-40, 547-48, 551-52.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn2"> <a name="_ftn2" title style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="#_ftnref2"> 2</a>               Billy Graham Center; Archives; Papers of Samuel Moor Shoemaker � Collection 269.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn3"> <a name="_ftn3" title style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="#_ftnref3"> 3</a>               Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism, xxi, 386; Dick B., The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works, new rev. ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1998), 9.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn4"> <a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4"> 4</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Realizing Religion (NY: Association Press, 1923), 30.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn5"> <a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5"> 5</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Religion That Works (NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1928), 19.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn6"> <a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6"> 6</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr. If I Be Lifted Up: Thoughts About the Cross (NY: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1931), 166. </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn7"> <a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7"> 7</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Gospel According to You and Other Sermons (NY: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1934), 86.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn8"> <a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8"> 8</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., THE TWELVE STEPS OF A.A.: What They can Mean to the Rest of Us. See Dick B, New Light on Alcoholism, 347. A.A.�s Step Seven reads: �Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.� </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn9"> <a href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9"> 9</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, The Gospel According to You, 87.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn10"> <a href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10"> 10</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, The Gospel According to You, 87. </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn11"> <a href="#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11"> 11</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Experiment of Faith (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1957), 36. A.A.�s Step Eight reads: �Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.�</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn12"> <a href="#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12"> 12</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., National Awakening (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1935), 60.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn13"> <a href="#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13"> 13</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Gospel According to You, 149.</div> </div> </div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels

Wed, 05 May 2010 18:22:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> A.A. 12-Step Christian Parallels from Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.   By Dick B. � 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved   Steps One through Step Six   We have many times documented the frequent statements by A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson that his friend, Rev. Sam Shoemaker, was the major source of the Big Book ideas and Twelve Steps.<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">1</a> In 1955, Newsweek named him one of the ten greatest preachers in the United States.<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">2</a> Shoemaker was known as a great communicator, and was described by his associate, Rev. W. Irving Harris, as a Bible Christian.<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">3</a>   There are many persuasive instances where one can find almost exact parallels between the language Bill Wilson used in the Big Book and the language Shoemaker used in his many Christian books, articles, and pamphlets.   Here, Step by Step, are a few of those parallels. Key words and phrases appear here in bold face. Moreover, in a number of my books, I have carefully stated and reviewed every parallel quote I have found in Shoemaker�s many writings. In each case, the parallels are present, and the examples are numerous. Those books which contain the totality of my work on Big Book-Shoemaker parallels are included at the close of this series of articles.   This study of Steps One trough Six begins with the parallels between Shoemaker�s introduction to the idea of �finding God� and Bill Wilson�s original insistence that one who takes the Twelve Steps must find God. In Realizing Religion, Shoemaker wrote: �You need to find God. You need a vital religious experience. You need Jesus Christ�<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">4</a> <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/GUIDES/269.htm#2">  </a> Here Are the Parallels in the First Six Steps   Step One: Shoemaker wrote: �It makes a gap between myself and the Ideal which I am powerless to bridge. It distances me from the All-holy God.� <a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5"> 5</a> He also frequently referred to the prayer, �O Lord, manage me, for I cannot manage myself.�<a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">6</a>   Step Two: Shoemaker wrote: �I told him that I knew if he would make that act in faith, he would find himself not the possessor of, but possessed by, a Force outside himself, greater than himself.�<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">7</a>  Shoemaker also wrote: �They seemed to be propelled by a vast Power outside themselves.�<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">8</a>   Step Three: Shoemaker wrote the following: (1) �He went into his room, knelt by his bed, and gave his life in surrender to God.�<a href="#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">9</a> (2) �She surrendered to God her groundless fears, and with them turned over her life for His direction.�<a href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">10</a> (3) �[H]e had made the greatest decision of life, to surrender himself unconditionally and for always to the will of God.�<a href="#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">11</a> (4) �That night I decided to launch out into the deep and with the decision to cast my will and my life on God�<a href="#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">12</a> (5) �They prayed together, opening their minds to as much of God as he understood.�<a href="#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">13</a>   Step Four: Shoemaker wrote: �It would be a very good thing if you took a piece of foolscap paper and wrote down the sins you feel guilty of. . . . One of the simplest and best rules for self-examination that I know is to use the Four Standards, which Dr. Robert E. Speer said represented the summary of the Sermon on the Mount�Absolute Honesty, Absolute Purity, Absolute Unselfishness, and Absolute Love. Review your life in their light. Put down everything that doesn�t measure up. Be ruthlessly, realistically honest.�<a href="#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">14</a>   Step Five: Shoemaker wrote: �When people�s lives are wrong, they are usually wrong on one or more of these standards. Many quite respectable people have hidden things in their past and their present that need to come out in confidence with some one. . . . If a person is honest with himself and with God, he will be honest also with us and be ready to take the next step, which is a decision to surrender these sins, with himself wholly to God.�<a href="#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15">15</a>   Step Six: Shoemaker wrote: �You see, most of us justify our wrong-doings and excuse them. Even when we admit them, we do not quite want to give them up. . . . Sin hides behind immaturity, we keep up a fence of protection, then when we are found out we whimper like babies. But when we take down the fence of protection, and let another know us well, we are through with shams and self-deception and the attempt to deceive others, even God. It will take some prayer to get to this place, where we want God to take the sin out of us, all of it, and for good.�<a href="#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16">16</a>   As stated, the foregoing are not the only parallels to each Step. We have listed all the references to them that we have found in our various titles. (For more on this, please see the forthcoming third article in this series.) Meanwhile, the reader may enjoy the extensive word and phrase parallels between Shoemaker language and either Big Book or Step language as we have listed them in these two titles: (1) Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism (148 parallels), pages 153-70; and (2) Dick B., The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous (202 parallels from both Shoemaker�s and other Oxford Group writings�Shoemaker being the principal American Oxford Group leader in the 1930�s), pages 276-77, 341-64. As stated, there are many other parallels, and each of those listed in this series on Steps One through Six contains a citation to the page where you can find the Shoemaker-Oxford Group language quoted in my books.   <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="mailto:dickb@dickb.com"> dickb@dickb.com</a>; <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/"> www.dickb.com</a>   Gloria Deo <div style="mso-element:footnote-list">  <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn1"> <a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"> 1</a>               Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., Pittsburgh ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1999), 4-7, 8-9, 147-48, 152-53, 327-45, 359, 377-78, 393-95, 487, 531-40, 547-48, 551-52.