Doctor Bob was raised in the Congregational and
Christian Endeavor traditions. Puritans. He and
his wife Anne were members of The Presbyterian
Church in Akron.
They also attended St. Luke's, Westside Presbyterian,
and lastly, St. Paul's Episcopal in Akron. Bob's
funeral was held at St. Paul's. Listing Doctor Bob
as Episcopalian paints an incomplete picture of his
church attendance.
john lee
______________________________
Dr. Bob attended the Congregationalist Church while
he was a child in Vermont.
Puritans were back in the 1600's. There were no
Puritans anymore by Dr. Bob's time, and there
hadn't been any for a long time.
Some Congregationalists during Dr. Bob's childhood
were Protestant liberals, while others were more
traditional in their beliefs.
Dr. Bob also belonged as a youth to an
interdenominational Protestant evangelical
youth group called Christian Endeavor, which
was designed to appeal to teenagers.
Dr. Bob was born on August 8, 1879. He wasn't
a Fundamentalist during his childhood, because
the Protestant Fundamentalist movement didn't
start until the 1910's and 1920's, and was
extremely small even in the 1930's.
The Christian Endeavor youth group was not a
Fundamentalist group in the modern sense.
The Congregationalist Church never (to the best
of my knowledge) got on board the Fundamentalist
bandwagon. They are part of the United Church
of Christ (UCC) today. The UCC has been in the
news recently because they wanted to air a
commercial on television which made it clear
(without overdoing it) that people who were gay
or lesbian were welcome in their church services.
They are one of the most liberal Protestant
denominations in the U.S. today. At their seminaries,
their ministerial students are taught modern
historical-critical biblical interpretation. They
are not biblical literalists.
This is the church Dr. Bob was brought up in
as a child.
This is important to note, because there are
people who note that Dr. Bob belonged to groups
which read the Bible and sometimes prayed and
sang hymns to Jesus, and have jumped from that to
the claim that Dr. Bob was brought up believing
what were essentially Fundamentalist Protestant
beliefs and doctrines and dogmas. They don't
say this explicitly, but it is clear from the
conclusions they draw about how AA "must"
be practiced to get back to "genuine old time
AA."
All Christians read the Bible and sometimes pray
and sing hymns to Jesus. That observation does
not tell you whether they are Protestant or
Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. They could be
Amish and refuse to drive automobiles or use
electricity. The Berrigan brothers who carried
out protests against the Vietnam War that landed
them in prison, were associated with all the
major liberal causes in the U.S. during the
1960's, but they read the Bible and prayed to
Jesus, because they were Catholic priests.
People change their religious beliefs as they
get older. Childhood religious beliefs may or
may not be relevant to understanding what an older
person believes.
Dr. Bob was born on August 8, 1879 which meant
that he was already 55 years old when he met
Bill Wilson. Most people by the age of 55 no
longer believe the same things they did when
they were 15.
Dr. Bob and Anne were by that time attending
the Presbyterian Church, and later switched to
the Episcopalian Church. There were not a lot of
Congregationalist Churches in the upper midwest.
The Presbyterians and Episcopalians would both
have been "socially appropriate" for a doctor or
lawyer. Both of these denominations (at that
time) had enough of an upper middle class feel to
be appropriate for people of their background,
and this may have been a far more important
issue than any specific doctrinal beliefs.
But obviously we don't know about that for sure.
THE OXFORD GROUP
As good AA historians have known for years, it
is the Oxford Group connection that is truly
important for understanding where both Dr. Bob
and Bill Wilson were coming from. The Oxford
Group had strong links to the Protestant missionary
groups of the early twentieth century which were
trying to preach the Christian gospel in non-Christian
countries like China and most of India. This was
the world of H. A. Walter and John R. Mott.
Frank Buchman did missionary work in China
before he came to Cambridge and Oxford.
The Oxford Group also had strong links to the
Keswick Holiness movement, which centered around
the annual Keswick Convention in the English Lake
District, and mixed traditional gospel preaching
with (sometimes) the kind of Catholic mysticism
which we see in St. John of the Cross (look for
example at Hannah Hurnard, "Hind's Feet on High
Places"). Frank Buchman had his decisive
spiritual experience while attending the Keswick
Convention.
