About the Oxfords
Frank N.D. Buchman
Frank Buchman and his followers held certain theological beliefs, including the
following:
1) Sovereignty and Power of God.
2) The reality of sin.
3) The need for complete surrender to the will of God.
4) Christ's atoning sacrifice and transforming power.
5) The sustenance of prayer.
6) The duty to witness to others.
*Garth Lean, ON THE TAIL OF A COMET - p. 73
Its beliefs included other elements added as the movement grew and became more
popular. Examples are as the belief that an experience of Christ would
transform a believer, IF he truly believed - beyond anything he had dreamed
possible. The belief that an adherent could and should make prompt restitution
for personal wrongs revealed to him by his life-changing experience. And the
belief that adherents should be part of a sort of "chain-reaction" of
life changing experiences by sharing the experience of what Christ had done for
them with others.
The Oxford Group believed one must surrender to God,
not only to be "converted" from sin, but to have his entire life
controlled by God. They believed in "Quiet Time," or meditation,
during which a believer would get guidance of what to do or in as to the
direction he should take. They believed in open confession of sin,
one-to-another, following James 5:16 in the scriptures. They believed in the
healing of the soul and in carrying the message of personal and world-wide
redemption through the sharing of members' testimony by witnessing.
Frank Buchman, and his followers believed that people had sick souls, most of
which was caused by "self-centeredness."
Oxford Group members believed that people were
powerless over this human condition, this defect of the soul. To recover one
had to admit he was separated from God and his fellow man, and that God could
manage their lives. Then they made a decision to turn their lives over to the
care and direction of God. They had to make an inventory of their lives and of
their sins, and to make full restitution to others, those they had hurt by
their sins, or shortcomings. They also had to witness to others as to their own
conversion from sin and be available to convert others from sin.
Oxford Group members believed and were taught that the only way you could keep
what you had been given by God, was to give it away to another. They did not
try to force anyone into their path. They were to live their lives as an
example, which would inspire others to want to follow. The Oxford Group called
its conversion process "soul-surgery." Its so-called surgical
procedure broiled down to-
Five Concepts:
CONFIDENCE CONFESSION CONVICTION CONVERSION
CONSERVATION.
Oxford Group people also believed that their followers should have a formula
for checking their motives in following this path. Part of the checking
procedure involved the-
Four Absolutes:
HONESTY, UNSELFISHNESS, PURITY and LOVE
Oxford Group people believed these were the four
absolute standards of God. A.A. members
knew that no one could ever hope to attain the perfection of absolute anything.
They instead were told to strive for perfection, as their guide for progress,
knowing that they would never fully attain it.
Bill W.
Bill knew when he was going to have a binge. Prior to
his spiritual experience, Bill had been a patient at Towns Hospital and knew
that he had to make reservations at Towns Hospital. He would call up two weeks
in advance of binge and tell Towns when he was going to be there. His binges
were planned. After his spiritual experience, he never found the need to call
for reservations again.
Doctor Bob
Dr. Bob too, had had experience with the Oxford
Group. After Frank Buchman's series of Oxford Group meetings at the Mayflower
Hotel in Akron in January 1933, Henrietta Seiberling and Dr. Bob's wife, Anne
Smith, convinced Dr. Bob to attend the meetings which were, by now, being held
at the home of T. Henry and Clarace Williams. Dr. Bob, though he had confessed
his drinking and had been a devotee of the Oxford Group and of its writings and
teachings, had not been able to stop drinking. It was not until he had met with
Bill Wilson, another Oxford Group member, and was relating,
one-drunk-to-another, that he eventually surrendered.
Dr. Bob met Bill on Mother's Day in May of 1935, and later drank while going to
and attending a medical convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey in June 1935.
Bill Wilson gave Bob his last drink of beer just prior to performing surgery on
June 10th , 1935. This was to be Dr. Bob's last "slip."
