Alpha

[Chris Green]

this was in The Times this weekend: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-525-1206460,00.html

 

[Col]

Clicked your link but all I got was a request to subscribe in order to read the paper.

 

[Chris Green]

I'll cut and paste the article

 

[Chris Green]

Jesus, peace ... and a boyfriend
Celia Walden says the evangelical Alpha course gives the beautiful people an alternative to therapy










The chances are that if you’re nearing 30 you have begun to feel the itch of dissatisfaction. You’ve struggled to find the perfect profession, job, partner and home, but have failed in at least one respect, and are suffering from a sense of disgruntlement that is becoming known as the quarter-life crisis. But however bad it gets, there is one temptation you must resist: the Alpha experience.

I came across this phenomenon when a friend invited me to a dinner party recently in Holy Trinity church on London’s Brompton Road. Our host was to be Alpha, an organisation that offers an introductory course in Christianity over a meal with speeches followed by “informal chats”.

I hate to appear closed-minded, but it just so happens that she is the fourth person in my twentysomething entourage to be bitten by the Alpha bug and it’s making me increasingly uneasy. It’s not because I am an atheist that I disapprove; it’s more that smart friends of mine are losing their sense of humour and their cynicism as they plummet into the black hole that is Alpha.

I can see the temptation. Like a shot of wheatgrass in your morning fruit smoothie, Alpha offers an easily digestible boost without the nasty taste of actual sacrifice. Alpha also acts as a posh counselling and dating agency, minus the shame of both. So no wonder the “Beginner’s Guide to God” has now expanded from London around the world, attracting such celebrities as David Suchet, Geri Halliwell, Samantha Fox and Jonathan Aitken.

It has converted thousands across denominations and left the rest of us feeling slightly resentful of the trend — sorry, religion — that has made our friends unavailable to us when we want to see them, and unbearably sanctimonious when we do. And it’s all down to one man: not Jesus Christ but Nicky Gumbel, the curate at Holy Trinity church who started the Alpha course and made a fortune with his self-help tomes.

On Sunday at 5pm the young and invariably good-looking spiritual hopefuls arrive for their exonerating meeting with Jesus. “It’s the perfect way to escape the materialism of everyday life,” I am told by a convert in Prada shoes. She is serious. Once you’ve got the dream job and the most desirable handbag, what do you do with them? Especially if you are momentarily lacking an ideal partner to match? Take your problems to the church, of course.

As well as lifting your sights, Alpha will absolve you of your middle-class guilt, just as the gym rids you of your health-and-vanity-related anxieties. Unlike their predecessors, whom circumstances obliged to scrimp and save till 60 before enjoying their wealth for a year or two before dying, the current generation can be both young and successful.

But this entails a certain moral angst or queasiness — which is alleviated in a pleasant way over dinners and chats at Alpha. And if that doesn’t work, the odd stint serving soup to the homeless usually does the trick. I’ve put it to my Alpha friends that a sense of spiritual well-being in the monastic tradition was earned by total isolation, sex-deprivation plus hard manual labour, but they don’t seem to get the point. Why should they? They enjoy the quick fix. There ’s no pressure to commit long-term, and studies show interest tends to wane after the Alpha honeymoon.

After all, when you delve a little deeper into the theology, you find that they are good, traditional, orthodox Christians: against homosexuality and premarital sex. The rising numbers Alpha are so proud of would no doubt swiftly decline if the movement were to come clean about this at the start. So rather than concentrating on any unpalatable truths about sexuality or lifestyle, they present you with a 10-week course which, for the time being at least, eschews all uncomfortable preachings.

The other draw is a form of group therapy. Talk at Alpha is not just about Jesus and what he can bring to your life. “They give you answers to every question you’ve ever asked yourself,” an Alpha habitué tells me, and I am sure that they do. More often than not these people’s ailments are not severe or specific enough to merit counselling or psychiatric treatment. In the words of one devotee, “Everyone’s in need of a little help from time to time ” — and who needs the Priory when you’ve got the priory? Perhaps one of the most fruitful aspects of the organisation is that it provides an environment in which you are guaranteed to be making dinner conversation about Jesus with dozens of like-minded members of the opposite sex, all financially viable, excitedly discovering you all went to the same school or are doing the same jobs, and all desperately in search of something: maybe you. Dating agencies could only dream of making a similar boast.

A few weeks ago Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, horribly misjudged his young audience in his anxiety to ingratiate himself with them. “Clubs offer regular celebrations where you can get out of yourself and join others in dance and song, liberated from any merely utilitarian purpose,” he preached to a crestfallen congregation. “There are preparation rituals, like donning the right dress and saving up for the night out. Then there is a sense of belonging and openness to one another and sometimes even what people describe as a mystical experience, an oceanic experience induced by the music, dancing or, alas, by drugs.”