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn2"> <a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2"> 2</a>               Billy Graham Center; Archives; Papers of Samuel Moor Shoemaker � Collection 269.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn3"> <a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3"> 3</a>               Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism, xxi, 386; The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works, new rev. ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1998), 9.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn4"> <a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4"> 4</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Realizing Religion (NY: Association Press, 1923), 9. A.A.�s Big Book discussion begins its approach to the Steps by saying, �But there is One who has all Power�that One is God. May you find Him now!� (Big Book, 4th ed., 59).</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn5"> <a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5"> 5</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., If I Be Lifted Up: Thoughts about the Cross (NY: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1931), 131, 133.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn6"> <a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6"> 6</a>               W. Irving Harris, The Breeze of the Spirit: Sam Shoemaker and the Story of Faith at Work (NY: A Crossroad Book/The Seabury Press, 1978), 10.  A.A�s Step One reads: �We admitted we were powerless over alcohol�that our lives had become unmanageable.� (Big Book, 4th ed., 59).</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn7"> <a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7"> 7</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., If I Be Lifted Up, 176.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn8"> <a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8"> 8</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., A Young Man�s View of the Ministry ((NY: Association Press, 1933). A.A.�s Step Two reads: �Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.� (Big Book, 4th ed., 59).</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn9"> <a href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9"> 9</a>               Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Children of the Second Birth (NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1927), 175.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn10"> <a href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10"> 10</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Children of the Second Birth, 82.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn11"> <a href="#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11"> 11</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Children of the Second Birth, 61- 62.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn12"> <a href="#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12"> 12</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Twice-Born Ministers (NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1929), 134.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn13"> <a href="#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13"> 13</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., Children of the Second Birth, 25, 47. A.A.�s Step Three reads: �Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.� (Big Book, 4th ed., 59). </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn14"> <a href="#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14"> 14</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., How to Become a Christian, 56-57. A.A.�s Step Four reads: �Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.� (Big Book, 4th ed., 59).</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn15"> <a href="#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15"> 15</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., The Church Can Save the World, 110-12.  A.A.�s Step Five reads: �Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.� (Big Book, 4th ed., 59).</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn16"> <a href="#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16"> 16</a>             Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., THE TWELVE STEPS OF A.A.: What They can Mean to the Rest of Us. See Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism: God, 347�quoting from Shoemaker�s article in his parish journal, The Calvary Evangel. A.A.�s Step Six reads: �Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.�</div> </div> </div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: Higher Power

Mon, 03 May 2010 19:44:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: Higher Power <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> Higher Power   By Dick B. � 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved   Part One   Some of us spend [or waste] a lot of time asking the question: �What is a Higher Power?� Still others provide nonsense definitions and characteristics of �their� �higher power.� Bill Wilson vacillated between �God� and the unusual �Higher Power� he talked about so frequently after Dr. Bob was dead. Compare these inconsistent and conflicting statements by Bill:               You can, if you wish, make A.A. itself your �higher power.�<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">1</a>   Refusing to place God first, we had deprived ourselves of His help. But now the words �Of myself I am nothing, the Father doeth the works� began to carry bright promise and meaning.�<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">2</a>   The second statement was first propounded by Dr. Bob in his last major talk in 1948. He said:   I�m talking about the attitude of each and every one of us toward our Heavenly Father. Christ said, �Of myself, I am nothing�My strength cometh from my Father in heaven.�<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">3</a> If He had to say that, how about you and me?�<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">4</a>   When Dr. Bob talked about his �Heavenly Father,� he was not talking about AA or a higher power. He was using the expression by which Jesus Christ referred to God, His Father. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, �Not ever one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.�<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">5</a> In that same Sermon on the Mount, Jesus several times spoke of �your Father which is in heaven;�<a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">6</a> called for prayer to �Our Father which art in heaven,�<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">7</a> and told the assembly about �your heavenly father.�<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">8</a>   Both Bill W. and Dr. Bob were Christians at the time A.A. was founded. Both had studied the Bible. Both said that Jesus� Sermon on the Mount contained the underlying spiritual philosophy of A.A.<a href="#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">9</a> And neither was speaking about his �Heavenly  Father� with even the slightest thought of some higher power.   Sometimes, we hear this strange �higher power� described as: �Something.�<a href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">10</a> Sometimes, we hear that it is: �Somebody.�<a href="#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">11</a> Two authors recently claimed of A.A.: �. . . they can reclaim �God� by calling that �higher power� anything they want, as long as they are ready to admit that they cannot control everything in life.�<a href="#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">12</a> An A.A. General Service Conference-approved pamphlet for newcomers states: �However, everyone defines this power as he or she wishes. Many people call it God, others think it is the A.A. group, still others don�t believe in it at all.�<a href="#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">13</a> On other occasions, we are told in meetings or our literature that: �It� is a light bulb,<a href="#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">14</a> a radiator,<a href="#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15">15</a> a chair,<a href="#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16">16</a> the Big Dipper,<a href="#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17">17</a> a rock, <a href="#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18"> 18</a> Ralph,<a href="#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19">19</a>� and even a tree.<a href="#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20">20</a>   Reverend John Baker described how Celebrate Recovery came to be and stated the following:   As we progress through the program we discover our personal, loving and forgiving Higher Power�Jesus Christ, the one and only true Higher Power.<a href="#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21">21</a>   However, at my AA meetings I was mocked when I talked about my Higher Power�the only true Higher Power, Jesus Christ. And at church I couldn�t find a place where individuals would openly relate to my struggle with alcoholism.<a href="#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22">22</a>   In this first part, you have the problem. A.A.�s 1939 compromise with atheists and agnostics, has opened the door to every possible conception of a �higher power.� For some it�s the A.A. Group. For some it�s a chair. For some, it�s Something or Somebody. For some it�s Jesus Christ. For some it�s just nothing at all. And, in the next part, we�ll explore why a �higher power� has any place at all in the vocabulary of a practicing Christian in a recovery fellowship. We�ll ask: What happened to God, not �a� god, but God�just as Dr. Bob put it to A.A. newcomers�God that Bob called his �Heavenly Father.�   <div style="mso-element:footnote-list">  <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn1"> <a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">1</a>               Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1952), 27.