The A.A. book Pass It On described how the A.A. message reached the world, beginning with Bill Wilson thinking about how he could share the “mountaintop” experience he had with others when he first got sober in the Towns Hospital. His friend, Ebby Thatcher, came to see Bill and told him again how he had “got religion” and stopped drinking. After Ebby left, Bill cried out if there was a God, for Him to show Himself. Then Bill had a “conversion” experience with the great reality; the God of the preachers.
Ebby was living at the Calvary Mission, a rescue mission operated by Calvary Church where Sam Shoemaker was the rector. Sam was a leading figure at that time in the Oxford Group, described later by Bill as: “A nondenominational evangelical movement, streamlined for the modern world and then at the height of its very considerable success.”
It appeared to Bill that social, class, and racial barriers were almost nonexistent in the Oxford Group, and even religious differences had been forgotten. “Little was heard of theology, but we heard plenty of absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love” — the four principles of the Oxford Group.
The Four Absolutes or Four Standards originated with Robert Speer in his book, The Principles of Jesus, which Speer said represented a summary of the Sermon on the Mount. In his book The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous, Dick B. said Speer cited specific verses to establish that the Standards were taught by Jesus. The Four Absolutes were usually mentioned in descriptions of the Oxford Group. And they are often mentioned in A.A.’s conference approved books. For example, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers said the absolutes were still published and widely quoted at A.A. meetings in the Akron-Cleveland area.
However, in an article, “Alcoholics Anonymous History & Early A.A. ‘Four Absolutes,’” Dick B. said while Bill had an outspoken distaste for the Four Standards, he did acknowledge they were implied in the Twelve Steps. Bill thought their “moral perfection” was too lofty a goal for most alcoholics. So, they weren’t included the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, when it was printed in 1939. “We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.” Nevertheless, Dr. Bob saw them as the moral principles or “yardsticks” in early A.A. In his last major talk in 1948, Dr. Bob said this about The Four Absolutes:
The four absolutes, as we called them, were the only yardsticks we had in the early days, before the Steps. I think the absolutes still hold good and can be extremely helpful. I have found at times that a question arises, and I want to do the right thing, but the answer is not obvious. Almost always, if I measure my decision carefully by the yardsticks of absolute honesty, absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love, and it checks up pretty well with those four, then my answer can’t be very far out of the way. If, however, I do that and I’m still not too satisfied with the answer, I usually consult with some friend whose judgment, in this particular case, would be very much better than mine. But usually the absolutes can help you to reach your own personal decision without bothering your friends.
Religious or Spiritual Experience as Conversion
Bill Wilson, and through him the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, was more influenced by William James and The Varieties of Religious Experience (VRE), which was published in 1902. It was the only book title mentioned in the Big Book. In a 1949 article for the American Journal of Psychiatry, “The Society of Alcoholics Anonymous,” Wilson said Alcoholics Anonymous was not a religious organization. The only theological proposition was a “Power greater than one self.” But even that was not forced on anyone. He said they rarely spoke of conversion in A.A. because so many people dreaded being God-bitten.
In VRE James said in general terms, conversion signified the gradual or sudden process by which a person became unified and consciously right, superior, and happy as a result of a firmer hold upon religious/spiritual realities. James thought that to be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain assurance, all referred to the same process. Religious or spiritual experience was conversion. This was true whether or not the person believed that a divine action was needed to bring about such a moral transformation. As long as the religious life was spiritual and not a consequence of outer works, ritual or sacraments, James said the self-surrender element was the vital turning point of the religious life.
James also made a distinction between institutional and personal within the broader field of religion. Worship, sacrifice, ritual, theology, ceremony, and ecclesiastical organization were the essentials of what he referred to as institutional religion. Personal religion/spirituality for his purposes was defined as “the feelings, acts, and experiences of [the] individual . . . in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.” In the broadest sense possible, this spirituality consisted of the belief that there was an unseen order to existence, and supreme good lay in harmoniously adjusting to that order. This spiritual experience could only testify unequivocally to two things: the possible union with something larger than oneself and the great peace that was found within that union.
James did not think spiritual encounters could unconditionally confirm a traditional belief in the one and only infinite God of Scripture. He suggested the practical needs and occasions of religion were sufficiently met by believing that beyond each person, a larger power existed that was friendly to them and their ideals. All that was required was that the power be both other than and larger than a personal conscious self. “Anything larger will do, if only it be large enough to trust for the next step. It need not be infinite… It might conceivably be only a larger and more godlike self.”
Built on this foundation of faith in God as we understand Him, Wilson said conversion was the basic process of A.A. “Conversion, as broadly described by James, does seem to be our basic process; all other devices are but the foundation.” This Jamesean conversion and surrender process became formalized in the first three Steps of A.A.
Step One: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step Two: We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step Three: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
The Four Absolutes and their association with the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are incompatible with this Jamesean sense of religious experience as conversion. Another moral “yardstick,” was needed for A.A.—one that fit better with spiritual progress rather than pointing to the need for the spiritual perfection of absolutes. And there was something readily available within the literature being read by the Oxford Group. For more on Bill Wilson and VRE, see “An Encounter with the God of the Preacher? Part 2.”