It was good of him to try to discover a spiritual dimension to drugs and clubbing, but the people who have been doing both or either haven’t. That is one of the reasons they go to Alpha.


© The Spectator 2004

The author is deputy diary editor of The Daily Telegraph

 

[JimB]

Can’t speak to the issue in question. The author, apparently, was not far enough on his/her journey to God to be effected by Alpha, just as some people are not ready to “accept the Lord” at a revival meeting.

However, I can speak to the Alpha program itself, which is used in a large number of Vineyard churches worldwide (we plan to use it soon through our church.) For a fact, it has brought many into the kingdom of God.

Personally, I am impressed with the ease with which a church/denomination can adapt the program to their values and beliefs. The Vineyard, for example, is evangelical, though generally not high-pressure, in its approach to evangelism, and Alpha adapts well to this approach.

Before anyone writes Alpha off, based on the report of a disgruntle, it might be well to do some research.

A good place to start is here: http://alphausa.org/basics/index.html

\o/

 

[Suffolk Sean]

Jim,

I just have one comment on your post. Please don't put the program ahead of hearing from God. Too many people do this and end up with form and no life.

 

[JimB]

Jim,

I just have one comment on your post. Please don't put the program ahead of hearing from God. Too many people do this and end up with form and no life.

Good point, Sean. But if God leaves the choice up to me (which He often does), I will go with a good program.

You know, this would make a good thread – how much of what we do has to be directed by God and how much does He leave to our own discretion? A man’s heart plans His way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Prov. 16.9).

\o/

 

[Suffolk Sean]

Good point, Sean. But if God leaves the choice up to me (which He often does), I will go with a good program.

You know, this would make a good thread – how much of what we do has to be directed by God and how much does He leave to our own discretion? A man’s heart plans His way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Prov. 16.9).

\o/

I agree with you. I think you understand me too. People will try to bring in things without seeking God first. Programs are nice, they work, but people tend to rely on them.

 

[Col]

The author of the article displays her deep cyinicism, immaturity and dislike for Christianity quite clearly. She obiviosly much more concerned with the attendees affluence and good looks and sounds very envious of her peer's successes both worldly and spiritually. This is a shame as by her comments, it seems that she could have benefited from Alpha if she had been able to approach it objectively and with an open mind.

My Bible Study group ran an Alpha course a few months ago and those who participated where far from affluent, successful or stunningly good looking and no one was looking for a date.

In closing I find her comments about "unpalitable truths" rather ludicrous. I mean honestly, one would have to have just beamed down from another planet not to know that Christianity has a moral code within its teachings (not unlike most religions). And for her to suggest that this was kept "secret" is just silly, in fact what the average non-christian will know about Christianity is that is does have an expected standard of morals and ethics within its teachings not the least of which is related to sex and relationships.

I recommend Alpha, not just for curious non-Christians but also for "seasoned" Christians as it is a simple, refreshing and challenging course, a Christian 101 if you like which can light a fire in the uninitiated and fan the flame of the faithful.

 

[Suffolk Sean]

The author of the article displays her deep cyinicism, immaturity and dislike for Christianity quite clearly. She obiviosly much more concerned with the attendees affluence and good looks and sounds very envious of her peer's successes both worldly and spiritually. This is a shame as by her comments, it seems that she could have benefited from Alpha if she had been able to approach it objectively and with an open mind.

My Bible Study group ran an Alpha course a few months ago and those who participated where far from affluent, successful or stunningly good looking and no one was looking for a date.

In closing I find her comments about "unpalitable truths" rather ludicrous. I mean honestly, one would have to have just beamed down from another planet not to know that Christianity has a moral code within its teachings (not unlike most religions). And for her to suggest that this was kept "secret" is just silly, in fact what the average non-christian will know about Christianity is that is does have an expected standard of morals and ethics within its teachings not the least of which is related to sex and relationships.

I recommend Alpha, not just for curious non-Christians but also for "seasoned" Christians as it is a simple, refreshing and challenging course, a Christian 101 if you like which can light a fire in the uninitiated and fan the flame of the faithful.

Mt 11:18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. 19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.


You can never make everyone happy. If it isn't a group of affluent, beautiful people, it would be a group of misfits. Someone just looking for something to criticize.

 

[BarbB]

The Episcopal church I attend sometimes in Mass (very charismatic, I might add!) uses Alpha to approach the unchurched and the people not churched since Sunday School. It appears to work VERY WELL.. I, too, agree that the writer of the article is anti-Christian and is very indicative of the WORLD today!