Additional
Source Materials from Beginning to End
The
Overview
This
is the concluding article in my series on the Four Absolutes.
You can get the full picture as I researched and wrote
it by reading three of my titles:
The
articles are designed to give you accurate information
concerning the origin of the absolutes in Speer's book
The Principles of Jesus; their expansion in Wright's
book The Will of God and a Man's Lifework; their adoption
in the writings of Dr. Frank Buchman, Rev. Sam Shoemaker,
and other Oxford Group writers; and their use in Akron's
first A.A. group as explained by Dr. Bob, his wife Anne
S., and the AA of Akron pamphlets of the early days.
Furthermore, unless you have knowledge of the sources
in the Bible from which the Absolutes were taken by
Dr. Speer, Professor Wright, Frank Buchman, and the
others, you will simply be looking at a lot of individual
and diverse opinions–"opinions" being idea that don't
always find great favor in the A.A. community. The early
saying about them was: "Give me news, not views."
Let's
Start with Professor Henry B. Wright's Book
Our
Oxford Group/A.A. friend, Rev. T. Willard Hunter, wrote
that Professor Wright of Yale probably had more influence
on Oxford Group Founder Dr. Frank N.D. Buchman than
anyone other than Buchman's own mother. Wright's key
book was The Will of God and A Man's Lifework (New York:
Association Press, 1924). It was copyrighted in 1909.
Its studies were originally prepared by laymen to meet
the needs of students in the Association Bible Classes
for Seniors of the Academic and Scientific Departments
of Yale University. Wright's title is a classic for
one who wants to know the origin of the many Oxford
Group ideas Frank Buchman borrowed from Wright.
Wright
begins his book with a chapter on the will of God. Then
he quotes Jesus and the Apostles on the subject. Then
he quotes varied verses in the Bible and statements
by early thinkers like Professors Horace Bushnell, Henry
Drummond, and William
James. He dwells at length on the principle
of absolute surrender of self, the relationship of surrender
of self to spiritual experiences, the decision to do
God's will, the concept of willingness, the universal
will of God as found in the Bible, and the "Particular
Will of God for Each Individual Man."
Then
comes his presentation of the "Four Touchstones of Jesus
and the Apostles." Wright begins with the verse in 1
Thessalonians 4:3: "For this is the will of God, even
your sanctification... ." Continuing these theme in
Thessalonians, Wright defines God's injunctions: (1)
Purity–1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 - abstaining from fornication,
possessing your vessel in sanctification and honour,
and not in the lust of concupiscence. (2) Honesty–1
Thessalonians 4:6–"That no man go beyond and defraud
his brother in any matter. (3) Unselfishness–1 Thessalonians
4:11-13–peaceableness, etc. (4) Love–1 Thessalonians
4:9-10–"for ye yourselves are taught of God to love
one another."
Then
Wright discusses the absolutes in detail. As to "absolute
purity," Wright quotes from Bushnell, Speer, and the
Bible; and he plunges into the specific verses dealing
with being "pure in heart," and abstaining from fornication,
uncleanness, passion, evil desire, adultery and foul
stories. And you can find Dr. Bob himself referring
to these same sins. Wright takes a similar approach
as to "absolute honesty" (dealing with cribbing, sharp
dealing, lying, disclosing of confidences, and exaggeration).
So too "absolute unselfishness" (speaking of denying
one's self; avoiding bitterness, wrath, and anger; being
kind, tenderhearted, forgiving, peaceable, gentle; and
eschewing envy, greed, and lawlessness). Finally comes
his discussion of "absolute love" (quoting so many of
the verses in the Bible on love). The point is that
Professor Wright did not wing it when it came to defining
the "absolute" standards of Jesus. He went straight
to the Bible and quoted what the Word of God had to
say on each subject. Therein lies the value and importance
of his writing.
Bill
W. seemed to have lots of trouble with the "absolutes."
He emphasized in his Big Book that "we are not saints"
and "we claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual
perfection." He just plain ignored the four absolutes
as such. But this seems the product of guilt about his
own womanizing and profiteering, rather than disdain
for the principles themselves. And he would have done
well to repeat explicitly what Professor Wright had
to say about falling short:
Disobedience
is a deliberate, voluntary transgression of purity,
honesty, unselfishness, or love; the refusal (not necessarily
the failure) to obey one's conviction of the right [Wright,
The Will of God, supra, p.223].
