What’s Wrong with the Alpha Course?

Rev Gordon Ferguson

(Minister of South Grove Free Presbyterian Church, London)

The Alpha Course started, in a sense, in 1997 when a man called Charles Marnham, who was a member and a worker in Holy Trinity Church in Brompton, London, decided to have some basic Bible lessons for people in the church—a very commendable thing. It was later developed by Nicky Gumbel, who was a barrister, Oxford and Cambridge educated. He entered the ministry and became curate of Holy Trinity Brompton, and now he is the vicar of that church. That church, we may add, was very much associated with what is called ‘the Toronto Blessing.’ Many people in the Toronto Blessing were grunting like pigs and barking like dogs, which is a very strange way of saying that they are filled with the Spirit— something that you will not find anywhere in the Word of God.

What is the Alpha Course about? It is called a basic introduction to Christianity. It is described as a fifteen- session practical introduction to the Christian faith. It is aimed specifically at those who do not normally go to church. Therefore, the course will be accessed from the point of view of the man or woman who is ignorant of the faith, rather than from the point of view of those who are already Christians. So it is an introduction to the Christian faith and it is based upon the book, ‘Alpha, Questions of Life’, written by Nicky Gumbel. In the course, material is supplied for the leaders, and other material supplied for the participants in the course. This material is copyrighted, so all are meant to keep to it when using it for teaching in the local church. Fifteen lessons take place mid-week, and they start with a meal (a very nice start!) and then there is a forty-five minute talk.

Now you may say, ‘This is grand; this is exciting. We need courses to introduce us to the Bible and we need courses to introduce the unconverted to Jesus Christ.’ But we must examine Alpha to see if it is scripturally sound.

A One-sided View of God

The first problem I identify is this: Alpha presents a one-sided view of God. It is very much focussed on the love of God. The love of God is absolutely scriptural. 1 John 4 verses 8 and 16 contain the words: ‘God is love’, and there is no greater love than the love of God. If you want to know what true love is you find it in God. The God who is almighty is a God of love. However, love does not sum up God, if I can put it that way. There is so much more about God, whereas the whole thrust of the Alpha Course is the love of God: ‘God loves every one of you. God loves you so much He wants to be in a relationship with you.’ You know how it is if a young man falls in love with a young woman and she is not so keen on him. All he can do is dream about her and talk about her, and every day he thinks about her, and when he talks to his friends he describes her and tells how much he is in love with her. But she does not want to know him. You know what you think: ‘Why does he not understand she is not interested?’ In a sense, that is the way Alpha speaks of God’s love. ‘God loves you so much, and God wants to be in a relationship with you’, as if God were the weak party and we were the party that plays what is called, ‘hard-to-get.’ It is true that by nature we are not interested in God. But the aspect of God’s character that is predominant in the Alpha Course is: God is so keen to have a relationship with us. It is vital to know that God is love, but according to the Shorter Catechism, which gives a very good definition, ‘God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.’ God is a holy God, and that aspect is very much overlooked in Alpha. I am not saying that it is totally absent, but overlooked. It is interesting that the Bible has more to say about the holiness of God than of the love of God.

God is a God of justice and judgment. If you read through Alpha you will not see the word ‘hell.’ In a sense, there is no hell in Alpha’s teaching. I know that people do not want to hear about hell. It is a fearful thought that there is a hell, but if we get a one-sided view of God and we just see God in terms of love, we forget about His justice, we forget about His holiness, we forget about His punishment of sin. When the holiness of God is undervalued, there is a defective view of sin and a defective view of hell. It is closed out of one’s mind. If you do not have a right view of God all else will be off-centre. You must have your view of God right. That is so important. Remember the Shorter Catechism, which I quote again. In reply to the first question, ‘What is the chief end of man?’ the answer is, ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.’ We glorify God and enjoy Him when we come into a right relationship with Him. That is brought about by repentance of sins and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So the first problem we have with Alpha is that it has a defective, one-sided view of God, and that is disastrous.

A Confusing Gospel Message

The second problem that I want to identify is that the Alpha Course gives a confusing Gospel message. It fails to show the true nature of sin. Tim Chapman (this man who has taken the course) says, ‘sin is presented as being the mess we make of our own lives. The problem is explained as the rubbish that clutters up our lives and clutters up our world and the pollution of sin,’ and Chapman says, ‘For all its biblical use of words, Alpha fails to define sin biblically. It does so by concentrating on the consequences of sin rather than on what sin actually is. To define the root cause of sin as broken relationship does not identify why the relationship is broken or who has done the breaking. Man without God is the subject of God’s wrath. We are not slightly displeasing to Him with the occasional foible. Rather, by nature we are the objects of wrath, because we have offended against God and broken His holy law. So there is a failure to see sin.

