The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous: The Historical Connection
The direct relationship between the Oxford Group and the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the most important — and least understood — facts in recovery history. Dick B. spent 25 years documenting this connection in forensic historical detail across 31 scholarly volumes.
What Was the Oxford Group?
The Oxford Group was an international Christian evangelical movement founded by Frank N.D. Buchman in the 1920s and 1930s. It taught that spiritual change through surrender to God, moral inventory, confession, restitution, and daily quiet time with God could transform individuals and nations. Its practices were explicitly rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Bible, and early Christianity.
Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob, and the Oxford Group
Both A.A. co-founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith were active Oxford Group members before and during the founding of A.A. in 1935. The Oxford Group meetings in Akron, Ohio, led by T. Henry and Clarace Williams, were the immediate birthplace of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dr. Bob’s home group met at the Williams’ home and used the Bible — especially the Sermon on the Mount, the Book of James, and 1 Corinthians 13 — as their primary text.
How Oxford Group Principles Became the Twelve Steps
The Oxford Group’s steps toward spiritual transformation — surrender, moral inventory, confession, restitution, giving back, and seeking God’s will through daily quiet time — were the direct antecedents of A.A.’s Twelve Steps. Dick B.’s research documents in precise historical detail how each of the Twelve Steps can be traced to Oxford Group practices, which in turn were grounded in Biblical teaching.
The Most Comprehensive Scholarly Record — 31 Volumes
Dick B.’s complete research on the Oxford Group and A.A. — available as the 31-Volume Reference Set.
Order Now — $297 + Free U.S. ShippingTHIS TITLE IS PART OF THE DICK B. A.A. HISTORY REFERENCE SET
This volume is one of 31 in The Dick B. A.A. History Reference Set — the Christian recovery world’s permanent, irreplaceable record of the roles God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible played in early A.A.’s astonishing success.
Dick B. devoted 25 years and 45 titles to answering the question no one else had asked with scholarly rigor: What were the actual Biblical and Christian roots of early Alcoholics Anonymous?
The complete 31-volume Set is available exclusively at:
https://www.DickBonRecovery.com
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No other resource like this exists. No other resource ever has.
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