DID YOU KNOW?
by an anonymous South Bend Professor
Another important historical tradition for Alcoholics Anonymous is Tradition Ten: “Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues,” which meant that “the A.A. name ought “never,” be drawn into public controversy.” In practice this Tenth Tradition meant that on those grounds also, the A.A. groups were forbidden to become involved in the perverted kind of supposedly moral campaigns which sometimes ended in religious or political wars, persecution, executions, burning people at the stake or hanging them because of their beliefs.
In the first test case for the admission of a homosexual in 1937, Dr. Bob asked the simple question, “What would the Master do?” He knew his scripture well (better than many pastors at that time). As the Apostle Paul put it in Galatians 3:28, among the true people of God “there is neither Jew not Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female,” for all are children of the one Father. Good parents love their children equally, and grieve just as much for any of their children who are in pain and suffering. Good parents also are angered in if they see someone insulting or making fun of any of them or excluding them from the group, or snatching food from them, or allowing them to go hungry. And if you kill the son or daughter of a great King, you had better never fall into that Kings hands and be dragged helpless to stand before his throne of judgment. Be assured you will pay the price for what you have done.
In the Twelve Traditions and in the precedents set within the Historic Heritage of the twelve step program, it is made clear over and over that no voice claiming to come from heaven, which incites people to persecution and intolerance and discrimination, can be the voice of God. No voice claiming to come from heaven which is trying to drag the twelve step fellowship into supporting any kind of war frenzy can be the voice of God. And so far, God be thanked, the A.A. and Al-Anon fellowships and all the other modern twelve step associations have refused to become involved in organized hatred or bloody atrocities.
So let us not be over impressed by the modern intellectuals who argue that believing in divine guidance leads to the greatest wars and atrocities. The kind of religiously-motivated persecutors whom these so-called intellectuals are afraid of-and rightly so!–are invariably legalists who are trying to save themselves by works of the law, not the people of true faith who seek only God’s all-loving presence at the foot of the Throne of Mercy.
The first time V.C. Kitchen attended one of the Oxford Group’s “quiet times,” he did not seem to obtain any special divine guidance himself. Others in the group did, but at first he could not. They said they were “listening to God.” As attentively as any of the rest, I thought, but heard nothing—nothing at all. Gradually as I attended more quiet times, services and witness meetings, however, I began dimly to sense what these people were driving at. They claimed they had been trying to gain—a consciousness of the spiritual environment—a direct contact with God.
“We believe there’s a plan,” they continued. “Did it never occur to you to get in touch with the author of that plan, asking Him directly what His plan is and what He wants us to do about it?” To be continued…
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