The Oxford Group also had strong links to the kind
of late nineteenth century American and British
revivalism which we see in Henry Drummond
( see http://hindsfoot.org/kML3rc1.html ), who was
closely associated with the great revivalist
preacher Dwight L. Moody ( see Mel B's book "New
Wine," http://www.walkindryplaces.com/books.html )
But most of these people accepted some at least of
the findings of modern biblical criticism, and most of
them put themselves on record as being totally opposed
to the new Fundamentalist movement. They were
all aware, for example, that if you put the sayings
of Jesus as found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in three
parallel columns, that the wording was slightly
different in the three different gospels. So they
were not biblical literalists in the Fundamentalist
sense.
That was a key part of the background of the
Oxford Group.
Even more importantly, the Oxford Group represented
a rephrasing, in modern language, of the old message
of the founders of the evangelical movement back in
the 1730's, see:
1. The Oxford Group and the Eighteenth Century
Evangelical Movement
http://hindsfoot.org/oxchang1.html
2. Power to Heal the Soul
http://hindsfoot.org/oxchang2.html
3. House Parties, Confession, Surrender, and Guidance
http://hindsfoot.org/oxchang3.html
4. Quiet Time, Guidance, and God-Bearers
http://hindsfoot.org/oxchang4.html
5. The Four Absolutes and the Dangers of Legalism
http://hindsfoot.org/oxchang5.html
6. The Balanced Life: Seeking the Golden Mean
http://hindsfoot.org/oxchang6.html
The Oxford Group went back to the world of
Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley in the 1730's,
that is, back to the beginnings of the modern
evangelical movement.
DR. BOB'S RELIGION
Dr. Bob (along with most of the early AA people)
read the Bible and prayed sometimes to God the
Father directly and sometimes to Jesus. This is
so obvious and well established, that it requires no
elaborate "proofs."
It is equally obvious that the three most important
early sources of ideas for the early AA movement
came (in order of importance) from
(1) the Oxford Group,
(2) the Upper Room and the Southern
Methodists ( http://hindsfoot.org/UpRm1.html ),
and (3) New Thought as represented
by Emmet Fox's "Sermon on the Mount" and
James Allen's "As a Man Thinketh" (see
http://hindsfoot.org/kML3rc1.html ).
Questions about Christian Endeavor and
Swedenborgianism are interesting, and I am still
very curious myself about the latter, but they
should not divert us from seeing the main and
obvious sources of early A.A. ideas.
1939 AND AFTERWARDS:
The most important thing that happened in early
AA, was that already in the Big Book, after long
debate, all references to Jesus were taken out except
for one referring to him as a good man and a wise
teacher, and most but not all biblical quotations.
("Not my will but thine be done" is Jesus praying
in the Garden of Gethsemane.)
In the AA writings from the 1940's (the Akron
pamphlets, the Detroit/Washington D.C. pamphlet,
the Little Red Book, Twenty Four Hours a Day,
and so on), the same policy was followed. No
prayers to Jesus, and no statement of any Christian
doctrines about being saved by Jesus' blood shed
on the cross, and so on.
Even Father John Doe's Golden Books, which
employ more biblical quotations and references
to traditional Christianity than any other early
AA literature, followed that same policy.
The three portions of the New Testament which
were still emphasized as containing good AA
teaching, were chosen in part because none of
these three portions of the New Testament make
any reference to the divinity of Jesus or being
saved by Jesus' death on the cross or praying to
Jesus: see the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew
5 to 7), the epistle of James, and 1 Corinthians 13.
What makes that significant was that it is not
easy to find any place at all in the New Testament
where those doctrines do not appear. It took work
for them to find three reasonably long places in
the New Testament which totally avoided those
doctrines, which means it almost certainly was
deliberate.
Romans 7 to 8 would otherwise have been an
obvious section of the New Testament to have
newcomers read, because that was the place where
the New Testament stated in clearest fashion the
basic principle which lay behind AA, the Oxford
Group, and the early evangelical teaching of
Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley: only God's
grace had the power to free human beings from
deeply obsessive and compulsive sins. When
we could not stop by using our own will power,
and found ourselves powerless, we had to call
upon the power of liberating grace.
But Romans 7 to 8 continually put it in terms of
"the spirit of Christ," and the early AA people had
found that God "as we understand him" will save
us from our alcoholic compulsion, even if we do
not approach God by praying to Jesus and calling
upon Jesus' name.
And already by 1939 and the early 1940's, the
majority of early AA's wanted to "deChristianize"
AA to the extent of freeing members from any
necessity of HAVING to follow any traditional
Christian doctrines or practices at all.
In somewhat awkward fashion, most AA's
continued to use the Upper Room as their main
meditational literature all the way down to 1948.
