For Sinners Only

If your day-to-day Christian life is missing a spark of enthusiasm, I highly recommend that you read, "For Sinners Only." The Oxford Groups of the 1920's and 30's were Christians who practiced a type of group prayer that involved seeking direct guidance from God and then following this guidance in their daily lives. The results of living this 'surrendered" life was remarkable. I believe the path to true joy and happiness is to follow God's will, and the lives of these Oxford Groupers proves this out. The book is fascinating as the author makes himself a test subject for a movement that drew from all Christian denominations, mostly young college people searching for an answer to their lives. After reading this book last year I began to read the Bible, really for the first time in my life and have been led to join a local church. At this church we practice guidance as a small group every Saturday and the results have been amazing. God really does communicate through us when we open ourselves to him. Christianity is not a noun, it is a verb. Perhaps it is time to reawaken God in the world through this simple, applicable practice that works so beautifully.

This is an amazing story of one man's attempt to write a newspaper article about a man of faith and his slow encounter with the truth.

I am delighted this book has been reprinted and therefore placed within the reach of many eager to know its contents. Unlike the other reviewer, I would not puff on about the book's merits. I would rather point out its great significance in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. First of all, though Alcoholics Anonymous did have some of its roots in the Oxford Group, the Oxford Group had far more influence on Bill Wilson's 1939 Big Book writings and Twelve Steps than it did on the A.A. program that began in Akron in 1935. Thus, to give balance to a search for the history and roots of A.A., one has to do what most historians have not done. One must realize that in Akron, the program came primarily from the principles and practices of United Christian Endeavor Society (a society in which Dr. Bob was active as a youth. Hence if you are researching the Oxford Group's impact, your direction is toward the program Bill Wilson fashioned when he wrote the Big Book in 1938 and published it in 1939. Second, there is no "Oxford Group Book" as the cover of the reprint suggests. Nor is For Sinners Only of great importance as far as "God Calling" is concerned, as the first reviewer suggests. Russell merely wrote the Foreword. Third, when it comes to the Oxford Group literature, For Sinners Only is an extremely important resource. The book was highly recommended for reading by AAs by Dr. Bob and also in his wife's journal which was read to early AAs. The details are discussed in my titles, "Dr. Bob and His Library", "The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth, 7th ed.," and "Anne Smith's Journal, 1933-1939." The particular value for AAs is that they read a number of life-changing books, most considered part of the Oxford Group's recommended books. These included Stephen Foot's Life Began Yesterday, Russell's For Sinners Only, Shoemaker's Children of the Second Birth, and Begbie's Twice Born Men. In other words, the Oxford Group's "life changing" program was incorporated almost verbatim in the Twelve Steps. Hence its life-changing literature brings the details to light. Fourth, as I explain in my title The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous, there were a number of separate life-changing ideas from the Oxford Group that impacted on early Alcoholics Anonymous. Each group had an explanatory source book. Thus Begbie's Life Changers was an early exposition of the Oxford Group activists of the 1920's. Howard Walter's 1919 Soul Surgery detailed the so-called "Five C.'s"--Confidence, Confession, Conviction, Conversion, and Continuance--which formed the heart of A.A.'s later Steps. Henry Wright's The Will of God and a Man's Lifework expanded on the "Four Absolute" standards of the Oxford Group--Honesty, Purity, Unselfishness, and Love. Howard Rose's The Quiet Time laid out that facet of the life changing process. Sherwood Day's The Principles of the Oxford Group laid out the Biblical origins of the ideas. What is The Oxford Group? covered several of the Oxford Gro