Kościół wobec AA. Rozważania na tle problemu recepcji programu „Dwunastu Kroków” w Kościołach ewangelikalnych

• Authors: Karaś, Piotr

Abstracts

PL

Alcoholics Anonymous is a well known, both around the world and in Poland, sobriety community which originated in clearly evangelical and interdenominational Oxford Group. Rooted in the Christian spirituality, AA program, also known as the Twelve Steps, became the prototype for many, diff erent self-help groups, including those operating within Catholic and other Protestant organizations. Paradoxically, evangelical Churches (particularly in Poland) remain sceptical about the program and its greater AA community. At the same time, AA seems to distance itself from the evangelical vision of helping the alcoholics. What are some of the underlying reasons? This article attempts to answer this very question. Analysis of the Twelve Steps reveals some of the most important and controversial, from the evangelical perspective, elements. In essence, they involve diff erent than evangelical “theology” of the program. Reservations of Evangelicals are caused by what they see as an ambiguous idea of God, no clear acknowledgement of Bible’s authority and a different understanding of sin that have effects for perception of ever important for Evangelicals concept of new birth. Since there are so many differences, there arises a question: Under what conditions, if any at all, the cooperation of evangelical Christian organizations with the AA movement is possible? In the course of the above reasoning, the return of AA fellowship to its “Oxford” roots seems to be rather diffi cult to expect. On the other hand some of their ideas and extensive experience might be successfully utilized in various Christian recovery programs. In fact, a number of well known evangelical ministries, such as Celebrate Recovery or Turning Point, have already fruitfully adopted the Twelve Step approach in their own work.

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Chrześcijańskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Warszawie
• Journal: Studia z Teorii Wychowania
• Year: 2014
• Volume: V(1 (8))
• Pages: 257-274

Dates

published

2018-06-20

Contributors

author

Karaś, Piotr