The Alpha Course in the light of Scripture 3
By Gordon Ferguson
‘If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?’ (1 Corinthians 14:8). This text speaks about the need for clarity in the preaching of the Word of God. If the trumpet gave an uncertain sound, people would not know whether it was a call to battle or not. Was it a call to soldiers to be alert because there was danger, and the soldiers needed to be prepared to fight? Or was it just some other sound that was being played? Was it entertainment? Was a feast being called for? Or was it a warning being sounded on the trumpet calling to preparation for battle? The importance of clarity is very strong in this verse. Paul is saying that we need to be clear, we need to see the necessity for warning people about their danger and showing them that they need to be right with God.
We need to be certain as to the presentation of the Gospel. We do not want a woolly gospel, a gospel that is all things to all men; we do not want a gospel that is acceptable to those who deny the deity of Jesus Christ or those who deny the full verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. We do not want that sort of gospel because those people will not accept the truth of the Word of God. So we want a gospel that is plain, that people understand without a shadow of a doubt; we have to remember men are travellers to eternity. We are all moving through this world and we need to be prepared for the day we die. One day, you and I will be summoned. The call will come and we will stand before a most holy, most pure God. Those not prepared for death will be lost eternally, so it is so important that we have a clear message, that we sound it out, for, ‘if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?’
That is why we need to examine the Alpha Course in the light of Scripture.
The Alpha Course started, in a sense, in 1997 when a man called Charles Marnham, who was a member and 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.’
Let me mention the Toronto Blessing. Many people in the Toronto Blessing were grunting like pigs and barking like dogs, which was a very strange way of trying to show that they were filled with the Holy Spirit – something that you will not find anywhere in the Word of God. Also, inside the Toronto Blessing there was much heresy, and much that was disorderly and utterly wrong. When someone was bringing a word of prophecy inside the Toronto Blessing all was quiet, but when the Bible was read, they played music; they were more intent on hearing some so-called ‘prophet’ than they were on hearing the Scriptures, the Word of the living God. There were so many other things that we could describe in connection with the Toronto Blessing that show us that it was not a move of the Holy Spirit; it was a false thing that was worked up, and great sensations were taking place, but people were not being dealt with by the Spirit of God. In fact, I remember reading of a man – and this was quoted with approval by the Toronto Blessing people – as he was preaching on hell, the congregation broke out in uncontrollable laughter. Is that not strange? Someone is preaching about hell, the most serious and awful of subjects, and the congregation starts to laugh and then that is described as holy laughter or laughter in the Spirit. Surely, it is laughter that is provoked by the devil. The things of God are serious and not to be treated lightly.
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 rather than from the point of view of those who are already Christians. It is an introduction to the Christian faith and is based upon the book, Alpha, Questions of Life, written by Rev 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; they start with a meal and then there is a forty-five minute talk. Pastor Chris Hand who has done an excellent critique of Alpha has very helpful information on the course and I have drawn on this as well as on other writers.
The first talk is ‘Christianity – boring, untrue and irrelevant?’ That certainly will grip most minds. Christianity, the message of the Word of God, boring, untrue, irrelevant – that is what the man in the street thinks, and so he would be arrested by the thought that here is the answer to the idea that Christianity is boring and irrelevant. Videos are available, so if you wanted an Alpha Course in your church not much preparation is needed because you simply watch the videos or use the course material and quote almost word-for-word from the book written by Nicky Gumbel. When the study is finished folk break into smaller discussion groups of about a dozen people. This is not meant to be threatening: people are able to contribute, to ask questions and find out more and the idea is that none are intimidated, frightened, or overwhelmed. And I have to say concerning the book, it is written in a very readable style. Nicky Gumbel is an able writer and a very good communicator.
