In Reply to: Re: AA and legal eagles posted by long time exer on May 04, 2010 at 16:45:32:
long time exer:
A little FYI stuff--AA was started by a supposedly Christian evangelism/discipleship group specifically, which converted Bill Wilson, the writer of AA's book:
I'd beware of duplicating Berg's spiritism/self-emptying and spirit contact--in some of their writings, current/recent Oxford/MRA and AA veered off somewhat into what could be considered spiritism:
This reference says otherwise--a guy defends Oxford Group's attempts as a learning process that was correced back to evangelical Scripture-based grace, and "putting first things first" versus legalistic perfectionism, which was known to cause addicts/alcoholics to give up on sobriety and continue abusing--I still don't see where he advocates a salvation experience through Jesus alone--more of an acknowledgement of God's presence in Nature with a capital "N":
Kind of a "..work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.." (by grace, of course); IMHO.
I believe 12 Step can help some of us, as the Law, to bring us to Christ like a school teacher. But it can also become a blinding religion keeping us away from Christ by relacing Him--just another "works trip" versus saving grace based on faith in Scripture's promises alone.
The Gospel (NOT Berg's version) IS simple.
Religion sucks.
OT2