Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous , livre ebook

First Edition Design Publishing - Dick B.

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

113 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

The definitive work on Frank Buchman's Oxford Group and its links to Alcoholics Anonymous in New York and Akron. The 28 spiritual Oxford Group principles that impacted on A.A. are, for the first time, laid out for all to compare with A.A.

Informations

Publié par	First Edition Design Publishing
Date de parution	13 septembre 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781937520144
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0600€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Oxford Group
&
Alcoholics Anonymous
A Design for Living That Works

Dick B.

With a Foreword by T. Willard Hunter

ISBN 978-1-937520-14-4
Published by First Edition Design eBook Publishing
September 2011
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com

PRINT
Paradise Research Publications, Inc. Kihei, Maui, Hawaii
© 1992, 1995, 1998 by Anonymous.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published 1992.
New, Revised Edition 1998
Printed in the United States of America
This Paradise Research Publications Edition is published by arrangement with
Good Book Publishing Company,
Box 959, Kihei, Maui, HI 96753-0959

Cover Design: Lili Crawford

We gratefully acknowledge permission granted by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., to quote from Conference Approved publications with source attributions. The publication of this volume does not imply affiliation with nor approval or endorsement from Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher.
Disclosure –
Due to the media style of this electronic book, footnotes and index have been removed. For unabridged version, with full bibliography please refer to the print version of this book. ISBN 1-885803-19-2
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
-1. The Roots of Early A.A.'s Success Rate
A.A.'s Successes Yesterday and Today
The Varied Sources of A.A.'s Basic Ideas
The Bible
The Reverend Samuel Moor Shoemaker, Jr
Meditation Books, Quiet Time and God's Guidance
Anne Smith's Journal: 1933-1939
Other Possible Sources
The Oxford Group Roots Confirmed
A Summary of What the Oxford Group Is
The Oxford Group, A.A., and Finding God
This Book's Oxford Group Journey and Destination
-2. Mentors Who Influenced the Oxford Group's Founder
Dr. Horace Bushnell
Evangelist Dwight L. Moody
Evangelist F. B. Meyer
Professor Henry Drummond
Dr. Robert E. Speed
Professor William James
Dr. John R. Mott
Professor Henry B. Wright
-3. Frank Buchman and His First Century
Christian Fellowship
Some Chapters in Frank Buchman's Life
The Development of the Oxford Group
Oxford Group Meetings
East Coast U.S. Meetings
Oxford Group House Parties
Oxford Group Team
Story-telling; The Sharing of Experience;
News, Not Views
Buchman's Biblical Beliefs
-4. Sam Shoemaker's Oxford Group Role
Opinions As to Sam Shoemaker's Role in the Oxford Group
Shoemaker and Buchman
Calvary House and the Oxford Group
Shoemaker and Oxford Group Activities
Shoemaker, Bill W., and the Oxford Group
Shoemaker's Oxford Group Friends and Bill W
Shoemaker, A.A., the Steps, and the Big Book
-5. The A.A. Links: Arrivals and Departures
A.A.'s Oxford Group Beginnings
The Collaboration at A.A.'s Birthplace
Departures from the Oxford Group
-6. Twenty-eight Oxford Group Principles
That Influenced A.A
In the Beginning, God
God—Biblical Descriptions of Him
God Has a Plan—His Will for Man
Man's Chief End—To Do God's Will
Belief We Start with the Belief That He IS
Sin—Estrangement from God- The Barrier of Self
Sin As a Reality
Finding or Rediscovering God
Surrender—The Turning Point
Soul-surgery—The "Art" or Way
Life-change—The Result
The Path They Followed to Establish a Relationship with God
Decision
Self-examination—A Moral Inventory
Confession Sharing with God and Another
Conviction—Readiness to Change
Conversion- The New Birth—Change
Restitution—Righting the Wrong
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ—The Source of Power
Spiritual Growth Continuance
Conservation Continuance As an Idea
Daily surrender as a process
Guidance—The Walk by Faith
The Four Absolutes—Christ's Standards
Quiet Time
Bible Study
Prayer
Listening to God for leading Thoughts and
Writing Down Guidance Received
Checking
The Spiritual Experience or Awakening
Knowledge of God's Will
God consciousness
Fellowship with God and Believers, and
Witness by Life and Word
Fellowship
Witness by Life and Word
-7. Oxford Group Traces in A.A.'s Twelve Steps and
Big Book Language
Principal Ideas in the Twelve Steps
Powerless, the Unmanageable Life and Step One
A Power Greater Than Ourselves and Step Two
The Decision to Surrender to God As You
Understand Him and Step Three
Self-examination, the Moral Inventory and
Step Four
Confession, Sharing with Another and Step Five
Conviction, Readiness to Be Changed and Step Six
Surrender of Sins, God's Removal and Step Seven
Restitution, Amends and Steps Fight and Nine
Inventory, Daily Surrender and
Step Ten
Quiet Time, Prayer, Bible Study, Listening,
God's Will, Guidance and Step Eleven
The Spiritual Awakening, Witness,
Practice of Principles and Step Twelve
Principal Oxford Group Ideas Which Can Be
Found in A.A.'s Basic Text, the Big Book
As to God
The Barriers or Blocks to God
Elimination or Destruction of the Barriers through Self-Surrender
Daily Spiritual Growth
A Spiritual Experience or Awakening Service
The Principles of the Four Absolutes
Parallels Between Oxford Group and Big Book Language
-8. Conclusion
Bibliography
Foreword

