Alpha backlash

Ruth Gledhill reports on an article about Alpha written by a 16 year old schoolgirl. The full article is here:

I know I am not alone when I say the posters, business cards and general publicity boom of the Alpha course around school is alarming. Posters stating “Is this it? (tick the appropriate box)” give off an image suggesting open discussion, not full on evangelism, which is in reality, what the Alpha Course is really about.

I am not stating that the Alpha course in the school is a 10 week quick conversion recipe, yet my one experience certainly confirms that, though many regular attendees have told me it is not so, but this is definitely the case outside school: A quarter of a million agnostics have “found God” through the course in England, with 2 million people having attended in the UK and 13 million worldwide across 112 countries. Figures like these bring to my attention, not the happy, warm informal “discussion” group, but the very well organised evangelical goal of the course.

The Alpha course started in the 1970s as a small Christian discussion group but took off worldwide in the 90s under Nick Gumbel. By the time Nick Gumbel was done with it, it was run like a major corporation, using advertising, and a whole range of well-known psychological tactics. The course is run with military precision, and is finely targeted. There are courses for children, soldiers, prisoners, adults etc. so that every group is exposed to what works best for them.

The cost of advertising alone must run into millions. Besides the posters we see around school, there are banners on the sides of buses, big displays in the underground, and many billboards, some quite enormous ones like the one on the Hammersmith flyover in London! So one can only conclude that this is not about a simple “discussion” group. Firstly this is very much about aggressively promoting the Christian faith, and secondly about promoting an image and tone which the course does not fulfil, in fact does the complete opposite.

The running of the course, how liberal/extreme it is, is up to the people running it. However one thing the courses do have in common are the well-known psychological tools used: people are split off into small groups, easier to control and creating a sense of a close-knit family, and are expected to talk about quite personal aspects of their lives which has the effect of creating an increased sense of trust in the group. The discussion groups are often structured like a traditional family with a man and a woman as ‘leaders’. Free food is provided generating the association of comfort with religion. Music is frequently used, as sounds are a well- known stimulus for mood change. Each course contains enough devoted Christians dispersed amongst the agnostics that when half the room starts to do something, many of the rest will do the same, for example praying.

Then the best tactic comes around week 7 or 8 of the 10 week course : the weekend away, I assume the trip to Iona at Easter is this part of the course. Take a bunch of people away for a weekend where they will be trapped, a totally captive audience, with little to do other than what you organise for them. It sounds cynical, but the trip to Iona will be a “pilgrimage” as advertised, with increasing pressure on the agnostics to do as the Christians do, which is praising the Lord.

There is also a cult element in the course, as at some point, participants are urged to allow the holy spirit to fill them up by speaking in tongues (glossolalia) and one woman claimed to have “dropped to the ground making grunting animal noises”.

I feel an institution like the Alpha Course has no place in a school, especially its advertising. So next Friday, before you go to the course, just think about what the course represents. You are supporting an institution that has a “90% success rate of conversion”, largely due to sophisticated psychological techniques designed to manipulate you.

I’ve been involved in Alpha courses for some years, so I have found recent negative responses to Alpha such as the series in the Guardian and now this one from a schoolgirl instructive. Some observations about this article:

Posters stating “Is this it? (tick the appropriate box)” give off an image suggesting open discussion, not full on evangelism, which is in reality, what the Alpha Course is really about.
It is true that Alpha is about evangelism; it is also true that it encourages open discussion. Discussion takes place after the Nicky Gumbel talk and one thing that is drummed into the group leaders is that they must let discussion between the participants take its own course; this can be intensely frustrating for opinionated leaders, since their job is to keep quiet and encourage others to speak.

A quarter of a million agnostics have “found God” through the course in England, with 2 million people having attended in the UK and 13 million worldwide across 112 countries. Figures like these bring to my attention, not the happy, warm informal “discussion” group, but the very well organised evangelical goal of the course.
Alpha is well-organised and part of the organisation is “warm informal “discussion” group[s]”. The surprising part is, letting people find out for themselves whether the Gospel is true or not often leads them to the conclusion that it is.

By the time Nick Gumbel was done with it, it was run like a major corporation, using advertising, and a whole range of well-known psychological tactics.
There are some aspects of the national Alpha organisations that make it appear a little like a major corporation and this is something that I do not find endearing either. However, having as a callow youth been sucked into Amway presentations a few times, I am persuaded that, in comparison, psychological tactics are almost entirely absent from Alpha.