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn2"> <a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">2</a>               Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 75.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn3"> <a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">3</a>           The reader may wish to check out these verses relative to the first part of the Dr. Bob quote:                 John 5:19 (KJV): Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.                 John 5:30 (KJV):                 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.                 The reader may also wish to check out these verses relative to the second part of the Dr. Bob quote:                 John 3:27 (KJV):                 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. John 3:35 (KJV): The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. John 5:27 (KJV): And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. John 13:3 (KJV): Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; John 17:7 (KJV): Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn4"> <a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">4</a>               The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their Last Major Talks (NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1972, 1975), 19.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn5"> <a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">5</a>               Matthew 7:21.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn6"> <a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">6</a>               Matthew 5:45, 48; 7:11.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn7"> <a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">7</a>               Matthew 6:9.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn8"> <a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">8</a>               Matthew 6:26, 32.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn9"> <a href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9">9</a>               See the full discussion in Dick B. and Ken B., The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide, 3rd ed., 2010</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn10"> <a href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10"> 10</a>             Historian Ernest Kurtz substituted �Something saves� for the expression �Jesus saves� in his book Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1979), 50.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn11"> <a href="#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11"> 11</a>             Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 39.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn12"> <a href="#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12"> 12</a>             Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Modern Wisdom From Classic Stories (NY: Bantam Books, 1992), 108-09.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn13"> <a href="#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13"> 13</a>             A Newcomer asks . . . (NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980), Pamphlet P-24.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn14"> <a href="#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14"> 14</a>             Clarence Snyder described this answer in his famous pamphlet, My Higher Power: The Light Bulb. </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn15"> <a href="#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15"> 15</a>             This definition appeared in a Founders Day article in the Akron Beacon Journal.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn16"> <a href="#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16"> 16</a>               In a telephone conversation with me about what a �higher power� could be, Bill Wilson�s secretary Nell Wing said that a higher power could be a �chair.�</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn17"> <a href="#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17"> 17</a>             At my regular Wednesday night A.A. meeting in Marin County, a friend frequently said his higher power was the �Big Dipper.�</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn18"> <a href="#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18"> 18</a>             When I was conducting a Step Study meeting at a Marin County treatment center, one patient insisted to me that a �higher power� could be a �rock.�:</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn19"> <a href="#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19"> 19</a>             Frequently, at a Friday Night Beginners Meeting in Marin County, one member said his �higher power� was �Ralph.�</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn20"> <a href="#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20"> 20</a>             One man whom I later sponsored told me at a Wednesday Night meeting in Marin County that he had learned at his treatment center that a higher power could be a �tree.�</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn21"> <a href="#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21"> 21</a>             Celebrate Recovery Bible, NIV  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), viii.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn22"> <a href="#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22"> 22</a>             Celebrate Recovery Bible, NIV, ix.</div> </div> </div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. Surrender�the Original Meaning

Sun, 02 May 2010 05:39:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. Surrender�the Original Meaning <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> A.A. Surrender�the Original Meaning   Dick B. � 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved   What Was a Surrender in Early A.A.?   In the original A.A. �Christian fellowship� program founded in Akron in June 1935, pioneer newcomers had a very clear idea of A.A.�s requirement that they surrender.   The Surrender at Akron City Hospital   First, at the close of the usually-required, initial hospitalization in Akron City Hospital, there was a ceremony that involved only A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob and the newcomer with whom he had been working. It soon involved two events: (1) The question Dr. Bob asked the newcomer:   �Young feller, do you believe in God? Not a God, but God!�<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">1</a> [emphasis in original]   (2) Then the requirement that the newcomer get out of bed, get down on his knees, and pray�with Dr. Bob leading the prayer.<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">2</a>   The �Real� or �Full� Surrender Upstairs at the Regular Wednesday Meeting   Old-timer Bob E. described the hospital surrender.<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">3</a> Then he pointed to the required surrender at the regular meeting. He said, �We called that surrender. They demanded it. You couldn�t go to a meeting until you did it. If by accident you didn�t make it in the hospital, you had to make it in the upstairs bedroom over at the Williamses� house.�<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">4</a>   Old-timer Clarence Snyder�s wife, Dorothy, called these upstairs ceremonies a �real� surrender.<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">5</a> Dr. Bob said, in Clarence�s case, that�even though Clarence had surrendered at the hospital�it was �about time you make your �full� surrender.�<a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">6</a> Dr. Bob�s wife, Anne Ripley Smith, spoke of �a real 100% surrender� and said �Surrender is a complete handing over of our wills to God, reckless abandon of ourselves, all that we think, that we are, everything we hold dear, to God to do what he likes with.�<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">7</a>   T. Henry Williams�in whose home the regular meetings and the surrenders took place, and who usually was one of those who went upstairs for the ceremony�said:   After the meeting, we might take the new man upstairs, and a group of men would ask him to surrender his life to God and start in to really live up to the four absolutes and also to go out and help other men who needed it. This was in the form of a prayer group. Several of the boys would pray together, and the new man would make his own prayer, asking God to take alcohol out of his life, and when he was through, he would say, �Thank you, God, for taking it out of my life.� During the prayer he usually made a declaration of his willingness to turn his life over to God.<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">8</a>   Frank Amos, an agent of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., rendered a report to Rockefeller concerning his visit to Akron in February 1938 to investigate the early A.A. program. Amos succinctly summarized the original Akron A.A. �Christian fellowship� program as containing seven �techniques� and described �the system followed.� He numbered the techniques. And Number 2 read as follows:               He must surrender himself absolutely to God, realizing that in himself there is no hope.<a href="#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">9</a>   Four Eyewitness Descriptions of What Happened in the Real Surrenders Made Upstairs   A.A. old-timer Ed Andy told me [Dick B.] in a telephone conversation:               They would not let you in unless you surrendered to Jesus Christ on your knees.�<a href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">10</a>   Larry B., another old-timer, wrote me a letter dated September 18, 1992. He described what happened at his surrender upstairs:   They took me upstairs to be a born again human being and be God�s helper to alcoholics.