Warren B. Smith notes that God Calling is “the channeled book that inspired Sarah Young to try and receive her own personal messages from Jesus.” [1] Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling is an immensely popular book, through which the contemplative “christ” continues to spread.
God Calling can be seen as the spiritual parent of Jesus Calling, but God Calling also greatly influenced Alcoholics Anonymous. This began with the Oxford Group, an ecumenical movement of the 1930s. Both A.A.’s co-founders, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, attended O.G. meetings, and Alcoholics Anonymous itself came out of the Oxford Group.
The great preacher H.A. Ironside was very concerned about the Oxford’s Group’s ecumenism–but also about the unholy meditative practices its attendees participated in. According to Ironside:
“Each [Oxford Group member] is urged in the morning to sit down quietly with the mind emptied of every thought, generally with a pencil in hand, waiting for God to say something to them. They wait and wait and wait. Sometimes they tell me nothing happens, at other times the most amazing things come. Tested by the Word of God many of these things are unscriptural. They lay themselves open for demons to communicate their blasphemous thoughts to them.” [2] (italics mine)
God Calling was channeled by two women who identified themselves simply as “Two Listeners.”[3] Receiving Quiet Time “guidance” in the manner taught by the Oxford Group, they believed they recorded the words that Jesus Christ gave them daily.
The false “christ” of God Calling that was channeled through these women advised, among other things, “Cultivate silence. ‘God speaks in silences.’ A silence, a soft wind. Each can be a message to convey MY meaning to the heart, though by no voice, or even word.” (January 7)
And, “Seek sometimes not even to hear me. Seek a silence of spirit-understanding.” (Feb. 27)
An ex-Oxford Group member named Richmond Walker, years later as an A.A. member, compiled prayers and meditations into one little book. Much of it was based on the demonic writings found in God Calling. [4]
Walker, however, eliminated every reference to the Two Listeners’ “jesus” in favor of universal spirituality. The book, Twenty-Four Hours a Day, begins with an ancient Sanskrit proverb. Twenty-Four Hours a Day has been read by millions of AA members.
According to an A.A. history website,
“[The book] explained how to practice meditation by quieting the mind and entering the Divine Silence in order to enter the divine peace and calm and restore our souls.”[5]
This meditation book also resonates with the New Age teaching that God is within: “There is a spark of the Divine in every one of us. Each has some of God’s spirit that can be developed by spiritual exercise.” (April 30)[6]
Christians are rightfully concerned over A.A.’s “higher power” definition of “god,” where “god” can be anything or everything. This, of course, is A.A.’s 3rd Step. Equal concern should be given to A.A.’s 11th Step–the meditation step.
Step 11 reads: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Considering A.A.’s wide open understanding of meditation, and that the most popular A.A. meditation book is based in part on God Calling, it is not surprising that many have entered the deceptive silence.
Endnotes:
1. Warren B. Smith, “Another Jesus” Calling, p.
2. H.A. Ironside, The Oxford Group: Is It Scriptural? (New York: Loizeauz Brothers, Publishers,1943)
3. Two Listeners, God Calling, Barbour Publishing, Inc.
4. Part 3 of “Richmond Walker and the Twenty-Four Hour Book” (Glenn C. talk) http://hindsfoot.org/RWfla3.html
5. http://www.barefootsworld.net/aa24hoursbook.html
6. Richmond Walker, Twenty-Four Hours a Day, Hazelden Foundation, Meditation for the Day, April 30
The Word Like Fire 