In the chapter containing the second lesson, ‘Who is Jesus?’ there is much that is very valuable and helpful. Nicky Gumbel sets forth a high view of Jesus Christ. He holds Him to be the Son of God, to be without sin, to have died on the cross for sinners and he clearly speaks about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You will know that many will seek to explain away the resurrection. Gumbel deals with those pseudo explanations and gets right to the heart of the matter. There is no doubt in the chapter who Jesus Christ is, that He died on the cross, that He really and truly rose again, and that He performed mighty miracles. It would be difficult to find fault with this chapter on Jesus Christ; there is belief in His life, belief in His death, and belief in His resurrection. There is a very different spirit in the writing of Nicky Gumbel from the writing of someone like Steve Chalke.
It is strange that Gumbel recommends Chalke, because they have totally different spirits; Steve Chalke is nowhere near evangelical: he speaks of penal substitution – that the penalty was laid on Christ and that He was the substitute for sinners and bore their punishment – as ‘cosmic child abuse.’ He suggests it would make God ‘a vengeful Father punishing His Son for an offence He has not even committed.’ That is totally antagonistic to the spirit of the Word of God, totally antagonistic to the spirit of the Gospel. But I have to say that Nicky Gumbel has a different spirit, and he seems to hold a very high view of Jesus Christ. 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.
In Acts 17 no less a person than the apostle Paul was in Berea, and he had a way of teaching that was most wonderful. At the start of the chapter, we are shown the method that Paul used. His manner was to go into the synagogue, and Acts tells us he ‘reasoned … out of the scriptures.’ He explained the scriptures: he set his proposition before the Jewish people as to who the Messiah was, ‘opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered.’ He went to the Old Testament, and when he spoke of Christ, they may not have perceived to whom he referred. They may have thought, ‘Christ? That is Messiah.’ The Hebrew word, Messiah is Christos in the Greek. So, those Jews in Thessalonica were hearing about the Messiah. They accepted and believed that Messiah would come. Paul took the Old Testament and from scripture after scripture he showed that the Messiah must needs suffer and rise again from the dead. He set the necessity of His death and resurrection before the Thessalonians. The Jews thought the Messiah would come as a king, as a great general, and that like David He would lead them in battle and emancipate them from Roman dominion – a hated dominion. They had not understood their own scriptures about the Messiah. So Paul, Sabbath after Sabbath explained the scriptures, showing that the Messiah must die, that the Messiah must rise again, and thus he introduced them to the work of the cross, the shedding of blood. He could show the types with the blood of animals, and then he clinched it all by saying, ‘This Jesus, Whom I preach unto you, is Christ. He meets all the criteria. He is the One Who was born in Bethlehem as the Scriptures foretold; He was virgin-born; His life was sinless; He fulfilled Psalm 22, Zechariah 13:7, Isaiah 53. All that we see concerning the Messiah is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.’
That is what Paul preached in Thessalonica, and when there was opposition, he went to Berea and preached the same message. What did the people in Berea do? Well, they were very cautious. They did not say, ‘O, this is a great man, this is very impressive. We will just take him at his word because he seems to know what he is talking about.’ No, the Bible says, ‘They received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.’ They wanted to find it out, ‘Is this the truth or not? They wanted to know for certain.’ That really is the key for us. What about the Alpha Course? Are there nice, friendly people running it? Are there evangelicals running it? We do not say, ‘That is all right. Let us support it one hundred percent. It is reaching out to the lost, we have heard of people being converted. It is a great tool in evangelism, so we will use it.’ No, we have a greater duty, and that is to find out what it is all about and whether there are any problems.
