Dear
Robin:
Thank
you very much for the letter. We welcome courteous communications and try to
answer them all.
I
am sure you know that, as Dr. Bob pointed out in his last major address in
1948, the early program founded In Akron had no Steps, no Traditions, no
drunkalogs, and no meetings as we know them today. They believed, he said, that
the answer to their problems was in the Good Book. And the parts they
considered absolutely essential were the Book of James, Jesus’ Sermon on the
Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13. Bill and Bob both said that Jesus’ Sermon on the
Mount contained the underlying spiritual philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous. The
Akron AAs declared themselves to be a Christian Fellowship. These facts have
not been challenged. But they certainly have been ignored in the zealous effort
to link A.A. with the Oxford Group, without study of what the Oxford Group did,
what Sam Shoemaker said, and the tenuous links between that root and what
transpired in Akron and Cleveland.
When
Dr. Bob continued, in his talk, he turned to the much later Twelve Steps—again,
no traditions. He said that he did not write the Twelve Steps and had nothing
to do with writing them. He commented, however, that the basic ideas came from
their studies and effort in the Bible. See The
Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous which is a “conference-approved” piece
of literature published by A.A.
As
I have covered in so many of my recent books and articles, the Christian
practices in Akron could be summarized as some 16. The program itself was
summarized by Frank Amos in the report, a copy of which is lodged in the
Rockefeller Archives in New York. www.dickb.com/titles.shtml. There is no
mention in either case of the practices which you are describing. Meetings
opened with prayer, reading from the Bible, “old fashioned prayer meetings,”
asking God for guidance, taking a newcomer upstairs to pray with two or three others
and make a “real surrender” in which he made a decision for Jesus Christ, asked
God to take alcohol out of his life, and asked for direction in obeying God’s
will.
The
Quaker practices which you describe (“sharing” and giving testimony) do not
appear to have been involved in the regular Christian fellowship meetings. As a
matter of fact, I believe you know that many of the Rockefeller people—who
learned of the Akron practices—backed up the statement of Chairman Albert
Scott: “Why this is First Century Christianity. What can we do to help?” And,
as we have discussed in our conferences, the practices described in Acts 2 and
4 parallel those of the Akron fellowship and thus would support the conclusion
that Scott reached. It is to be remembered that early AAs studied the Bible and
stressed that study. Thus neither polity nor reformation reared up as having
significance in those days.
As
to “sharing for witness”—which was an Oxford Group expression of one of the two
“sharing” Ideas, the sharing consisted of telling others what God had done for
the person giving witness. The process of “Quaker” sharing you describe is not
one that has been discovered in any of my extensive Oxford Group research. See
Dick B., The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous www.dickb.com/Oxford.sthml
and New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A. www.dickb.com/newlight.shtml.
I
am sure you are aware that Dr. Bob was opposed to the adoption of the Twelve
Traditions. He gave his assent on his death bed after much pressure from Bill
Wilson. I will not comment on the Traditions because they were late-comers and
represented something Bill wanted to have appended to post-Big Book practices.
Clarence Snyder, the founder of Cleveland A.A., never participated in the
reading of the Traditions. He was there when Bill and Bob agreed on them.
As
to the “radical” end of the Reformation and “congregational polity,” I leave
that to you and your colleagues. In our later years of research in East Dorset,
Vermont; St. Johnsbury, Vermont; Manchester, Vermont; Barre, Vermont; and the
original—but unpublished—working manuscript of DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers,
I see nothing about Congregationalism. But we have, in Vermont, seen strong
evidence in the form of Creeds, confessions, sermons, Sunday school teachings,
and the literature that abounds just what the boyhood training of Bill and Bob
from the YMCA, the great evangelists, the temperance speakers, the conversion
revivals, the rescue missions, their churches, and the Young People’s Society
of Christian Endeavor looked like in the flesh. See Dick B., Dr. Bob of
Alcoholics Anonymous www.dickb.com/drbobofaa.shtml and Dick B.,
The Conversion of Bill W. www.dickb.com/conversion.shtml.