Bill Wilson was once quoted as saying that even though he did not want the
connection to the Oxford Group and its religious teachings associated with
Alcoholics Anonymous, he had incorporated most of their ideals and precepts in
the Steps and in the writing of what to become the A. A. Recovery Program.
Six Steps
of Oxford Group:
1. We admitted that we were licked, that we were
powerless over alcohol.
2. We made a moral inventory of our defects or sins.
3. We confessed or shared our shortcomings with
another person in confidence.
4. We made restitution to all those we had harmed by
our drinking.
5. We tried to help other alcoholics, with no thought
of reward in money or prestige.
6. We prayed to whatever God we thought there was for
power to practice these precepts.
Although those steps had helped in the recovery of New York and Akron
alcoholics, Bill felt the program was still not definitive. "Maybe our six
chunks of truth should be broken up into smaller pieces," he said.
"Thus we could better get the distant reader over the barrel, and at the
same time we might be able to broaden and deepen the spiritual implications of
our whole presentation." Pass It On, p.197
If you go back to the Oxford Group beginnings, you
start primarily with the title by Howard Arnold Walter, Literary Secretary,
National Council Young Men's Christian Association of India and Ceylon. Walter
wrote this title in conjunction with Professor Henry B. Wright and Reverend
Frank N.D. Buchman. It bore the name Soul-Surgery: Some Thoughts on
Incisive Personal Work, and was published in 1919. Its major topic dealt
with what later became called the 5 C's–Confidence,
Confession, Conviction, Conversion, Conservation- [also called,
"Continuance”]. These five principles, in turn, became the heart of
the ideas behind A.A. Steps Three through Twelve, as Bill Wilson himself was
later to write in The Language of the Heart.
The Second Touch
Mark 8:25
(To: F.N.D.B.)
The blind
man, sunk in sordid helplessness
A sound of footsteps caught.
'The Healer come,' they cried, and through the press
The hapless wretch they brought.
With wild hope, born of uttermost distress,
The healing touch he sought,
A hand reached forth in potent tenderness--
The miracle was wrought.
Strangely he stares. 'What doest thou see?' they cry.
'I see men walk as trees.'
Again the cool hand strokes each aching eye;
The last dim
shadow flees;
Not moving shapes but live men drawing nigh,
And tells to each how God's own Son came by
And healed his dire disease.
Dungeoned by self, we too besought His hand,
Our shuttered eyes to free.
His touch bestowed, vast stricken crowds we scanned,
And guessed their misery.
Lord Christ, Thy second touch our hearts demand,
Each separate soul to see,
His wounds to salve, his wants to understand,
And lead him home to Thee.
H.A.W.
Originally
published by Oxford University Press
Rowland Hazard, who came to the aid of Ebby T. in
August 1934, had a thorough indoctrination in Oxford Group teachings and he
passed many of these along to Ebby and Bill W. Soon after his release from
Towns Hospital at the end of 1934, Bill and the rest of the alcoholic
contingent of the Oxford Group began gathering at Stewart's Cafeteria in New
York following their regular meeting. Shep Cornell, then a member of the Oxford
Group business team that included Rowland, Sam Shoemaker, and Hanford
Twitchell, was also a recovering alkie. Lois Wilson talked of regular
attendance at the Oxford Group meetings with Bill, Shep, and Ebby. James Houck,
a nonalcoholic Oxford Group member in Frederick, Maryland, stated that Bill W.
went to many Oxford Group meetings at the Francis Scott Key Hotel in Frederick
and always centered on alcohol.
Jim Newton went to Ft. Myers, Florida in 1926, at age
21, to visit his father, and they bought a 35 acre tract of land across the
road from the Thomas Edison estate. Jim Newton often acted as host at Edison's
famous birthday parties which were attended by Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone,
and many world renowned business leaders and public figures.
Harvey Firestone, Sr., offered Jim a job as secretary to the Firestone Tire and
Rubber Company in 1926, and moved him to
Akron, Ohio in residence across from the Firestone Estate. Jim worked for
Firestone eleven years and was being groomed as president of the company when he resigned and went full time with the Oxford
Groups.
