The Alpha Course

You may have heard of a course called Alpha – it’s been making the rounds for quite a few years in churches nationwide, and also over in merry ole England. It claims to be a course for reaching out to the unsaved. Alpha originated in Holy Trinity Brompton Church in England and seems to be most popular here in the States in the Episcopal churches, although I have seen it advertised in the newspaper as being held at churches of other denominations.

Holy Trinity Brompton (also known as HTB) is a home of the false revival and other aberrations of that nature, so right away one has to be suspicious of any course coming from there. A little research definitely proves the suspicions valid.

Some books published in England are a thorough investigation of Alpha. The books are written by Elizabeth McDonald and Dusty Peterson, and comprise three paperbacks. The main title of all three is, Alpha – the unofficial guide. The main guide is in two volumes: World and Church. The final volume is Overview, which is a summation of the other two. The authors are well qualified to do this study since they have reviewed just about every video and audio tape and other publications put out by Alpha, and have attended some of the courses themselves. It is very thorough research.

I first read these books in 2003 when they were new. The first book I read was Overview, which was unfortunate because it really gave me the wrong impression of the main volumes. I think the authors’ brevity in that volume led to some ambiguity and confusion in regards to issues that were very well spelled out in the main volumes. My recommendation for anyone interested in studying the Alpha Course would be to read the main volumes first to get a better and fairer overall evaluation. For this commentary, I will highlight the volume Church.

There is one issue where I part company with the authors and that is their KJV-only stance. There are many complaints about Bibles other than KJV being used in this course, but I don’t really see that it matters what they use since Alpha is short on Bible use anyway. I do have to say that this series did give me a new perspective on comparing various translations; most of the authors’ arguments comparing passages were very good and only a few did I feel could be discounted. If the KJV-only stance turns you off, either forget about the books or just overlook those parts. I think the material on Alpha is well worth the study.

A primary problem with Alpha is its ecumenicism; it is very supportive and encouraging of Roman Catholicism. Because of the very strong connection with R.C. and Alpha, the authors spend a lot of time with the history and doctrine of R.C. so the reader will have no doubt as to the problems with encouraging unity with such an apostate religion. For those unfamiliar with R.RC. heresies and aberrations, this book is a very good primer.

Alpha is very weak on the gospel message and, as noted above, does not rely much on Scripture. There is a lot of “easy-believism” in the teaching about “accepting Christ” to the point where, according to the many cited testimonies, people really have no understanding of what it means to be Christian. “Holy Spirit Weekend” appears to be nothing more than an introduction to the false revival (the same “revival” of Toronto, Pensacola, etc). There is a lot of emphasis on how we “feel” about our beliefs, and how our “self-esteem” is doing. Absolutely no discernment is taught, and “students” are encouraged to go to “any church” without regard to doctrinal teachings.

There are a lot of quotations from the various Alpha sources, and most of them are troublesome because of either ambiguity in the teaching or just plain bad doctrine. There are some areas where you may see some “nit-picking” as I did, but when you understand that some of what may seem as “nit-picking” is actually showing the general tenor of the course (this was explained to me by the authors in personal communications), you will realize it was necessary to be picky in these areas.

Since Alpha is still making the rounds, if anyone is attending a church which intends to use, or is using, the Alpha Course, I strongly urge you to acquire these volumes so as to be armed for discussions with your leadership as to why they should not use Alpha. If you have friends involved in Alpha, I would suggest you learn about this course so as to be able to present them with the true gospel message and defend against errors in the course.

Information about purchasing this series by Elizabeth and Dusty can be found at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~emcd/index.htm

Holy Trinity Brompton is a bad tree and Alpha is its bad fruit. Be Bereans.