Dick B. has pulled together a most amazing piece of research on the spiritual origins of the Twelve Step movement, particularly as found in the Oxford Group, from which it sprang.
This volume is of particular relevance in the decade of the 1990's when both Alcoholics Anonymous and Moral Re-Arrnament (the name by which the Oxford Group has been called since 1938) are in a stepped-up search for their spiritual roots and for the personal renewal that has been their historic contribution.
A.A. separated from the Oxford Group in two stages, in 1937 and in 1939. Separation is always painful, and usually regretted. But history has borne out the wisdom of Bill W. and Dr. Bob in finding their own milieu in the 1930’s, separate from the parent Oxford Group movement. They had a divine calling, and they obeyed, which after all, the Oxford Group's initiator, Frank Buchman, held as his aim for everyone. The heart of his message was: "When a person listens, God speaks; when a person obeys, God acts." God certainly acted in an extraordinary way through Bill and Bob. The miracle could probably not have happened had they stayed in the other fold.
Still, we are all in the same family and dedicated to people becoming different. We also have the wider confidence, as Lois
W. believed, that "these principles will one day save our troubled world."
Dick B. is making a most important contribution, and I am honored to have been included in a small way. The way of life he describes in The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous makes everything new for those who really try it. Let us pray that the words between these covers will reach many hearts and stir many wills to action: action that will result in new directions for people, for communities, and for our troubled world.
T. WILLARD HUNTER

Mr. Hunter is a newspaper columnist, platform orator, and ordained minister. In the 1940's and 1950's, he was a close associate of Frank Buchman, initiator of the Oxford Group and Moral Re-Armament, and has written and spoken extensively on the subject. He is author of It Started Right There: Behind the Twelve Steps and the Self-Help Movement, and is co-author of "AA's Roots in the Oxford Group," a brief account issued to inquirers by A.A. General Services in N ew York. His most recent book is The Spirit of Charles Lindbergh: Another Dimension. He and his wife Mary Louise live in Claremont, California.
Preface

This title revises the earlier study I wrote on the Oxford Group aspect of the spiritual history of early A.A. Almost eight years ago, I set out, at A.A.'s International Convention in Seattle, to learn the specific content of A.A.'s basic spiritual ideas and why they were so successful in the earliest years. In the late 1930's, these ideas produced a seventy-five percent success rate with "medically incurable" alcoholics who really tried to recover. I felt and feel the information is worth investigating in depth and passing on to others. And the quest took me to libraries; archives; A.A. points of origin such as Calvary Church, Calvary House, Hartford Seminary, Princeton University, Stepping Stones in New York, and Dr. Bob's Home in Akron; and to the families and survivors of A.A. 's founders, the Oxford Group's founders, and the many and Oxford Group oldtimers I have met.
Co-founder, Dr. Bob, was the Bible student and reader. Therefore, I started with his family and the books he owned, studied, and circulated. Hence, my first title: Dr. Bob's Library. Then, I discovered that Dr. Bob's wife, Anne, had actually recorded and shared with Bill W., Dr. Bob, the early Akron AAs, and their families the material all were studying in the Bible, Christian literature of the day, and the Oxford Group, of which was an integral part in its formative years in New York and Akron. Hence, my second title, Anne Smith's Journal. At that point, I turned my efforts to the Oxford Group itself. Hence, The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous, of which this current title is a revision.
But there was need for much more work on the Oxford Group. Many of the Oxford Group people, who were much involved with Frank Buchman, Sam Shoemaker, and Oxford Group activities in the 1930's, are still alive, but growing old. They needed to be contacted and interviewed. There were many more Oxford Group titles of the 1920's and 1930's than I first knew about; and these needed to be dug out and studied. The murky historical details about Sam Shoemaker, Bill Wilson, and early A.A. needed to be unearthed, studied, and correlated with other historical facts-and while Shoemaker's family still survived. And I did these things.
The objective was to learn where the Oxford Group came from, what it believed, the nature and extent of early A.A. 's