Jim had been in New York for the Jack Dempsey vs.
Gene Tunney fight. While there he confessed to Frank Buchman that his life was
in turmoil and he was about to take a "geographical cure". Buchman
sent him to meet Sam Shoemaker at the Calvary Church.
He made an Oxford Group confession to Sam and was led
to join one of the Oxford Group business teams. These were groups of important
men who made attempts to convert others to the Oxford Group method of
spirituality. Jim frequently met with Shep Cornell and Rowland Hazard. He met
T. Henry and Clarace Williams, husband and wife Oxford Group members from Akron
and members of Walter Tunks' church, clerygyman for Firestone. The business
team put on house parties in various cities at the finest hotels and clubs.
In January of 1933, Frank Buchman, leading a team of
thirty men and women, descended on Akron for the first time to give
testimonials at the Mayflower Hotel and in Akron churches, and initiate the
townspeople in the experiences of the Oxford Group. Clearly, Jim Newton's
association with Firestone and Tunks' Episcopal Church group influenced the
choice of Akron as the site of this endeavor, rather than some other city. Had
Jim not already been a business team member and in place in Akron, it is very
unlikely that Buchman would ever have chosen this small, rather unknown city as
a place to pursue his evangelistic efforts. Jim was the spokesman who
introduced Buchman at all the affairs that week in Akron.
When Jim first arrived in Akron, he had
been welcomed into the Firestone family, and had become fast friends with a
son, Russell (Bud) Firestone. Bud had a very bad drinking problem and had
already been sent to several hospitals to no avail. Jim went with Bud to still
another drying-out place, on the Hudson River in New York, and stayed through
the entire 30 day program. Then he took Bud to an Episcopal Conference in
Denver to which the Oxford Group people had been invited. On the train East
again after the party, he was able to introduce Bud to his old Oxford Group
minister, Sam Shoemaker. Alone with Sam, Bud surrendered his life to God. His
life changed, and his family situation and marriage were saved. Jim Newton had
helped bring to the city the Oxford Group message of his alcoholic friend, Bud
Firestone. The message and recovery were broadcast to an interested community
by a grateful father, Harvey Firestone, Sr.
In Akron, T. Henry and Clarace Williams
and Henrietta Seiberling were attending Oxford Group meetings at the Mayflower
Hotel and elsewhere. Dr. Bob Smith also attended with his wife, Anne. He shied
away from talking about his problem publicly, and continued drinking. In her
concern for Bob, Henrietta suggested to T. Henry that if they could set up a
smaller, more private meeting perhaps Bob might feel more at ease and be able
to make a confession in the Oxford Group fashion, and a commitment to sobriety.
T. Henry's home was chosen for this special meeting and these meetings started
on a Wednesday in April of 1935--just one month before Bill Wilson came to
Akron. These meetings were usually led by T. Henry, Henrietta, or Florence
Main, and at one of these, Dr. Bob was able to confess that he was a secret
drinker and needed help as he could not stop.
Then, there was Bill. Bill Wilson, the
"rum hound" from New York, had come to Akron on a business venture
that went sour. Having recovered from his disease, he was determined to stay
sober by seeking out and helping another drunk, after being tempted by the bar
at the Mayflower Hotel. Instead of drinking, having been sober five months in
the Oxford Group, he said a prayer. He received guidance to look at a
ministers' directory board and a strange thing happened. He put his finger on
one name--Tunks. The Rev. Walter Tunks was Harvey Firestone's minister, and
Firestone had brought Buchman and thirty Oxford Group members to Akron for ten
days in gratitude for their help for his son, Russell, a drunkard.
Bill W. made the desperate
and fateful phone call. Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson came together at a
meeting in Henrietta Seiberling's home in the Gate House of the Firestone
Estate, and thus, Alcoholics Anonymous was born.
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