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. His heart is filled with love. In a sense, you and I know nothing about real love because we are sinful creatures; but God is love. If you want to know what true love is you find it in God. The God Who is almighty is a God of love. But 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. 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 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 that it is overlooked. It is interesting that the Bible has more to say about the holiness of God than about 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. John Blanchard wrote a book, Whatever happened to Hell? and he said that he did some research and discovered that very few people had any books about hell. He went to some ministers, and one minister said, ‘I have a book on hell but I do not know where it is.’ Hell is the absent subject from many pulpits. The devil does not want us to think about hell; he does not want preachers to preach about hell – but here is the paradox: Jesus Christ, Who is love, spoke about hell. Some have calculated that He spoke more about hell than He did about heaven. It was Jesus Christ Who spoke about the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus died, was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. ‘The rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments.’ That is a solemn subject, and it is a subject we cannot avoid. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that there is no hell; we cannot pretend that everybody is going to heaven. We cannot even take the idea that those who are never saved and do not have their sins forgiven will be annihilated. There are some people who teach annihilation – that the punishment for rejecting Christ is to be wiped out. We cannot hold to that because Christ said concerning Judas Iscariot, ‘Good were it for that man if he had never been born.’ If he had never been born he would not have existed, and non-existence would have been preferable for Judas. The Bible says, Judas ‘went to his own place.’ 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.
I obtained from the Internet something written by a Church of England curate (from the same denomination as Nicky Gumbel), Rev Tim Chapman, who serves at St Thomas’s Church in Little Sheldon, Cambridgeshire. He has something to say concerning this fact that Alpha is one-sided in the way it presents God. He says, ‘Alongside the absence of God being our Creator is a failure to teach God’s holiness. This is extraordinary given the fact that God is holy is taught far more in Scripture than God is love. Indeed the adjective used most frequently in Scripture to describe God is “holy.” The God of the Bible is a God of holiness, Whose love is all the more remarkable in that it is bestowed upon wicked sinners. Indeed, when we remove the holiness of God we undermine the love of God. The Scriptures warn us that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Would those on the Alpha Course know this from the material they are presented with? I fear they would not. I have friends who respond by suggesting that while the course is weak on this, it is made up for in the follow-up courses to Alpha. It is my concern that while that may be the case (I have not been involved in any follow-up courses to comment), Alpha is intended to be a presentation of the Gospel that will bring people to faith. It can therefore be assumed that the Alpha material posits that people are best brought to faith without God’s holiness and sovereign rule over the world being taught.’ Now that was written by a man who used the Alpha Course and was not happy with it; and it was his vicar who asked him to write the appraisal from which I have just quoted. So the problem was identified by Tim Chapman. It is also identified by Chris Hand, in his detailed study on the Alpha Course.
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 for sin 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 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 who taught 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 ‘pollution of the soul.’ 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 (Ephesians 2:3), because we have offended against God and broken His holy law. The root cause of sin is our rejection of our relationship with Him as our Creator and rightful ruler. It is that rejection of Him for which we are culpable and which deserves His rightful justice, rather than its result. Alpha allows me too easily to distance myself from the culpability of rejecting God as holy King over His creation.’ So there is a failure to see sin as it really is.
When a person is brought into the Alpha course, the suggestion is, ‘You are very wretched. You are a miserable creature in a miserable world, and there is no point to your life.’ It is all very much man-ward. In fact, one of the men who was very close to Nicky Gumbel was a man called John Wimber. Wimber, when he spoke of his conversion, again depicted God in terms of weakness, with a great concentration on the present, rather than on eternity.
We need to have a true view of sin. What is sin? It is ‘any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God’ (Shorter Catechism). 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 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.
Recently, I preached on Romans 3:25-26, and we looked at God’s remission or passing over of sins that were committed in Old Testament times. The Greek word means ‘deliberately overlooking.’ It is borrowed from the will that was made in days gone by. Somebody who made a will might leave out one of the family. When the will was read after the person was dead, the family-member left out might wonder why he was not a beneficiary. He had been passed over. Maybe he had offended. In the Old Testament age, God held back His judgment; He passed over the sins of certain people – and there are many examples. Noah was a sinner; no price was paid for Noah’s sins and yet Noah went to heaven while millions perished in the flood and went to hell. No price was paid for Abraham’s sins, yet Abraham went to heaven and the people of Ur of the Chaldees, who were idolaters like Abraham had been, were sent to hell. There are others whose sins were passed over and they went to heaven. God deliberately passed over their sins.
