Monday, March 12, 2012

Is A.A. Biblical?

That's a teasure phrase which poses a meaningless question and is occasionally used by one or two of the anti-AA writers.

Is A.A. Biblical? What in the world is that question supposed to mean.

A.A.'s cofounder Dr. Bob had had excellent training in the Bible www.dickb.com/drbobofaa.shtml

A.A.'s cofounder Bill Wilson read the Bible with his grandfather and with friend Mark Whalon. Bill also took a 4  year Bible study course at Burr and Burton Academy.

A.A. Number Three was a Deacon and a Sunday school teacher.

Bill and Bob went to daily chapel each day. Both were connected with the YMCA. Dr. Bob was active in Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor where Bible study meetings were held regularly.

Dr. Bob's wife Anne wrote that the Bible was the main source book of all.

Early AAs read the Bible with Dr. Bob during their initial hospitalization.

The Bible was stressed as reading matter in the early Akron A.A.'s daily Christian fellowships.

The Book of James was considered absolutely essential to their program. So was Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. So was 1 Corinthians 13.

Each morning, early AAs and their families would meet with Anne Smith at the Smith Home where, during her daily morning quiet time sessions, they would read the Bible.

All Wednesday meetings began with a member teaching from a Bible in his lap.

Dr. Bob's Bible still is taken to the  podium at the beginning of early A.A.'s first group--the King School Group. It is inscribed by Bob, Bill W., and Bill Dotson.

Bob said the basic  ideas for the 12 Steps came from their study and effort in the Bible.

Was all that Biblical? The phrase and the  question are not in my Bible. And the reader can decide for himself if, in the early A.A. Christian Fellowship, the Christian Recovery Fellowship program was founded on the Bible, belief in God, and coming to Him through Jesus Christ, was the Bible the center of the program. If not, what else?

Dick B., The Good Book and the Big Book: A.A.'s Roots in the Bible
www.dickb.com/goodbook.shtml

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