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Article Index
Alcoholics Anonymous and Its Real Oxford Group Connection
Major Published Oxford Group Works
Some Major Contributing Oxford Group Literature
All Pages

20 Years of Input: The Oxford Group and Our Other A.A. Sources

The Oxford Group is not the only source of A.A.'s principles, practices, and language. The Bible is the major source. Quiet Time, the teachings of Reverend Sam Shoemaker, the materials in Anne Smith's Journal, and the Christian literature A.A. pioneers read are all of major significance. And we have written at length on them elsewhere in books, articles, and seminars. Moreover, one needs to note the difference between A.A.'s Akron root (where A.A. was born) and A.A.'s New York origins (where Bill Wilson received many specific Oxford Group ideas). Both Akron and New York alcoholics were conversant with the Oxford Group, but not all looked at it in the same way. Dr. Bob saw it as a source of ideas. Bill Wilson tended to see it as a program that led to a relationship with God. The real picture, the real connection, and the real facts lie in between.

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A.A. is not the Oxford Group. And, most assuredly, the Oxford Group is not A.A. In fact, the development of the Oxford Group since publication of the Big Book has taken Oxford Group activities to a totally different place than it took A.A. in the period about 1938, just before the Big Book was written.

How, then, can you describe the real Oxford Group Connection of A.A. Unfortunately, it has been expunged in part by the editorial work of Father John C. Ford and Father Ed Dowling on A.A. Comes of Age and in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. It has been clouded by ever-recurring and erroneous statements linking the Oxford Group to the Nazi Party in Germany. It has been lost through Bill Wilson's insistent accreditation of Rev. Sam Shoemaker with the mantle of "American Leader of the Oxford" and the "well-spring" of A.A.'s ideas and steps. Almost no one quotes an early, leading, Oxford Group leader and writer's statement: "The principles of the Oxford Group are the principles of the Bible" (Day, The Principles of the Group, p. 1). Finally, the real Oxford Group connection has been virtually discarded in A.A. literature and meetings, along with the Bible, Quiet Time, Sam Shoemaker, Anne Smith's Journal, and the literature early AAs read.

Fortunately, the last 11 years of research and the accumulation of some 23,900 historical items including hundreds of Oxford Group and Shoemaker books in our resource center in Maui has made microscopic looks at Oxford Group ideas and Alcoholics Anonymous codifications of those ideas a reality–just simply unknown to most today.

We've covered most specific details in our titles The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works, New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., and Turning Point: A History of the Spiritual Roots of Alcoholics Anonymous, and in other works.

The Important Oxford Group In-put Time Line

There was no "Oxford Group" prior to 1919. There was no "Oxford Group" prior to the time the press gave a tiny group of travelers in Africa the Oxford "group" name in 1928. And basically, there was no "Oxford Group" in America, at least, after 1938 when the idea and name "Moral Re-Armament" were embraced by Oxford Group founder Dr. Frank N.D. Buchman, just prior to the beginning of World War II. Finally, the name in America has now been changed to "Initiatives for Change." And you will look long and hard to find any resemblance between today's activities (which often involve a Roman Catholic Cardinal, the Jewish Rabbi of London, the Dalai Lama, and a supportive Japanese business executive, who has no connection with Christianity whatever. Many of the ideas which formed the heart of the Oxford Group's life-changing program came from Christian evangelism, revivalism, and writings which achieved wide-spread importance and acceptance in the 1800's. They are seldom mentioned among activists in today's Moral Re-Armament program. Perhaps the one remnant is an occasional reference to one or all of the "Four Absolutes" or "Four Standards"–honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. These "standards" were framed in the late 1800's by Dr. Robert E. Speer in his book The Principles of Jesus, and embraced and expanded by Frank Buchman's major mentor, Dr. Henry Wright, in the early 1900's in his book The Will of God and a Man's Life Work.

It probably would be quite accurate to say this of A.A.'s "Real Oxford Group Connection." Nobody invented it. It came through being borrowed from many sources. It developed over a period of some twenty years. It is embodied in a number of titles, with different subjects, different approaches, and different authors. In fact, this is what Bill Wilson often said of A.A. itself. Nobody invented it. It was borrowed from many sources. And–what should be said of the Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous–the basic ideas came from the Bible. Just as Dr. Bob said they did. A fact that Bill Wilson never disputed or rejected.

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