Some prayers in the Upper Room are to God
the Father, but others are to Jesus. Lots of
biblical passages are quoted. But since that
little pamphlet was published by the Southern
Methodists, who were Protestant liberals,
the readings in the Upper Room hardly ever in fact
referred to the divinity of Jesus or being saved by
Jesus' blood shed on the cross (in fact, I cannot
remember ever reading any passages in the little
pamphlets from those days which talked about either
of those ideas). And the Upper Room also pretty much
stayed away from any of the miracle stories in
the Bible.
When Richmond Walker published Twenty Four
Hours a Day in 1948 in Daytona Beach, Florida,
and began printing it on the printing press in the
county courthouse and distributing it under the
sponsorship of the Daytona Beach AA group,
AA people all over the United States started
clamoring for copies of the new book.
http://hindsfoot.org/RWfla1.html
http://hindsfoot.org/RWfla2.html
http://hindsfoot.org/RWfla3.html
Because Rich followed the same formula used in
the Big Book and all the AA writings of the 1940's.
He eliminated all (or most) references to Jesus,
and never prayed to Jesus.
He used almost no biblical passages at all,
although he did use a few: "And underneath
are the everlasting arms," for example, and
references to two of Jesus' parables, the Prodigal
Son and the Good Samaritan, both of which
had special significance to recovering alcoholics.
We came to God like the Prodigal Son, and
discovered to our surprise that he welcomed us
with open arms and all forgiving love. Our duty
then became to act like the Good Samaritan and
do whatever it took to help other suffering
alcoholics (the people who were left to die by
the side of the road, with everyone else walking
by in disgust and refusing to lift a finger to
help).
The story of the Prodigal Son is in Luke
15:11 to 32, and the story of the Good Samaritan
is in Luke 10:29 to 37.
The priest and the levite (sort of a deacon or
assistant priest) in the story of the Good
Samaritan represented all the religious people who
insist on following every single point of doctrine
and dogma, and following every one of their
hundreds and hundreds of religious rules, and
tell you that you will go to hell if you don't read
the Bible in one specific translation, and so on.
They were afraid that if they tried to help the
man who was lying beside the road dying, and he
died on them while they were ministering to him,
that they would be rendered ritually contaminated.
Because the rules they followed said that those
who had touched a corpse were "unclean" and could
not approach the altar of God, without elaborate
cleansing rituals.
And the direction they were walking on the road
meant that they were going to Jerusalem to help
in the Temple services. (The man who lay beside
the road had been going from Jerusalem to Jericho,
and the priest and the levite came upon him while
they were walking down the road going the opposite
direction, which meant they were going from
Jericho to Jerusalem.)
The priest and the levite were willing to let
people die rather than take the risk of breaking
a single one of the hundreds and thousands of
rules and minor distinctions which they had
written down and memorized.
The man who truly acted as a child of God
in the little story which Jesus told was
a Samaritan, which meant that he didn't believe
in most of the Bible at all. He only believed
in five books out of the entire Bible, and he
interpreted those in a different kind of way.
He did not, for example, believe in any kind of
last judgment or life after death. When you
were dead, you were dead as far as he was
concerned.
People like the priest and the levite were
convinced that the Samaritans were going to hell.
(The real historical Jesus, the Jesus for example
of the Sermon on the Mount, disagreed with these
rule bound fanatics, with all their doctrines
and dogmas and desire to scold and condemn other
people. And he had a real sympathy for the
Samaritans, in spite of some of their religious
beliefs, and on one occasion praised a pagan Roman
official for the power of his faith.)
Both of these parables (the Prodigal Son and the
Good Samaritan) were referred to by other AA
authors during the 1940's.
Father John Doe for example (Father Ralph Pfau
of Indianapolis) in his Golden Books.
http://hindsfoot.org/pflou1.html
http://hindsfoot.org/PfLou2.html
http://hindsfoot.org/PfLou3.html
Father John Doe wrote his autobiography and entitled
it "Prodigal Shepherd." By that he meant that, as a
Catholic priest, he was supposed to have been the
shepherd of his flock. But like the Prodigal Son, he
had gone astray, and had to return home and ask for
God's forgiveness and mercy. And he lived and
worked, after he had gotten sober, at the Convent
of the Good Shepherd in Indianapolis, which
continues this image. God had not only welcomed
him back, but had allowed him to become one of
his good shepherds again, reaching out this time
to the fallen alcoholics of the world.
AA's ROOTS:
AA's roots are almost totally Christian. This is
obvious and undeniable, and does not have to be
"proven" with elaborate proofs.
