by Cisco » Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:39 am
Hi, I'm new to this forum so please bear with me. I have something that I would like to hear people's opinions or experience on. I'm a member of a rather large group that has about 12 meetings a day. Recently, a member with about 3 years of sobriety asked to start an atheist/ agnostic meeting. This request was to our group conscience. He stated that he was an atheist and wanted to start a meeting for others that did not believe in a "traditional" God as a higher power.
As you can imagine, this was cause for much heated debate and went on for two group conscience meetings over a couple of months. In the end, the group voted and he was allowed to have an atheist/ agnostic meeting with some conditions. The conditions were that he nor others in the meeting, could change, omit or alter the 12 steps, 12 traditions or group meeting format. This was done to help ensure that newcomers would receive the same opportunity for recovery as anybody else.
I few months have gone by and this meeting has generated interest and is pretty well attended. In the mean time there are many members that are really chapped that this meeting was allowed to start. As a result, some of these members started attending the atheist/ agnostic meeting to see what it was all about. This went on for a few weeks and they discovered that this meeting was, in fact, omitting or altering the steps, traditions, format and were even leaving the word God out of the readings.
As a result, this past group conscience, some members voiced their concerns and suggested we vote to remove the meeting if there was a majority. Many people got very upset on both sides of the aisle. As group chairman, I suggested "tabling" the vote to give us more time to do some research and pray about it.
I'm at a loss as I can see both sides and the traditions just make it more confusing.
Help!
