Posted on 06/26/2023 9:17:59 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A couple years ago I noticed a trend in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. The meeting was no longer ending with the Lord’s Prayer.
For more than 30 years every meeting I attended ended the same way — with the “Our Father,” then the Serenity Prayer, then the chant of “Keep Coming Back, It Works if You Work It!”
Suddenly, meetings were going straight to the Serenity Prayer and then the final pep chant. The “Our Father” was gone. This seems to be part of a larger trend. As reported in the Daily Mail, one group was censured for saying the prayer:
An Alcoholics Anonymous group is under threat after being censured for reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the start of meetings.
The group in Somerset was told by leaders it had become too Christian-focused and has been removed from the organization’s online directory.
But John Palmer, treasurer of the group in Yeovil, pointed out that the AA was started in the 1930s by Christians and that it adopted and popularized the Serenity Prayer, which is recited at the end of meetings across the world. ‘It’s a ridiculous decision,’ said Mr. Palmer. ‘They’ve removed us from the “Find a meeting” section of the AA website which will prevent new members from finding us. In other words, we’re being shut down.’
It has taken me a while to admit this, mostly because I am so reluctant to criticize a fellowship that saved my life when I stopped drinking over three decades ago. But the elimination of the “Our Father” does in fact bother me. Not only because I believe Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, but because Christianity played a crucial role in the formation of AA.
(Excerpt) Read more at stream.org ...
Really?
Each group is entitled to end in a manner acceptable to them
Plenty in America still finish with the Our Father
The international does
He should take a pound of coffee and a coffee maker and start his own meeting and finish it how he wants
Fortunately God lives us all
No it hasn’t
Yes, really.
One drunk I knew personally (peripherally part of the family) drank like a fish and never seemed to even catch a buzz.
How should we end our meeting?
The vote was about 26 - 2 to keep the Lord's Prayer as our meeting close.
One of our members is a corporate HR-type and fully woke, and had asked that we put it to a vote.
Whatever happened to the old AA mantra "Live and Let Live"?
“””One drunk I knew personally (peripherally part of the family) drank like a fish and never seemed to even catch a buzz.”””
Alcoholics drink to get drunk and Noah wasn’t an alcoholic.
Probably AA will devolve to a trashy and unsuccessful organization after kicking out God. Much like when public schools forbade prayers.
Do you have a filter?
AA is supposed to be about a higher power. That is not specifically Christ. AA is practiced all over the world—and Christ wouldn’t work in many places.
This has been the case since Bill W started it.
Your ignorance is scary.
if at some point, Alcoholics Anonymous mandates that the chapters abandon the Lord's Prayer, it will go on the trophy racks of the enemies of God and country, just like the Boy Scouts, the mainline Protestant churches, the YMCA, the U.S. military, etc.
“Remember that we deal with alcohol—cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power—that One is God. May you find Him now!”
1. That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.
2. That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
3. That God could and would if He were sought.
Nope, “the Higher Power” crapola that is abused was put in there to satisfy the “woke” of that day, and I said, is abused and misunderstood by today.
All true but interestingly Bill was incapable of meaningful intervention for others while he employed the Oxford methodology. It took the addition of "God of your own understanding" as discussed with Ebby T. in Bill Wilson's kitchen, as described in the Big Book, before Bill had right formula. This is the innovation that made the AA program universal and effective.
As I see it, if the active alcoholic perceives you as prosthelitizing, the response will be to drink more to spite you. So if the spiritual foundation of the AA program is unity of purpose, why would your group want to appear to be prostheletizing? If even one person does not want to come back for the next meeting, and they continue on their path to the jailhouse, institutions or the graveyard, the group has failed in putting its primary purpose first. AA traditions should steer groups away from any organized religion. Otherwise AA might go the way if the Washingtonians. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washingtonian_movement
Certainly, the story of Noah gives us a great lesson on the kind of unmanageability that the first step calls out for someone who may at some time call themselves an alcoholic to recognize. Noah also had a tendency toward a "geographical correction."
My response as well. ;-D
No, it is open rebellion against moronic titles for articles. You might hope that the authors would utilize the language intelligently. The title was designed to provide this innuendo.
Only the first recorded one.
Nope, “the Higher Power” crapola that is abused was put in there to satisfy the “woke” of that day, and I said, is abused and misunderstood.
Not really. Should the primary purpose of the group be to state a preference to for a particular organized religion or show the newcomer that the meeting participants know the path that leads away from institutions, jailhouse and graveyards? You are gravely mistaken if you think it is the former.
“Nope, “the Higher Power” crapola that is abused was put in there to satisfy the “woke” of that day, and I said, is abused and misunderstood by today.”
Creating a simple equivalence between people who bow to a higher power and people who make shit up is idiotic. They are diametrically opposed.
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