Abstract

The rapid multiplication of Twelve-Step groups has infiltrated evangelical churches to the extent that some evangelical writers have accepted the Twelve Steps as tools for discipleship and spiritual awakening in the church. This study examined the historical and epistemological development of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve-Step process of human recovery. The impetus for the study was to determine the validity of the claim that the Steps were based on the Bible and orthodoxy Christianity. The methodology employed was to separate the epistemological presuppositions of the Twelve Steps from their pragmatic structure and then to order those concepts into a limited theological outline. ;The historical backdrop of the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment ideas and philosophies provided the diachronic context necessary to understand the emergence of a movement like AA. Material drawn from primary sources of AA literature developed the logical literary context as well as providing important data concerning the practice of the cofounders and early AA. A number of the theological terms and concepts isolated within the AA literature and Steps were analyzed in their historical and literary context. ;Although several AA and Twelve-Step terms and concepts were found to have counterparts in biblical theology, it was not possible to hold them to the context of the Bible or orthodox Christian theism. The AA terms and concepts dealing with the areas of revelation, God, man and sin, and salvation demanded that they be understood in the light of their own historical and literary context. ;The findings demonstrated that these concepts and terms reflected knowledge of natural revelation through human reason that resulted in a natural theology. This theology saw God in a theistic existentialism manner and man as Pelagian to Semi-Pelagian regarding constitution and salvific issues. From an analysis of the historical and literary data it was possible to conclude that the claim for a biblical and Christian origin of AA and the Twelve-Step process was without validity