What is and what could be are usually two different worlds. I have talked about the state of both worlds. But now we may need to imagine a new vision for both Recovery and Faith.
All I am about to say is not reality but is a possibility. What could recovery look like?
Currently, faith is parochial. In churches of a liberal bent, you find AA and NA. In the more conservative churches, you can find Celebrate Recovery of the Saddleback mold.
The reality is faith programs get many of their workers from secular programs. Why is that? It’s because secular programs are careful with too-vocal expressions of faith. In fact, the program part of AA is crowding out the God part of the program. IN good AA tradition the faith folks took their resentment and a coffee pot and formed another organization. In the beginning, AA was a spiritual program. Now it is more focused on the best practices of recovery rather than the spiritual awakening they talked about in the beginning, It did not take long for me to realize my Jesus talk was not welcome. So in the end I left looking for a home.
My friend in Vermont told me of a CR group that made what could only be described as a missionary visit to his AA meeting. They compounded the attitude by leaving their CR literature on AA’s publication table. My friend was suitably upset. But if I put on my faith hat I realize what I should accept as fact. AA has dual standards. A very human trait. Serial predatory behavior against new pigeons is frowned on but accepted. Whereas leaving a Jesus tract is a sin. Both are agreeably not good.
I think the issue is we all don’t realize how different and the same we are. We are related by original gestation. Which came first AA or the Oxford Groups. AA is an inspired mess of philosophy. But the church is a mix of compromises. Today one wing of the church promotes throwing out biblical faith and substituting something more palatable. Another wing has adopted political fantasies as its foundation. And the church wonders why some people see us as nuts.
I am a born-again, holy ghost baptized believer in Jesus. He has kept me sober for 40 years thru a lot of hell. Yet I know some of my sister and brother in faith are certifiably nuts.
I suggest we of faith and of recovery are distant cousins. We are family.
I am well known for my Jesus beliefs. So anyone who knows my Jesus thing automatically places me in an enemy camp. But I am your cousin! We need to agree to disagree. We need each other.
In AA meetings I know the unspoken rules. You can talk about God, but not specifically about Jesus. AA has traditions to address this issue. They are neutral on the church thing. This is a smart move.
We need each other. I will outline how in the next podcasts.
One request. On the web, they call this a call to action. Please if this moves you to approval or disgust leave a message or email me at chuck@lazarusrecovery.org. Or go to lazarusrecovery.org. On Facebook or Twitter leave a message.
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