OKaysez

 

Made A Decision

                                              Oh, Jesus

                    Religion vs A.A. on 12 Step Calls

    Churches are hospitals for sick souls. A.A. is the hospital for sick alcoholics.

In our Big Book is clearly states that during a Twelve Step call on an A.A. prospect we should not push the God idea too much.

Why is that?

Because we drunks arrive in A.A. with all kinds of baggage, with religious beliefs (or none at all) often being the biggest suitcase in the pile.

For starters, many wet drunks were brought up to believe in a God of Judgment and Doom. They sure as hell don’t want to think about their own score sheet with that kind of God. They’ve spent years trying to drink those fears away.

Others grew up believing in a Santa Claus God. When He didn’t deliver all the things they had hoped for, and asked for, and then pleaded for, they tossed that God baby right out with the bathwater.

“There is no God,” they cried.  Or even, “God is dead.”

Secular Jewish friends of mine on arrival into A.A. found the whole idea of a personal God as nonsensical as believing in faerie tales.

I was raised by a Lutheran mother (loosely) and an Anglo-Catholic father (very loosely). So my “Christian” upbringing involved mainly celebrating Christian holidays, with the occasional visit to a church they both had a reason to visit on that day.

Some of our family member were very religious, however, so a lot of their beliefs got hammered into my little head during prolonged visits where I managed to develop a huge problem with Christian terminology that lasts till today.

All that wine turning to blood (then DRINKING it), bread becoming flesh (then EATING it), getting washed in “the blood of the lamb,” and etc. It was a bloody bloodbath and I wanted no part of it! The very word Jesus (often pronounced in three syllables by the overly devout - as in “Jaw-ease-us”) made me want to stick my fingers in my ears and chant “lalalalala” to drown it out.

(My favorite bumper sticker remains, “Jesus, please protect me from your followers.”)

Had I attended my first A.A. meeting where a member started praising Jesus (which I have actually heard in meetings and - trust me - I called them out on it, too), I’d have left and never returned. Finding Jesus waiting for me in A.A. would have been my death sentence.

Part of all the great wisdom found in A.A. is in letting new members develop their own concept of God at their own speed. They can rely on an A.A. group itself for their Higher Power, or return to the faith of their childhood for spiritual teachings, or explore just about everything tagged as spiritual in their attempt to find their own way to faith.

What we don’t do inside A.A. is proselytize about our religious or spiritual activities outside of A.A. Our spiritual path is our personal journey. In A.A. we merely share our experience, strength and hope in remaining sober as built upon the strength we receive from “the God of our understanding.” Period!

A.A.’s founders were members of the Christian faith and some of the terminology in our literature reflects it, but even so they emphasized again and again the importance of having our own personal Higher Power. They supported making use of what all the religions had to offer, but then gave us perhaps the broadest spiritual concept of them all.

In a letter written in 1954 by Bill Wilson, he said: 

While A.A. has restored thousands of poor Christians to their churches, and has made believers out of atheists and agnostics, it has also made good A.A.’s out of those belonging to the Buddhist, Islamic, and Jewish faiths.

For example, we question very much whether our Buddhist members in Japan would ever have joined this Society had A.A. officially stamped itself a strictly Christian movement.

You can easily convince yourself of this by imagining that A.A. started among the Buddhists and that they then told you you couldn’t join them unless you became a Buddhist, too. If you were a Christian alcoholic under these circumstances, you might well turn your face to the wall and die.

And in the book Alcoholics Anonymous Come of Age you’ll find more of Wilson’s thoughts in a footnote on page 232: 

Speaking for Dr. Bob and myself I would like to say that there has never been the slightest intent, on his part or mine, in trying to found a new religious denomination. Dr. Bob held certain religious convictions and so do I. This is, of course, the personal privilege of every A.A. member.

Nothing, however, could be so unfortunate for A.A.’s future as an attempt to incorporate any of our personal theological views into A.A. teaching, practice or tradition. Were Dr. Bob still with us, I am positive he would agree that we could never be too emphatic about this matter.

Many members always retain their A.A. group as their Higher Power since alone they were unable to remain sober, but with the help of their group they have achieved it.

Other members eventually find a companion God, one they talk with and always seek to know better.

We in A.A. put no pressure on members about God. We only point out that we as individuals are not the alpha and omega of the Universe, that there is a power greater than us that will lead, encourage and direct us - when we invite it to do so.

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