Astonishing News for Alcoholics AnonymousEmmet Fox Did Not Deliver the Sermon on the Mount.The surprise news is that Emmet Fox did not deliver the "Sermon on the Mount." And A.A.s did not read Emmet Fox to learn what Jesus said and taught. They read Matthew 5-7 of the King James Version to learn what Jesus taught those gathered to hear. As far as we know, Emmet Fox was born some 2000 years later. He was not present at the mount. He did not deliver the Sermon. So, just as early A.A.s did, the first place for anyone to look for the message of the Sermon is in God’s Word—the Bible. Before, during, and after the founding of A.A., Christians and others were looking to the Bible for the essentials of their recovery. They particularly stressed the Book of James, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13. And, yes, they read many commentaries by many different authors on Jesus, his life, and his Sermon. The authors included Oswald Chambers, E. Stanley Jones, Toyohiko Kagawa, Henry Drummond, Robert E. Speer, Dwight L. Moody, F. B. Meyer, Amos Wells, Glenn Clark, James Stalker, Emmet Fox, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., Francis Clark, George Barton, Geoffrey Allen, T.R. Glover, those who wrote YMCA literature, Christian Endeavor Literature, The Runner's Bible, The Upper Room, The Imitation of Christ, and many more books you can find in my title The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth, 7th ed. As a matter of fact, it was Mrs. Julia Harris, wife of Rev. W. Irving Harris (Rev. Sam Shoemaker's assistant minister), who told me that the folks at Calvary Church in New York "weren't even sure Fox was a Christian." Hence you will not find his name among the many authors whose books were recommended by Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.. And when it came to the Big Book and the Twelve Steps, it was Rev. Sam Shoemaker, Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York who was asked to write the Twelve Steps; and, even though Sam declined, Bill still pointed to Shoemaker as the principal source of the Step teachings—resulting in Bill's calling Shoemaker a "Cofounder of A.A." See my title New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., 2d ed., 1999. And just to complete the surprising news story that AAs studied the Bible and what Jesus taught as recorded in the Bible and did not incorporate the theology of Emmet Fox in their basic writings, here is what Bill W. and Dr. Bob had to say about the real Sermon on the Mount—found in Matthew, Chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the Bible:
See also Dick B., The Good Book and the Big Book: A.A.’s Roots in the Bible, 2d ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1997), where the author specifically states at page four in footnote 12: "A.A. historian Mel B. informed the author in a telephone interview that Bill Wilson had given the same accreditation to the Sermon on the Mount as Dr. Bob had. Mel stated Bill had made the remarks to him [Mel B.] on at least two occasions." Emmet Fox and his New Thought writings have occasionally been said to have imposed a heavy New Thought doctrine on the early A.A. Christian Fellowship members. But such contentions necessarily ignore and seem to reject the mounds and mounds of chapters and verses that early AAs studied and quoted from the Bible and the Bible devotionals they read each day. See my books, The Good Book and The Big Book: A.A.’s Roots in the Bible, and The James Club and the Original A.A. Program’s Absolute Essentials. A.A. Cofounder Dr..Bob was frequently recorded as standing up in front of early A. A. Christian fellowship meetings, with the Bible in his hand, and reading out of that Bible from Chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew. As a matter of fact, he told a meeting in Youngstown, Ohio, that most AAs started their day by reading the Sermon or the Book of James or 1 Corinthians. And, since all early AAs were required to profess their belief in God and declare Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they would have found little to help them in their submission, by relying on books by Emmet Fox who denounced salvation as a myth. Gloria Deo Dick B. | |
|