<a href="#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">11</a>   J. D. Holmes, an old-timer who had a relapse and then returned to sobriety, is quoted extensively in A.A. General Service Conference-approved literature. He had apparently had his problems with �the spiritual part� of the alcoholics� program. J.D. told Bill Wilson how Ernie G. and Paul S. were at his house one day trying to explain it to him, when Ernie said, �Why Jesus Christ is sitting right on the arm of that chair by you. . . . He wants to help you if you just reach out your hand.� J.D. said. �Then I got to thinking about it��Maybe the guy is right.� And  I began to give this thing a great deal of spiritual thought after that.� The quotes appear with descriptions of the surrenders that were required.<a href="#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">12</a>   Clarence Snyder�whose sobriety date was February 11, 1938, who stayed sober throughout the rest of his life, and who sponsored hundreds in their recoveries�was very explicit about Jesus Christ and the surrenders. His biographer wrote:   These people introduced Clarence to Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. They explained to Clarence that this was First Century Christianity. Then they prayed for a healing and removal of Clarence�s sins, especially his alcoholism. When he arose, said Clarence, he once again felt like a new man.<a href="#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">13</a>   Describing both his surrender in the hospital and his real surrender upstairs, Clarence quoted the specific prayers that he remembered Dr. Bob uttering:   Jesus! This is Clarence Snyder. He�s a drunk. Clarence! This is Jesus. Ask Him to come into your life. Ask Him to remove your drinking problem, and pray that He manage your life because you are unable to manage it yourself.<a href="#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">14</a>   Dr. Bob�s Wife Anne and the �Manage Me� Surrender Prayer   Both Oxford Group founder, Dr. Frank Buchman, and his chief American lieutenant, Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., utilized what some called the �Manage Me� prayer in connection with a surrender. In his �Victor's story,� Frank Buchman described it as follows: �O Lord, manage me, for I cannot manage myself.�<a href="#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15">15</a> Shoemaker�s Calvary Episcopal Church described it as �Charlie�s Prayer,� which concluded: �God, manage me, �cause I can�t manage myself.�<a href="#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16">16</a>   In the journal she shared with Bill W., Dr. Bob, the early AAs, and their families, Dr. Bob�s wife described the surrender prayer in two different ways: (1) �Oh God, manage me because I cannot manage myself.� (2) �O Lord manage me, for I cannot manage myself.�<a href="#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17">17</a>                     <div style="mso-element:footnote-list">  <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn1"> <a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">1</a>               Mitchell K., How It Worked: The Story of Clarence H. Snyder and the Early Days of Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio (Washingtonville, NY: AA Big Book Study Group, 1991, 1997), 57. See also: DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers (NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980), 144.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn2"> <a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">2</a>               DR. BOB, 101, 104, 118, 144.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn3"> <a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">3</a>               DR. BOB, 101.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn4"> <a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">4</a>               DR. BOB, 101.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn5"> <a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">5</a>               DR. BOB, 101.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn6"> <a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">6</a>               Mitchell K, How It Worked: The Story of Clarence H. Snyder and the Early Days of Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio (Washingtonville, NY: AA Big Book Study Group, 1999), 70.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn7"> <a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">7</a>               Dick B., Anne Smith�s Journal 1933-1939: A.A.�s Principles of Success, 3rd ed, (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1998), 28.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn8"> <a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">8</a>               DR. BOB, 139.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn9"> <a href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9">9</a>               DR. BOB, 131.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn10"> <a href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10">10</a>             Dick B., The Golden Text of A.A.: God, the Pioneers, and Real Spirituality, 2d ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 2000), 31. Phone conversation on January 9, 1994 at the home of Danny Whitmore in Lancaster, California.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn11"> <a href="#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11">11</a>             Dick B., The Golden Text of A.A., 32.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn12"> <a href="#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12">12</a>             DR. BOB, 140-141.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn13"> <a href="#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13">13</a>             Mitchell K., How It Worked, 70.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn14"> <a href="#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14">14</a>             Mitchell K., How It Worked, 58; Dick B., That Amazing Grace: The Role of Clarence and Grace S. in Alcoholics Anonymous (San Rafael, CA: Paradise Research Publications, 1996), 27; Three Clarence Snyder Sponsee Old-timers and Their Wives Our A.A. Legacy to the Faith Community: A Twelve-Step Guide for Those Who Want to Believe, comp and ed. Dick B. (Winter Park, FL: Came to Believe Publications, 2005), 22, 25-27, 42-43.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn15"> <a href="#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15">15</a>             A.J. Russell, For Sinners Only (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1932), 79.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn16"> <a href="#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16">16</a>             Irving Harris, The Breeze of the Spirit: Sam Shoemaker and the Story of Faith at Work (NY: The Seabury Press, 1978), 10.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn17"> <a href="#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17">17</a>             Dick B., Anne Smith�s Journal 1933-1939, 20-21.</div> </div> </div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A.�Christian Recovery Program Observations

Sat, 01 May 2010 03:50:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A.�Christian Recovery Program Observations <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> A.A.�Christian Recovery Program Observations   Dick B. � 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved   Different Strokes for Different Folks   �Christian Recovery� probably means very different things to various fellowships, groups, organizations, and individuals. And recognizing diversity is the first step toward tolerance and effectiveness.   Some Christian churches may see Christian recovery in terms of salvation and living in accordance with revelations from God, from His Son Jesus Christ, and from the Bible. Others may view Christian recovery as something apart from the worship, prayer, Bible study, and liturgical observances of the congregation. Still others may frown on the idea of �recovery� as distinguished from the receipt of forgiveness, wholeness, and the power of the Holy Spirit that accompany the new birth. And then there may be others ranging from Roman Catholics to New Thought proponents that believe that a new birth is not an appropriate term for their adherents. This is not to define church viewpoints. It is simply to express how different a church view of recovery may be from that of other recovery approaches and disciplines.   In Twelve Step Fellowships, and particularly in A.A., there is disparity as to what people believe one needs to recover from. Is it a disease of alcoholism or addiction? Is it a sin to be overcome? Is it a behavioral malady, a mental disorder, or a physiological state that requires services some believe are beyond those involved in salvation and the walk of a new man in Christ? And then, of course, there is the ever-present argument over whether one can ever be cured; or whether one can only receive a �daily reprieve� contingent upon practicing a 12 Step process; or whether one is forever �in recovery� or �recovering,� and therefore must not conclude he is or can ever be fully �recovered.�   Finally, how does a medical doctor, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a therapist, a counselor, a program director, a detox center, a rehab, a treatment program, or a sober living facility deal with whether or when one is either cured or recovered or simply has an illness that has been �arrested.� And if and when the present view of �relapse� comes into play, how is this explained in terms of the illness, the malady, the disorder, or the disease? Or even �prevention.�   If Christian Recovery Is an Objective, What Should a Christian Recovery Program Involve?   Is it enough that there be a daily, weekly, or periodic Bible study? Is it enough to have an ordained minister on tap to counsel, pray with, and teach the patients? Is it appropriate to have a quiet time or meditation period conducted by a Christian counselor? Or can the program offer a great deal more than completion of Twelve Steps, a �spiritual awakening,� a Christian fellowship setting, pastoral counseling, prayer sessions, and the teaching of the Bible and applying biblical verses and ideas to the Twelve Steps?   