"The spirituality behind the Twelve-Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous is a "low Church" approach to evangelization and healing that is probably our only hope in a pluralistic world of over seven billion people. Most of those people are not going to "become Christian" or join our church, which even the Vatican now admits.
Our suffering in developed countries is primarily psychological, relational and addictive: the suffering of people who are comfortable on the outside but oppressed and empty within. It is a crisis of meaninglessness, which leads us to try to find meaning in possessions, perks, prestige and power, which are always outside the self. It doesn't finally work. So we turn to ingesting food, drink or drugs, and we become addictive consumers to fill the empty hole within us.
The Twelve-Step program walks us back out of our addictive society. Like all steps toward truth and Spirit, they also lead downward, which they call sobriety. Bill Wilson and his A.A. movement have shown us that the real power is when we no longer seek, need or abuse our outer power because we have found real power within. They rightly call it our "Higher Power". "
It is the second paragraph that strikes me: "Our suffering... is primarily psychological, relational and addictive: the suffering of people who are comfortable on the outside but oppressed and empty within."
Of course there are other kinds of suffering in "developed countries". But his point is well made. To put the "psychological, relational, addictive" checklist alongside our own suffering may be a wake up call. I was motivated to refresh my memory about what the Twelve Steps are. Click here if you'd like to do the same! I knew that Bill Wilson framed these steps from his Christian perspective and this shines through. And as Rohr says - these steps are now a world-wide guide to a Higher Power available to anyone - whether they call that Power "God" or not. My final thought, having re-read the 12 Steps, is that, if courageously followed, they represent something much more rigorous than many "Christian discipleship" programs!