We need to have a true view of sin. What is sin? According to the Shorter Catechism, it ‘is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.’ We break the law of God, we defy God. By defying God, by breaking His law, we are sinners. We were born with a sinful nature. It all began in the Garden of Eden when God told man that he was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and man put forth his hand in rebellion against God and he sinned. From that moment all mankind has been sinful. It is not just a broken relationship; God hates sin and He must, and will punish sin.

Let us look at Alpha’s, or you could say Nicky Gumbel’s, quotation of testimonies of people that profess to have been converted through Alpha. He is quoting them, so they must be authentic. The first of the five main testimonies is particularly revealing. It reads, ‘The one thing that stuck in my mind was how the work of the Holy Spirit was described as of paramount importance. I knew in my heart I had to have this power in my life at any cost, so I found out where the church was, enrolled on the course and focussed on the weekend. I felt like a dying man waiting for a life-saving operation. Never mind the weeks of pre-med, I just had to get into the operating theatre.’ That is interesting! What is this man talking about? The weeks of pre-med are the weeks of teaching about Jesus; teaching about sin, the necessity of the work of the cross. I have said that it is set out in a very shallow way—this person dismisses even that fairly light presentation as the pre-med. ‘I am waiting for the real thing.’ That is something that you need to remember about Alpha, it is very much experience orientated. There is a focus on experience, and that is dangerous. Those who focus on experience seem to think that speaking in tongues is the all-important thing, forgetting that lots of heretics speak in tongues. We are not convinced that these tongues they use are biblical, but they say, ‘You are speaking in tongues; you are filled with the Spirit of God, so you must be a Christian.’

Here is a man, what is he looking for? Teaching? No. He says, ‘Never mind the pre- med, I want to get into the operating theatre. I do not want to go through all this business of getting little injections in my arm, getting dressed up in the gown, everything like that and the nurse taking my temperature and telling me how ill I am and the doctor coming round and explaining the operation. No, I want to leave that out, I want to get into the operating theatre, and the operating theatre is when the power of the Holy Ghost comes down and I am filled with the Spirit and I speak in tongues and I have this warm, glowing feeling,’

Remember what happened when Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost. There was not much of a warm feeling initially there; indeed there was deep sorrow. People were really troubled. Three thousand were converted but thousands, perhaps many more than three thousand cried out, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ Peter had shown them who Jesus was; he had shown them that by wicked hands He had been crucified and slain, and he says, ‘Ye have taken.’ This same Jesus, you took Him and by wicked hands you have crucified and slain Him. He came to a great climax in that message and said, ‘Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.’ In the original it ends in a very powerful way, because it speaks about ‘God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ,’ and the last two words in the Greek are, ‘whom ye crucified.’ After showing that He is the Lord of glory, He is risen from the dead, he really, in a sense, stabs them right through the heart with the message. He says, ‘You crucified Him.’ The Bible says, ‘When they heard this, they were pricked in their heart.’ It was just as if a sword had gone through them. They were pricked to the heart and they cried out, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ They were under deep trouble of soul.

Paul spoke about the exceeding sinfulness of sin in Romans 7:13, and if we are to be converted we need to see sin in its true colours. We need to see that God hates it, and will judge it; not warm, glowing feelings though those warm feelings will come after thorough repentance. Here is a man, he does not want the pre-med, he does not want to go through this. ‘Just let me have the feelings. Just let me have that warm glowing feeling. Let me feel I am loved, and all is well. Before you have those feelings you need to know you are lost; you need to feel you are a sinner, you need to feel you are guilty.

What Should We Do?

So, what should we do? Well, the one thing we do not want to do is to have the attitude, ‘Let me take the mote out of your eye while there is a beam in our eye.’ We should not be hypocritical about this, and by that I mean, we ourselves should seek to be right with God. We do not want to criticise Alpha from the point of view of just being hypocritical. The first step is to be right with God ourselves, make sure that we turn from our sins and confess them, and seek the true infilling of the Holy Ghost that we might be filled, for God says, ‘Be filled with the Spirit.’ We need to be filled with the Spirit of God, and we need to engage in sincere and earnest Bible study each day. We need to pray for souls to be saved. There is no point in criticising people who are sincerely making an effort if we are not making any effort to reach out with the Gospel. We need to live holy lives, and only then can we truly experience God’s power and blessing.

(The above is an abridgement of Rev G Ferguson’s sermon. Hear the whole sermon at http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo. asp?SID=2141084570