My View as a Non-professional, Recovered, Christian Bible Student Who Helps Alcoholics and Addicts in Recovery Meetings, Groups, Retreats, and Conferences   First, today I take my cue from the original, highly-successful, A.A. �Christian fellowship� founded in Akron in 1935, for which early A.A. claimed a 75% success rate among �seemingly-hopeless,� �medically-incurable,� �last gasp,� �real� alcoholics who went to any lengths to find or rediscover God, place their reliance on Him, and get well.   The simple, early program insisted on only a few �musts.� The alcoholic must acknowledge that he is an alcoholic, has lost the ability to control his drinking, has seen his life getting progressively more disastrous, and has often tried every kind of �human help�--without receiving the desired result. This person must decide he wants of his own will to quit permanently and forever.   He must, as a precaution, seek medical evaluation, and perhaps detox medication, or hospitalization.   He must acknowledge that he believes in God. He must accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He must turn without qualification to God for help. He must resolve to abandon sinful conduct and walk in accordance with God�s will. He must be humble and teachable enough to seek God through prayer, through Bible study, through reading helpful Christian literature, through observing quiet times with his heavenly Father, and through the support and fellowship of like-minded believers. And he must recognize that he is an ambassador for Christ with a duty to witness and help others by the same means. He must recognize his need for Christian observances and instruction through his church, his Bible fellowship, or other Christian teachers and counselors.   What about the recovery arena in the world �outside.� If he chooses or is required to choose a 12 Step Fellowship, he needs to go for broke. This means regular meeting attendance, obtaining a sponsor, studying the Big Book, taking the Twelve Steps, sponsoring others, and committing himself to serving others within the fellowship whether as speaker, secretary, �trusted servant,� coffee-maker, greeter, or broom-sweeper. He will profit from involvement in the many other aspects of the fellowshipping�phone communications, birthday celebrations, dances, camp-outs, conferences, �meetings after meetings,� and study groups.   And What about the Adversary?   If a Christian is to survive in the world outside, he needs to recognize, know, resist, and overcome his enemy. And this requires recognizing secular intrusion, idolatry, phony �spirituality,� and temptation�however it is presented. It requires prayer, using the manifestations of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and rebuking the enemy and his forces in the name of Jesus Christ. Without being taught how to discern evil spirits and recognize the wiles of the devil, he can easily fall prey to the secular wisdom, language, opinions, and practices �of the rooms.� And it won�t take long for the devil to lodge in his hair, whisper in his ear, play the role of the great liar, and teach him that wrong is right.   Where Christian Recovery Help Is Available   The time has come for those who are Christian leaders and workers in the recovery arena to inculcate the Christian message, inform about the nonsense gods and idolatrous ideas that prevail today, support the godly aspects of the recovery arena, and prepare the Christian newcomer for studying the Word, praying, renewing his mind, resisting the devil, and putting on the whole armor of God.   This message can be carried in A.A., other recovery fellowships, churches, treatment programs, prisons, mental wards, homeless shelters, the streets, the slums, and on the park benches. My own experience has been that it took a long time for me to get over the illness into which I had plunged. Fear, brain damage, societal problems, confusion, bad advice, erroneous teaching, and lack of Christian grounding left me awash in a godless sea of myths and shibboleths�awash without a paddle. And the sooner I began rejecting the secularism, going with the flow in the program, and placing my reliance on God, the sooner deliverance came. The solution is God. The power and love of God are equal to any task and available in any plight. And Christians need to call on God in the name of Jesus Christ at every turn, thank Him for each victory, and report to others His power and love and deliverance.   <a style="color: navy; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/"> www.DickB.com</a> <a style="color: navy; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="mailto:DickB@DickB.com"> DickB@DickB.com</a>   Gloria Deo</div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. First Previews of the Real Facts about A.A.'s Origins

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 06:06:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A. First Previews of the Real Facts about A.A.'s Origins <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> A.A.―First Preview of the Real Facts about A.A.�s Origins   Dick B. � 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved.   Bill Wilson�s grandfather William C. (�Willie�) Wilson cured of alcoholism by conversion:   My grandfather Wilson was a very serious case of alcoholism, and it no doubt hastened his death, although some years prior to this he had, to everyone�s great surprise, hit the sawdust trail, to speak figuratively, at a revival meeting in the Congregational Church and was never known to drink afterward.<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">1</a>   Bill�s doctor, William D. Silkworth�a devout Christian who believed his patients could be cured of alcoholism by the Great Physician Jesus Christ�so advised Bill at Towns Hospital:               Bill himself referred to Silkworth as a cofounder of A.A.<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">2</a>               When Silkworth was a young boy, his father had impressed upon the requirement of complete abstinence for success in life. . .  . Young Silkworth was told quite early of the need for crisis, reform, and conversion when dealing with alcoholism.<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">3</a>   Silkworth�s family remembers him as a deeply spiritual man. . . . A devout Christian . . . For years he attended a church that would also have an impact on the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Calvary Christian (Episcopal) Church.<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">4</a>   e wrote, all that we may have that is good comes from God.<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">5</a>   He spoke frequently about the need for a reliance upon God and a firm foundation of spiritual strength in order to handle the obsession to drink.<a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">6</a>   He was a man who believed in a spiritually sound approach to healing.<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">7</a>   During his third visit to Towns Hospital, Bill had a discussion with Dr. Silkworth on the subject of the �Great Physician.� . . . In fact, Bill Wilson himself wrote that he had thought about this discussion before he decided to check himself into Towns for the last time. . . . Alcoholism took longer to kill, but the result was the same. Yes, if there was any Great Physician that could cure the alcohol sickness, I�d better find him now, at once.<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">8</a>   Silkworth has not been given the appropriate credit for his position on a spiritual conversion, particularly as it may relate to true Christian benefits. Several sources, including Norman Vincent Peale in his book The Positive Power of Jesus Christ, agree that it was Dr. Silkworth who used the term �The Great Physician� to explain the need in recovery for a relationship with Jesus Christ. . . . In the formation of AA, Wilson initially insisted on references to God and Jesus, as well as the Great Physician. . . . Silkworth, a medical doctor, challenged the alcoholic with a spiritual conversion and a relationship with God as part of a program of recovery. His approach with Bill Wilson was no different.<a href="#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">9</a>   Following his third Towns Hospital visit with Dr. Silkworth, Bill Wilson was visited by his old friend Ebby Thacher who had been living at the Calvary Rescue Mission in Manhattan.<a href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">10</a> Ebby told Bill that some Oxford Group friends had told him he needed to call on God to help him with his problem.<a href="#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">11</a> Ebby had been to the altar at Calvary Mission and had made a decision for Christ.<a href="#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">12</a> Ebby told Bill, �I�ve got religion.�<a href="#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">13</a> Ebby was sober, and Bill concluded Ebby had been born again. Bill wrote this as to Ebby�s visit with him:               Nevertheless here I was sitting opposite a man who talked about a personal God, who told me how he had found Him, who described to me how I might do the same thing and who convinced me utterly that something had come into his life which had accomplished a miracle. The man was transformed; there was no denying he had been reborn.<a href="#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">14</a>               Bill actually went to Calvary Church itself just after Ebby�s visit. Bill saw Ebby giving testimony in the pulpit. At the Mission, Bill Wilson told Billy Duvall of the church event. And he felt sure he needed help and could get the help that Ebby had received at the Mission.<a href="#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15">15</a>   After checking Ebby�s testimony by visiting Calvary Church and hearing Ebby witness, Bill decided that he could perhaps be helped in the same way at Calvary Mission. Bill wrote:   I�d figured it was time I did some investigation on my own hook. Remembering the mission where Ebby stayed, I figured I�d go and see what they do, anyway, down there. I�d find out.<a href="#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16">16</a>   Bill went to Calvary Mission, made a decision for Jesus Christ at the altar, wrote that he had �for sure� �been born again.