Study the Bible to Follow What A.A. Pioneers Did

[dickb]

There are two or three writers who are so anti-A.A. that they seize on the "new thought" influences that other writers have highlighted as being foundational A.A. Thus they take on Emmet Fox and his "sermon on the mount." But I can't state how many times I have said at my talks around the United States that it was Jesus who delivered the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). It was not Emmet Fox. In fact, Fox rejected the salvation concept in the Bible. Hence early AAs emphasized, stressed, and daily studied the Bible, and particularly Matthew 5-7, the entire book of James, and 1 Corinthians 13. See Dick B., The James Club and The Original A.A. Program's Absolute Essentials www.dickb.com/jamesclub.shtml. It is far more fruitful for students of the Bible, of Christianity, of the early A.A. Christian fellowship, and of the Original A.A. Christian fellowship program to investigate, study, learn, and report what early AAs did instead of which of the 500 or so books they read can be labeled as indicative of their Christian status, beliefs, and source for truth. It is difficult enough for a Christian in the recovery arena today to keep his head above water with anti-A.A. critics constantly asserting that A.A. could not possibly have been Christian, that Bill and Bob weren't Christians, and even that I could not possibly understand Christianity when we have produced 36 published titles that allow students to decide for themselves http://www.dickb.titles.shtml
God Bless, Dick B.
PS: It is devoutly hoped that the A.A. critics, few though they are, will finally concede two fundamental and well-documented facts: (1) Early Alcoholics Anonymous was a Christian Fellowship and so stated. And early A.A. was the Original program founded and developed starting June 10, 1935. (2) Today's A.A. is most assuredly not a Christian fellowship because it invites people of all beliefs or no beliefs to pursue the 12 Steps; but that fact neither excludes nor controverts the fact that there are literally thousands of Christians in A.A. today who need to know the truth about their early program and decide whether or not they wish to have God's help, just as the early Christian AAs did.