How can God be just if He passes over the sins of some people and punishes others? It is because of the cross. God knew that Jesus Christ would pay the price for those trusting in Him to deal with their sins. With Christ, a promise was as good as a performance. He would not fail. In the mind of God He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. God could not send to hell those people who were trusting in the coming Saviour because He knew that Christ would pay the price in full for their sins. God at Calvary demonstrated His righteousness in overlooking the sins that were committed in the Old Testament age by His people. He overlooked deliberately because He knew that Jesus Christ would pay in full for those sins. But the principle involved is: God is a just God, Who must and will punish sin. If you have a light view of sin then you will not see the absolute need for Jesus Christ, you will not see the absolute power of such a Scripture as, ‘Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.’ You will not see the force of John 14:6, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’
I am not alone in saying this. It is written by someone who taught the course; and it is the view of others who have analysed the course. Sin is seen in terms of the misery it brings to us. The testimonies of some who have done the Alpha Course have been that they have done wrong, are wretched, and their relationship with God was broken. But they do not see the great offence that sin is to God and the fact that a holy God must punish sin and that therefore there is a hell. The result is that Alpha testimonies are not clear. Chris Hand has a very good section on this. He says: ‘The lack of focus on Jesus is seen very clearly in the testimonies people give, testimonies which Alpha puts, with approval, in its literature.’ Let us look at Alpha’s, or you could say Nicky Gumbal’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. He was 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 do not believe that the 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 doesn’t want the pre-med, he wants to get into the operating theatre, he doesn’t want to go through all this business of getting little injections in his arm, getting dressed up in the gown, everything like that and the nurse taking his temperature and telling him how ill he is and the doctor coming round and explaining the operation. No, he wants to leave that out and get into the operating theatre where the power of the Holy Ghost comes down. Now this is quoted with approval in Telling Others. This is what Alpha sees as the man’s testimony, he is giving it. Then he goes on to say, ‘I looked at the order of play (as if it was a Test Match!) and saw that the third session, which I identified as the main one, was at 4.30 pm, and simply hung on like a marathon runner beating his way up the final straight but with nothing but the finishing tape as the focus of his attention. I will never forget that session, I felt as though I was being torn in two. Halfway through I could not stand it any more, the prize was so near but we were getting there so slowly. I literally wanted to scream out, “Do it now, do it now.” I could not hold out any longer, I am not exaggerating when I say I was in agony. Then God came, and then came the relief.’
Tim Chapman adds, ‘This is deeply troubling. This person regards the talks on “Who is Jesus” and “Why did He die?” as pre-med. The focus of his attention is specifically identified as being not the Lord Jesus, not the cross, not even the Holy Spirit, but the third session, “How can I be filled with the Spirit?” ‘Sadly,’ he says, ‘such a testimony is repeated again and again.’ Physical heat sometimes accompanies the coming of the Spirit and people experience it in their hands or some other part of their body. The experience is described as ‘glowing all over. Liquid heat burning in my arms, but I was not hot.’ Still another said, ‘I did not want to come to the weekend and I did, but I would call myself a Christian now. I would say that I felt the Holy Spirit, I was feeling I was loved. It was really a tremendous over whelming feeling of love.’ ‘Again’, writes Chapman, ‘what is conspicuous by its absence in so many of these testimonies is any mention of Jesus and His atoning sacrifice on the cross, which is the heart of the Biblical Gospel.’ You see, it is about feeling, and they talk about this hot sensation, this liquid burning, being on fire – it seems almost literally. So there is a failure to see sin as it really is and to feel deep conviction. They want the feeling of glowing warmth, and to feel ‘I am loved,’ but have they really repented of their sins?
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, ‘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 says that ‘God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ,’ and the last words in the Greek are, ‘whom ye crucified.’ After showing that He is the Lord of glory and has risen from the dead, he really, in a sense, stabs them right through the heart with the statement, ‘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; we should not look for 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 see that you are guilty.