� Desperately he decided he should call on the Great Physician, and went to Towns Hospital for his fourth and final visit to receive help.   Bill�s wife Lois gave a recorded speech in Dallas, Texas, June 29, 1973. Speaking of Bill�s trip to the altar, Lois said: �And he went up, and really, in very great sincerity, did hand his life over to Christ.<a href="#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17">17</a>   [Bill wrote:] For sure I�d been born again.<a href="#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18">18</a>   [Bill wrote:] Yes, if there was any Great Physician that could cure the alcohol sickness, I�d better seek him now, at once. I�d better find what my friend had found.<a href="#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19">19</a>   At Town Hospital, Bill decided to call on the Great Physician. Bill cried out to God for help. Immediately his room was filled with a �white light.� Bill sensed the presence of �the God of the Scriptures,� and never again doubted the existence of God. Bill never drank again. Bill wrote:   But what of the Great Physician? For a brief moment, I suppose, the last trace of my obstinacy was crushed out as the abyss yawned. I remember saying to myself, �I�ll do anything at all. If there be a Great Physician, I�ll call on him.<a href="#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20">20</a>   Then, with neither faith nor hope I cried out, �If there be a God, let him show himself.� The effect was instant, electric. Suddenly my room blazed with an indescribably white light. . . . Then, seen in the mind�s eye, there was a mountain. I stood upon its summit where a great wind blew. A wind, not of air, but of spirit. In great, clean strength, it blew right through me. Then came the blazing thought, �You are a free man.� . . . I became acutely conscious of a presence which seemed like a veritable sea of living spirit.<a href="#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21">21</a>   And then the great thought burst upon me: �Bill, you are a free man! This is the God of the Scriptures.�<a href="#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22">22</a>   Shortly after his �white light� experience, Bill was discharged from Towns Hospital. He feverishly set out with a Bible under his arm, witnessing to drunks wherever he could find them. He told them they must give their lives to God.<a href="#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23">23</a> He participated in the Calvary Episcopal Church witnessing processionals which featured a banner proclaiming �Jesus Christ changes lives.� Bill himself witnessed at Madison Square.<a href="#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24">24</a>   In Akron, Ohio, Bill specifically stated his belief that the Lord had cured him of alcoholism. His story is contained in Alcoholics Anonymous to this very day. Bill stated:   Henrietta [Henrietta Dotson was the wife of A.A. Number Three Bill Dotson], 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.<a href="#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25">25</a>                         To the listener: There is much much more to this story. Details and specific documentation can be found in The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide, 3rd ed., by Dick B. and Ken B. (2010). And now you can see and hear �the rest of the story� in our just-released 4 DVD Class, Introductory Foundations for Christian Recover by Dick B. and Ken B. (2010).   <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/"> www.DickB.com</a>; <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="mailto:DickB@DickB.com"> DickB@DickB.com</a>; Dick B., PO Box 837, Kihei, HI 96753-0837; Tel.: (808) 874-4876   Gloria Deo <div style="mso-element:footnote-list">  <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn1"> <a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"> 1</a>               Bill W.: My First 40 Years: An Autobiography by the CoFounder of Alcoholics Anonymous (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2000), 6.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn2"> <a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2"> 2</a>               Dale Mitchel, Silkworth The Little Doctor Who Loved Drunks: The Biography of William Duncan Silkworth, M.D. (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2002), xv.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn3"> <a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3"> 3</a>               Mitchel, Silkworth, 10.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn4"> <a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4"> 4</a>               Mitchel, Silkworth, 11-12.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn5"> <a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5"> 5</a>               Mitchel, Silkworth, 25.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn6"> <a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6"> 6</a>               Mirchel, Silkworth, 34.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn7"> <a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7"> 7</a>               Mitchel, Silkworth, 35.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn8"> <a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8"> 8</a>               8 Mitchel, Silkworth, 44.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn9"> <a href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9"> 9</a>               Mitchel, Silkworth, 50/</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn10"> <a href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10"> 10</a>             Mel B., Ebby: The Man Who Sponsored Bill W. (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1998),  5-7.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn11"> <a href="#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11"> 11</a>             Mel B., Ebby, 6.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn12"> <a href="#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12"> 12</a>             T. Willard Hunter, AA & MRA �It Started Right There�: Behind the twelve steps and the self-help movement, rev ed. (Claremont, CA: Ives Community Office, 2006), 6.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn13"> <a href="#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13"> 13</a>             Mel B., Ebby, 6.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn14"> <a href="#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14"> 14</a>             Dick B., Turning Point: A History of Early A.A.�s Spiritual /Roots and Successes (San Rafael, CA: Paradise Research Publications, 1997), 99-200; Dick B. and Ken B., The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide: Historical Perspectives and Effective Modern Application, 3rd ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 2010), 39.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn15"> <a href="#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15"> 15</a>             Dick B. and Ken B., The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide, 40.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn16"> <a href="#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16"> 16</a>             �Pass It On,� (NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980), 171.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn17"> <a href="#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17"> 17</a>             Dick B. and Ken B., The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide, 41. That Bill did in fact make a decision for Jesus Christ has been confirmed by Mrs. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., who specifically told me that she was present when Bill Wilson went to the altar, and that Bill had there �made a decision for Christ.� Dick B., The Conversion of Bill W., 61.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn18"> <a href="#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18"> 18</a>             Bill W.: My First Forty Years, 147.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn19"> <a href="#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19"> 19</a>             Bill W.: My First Forty Years, 139.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn20"> <a href="#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20"> 20</a>             Bill W.: My First Forty Years, 145.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn21"> <a href="#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21"> 21</a>             Bill W.: My First Forty Years, 145-46.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn22"> <a href="#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22"> 22</a>             The Language of the Heart: Bill W.�s Grapevine Writings (NY: The AA Grapevine, Inc., 1988), 284.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn23"> <a href="#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23"> 23</a>             William G. Borchert, The Lois Wilson Story: When Love is Not Enough: A Biography of the Cofounder of Al-Anon (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2005), 204.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn24"> <a href="#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24"> 24</a>             Dick B. and Ken B., The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide, 45.</div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn25"> <a href="#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25"> 25</a>             Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed. (NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 2001), 191.</div> </div> </div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: Now Thanks Be to God