True Religion and Spirituality
In The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous Dick B. described how what became known as the 5Cs—Confidence, Confession, Conviction, Conversion and Continuance—became embedded in early A.A. talk about recovery, replacing the Four Absolutes. In 1919 Howard Walter wrote Soul Surgery: Some Thoughts on Incisive Personal Work. In the forward Walter said he was indebted to Henry Wright and Frank Buchman (the founder of the Oxford Group) as “successful personal evangelists,” in what was then described as personal evangelism or personal work. At the end of the chapter, “Method of Personal Evangelism,” Walter said:
Once we realize that the method comes from God, and is applicable in detail to each individual case confronting us, we can safely proceed to ask whether there is not a certain general line of approach in soul-winning, whether there are not helpful sign-posts on the way, from defeat to victory in Christ, along which we would lead those who have gone astray. The simplest rule I have heard consists in the three words: Woo, Win, Warn. Perhaps we may better consider what lies behind these three ideas by adopting the fuller nomenclature suggested by Mr. Buchman as indicating the normal procedure of the soul-physician: Confidence, Confession, Conviction, Conversion, Conservation. Let us consider in turn these five successive stages, the boundaries of which often so merge into each other as to be indistinguishable, although all five are probably present in every successful instance of soul-winning.
The description that followed in Soul Surgery of the 5Cs was clearly based on Scripture and a Christian sense of conversion. But in Walter’s discussion of Conversion, he opened a door for the William James sense of conversion. Walter said the Christian worker needed to thoroughly understand the rationale of conversion. It was a two-fold act of both man and God, with the result of a fundamental change that Jesus called a new birth of the spirit. Turning to the psychologists of that time he said:
The modern religious psychologist uses strikingly similar language, calling the change that occurs at conversion “the formation of a new ego.” Writes Starbuck: “It seems that the heightened worth of self and the altruistic impulses in conversion are closely bound up together, and the differences between them lie simply in the different content of consciousness, determined by the direction in which it is turned. The central fact underlying both is the formation of a new ego, a fresh point of reference for mental states.”
He then turned to the VRE and its chapter on Conversion, refeerencing William James’ definition of conversion. But Walter went on to tie this sense of conversion to Jesus Christ. Quoting Harry Emerson Fosdick from Meaning of Faith, he said God outside of us is a hypothesis, but God inside of us is an experience. God the Father is the possibility of salvation and God the Spirit was the actuality of life, joy, peace, and saving power. “God the transcendent may do for philosophy, but he is not enough for religion.”
But it doesn’t seem Bill Wilson ever read Soul-Surgery. Or if he did, he disregarded how Walter showed the transcendent god of philosophy was not enough to understand the God of the preachers. Instead, Bill embraced the Jamesean sense of religious experience as conversion. While there wasn’t room for absolutes, there was room for 5Cs to form a new ego, once they were properly vetted of the teachings of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount.
In “Religious Alcoholics; Anonymous Spirituality,” I suggested because of the influence of VRE on A.A., Christians needed to distinguish what A.A. said about religion and spirituality from a Christian understanding of religion and spirituality. The A.A. discussion of religion and spirituality, built on the thought of William James, neglects to separate a Christian expression of religion from a non-Christian one, and a biblical sense of spirituality from a nonbiblical one. I proposed thinking about the differences between true spirituality and mere spirituality, and true religion and mere religion.
But Scripture does not distinguish between spiritual and religious as do William James and A.A. There is no sense in the Bible that “spiritual” addresses only an individual’s encounter with the divine, and “religious” refers to matters of worship, ritual, theology, and ecclesiastical organization. Experience and truth are tightly connected. What follows is a short survey of Scripture to illustrate the point.
In Hosea 6:6, we see the emptiness of ritual or worship (mere religion) without a heart for God (true spirituality): “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Again, look at Micah 6:7-8: “For You will not delight in sacrifice or I would bring it; You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God area broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”
Mere spirituality points to ways we measure God by our own “carnal stupidity,” imagining Him to be whatever our rash thinking invents. It fashions idols that cannot speak (Jer. 10:5), and they become snares to us (Ps. 106:36). Our worship becomes empty, for the Lord will not give His glory and praise to idols (Isa. 42:8). We become stupid and are without knowledge because our images are false; there is no life in them (Jer. 10:14). We know that Christ has come and given us understanding, so that we may know Him—the true God and eternal life. So we are to keep ourselves from idols (1 John 5:21).
True religion always contains true spirituality. At its best, Twelve Step spirituality can only rise to the level of general revelation or common grace. True spirituality requires that we confess with our mouth that Jesus if Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 10:9). In True Spirituality, Francis Schaeffer rejected the possibility of true spirituality apart from biblical content. There cannot be a leap-in-the-dark, “faith in faith” encounter with the divine for a Christian.
It is believing the specific promises of God, no longer turning our backs on them, no longer calling God a liar, but raising empty hands of faith and accepting that finished work of Christ as it was fulfilled in history on the cross.
When conversion in recovery is aligned with VRE, it loses the sense of true religion and true spirituality described here. The 5Cs become a psychological process of forming a new ego. Recovery that truly experiences the God of the preachers requires truth. It also requires absolutes.