All Sides of the Religious Spectrum
Here is another great problem: Alpha quotes with approval from all sides of the religious spectrum – from evangelicals, liberals and Roman Catholics. Raniero Cantalamessa who is a preacher to the pope, said: ‘The love of God is the answer to all the “Whys” in the Bible.’ Gumbel quotes again and again from this man, but why does Cantalamessa not tell the pope that he is a sinner and that he is not the Holy Father, and that it is most blasphemous for him to take this title? When Jesus spake of the Holy Father, He was not talking about the pope, He was talking about the God of heaven. Yet Nicky Gumbel persists in quoting from this preacher to the pope. Gumbel himself was received by Pope John Paul II.
We may add that Roman Catholics approve of the Alpha Course. A Roman Catholic bishop, Ambrose Griffiths of Hexham in Newcastle, said concerning the Alpha Course, ‘It is not a complete exposition of Catholic doctrine. No introductory course could possibly do that, but it does not contain anything that is contrary to catholic doctrine.’ In the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church stated concerning justification by faith: ‘If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than trust in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is by that trust alone by which we are justified, let him be accursed.’ Thus they pronounced the curse of God on anyone who says that justification is by faith – trusting in Christ. Some say, things have changed since then, with the second Vatican Council, but that Council ratified all the statements of the Council of Trent. So the official teaching of Rome is that justification is not by faith and that those who say it is by faith alone, are accursed – anathema. And this bishop of Hexham says that the Alpha Course does not contain anything that is contrary to catholic doctrine!
Bishop Holloway, who approved of homosexuality and ordained homosexuals, was one who hosted an Alpha Supper and spoke at the supper about the love of God. We could go on and on. There is this identification with Rome, and with liberal theologians – those who deny the inspiration of the Bible, the virgin birth and the deity of Jesus Christ and His atoning death for sinners, and His bodily resurrection. Chris Hand states that in the Alpha material many of the source books to which people are referred for further information, are books written by liberal scholars.
So, if you want to use the Alpha course you would have to take out a whole lot. Some sections should be deleted because somebody might read something that denies the inspiration of the Bible, or that denies the deity of Jesus Christ, and that He rose again from the dead, and so on. That is why I said that the Alpha Course does not have a clear message of the Gospel. On the one hand it speaks about the cross, and about Jesus, which section I make no apology for praising, but that is mixed with articles by other people who have never repented of their sins, never called upon the Name of the Lord. So there is a confusing picture. How do I get right with God? Do I just go along to the Holy Spirit weekend, which is vital to the course? If I go and get this warm glowing feeling and speak in tongues, am I a Christian? Am I right with God? Is everything well with me?
Leads to Charismatic Experiences
The last thing I want to say about the Alpha Course is that it leads to charismatic experiences. There are four lessons on the Holy Spirit (lessons 8 to 11) and the highlight of the course is a weekend away when feelings are worked up. Then Nicky Gumbel or some other leader prays for the Spirit of God to come down. There is this tremendous wave of feeling and, according to Chris Hand, there is ‘an altered state of consciousness.’ It is very easy to whip up people’s emotions. You sing, and create a spirit of expectancy and then the people are ready for this tremendous emotional experience. Gumbel does say in his book that it is not necessary to speak in tongues if you are filled with the Spirit, but he certainly pushes it in the book. He writes of a girl in his church who was English, but who spoke fluent Russian. Another girl who spoke only English started to speak in tongues and the girl who spoke fluent Russian said to her, ‘Do you know what you just said? You said, ‘My dear child.’ According to Nicky Gumbel the tongues-speaker had spoken in Russian and this gave the other girl great assurance of God’s love. Is that not what the Bible is for? When we are truly the children of God we get assurance from the Bible. John said: ‘These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life.’ It is the words in the Bible, not someone speaking in Russian, that give God’s people assurance. Then Gumbel says: ‘We have not enough words in our language; we only speak five thousand words and somebody like Winston Churchill had fifty thousand words in his vocabulary, but we have not enough words and when we run out of words then we are in an agony, we do not know what to say; we become repetitive and so we speak in another language.’ And he talks about building up your language, building up your vocabulary. That is a wonderful thing but how can you build up your vocabulary if you do not know what you are saying? That is the strangest way of building up vocabulary. But he says you build up your vocabulary, and you are not to speak in your own language when you are trying it and you are not to speak in a language that you know. Some of us know a little French or German or whatever, but you avoid that. I say it is very dangerous when you do not know what you are saying. The apostle Paul, in writing to the Corinthians said that no man speaking by the Spirit calls Jesus accursed, and Dr Douglas, the principal of the Whitefield College of the Bible, pointed out in his little book on tongues that perhaps that is what may have happened in Corinth. He felt that there was a warning there. These people did not know what they were saying and it may be that in the tongues-speaking there were people who were actually cursing Jesus Christ and thinking they were having a great ecstatic experience filled with the Holy Ghost.