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 03:15:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: Now Thanks Be to God <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> Now Thanks Be to God   By Dick B.   April 21, 2010, marked my 24th year of continuous sobriety. The thanks go to Almighty God in the name of His Son Jesus Christ. They also extend to the Fellowship of drunks with whom I have been associated and very active since the 3rd day of my sobriety. As Bill Wilson quoted his old friend Ebby Thacher:   God has done for me what I could not do for myself.   And as Dr. Bob Smith said at the close of his personal story:   Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!   Both statements reflect my view today after having worked very hard to serve and glorify God in the outreach I have made to others who wanted God's help. It is good to report that those who sought His help proved the last point of the �abc's.� God could and would if He were sought.   God Bless,   Dick B.   <a style="color: navy; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/"> www.DickB.com</a>; <a style="color: navy; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="mailto:DickB@DickB.com"> DickB@DickB.com</a>   Gloria Deo</div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A.�Big Book�Bible Study Groups for Learners and Teachers

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 03:23:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: A.A.�Big Book�Bible Study Groups for Learners and Teachers <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> A.A.�Big Book�Bible Study Groups for Learners and Teachers   Dick B. � 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved     1.  This article is especially for the folks who recently have written asking about         forming a study group. 2.      To some, I have suggested resource books of mine: (a) Dick B. and Ken B., The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide, 3rd ed. (2010); Dick B., The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook; Dick B., The James Club and the Original A.A. Program's Absolute Essentials; Dick B., By the Power of God; and others. 3.    I have also written a number of articles through the years which have spawned James Club groups, Christian recovery groups, Big Book-Bible study groups, and others. You may find a number of these articles on my �A.A. History Articles with Dick B.� page (<a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/Articles.shtml">http://www.DickB.com/Articles.shtml</a>) about half-way down the page in the �blue boxes� in the center column. See, for example, the following articles:   A.A. History Study Guide A.A. Study Groups Guide for Recovery Groups Study Group Topics The James Club Groups Study the Steps New Study Groups The James Club   4.      Each week I receive several phone calls and/or email messages inquiring about starting such groups. And I try to answer each one in some depth because these groups are a vitally-important way for Christians in recovery, recovered Christians, and AAs seeking God�s help to study, learn, and share facts about the Christian origins of early A.A., its founding, its program, and its successes�and the role that God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible played in early A.A. and can play today for those who want God�s help. 5.      We are about to release our new, four-session �Introductory Foundations for Christian Recovery� class by Dick B. and Ken B. on DVD. The class materials include: four DVD�s; a Class Guide for Students; a Class Instructor's Guide; and The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide by Dick B. and Ken B., 3rd ed. (2010). This class can instruct, provide incentives for your work, and be used over and over and over again in a particular group, entity, fellowship, program, or meeting. 6.    In addition, many of you ask for names of people or groups in your area who are already succeeding. After forming the Worldwide History Fellowship list a few years ago for that purpose, we recently formed in July 2009 the International Christian Recovery Coalition (<a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.christianrecoverycoalition.com/">www.ChristianRecoveryCoalition.com</a>). Please check out the Coalition and email me for specific people and information.   Since we launched our new �conference effort� in October 2008, we have held many meetings, seminars, and conferences in Northern and Southern California, and in Oahu. We now know how well this study group idea is prospering, and we urge you to join the groups and�preferably�form your own with our help. Plan too to obtain a site license for our four-session �Introductory Foundations for Christian Recovery� class on DVD as soon as it becomes available and is announced in the next few days.   God Bless,   Dick B. Author, 39 titles on A.A. History Exec. Dir., <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.christianrecoverycoalition.com/"> International Christian Recovery Coalition</a> <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="http://www.dickb.com/"> www.DickB.com</a> <a style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single" href="mailto:DickB@DickB.com"> DickB@DickB.com</a> (808) 874-4876 PO Box 837, Kihei, HI 96753-0837   Gloria Deo</div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>

Dick B.'s FYI Messages: Introductory Foundations for Christian Recovery

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:42:00 GMT

<div id="PageWrapper"> <div id="Header"> Dick B.'s FYI Messages: Introductory Foundations for Christian Recovery <div class="floatclear"></div> </div> <div id="Content"> <hr> <div class="Section1" style="color:navy"> Introductory Foundations for Christian Recovery   By Dick B. and Ken B. � 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved   Introduction and �Script� (With Pictures in Brackets)   Introduction by Dick B.   In the early years following the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in mid-June of 1935, A.A.'s pioneers got their basic ideas from their effort in, and study of, the Bible.   Beginning in the summer of 1935, A.A.'s cofounders, William G. Wilson (�Bill W.�) and Robert H. Smith, M.D. (�Dr. Bob�), began to develop the simple, seven-point, original Akron A.A. �Christian fellowship� program. A program which soon-to-be A.A. Trustee Frank Amos�acting as an agent of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.�investigated and documented in February 1938. This was the original A.A. program�with its strong Christian orientation�for which early A.A. claimed a 75% success rate among �seemingly-hopeless,� �medically-incurable,� �last-gasp-case,� �real� alcoholics who thoroughly followed the program.   Many of the practices associated with that highly-successful, early program seem very likely to have come from A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob's active involvement with the Young People�s Society of Christian Endeavor as a youngster in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. And, in those early years of the Akron �Christian fellowship� program--before the Big Book was later published in April 1939�there were no Steps, no Traditions, no Big Books, no �drunkalogs,� and no meetings (at least not meetings of the kinds one sees today).   Bill W. later began to write up the program for the forthcoming book, Alcoholics Anonymous (the �Big Book�), starting about March 1938. However, Bill codified a program in the Big Book that was considerably different from the highly-successful Akron program documented by Frank Amos. The program Bill presented in the Big Book derived mainly from the life-changing program of the Oxford Group as its principal American leader, Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York, had taught it to Bill. And yet, even this program too�particularly as reflected in the earliest drafts of the chapters of the Big Book�was biblically based.   Then a New York University lecturer did the final editing of the book manuscript. In so doing, this editor cut its size by at least one-third (perhaps even by half�from 800 pages to 400 pages). Moreover, Bill Pittman of the Hazelden/Pittman Archives told me that the transcribing secretary Ruth Hock had told him much of the material editor Tom Uzzell had cut from the Big Book manuscript was Christian and biblical in nature.   At any rate, Bill�s first draft of two chapters tells us how Bill originally viewed, and then changed his view of, his proposed program. Bill originally wrote the Big Book's first two chapters for inclusion with a Works Publishing Company �stock prospectus.� The first chapter was titled, �There Is a Solution.� The second chapter was titled, �Bill's Story.� But the order of the chapters was reversed by the time the Big Book was published. The change was made with �Bill's Story� being placed first�as it is in the Fourth Edition today. In other words, �the solution� was given second place.   To give just one example of the earlier, biblical nature of the Big Book, here is a paragraph from the �There Is a Solution� chapter as it appeared in the �multilith edition� (also known as the �Original Manuscript�) of the Big Book as it stood in late 1938:   The great fact is just this, and nothing less: that we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences, which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows, and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.   Consider for a moment the first verse in the Bible, Genesis 1:1: �In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.� Note that the Bible begins at the beginning. It begins with God. �In the beginning, God . . .�, it states. Bill W. had also originally started out the Big Book with God. He placed first his chapter �There Is a Solution.� And this is a chapter which features God, the Creator, as the source for the �miraculous� help needed by �seemingly-hopeless,� �medically-incurable,� �real� alcoholics.   Bill had it right with the original order of those first two chapters.   We therefore suggest to students in this �Introductory Foundations for Christian Recovery� class, that you too begin where the Bible God is first. That IS the solution.begins and where Bill W. originally began�with God, and not with a story.   Interestingly, here is the description of the purpose of the �personal stories� in the Big Book as given in the �There Is a Solution� chapter in the 1938 �multilith edition��a description found today, slightly reworded, on page 29 of the Fourth Edition:   Each individual, in the personal stories, describes in his own language, and from his own point of view the way he found or rediscovered God.   