Regrettably,
all most all of the full, rich, informative history of early A.A. and its roots
was simply neither researched nor investigated nor published until we began our
work in 1990. However, the door had been opened when Bill himself published
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, and in the 1980’s, A.A. published “DR.BOB”
and “Pass It On. On the other hand, the investigations of folks like Cheever,
Robertson, Borchert, Mitchel, and the writings of Bill which were unearthed in
my visits to Stepping Stones in early 1991, and exemplified by his
“autobiography” have come to be part of the picture since then. Those who wrote
of our history without going to Akron, without going to East Dorset, without
going to St. Johnsbury, without going to Manchester, without interviewing Dr.
Bob’s children, without knowing the many Oxford Group people like the Newtons,
Garth Lean, and the Shoemaker daughters, left a wide void which has been in
process of being filled in recent years. This is, in large part being enriched
by the many participants in International Christian Recovery Coalition www.ChristianRecoveryCoalition.com.
I
have long advocated the elimination of “moderating,” “censoring,” “excluding,”
and building themes on inadequate factual evidence. As you well know, I am
sure, the trek takes time, and often years. When Bill Pittman convened the
conference of historians at Hazelden many years back, there was hope for a
broad-based sharing. It was preceded by the convening of the first historians
conference by Charlie Bishop in West Virginia. There has been no similar open
collaborative work since that time. Only speculative efforts to introduce new
ideas into established, but unknown or uninvestigated history.
I
am familiar with your splendid work and treasure the fact that you took the
time to write. I believe have sent you communications before. And I hope your
gracious letter will be one of many.
God bless,
Richard G. Burns, J.D., CDAAC (pen name Dick B.)
Author, 42 titles & over 750 articles on A.A.
History and the Christian Recovery Movement
Exec. Dir., International Christian
Recovery Coalition
(808) 874-4876
PO Box 837, Kihei, HI 96753-0837
Ps 118:17 (NJB):
I shall not die, I shall live to recount the great deeds of Yahweh.
I shall not die, I shall live to recount the great deeds of Yahweh.
Facebook:
DickBmauihistorian
From: Robin G W Room [mailto:Robin.Room@sorad.su.se]
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2011 7:21 PM
To: dickb@dickb.com
Subject: Re: Dick B.'s FYI Messages: The Christian Upbringings of Bill W. and Dr. Bob
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2011 7:21 PM
To: dickb@dickb.com
Subject: Re: Dick B.'s FYI Messages: The Christian Upbringings of Bill W. and Dr. Bob
Dick --
When a group of us who were sociologists studied AA in 8 countries (Klaus Mäkelä, Ilkka Arminen, Kim Bloomfield, Irmgard Eisenbach-Stangl, Karin Helmersson Bergmark, Noriko Kurube, Nicoletta Mariolini, Hildigunnur Ólafsdóttir, John H. Peterson, Mary Phillips, Jürgen Rehm, Robin Room, Pia Rosenqvist, Haydée Rosovsky, Kerstin Stenius, Grazyna Świątkiewicz, Bohdan Woronowicz and Antoni Zieliński (1996) Alcoholics Anonymous as a Mutual-Help Movement: A Study in Eight Societies. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press), one aspect which interested us was where the 12 Traditions has come from. Clearly, AA has what would be called in the sociology of religion "congregational polity", which comes out of the radical end of the Reformation which Congregationalism represents. So the Congregational aspect to both Bill's and Bob's upbringing is no surprise.
But it struck me that the tradition of "sharing" and testifying in AA meetings, and the fact that direct comment on another's sharing is discouraged, is more like Quaker practice than practices in other denominations. Is there anything in the histoiry that you know which would connect the beginnings of AA meeting practice with Quaker antecedents?
Robin
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