After
the dedication, the truly surrendered man has made a
contract with God to be always pure, always honest,
always unselfish, always loving in deeds of self-expression;
he may fail now and then, but he corrects his mistake
as soon as he realizes it and presses on, so the channel
is always open. Through compelling convictions of purity,
honesty, unselfishness or service, which his vow requires
him to translate at once into action, he can now be
led into fields of provision and out of paths of danger
[Wright, supra, p. 251].
Dr.
Bob said to the end of his life that he felt the Four
Absolutes were important and were "yardsticks" for testing
appropriate behavior. I personally do not find the Big
Book itself compromising on the importance of honesty,
unselfishness, and love. Moreover, the Big Book's remarks
on its restitution steps and on the Tenth Step call
for picking yourself up, correcting your mistakes, and
seeing what can be done to improve things by following
spiritual principles.
Rev.
Almond's Foundations for Faith
More
than sixty years after Wright spelled out the Biblical
concepts supporting the Four Absolutes, Reverend. Harry
J. Almond published Foundations for Faith (London: Moral
Re-Armament, 1975). This was almost 100 years after
Speer had promulgated the ideas from the teachings of
Jesus. And Almond did a crackerjack job of discussing
the Four Absolutes. He picked up the Oxford Group saw:
"Sin is The Disease. Christ is The Cure. The Result
is a Miracle." He pointed out the commands of the Bible
which define the sin or disease–the Ten Commandments
(Exodus 20:3-17), Jesus's definition of the things that
come from within, and defile a man (Mark 7:20-23); Jesus's
statement that whoever relaxes the least of these commandments
and teaches men to do so shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:19); and Paul's statement
that those who violate the commandments will not inherit
the kingdom of God, but that some were washed, sanctified,
and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and
in the Spirit of God (Almond, supra, p. 2).
Almond
wrote that the "moral standards as tests" must be absolute;
otherwise they are not standards. Almond quotes Jesus
from Matthew 5:48: "You, therefore, must be perfect,
as your heavenly Father is perfect." Almond also points
to many specifically relevant verses defining honesty,
purity, unselfishness, and love. It is a guidebook to
the real meaning of each standard.
Many
have asked me where A.A.'s Fourth Step inventory came
from. Almond gives one explanation of it origin: "To
recognize sin it might be good to stop here, and with
pencil and paper take a few minutes to note every point
that comes to mind and conscience where your life has
not corresponded with theses absolute standards: Honesty,
Purity, Unselfishness, Love" (Almond, supra, p. 5).
Sam Shoemaker went through that very process in 1919
in China and often spoke of it in connection with "self-examination"–the
precursor of A.A.'s Fourth Step moral inventory.
Origins
in "A First Century Christian Fellowship"
Very
soon after Frank Buchman began gathering a group of
friends around him, those people were calling themselves
"A First Century Christian Fellowship." And that name
was in common usage by those friends and by what soon
became the "Groups" throughout the 1920's. Rev. Sam
Shoemaker frequently called the Oxford
Group by that name, as witnessed by his
remarks in Twice Born Ministers; and I have many announcements
and invitations I obtained from James and Eleanor Forde
Newton that describe the Oxford Group as "A First Century
Christian Fellowship."
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 W. himself
was later to write in The Language of the Heart. The
point here is that author H. A. Walter made much of
what Sherwood Eddy had bidden as the third step in soul-winning:
that step was to "make the moral test" [Walter, Soul-Surgery
(Connecticut: Record Press, 1920, p. 69)]. Walter cited
a pamphlet by Sherwood Eddy and Frank Buchman, titled
"Ten Suggestions for Personal work," which I have not
yet located. But the third point was "Make the moral
test;" and Dr. Bob's wife Anne picked up on this expression
in her spiritual journal. So making the A.A. origins
of making a moral test came at least as early as 1919.