God is still the priority today for those who want God�s help. So let�s keep in mind throughout this class that we are here suggesting that Christian recovery begins with God. Script   �Introductory Foundations for Christian Recovery�   Class One:   The Founding, Activities, and Summary of the Original A. A. Program (Founded on June 10, 1935, in Akron, Ohio)                                                                   [Dr. Bob�s Home]               Part One:    How the First Three A.A. Members Got Sober and Were Cured                           A.A. Number One (Bill W.)                                             [Bill W.]                           A.A. Number Two (Dr. Bob)                                            [Dr. Bob]                           A.A. Number Three (Bill D. of Akron)                              [Bill D.]                       Part Two:             The 14 Practices the Early Akron AAs Used to Achieve Astonishing Successes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           [Ken reads]               Part Three:   The Actual, Seven-Point, Original Akron A.A. �Christian Fellowship� Program Summarized by A.A. Trustee-to-be Frank Amos for Rockefeller                                                                                                                                                                                         [Ken reads DR. BOB]   Class Two:   Christian Organizations and People That Shaped the Recovery Ideas of the Original A.A. Program Before A.A. Began   Part One:   Seven Pre-A.A. Organizations and People That Fed to Alcoholics Anonymous the Necessity for Salvation and the Word of God                           Evangelists and Revivalists                           The Young Men�s Christian Association (YMCA)                           Gospel Rescue Missions                           The Salvation Army                           The Young People�s Society of Christian Endeavor                           The Oxford Group (�A First Century Christian Fellowship�)            [Frank Buchman]                                                                                                                                     [OG & AA]                         The Rev. Dr. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.                                                                                                                                                                                  [New Light] Part Two:   The Extensive Bible and Christian Training Received by A.A. Number One (Bill W.) as a Youngster in East Dorset and Manchester, Vermont                                                                                                               [Wilson House]                                                                                                   [Griffith House]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     [Burr & Burton]                                                                                                                           [Conversion Bill]   [Castle in Pasture]             Part Three:   Dr. Bob�s Excellent Training in the Bible as a Youngster in St. Johnsbury,         Vermont, and the Town�s Christian Impact upon His Family and Him                                                                                                                     [Dr. Bob of AA]                                                                                                                         [Great Awakening]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 [YMCA Bldg.]                                                                                                                                           Class Three:   The Manner in Which the Alcoholics Anonymous Society Came about, Beginning about 1931               Part One:   The Relevant Events in the Life of Bill W., Including His Early Friendship    with Ebby Thacher at Burr and Burton Academy during Bill�s High School         Days in Vermont                                                                                                                                                                                                         [Conversion]                                                                                                    [First 40]                                                                                                                             [Silkworth]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 [Calvary Ch]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                [Wm James]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Part Two:   The Relevant Events in the Life of Dr. Bob S., Beginning with the           Early 1930�s in Akron, Ohio                                                      [Akron Gen]                                                                                                                                         [1933 Events]                                                                                                                                         [Dr. Bob & Lib]                                                                                                                                         [Henrietta S.]                                                                                                              [Started Right T]                                                                                                                                         [Mayflower Hotl]               Part Three:   The Meeting of Bill W. and Dr. Bob, Arranged at the Home of           Henrietta Seiberling�a Meeting Lasting Six Hours                  [Gate Lodge]   Class Four:   The A.A. Program Changes between 1935 and 1940               Part One:   The Akron Program Successes between June 1935 and November           1937                    The Original Akron A.A. �Christian Fellowship� Program               [Akron Hosp]                                                                                                                                         [Clarence & God]                                                                                                                                         [Cofounders]                                                                                                                                         [Anne Smith]                                                                                                                                         [Good Morn]                                                                                                                                         [Early AA Bks]                                                                                                                                         [Good Book]                                                                                                                                         [James Club]                                                                                                                                         [Golden Text]                                                                                                                                         [Early AAs Curd]                                                                                                                                         [Dr. Bob Memo]                           The Proposal by Bill for a Book That Would Enable the Program�s Dissemination               Part Two:   The Change of Course Bill Began to Take                                 [Turning Pt]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      [Stock Cert]                                                                                                                                         [Hank Outline]                         Bill Began to Characterize the Program in Terms of Six Word-of-Mouth Ideas               The Commercialization of the Program by Bill and His Business Partner, Hank P.               Part Three:   Work Began on Big Book Contents in the Spring of 1938 and           Continued Until April of 1939 When the First Edition Was Published. Instead of merely reporting on the Akron program of 1939, Bill drew on multiple sources for his Big Book content.               Part Four:             Battles over Big Book Content and Language. Other arguments were raised by a few who reviewed manuscript copies.                                                                                                                                     [Original Steps]                                                                                                           [AA Comes of Age]                                                                                                                                     [�Holy Grail�]               Part Five:   The Closing Phases of the Altered Akron Program                                                                                                                                     [Real 12 Step]                                                                                                                                     [Believe nothing]                                                                                                                                     [First Edition]                         An answer today for Christians and those who want God�s help the Christian way   Page 29 of the Fourth Edition�how they established their relationship with God             The Bible�the essential parts---James, Jesus� Sermon, 1 Corinthians 13               The Frank Amos Report�the Seven-point Original Program                                       Twelve Steps��There is One with all Power. That One is God.�                                     Big Book, page 60: �abc�s�: �God could and would if He were sought� </div> <hr> Powered by <a href="http://dadamailproject.com" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Dada Mail 3.0.0</a> Copyright © 1999-2008, <a href="http://dadamailproject.com/justin" target="_blank" style="font-size:10px;font-family:Verdana,Arial">Simoni Creative</a>. </div> </div>