It is equally obvious and undeniable, that most of
the surface Christian elements, and all of the
references to Christian doctrines like the Trinity,
the divinity of Jesus, and the substitutionary
doctrine of the atonement, began being removed
in 1939 and the early 1940's BY THE ORIGINAL
AA PEOPLE THEMSELVES, the people who
had gotten sober prior to 1939 in Akron and the
New York City area.
This is what was done in the Akron pamphlets and
the Little Red Book (all of which had Dr. Bob's
approval), in the same way that it was going on in
other parts of the United States and Canada during
the 1940's. You cannot play "Akron vs. New York"
on this issue.
We find none of the original AA people (who got
sober prior to 1939) complaining about the Big Book
once it had been published, or any of the AA
literature that was published during the 1940's.
They agreed that this approach was best.
But AA's roots still lay back in the Christian
tradition, and particularly in the Protestant
evangelical movement called the Oxford Group.
That has to be the starting place for studying
AA's roots.
Glenn Chesnut (South Bend, Indiana)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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++++Message 3420. . . . . . . . . . . . Moderator out of town May 3-9 plus
another notice
From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/3/2006 4:29:00 PM
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Hi,
I will be out of town and unable to get at
a computer from Thursday, May 3 till Tuesday,
May 9, 2006.
If you could hold off on sending stuff in for
a few days, I would appreciate it.
______________________________
Also, as another note (more a reminder than a
notice), in the basic guidelines for the
AAHistoryLovers as established a long time ago,
Nancy Olson and the other original members were
very clear that they did not want the AAHL to
turn into an AA chat group, of which there were
already plenty.
______________________________
So we don't post messages that are just
statements of opinion, no matter how heartfelt.
We try to stick, as much as possible (although
it isn't always easy to draw this line one
hundred percent), with messages about historical
questions which have objective answers, based on
verifiable historical facts and documents.
A lot of our members have written good books
on AA history, and we pride ourselves on also
trying to use really good historical methodology
in the messages that are posted in the group.
Also they jump on me, and write me highly critical
emails if I don't (grin). Like a prominent AA
historian who wrote to me about six months ago
and said, "and are you posting fairy tales in
the AAHistoryLovers now?"
And likewise, a message which is just a
personal response to someone else's message
should be sent directly to the email address of
the person who posted the message (such as
"oh gee, I really loved your message, it was
tremendously good" or "you dirty dog, your
message betrayed all the holy principles which
we truly good AA members hold dear").
We can't post those messages either.
Glenn Chesnut, Moderator
South Bend, Indiana
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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++++Message 3421. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: AA photographs for framing
From: kilroy@ceoexpress.com> . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/3/2006 4:17:00 PM
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General Services has a package of wonderful shots.
These photos are fit for framing.
Kilroy W.
4021 Club
Philadelphia PA
_________________________________
Also from: Shakey1aa@aol.com
(Shakey1aa at aol.com)
GSO in NY archives has 2 different sets of photos
reasonably priced and perfect for hanging in
meeting rooms. Frames purchased locally will cost
you extra. It's a great way to develop interest
in AA archives.
YIS
Shakey Mike
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++++Message 3422. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Ernest Kurtz on Bill W. and Sam
Shoemaker falling out
From: Archie Bunkers . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/3/2006 5:21:00 PM
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"One of the biggest issues with MRA was the
fabled 'Thank heaven for Hitler' remark by Buchman.
In this interview published in August 26, 1936,
Buchman said "I thank heaven for a man like Adolf
Hitler...."
Taken from:
http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/moralrearm.html
Archie Bunkers
_________________________________
The full quotation from that website is:
One of the biggest issues with MRA was the fabled "Thank heaven for
Hitler"
remark by Buchman. In this interview published in August 26, 1936, Buchman
said
"I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of
defense
against the anti-Christ of Communism ... Of course I don't condone
everything
the Nazis do." This statement brought criticism to Buchman as a Nazi
lover and
his statement of Himmler being a great lad got him the label of a pro-Nazi.
_________________________________
> From: Ernest Kurtz
> Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006
> To: Glenn Chesnut
> Subject: Re: Bill W. and Sam Shoemaker falling out?
>
> Glenn,
>
> In briefest outline, Bill and Sam fell out when
> Bill left the OG. After Buchman's 1939 praise of
> Hitler, Sam repented a bit and himself left the
> OG in 1941. His 1955 St. Louis talk reflected that.
>
> Copies of relevant correspondence may be at Brown,
> though more likely in Bill White's materials at
> Chestnut Hill in Bloomington. Cf. also this note
> from Not-God, which I think sums up the matter
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