The course is run with military precision.
If the young lady lived near Toronto I would dispel this impression by inviting her to a course run at St. Hilda’s.

However one thing the courses do have in common are the well-known psychological tools used: people are split off into small groups, easier to control and creating a sense of a close-knit family
The small groups are formed to allow each person to have his or her say. As I mentioned above, the leader exerts very little control over the discussion.

Music is frequently used, as sounds are a well- known stimulus for mood change.
I often supply live music at our Alpha course; the mood does sometimes change – people may throw food, for example.

Then the best tactic comes around week 7 or 8 of the 10 week course : the weekend away….. where they will be trapped
We normally have our weekend away in the church hall; even if we did go away, people would not have to hand in their car keys and cell phones on arrival; the notion of an Anglican derived course trapping people is rather laughable.

There is also a cult element in the course, as at some point, participants are urged to allow the holy spirit to fill them up by speaking in tongues
The very same “cult element” that jump-started the early church.

Something one would not glean from this 16 year-old’s article is that the main appeal of Alpha is to reason, not emotion; that is one of the things that I find so satisfying about it. By the time I was a teenager I had realised there were a few nagging questions which really needed an answer: does existence have a purpose; why am I here; what happens when I die. Alpha seeks to provide answers – I may not have listened when I was a teenager, but I wish I had had the option of listening.

Alpha

I’ve just returned from the Alpha Greater Toronto Area Equip & Refresh Conference.

Although I have been a part of many of the Alpha courses that my parish has run over the years, this is the first time we have considered trying a home Alpha course; my wife tells me that I have to be pleasant, welcoming and hospitable, which proves that both she and God have a sense of humour.

I do like the Alpha approach because Nicky Gumbel appeals to reason to make his case for Christianity; I also like the new Alpha promotional video:

Anti-Alpha, the liberal course for the luke-warm

The Alpha course has reached every denomination in almost every country; it has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom have found Christ through it. It started in an Anglican church (Holy Trinity, Brompton) and it begins by asking the most basic questions: why are we here; what is life about; what happens when I die. This year we have, ‘Is there more to life than this?’

Not surprisingly, it is Evangelical.

Evangelical is not good enough for liberal churches such as the United church, so they have produced their own ersatz-Alpha Handbook – and hope to export it to gullible Anglicans. Forget about the trite percontations of life and death that plague naive Evangelicals; the important stuff is in the Handbook. For example, when bringing a salad in a Jell-O mold to a potluck, don’t forget to use less water than the recipe calls for; it doesn’t get deeper than that. Order your copy now before they are all snapped up by potential church-going Jell-O mold aficionados.

From the Toronto Star:

The Handbook, at times instructional, at times irreverent, attempts to break down that intimidation factor by giving short instructions on how to act in church, from the time you walk through the door and are handed a church bulletin to the time you leave and drop the bulletin in the recycling bin.

Douglas put together the book with partner Nanette McKay after getting permission to use a similar U.S. publication as a template. Douglas and McKay have been stationed in Fiji for the past two years, working with local social justice groups on behalf of the church.

Their book describes in great detail basic churchgoing procedures: how to receive communion, pass the collection plate and hold a hymnal and what to bring to a potluck. (Casseroles and salads are good, and if you bring a salad in a Jell-O mold, use less water than the recipe calls for, the book advises.)

There are also tips on identifying the type of a minister you have depending on the type of clothes he or she is wearing. (The alb and stole represent the minister role as a servant of God, while sandals and coffee stains may show little interest in material goods.)

Some tips are meant for those who have been going to church for a while, such as how to get off a committee. (Find a replacement.)

Douglas says many of the lessons might seem obvious or even silly, but he wanted to make sure nothing was left out. “If you don’t know this stuff, you think it all matters,” he says.

While written for the United Church, Douglas says the lessons can be applied in general terms to just about any denomination. Some, such as those on potlucks and committees, might apply to any group of people.

But there are, of course, aspects that are strictly Christian, such as prayer posture, the 60 essential Bible stories and three versions of the Lord’s Prayer – the sorts of things dealt with exclusively in Bruce’s Jesus 24/7 workbook….

Workbook author David Bruce, minister at Toronto’s Leaside United Church, sees Jesus 24/7 as an alternative to the more evangelical Alpha, but one that allows readers to take a more liberal approach to the gospels than is seen in the British creation. Its intention, however, is the same: to help bring people into the fold through better understanding of basic Bible stories.