The Crossroad and the
Switch Blade
Dick B.
© 2014 Anonymous. All
rights reserved
Several
vivid memories passed my way in the last day or so. And I’d like to share them
with you.
The first
involved my hearing a passionate talk by David Wilkerson at an Association of
Gospel Rescue Missions Conference in Missouri. Wilkerson was the author of The Cross and the Switch Blade. He told
of his famed work with tough druggies in the middle of New York City. Then he
told how, after a year of their cooperative behavior, these men departed and
went back to drugs. Why do I continue to do this work, he said? And his answer
was that he was serving his Lord Jesus Christ.
The second memory
was that of reading a somewhat dated commentary on A.A, by Andrew and Thomas Delbanco
who were claiming in 1995 that A.A. was at the Crossroads. At that time, I was
almost ten years sober and still hunting down A.A. history. I thought A.A. was
just grand. But there were rumbles in the rafters. There were treatment programs
injecting scads of therapeutic ideas into prospective members. There were
prisons and jails where A.A. participation was possibly more “for the record”
than for the recovery. There were courts and probation officers who asked
little more than that alkies go to meetings and bring back signed “court”
cards. There was little of the old practice where a drunk called an A.A.
office, had two AAs appear at the alkie’s door, and had these people take him
under their wing. Very possibly A.A. was at or approaching the crossroads in
1995. But I was too busy with the men I sponsored, with conferences and A.A. outings,
with Big Book Seminars, with our Bible fellowship, and with traveling and
writing to see the changing tide.
The third
event occurred when I received today an email about Gert Behana—the tough
alcoholic woman who got sober before she came to A.A. According to one A.A. old-timer,
she distinguished herself often by being the only person in the A.A. meetings
she attended who talked boldly about Jesus Christ. And Bill Wilson’s friend and
spiritual mentor Reverend Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. was Gert’s champion. I had
heard tapes of her victory and loved them.
Why, then, in
the face of the frequent recidivism among alcoholics and addicts?
Why, in the face of waning confidence in the treatment programs, the drug court
efforts, and the time-honored Twelfth Stepping of old? And why the growing
vociferous objections to talk in meetings about the mention of God, Jesus
Christ, and the Bible. This when all three had played a role that provided the
heart of a simple, effective program of some five required principles. These
simply embodied abstinence; surrender to God; elimination of sinful conduct;
spiritual growth with the Bible, prayer, quiet time, and Christian literature;
and virtually compulsory helping of others get well by the same means?
Why, some
twenty years after the Delbano Crossroads article, was the recidivism increasing
to a rate many estimated at 75%? Why was government money being poured into
drug wars, drug courts, drug czars, and billions for government grants and
research? With little to show for the ventures. And why, with Traditions which
condemned public controversy and emphasized unity, were so many AAs openly
rebuking those who mentioned Jesus Christ or the Bible? And why had some
dedicated Christians aimed their arrows at Christians and would-be Christians
who dared to fellowship with and render help and service to those AAs who had
diverse religious, humanist, and outright atheist viewpoints?
Slowly I
began to be asked to speak around the United States and to answer endless phone
calls from mothers, wives, aunts who were despairing of their relatives’
repetitious DUI’s, imprisonments, auto accidents, and family split-ups. And it
became appropriate for me to wonder if A.A., atheists, and biased Christians
had not only passed the crossroads, but had picked up the switchblades and gone
on the attack against A.A. and AAs. Today there are dozens of “Why I left A.A.”
articles published.
Why continue
to search the biblical roots of A.A.? To report on the Christian upbringing of
its founders? To report on the principles and practices of the early Akron A.A.
Christian Fellowship? And yet to watch the crumbling of some very early, very
strong, and very widely recognized A.A. program techniques which can still be
applied today?
The answer?
I believe, I
have (as David Wilkerson did) a duty, to search for, truthfully report, widely
disseminate, and firmly continue to serve and glorify my Heavenly Father and
His Son by showing the role they played and could play in a long and hefty
trail of successful organizations and people, including early A.A. itself, who
had turned to God for help, picked up the tools that worked with the facts, and
then boldly reached out to those who still suffered. I firmly believe the early
techniques relying on God’s help can play that role today among those who
believe in God and want His help.
I say this.
But not to win arguments. Not to cave in to specious factual or warped accounts.
Not to let the suffering newcomer wallow in a fellowship that has changed but
need not ignore or cast away an increasingly researched and published history
of defeating the “cunning, baffling, powerful” temptations, confusion, and
failures of the alcoholic swiftly encountered by the newcomer who yearns for a
way out. Still!
No comments:
Post a Comment