Now
go back to the next hard-to-find title: Clarence Irving
Benson, The Eight Points of The Oxford Group: An Exposition
For Christians and Pagans (Melbourne: Humphrey Milford
Oxford University Press, 1935). Benson has a chapter
(IV) on "Daily Checking The Four Absolutes" (pp. 44-57).
Though I could find little evidence that Benson's book
itself was read widely either in the Oxford Group or
by the A.A. pioneers, there is clear language in that
book that somehow found its way to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Thus Benson speaks of a business inventory, checking
the books, and taking stock (p. 44). He says:
The
Group takes the four absolute standards of the life
of Christ–Absolute Love, Absolute Purity, Absolute Honesty
and Absolute Unselfishness. These are applied as daily
tests of life in all its issues. This practice of regular
self-examination in the light of Christ has proved to
be of genuine practical value in our Christian development"
[p. 45].
He
deals with the issue of "perfection" and says Christ
did not ask the impossible. He simply asks that man
emulate God as the perfect Father (pp. 46-47). Benson
then refers to 1 Corinthians 13 as the summary of perfect
love–a chapter that was highly favored in early A.A.
Benson further quotes evangelist Dwight Moody for these
words: "If you want to be miserable, look within. If
you want to be distracted, look around, but if you want
to have peace, look up" (p. 56). He quotes Paul: "I
love; yet not I, but Christ loveth in me." He adds that
we are not merely trying to approximate to a standard
without and separate from us, but God begins to dwell
in us. We are not called to conform to an outward code,
we work out a living principle that is within us (pp.
56-57). And if so many today, and Bill W. yesterday,
could have studied and understood the heart of the Four
Absolutes–the Christ in you declaration–they would not
have been so quick to put their senses knowledge to
defining absolutes in human terms or rejecting them
as human impossibilities.
The
Picture as A.A. Developed
In
the mid-1930's (when A.A. was founded), there were plenty
of discussions, and books with discussions, of the Four
Absolutes. Dr. Bob read the books and circulated them.
What is The Oxford Group was one, though it was not
written by an Oxford Group person. But the most popular
was certainly Arthur James Russell's For Sinners Only
(New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1932). It was
mentioned in Anne S's Journal. It was read and circulated
by Dr. Bob. And it was immensely well-known and widely
read by Oxford Group people. I have found copies in
the library of every Oxford Group person to whom I have
talked.
A
few points in For Sinners Only will help us conclude
this summary. Russell essentially devoted an entire
chapter to the Four Absolutes (pp. 267-77). He covered
the common Buchman teachings about sin and then introduced
Buchman's moral standards as follows:
Christianity
has a moral backbone. And let us take for convenience
four of the simple moral standards that we see in Christ's
own life–honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. Those
standards are absolute. No one has ever yet proved He
compromised on any one of those four. Let us take them
one by one and see how we measure up to His standard
[p. 269].
Using
terms familiar to both Oxford Groupers and AAs, Russell
tackles each of the absolutes in detail. He cites Scripture,
and he gives examples of shortcomings. His portion on
unselfishness will ring on familiar A.A. ears in Russell's
discussion of Self. Dealing with a well-known and old
A.A. foe, Russell says:
Then,
again, there is self-centeredness. Most of us are born
rotating on the axis ego, and continue to do so until
the end of our lives, often at an increasing rate. One
result of that is that we are never able to keep friends
for any length of time. It not only loses us friends,
but often keeps us from bothering to make them... And
now for one of the biggest monsters of the self–self
will. We simply want our own way and will not yield
[pp. 274-75].
Those
familiar with the A.A. philosophy as stated in the Big
Book will quickly recognize the foregoing and many other
A.A. expressions that poured out of Russell's 1932 Oxford
Group book. Russell ends the absolutes chapter with
a plea to ask for a "Christ-controlled life" where he
is "Lord and Master of all" (p. 277).
A
Suggestion
If
you'd like to know what the Four Absolutes were really
intended to be, where they came from, and how they can
be understood today, particularly in A.A., I believe
the foregoing resources will be most helpful. They'll
put these moral standards in Godly terms for you instead
of mere human opinions of what some person thinks is
"right or wrong."
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