Then there are healings that go on. That is part of the charismatic experience. Nicky Gumbel refers to them in his book. When healings claimed by faith healers are analysed in the cold light of day by medical practitioners they almost invariably cannot be proved. There may of course be some psychosomatic healings. What I find very interesting, really challenging, is that they do not try to raise the dead. They claim to have the gifts that the apostles had, and assert that they have never been taken away. They think they can do what Jesus did. ‘Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go to my Father,’ they say, but they do not try to raise the dead. Nicky Gumbel may speak of healing people; he may speak of speaking in tongues, but he does not make any claim to raising the dead. They do not say, ‘Look, if there has been a death in the locality please do not have the funeral, please bring the body along to our church, Holy Trinity, Brompton, and we will raise the dead. I cannot think of any example of a dead person in the United Kingdom, being raised to life in the last fifty years and I cannot think of having read of any dead person being raised to life in England in the last five hundred years. They are not raising the dead. They lay claim that dead people are being raised in some countries that are thousands of miles away where they cannot really examine all the facts, but where there is close examination and where we have medical science able to examine, no claims are made for raising the dead. So if they have all the gifts, why are they not raising the dead?
Could We Use Alpha?
Bible study is important, and it is important to introduce people to Christ in a simple way, to make known the truth. Could we adapt Alpha? It may be that some well-meaning people do use it with the sincerest of intentions. They want to reach the unreached, they desire to win the lost. But Alpha is copyrighted material so if you adapt it you are actually breaking the law. I was on a hymn book committee and one man told us that all you have to do to remove copyright from a hymn is just change it a little and then you have done away with copyright. It sounded a little suspicious, but the man, who was advising us, was highly educated. We went to Oxford University Press, because we thought of having them print the book, and when we were there we mentioned this. They told us that not only was that illegal, but we would have to get the copyright holder’s permission to make any alteration. So, you cannot just decide to alter a few words and take away the copyright. It is the same with Alpha; it is copyrighted material so, strictly speaking, it would be illegal to use Alpha, and then adapt it and use it in a different way. I have mentioned the fact that there are unsound source books. Are you going to remove them from the reading lists? Another danger is that someone doing an amended Alpha Course might think that is the real Alpha Course, and so you would be confusing them.
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 own 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, 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. I often recommend Bishop Ryle’s commentaries. He breaks down the passages of the four Gospels into about ten or twelve verses, and by the time you get to John’s Gospel Bishop Ryle has extensive notes on the passage. How much you and I could learn from studying the Bible in that way. In fact Bishop Ryle wrote those notes as useful information for use in family worship, and we could do that – we could study the Bible in our families and read those passages and the expositions given. We also need to pray for souls to be saved. There is no point in criticizing 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, because if we do not no one will ever come to us and say, ‘What is the difference between you and me? What is the secret of your life?’ As we do these things, and as we stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are walking with God and who are outside the camp of compromise and apostasy then I believe we can experience God’s power and blessing. Remember what happened in Berea? They searched the Scriptures and checked things out and therefore they believed. We do not want uncertainty; we want the true sound of the Gospel.