Why Say No To The Alpha Course

One of the most popular evangelistic tools employed by Christian leaders across the globe is the Alpha Course, a product of a highly Charismatic Anglican church. Alpha Course claims to be an evangelistic Bible study series aimed at teaching the essentials of the Christian faith. Though its intention is good, there are major theological and doctrinal flaws in its teachings. It is hoped that all thoughtful Christians, even those who are Charismatics, who love the gospel would find the below reasons compelling enough to say no to Alpha Course.

Firstly, whatever little gospel it preaches, it preaches a very faulty one. This should make even those churches which are Charismatic to stop using Alpha. The gospel which Alpha preaches is one that says “God loves each one of us so much and longs to be in relationship with us as a human father longs to be in relationship with each of his children.” Coupled with it, guests are told, man leads a meaningless and irrelevant life simply because he has no relationship with God. Now there are elements of truth in these, however what is astounding is not what Alpha is saying here, but what Alpha is not saying here. Through out the course material, there is no mention of God’s wrath hanging over unrepentant mankind. There is no mention of how we as sinners have incurred His wrath and how we need to seek peace with Him. Thus the problem to which the gospel is the answer in Alpha’s understanding is not God’s wrath against sinners. It is rather, poor human beings leading a meaningless life, when they can have fullness, significance and relevance if they have a relationship with God. This is a very faulty understanding of the character of God, the gospel and even man. God is not just love, He is also Holy. The gospel is not just satisfying to our hunger for meaning in life, but one which propitiates the wrath of God against us. Man is not just empty, but is in his very nature sinful and thus the object of God’s wrath. These fundamental truths of Christianity are never once taught by Alpha. Thus the gospel it preaches is a very faulty one. Alpha does not seems to be convinced that it is in light of God’s matchless holiness and furious wrath, that His free grace towards sinners in Christ is most loving, most satisfying and most meaningful. Indeed when God’s holiness is removed from our proclamation, we remove His love too.

Secondly, since God’s holy wrath is never taught as mankind’s biggest problem, Alpha teaches a Cross which lacks the full glory it deserves. The lack of teaching on penal substitution results in Alpha getting in a muddle at this stage. For it wants to teach that Christ died as substitute, and indeed does teach this, and yet because it is not taught that Jesus died as penal substitute, bearing upon himself the wrath of God, we are left without any understanding of why Jesus had to die at all. Thus the cross of Christ ends up being little more than a visual aid that proves that God is self-sacrificial and loving. As Hand says, 'Christ's work on the cross is demoted to being a rescue act to save us from our problems rather than fulfilling the righteous demands of the holy law and appeasing the wrath of God'. The death of Jesus is presented as an act of love but without any connection with the reality of God's holy anger. We are left thinking that Christ sacrificed Himself to rescue us from the consequences of sin because that was required by some impersonal and rather arbitrary justice system. [1]

Thirdly, for those who have no idea, from where Alpha is coming, its history need to be told. Alpha Course began in UK, when a member of Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), Charles Marnham, set up an informal home group to present answers to basic gospel questions. Nicky Gumbel, HTB curate, transformed the course into what we see today. Holy Trinity Brompton is an exteremely Charismatic Anglican church, well known for importing the weird manifestations of the Toronto Blessings to the UK. For those who blindly give a green signal to the Alpha Course, not knowing from which camp it is coming, you need to watch the below clip, taken at the Toronto Blessing.

In the Alpha Course, substantial amount of time is spend on HTB's experiences of the Toronto Blessing and associated ministries, novel exegeses of various Biblical passages common amongst pro-Toronto preachers, calls for unity despite truth and an over-emphasis on the Holy Spirit, all of which are less than helpful, to say the least, to potential Christians. [2]  Eleanor Mumford of the South-West London Vineyard church brought the Toronto Blessing from the Toronto Airport Vineyard church in Canada to HTB through Nicky Gumbel in May 1994. In video 3 and talk 9, Gumbel says, "Ellie Mumford told us a little bit of what she had seen in Toronto... .it was obvious that Ellie was just dying to pray for all of us.. then she said 'Now we'll invite the Holy Spirit to come.' and the moment she said that one of the people there was thrown, literally, across the room and was lying on the floor, just howling and laughing....making the most incredible noise....I experienced the power of the Spirit in a way I hadn't experienced for years, like massive electricity going through my body... One of the guys was  prophesying. He was just lying there prophesying. . ." [3]  Alpha participants are told all of this as the normative in Christianity, with no caution or warning to test the spirits and be discerning. Alpha, though claiming to be evangelistic spends less time on the gospel and more on such freaky manifestations of the Third Wave. The overtly Charismatic agenda of Alpha can be seen by comparing the amount of pages it has dedicated for each doctrine. It has one small paragraph on “Baptism”, two pages on "Holy Communion," eight pages on "speaking in tongues" and sixteen pages on "healing," [4]

Fourthly, after the initial two evangelistic session, Alpha considers most of its guests as Christians and changes the tone to that of discipleship. They are told to seek the Holy Spirit, speak in tongues, seek assurance etc without any careful examination of whether or not they are regenerate. The supposedly successful evangelistic tool produces testimonies like the ones below.  The lack of focus on Jesus is seen very clearly in the testimonies people give, testimonies. which Alpha quotes with approval in its literature. The first of five main Alpha testimonies in Telling Others 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 focused on the weekend. I felt like a dying man waiting for a life-saving operation. Never mind the weeks o f pre-med, I just had to get into the operating theatre ... I looked at the order of play, saw that the third session (which I had identified as the main one) was at 4.3O pm and simply hung on like a marathon runner weaving his way up the final straight with nothing but the finishing tape as the focus of his attention. I'll never forget that session. I felt as though I was being torn in two. Halfway through I just couldn't 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 know! I couldn't hold out any longer. I'm not exaggerating when I say I was in agony. Then God came and then came the relief'. Having no idea who this person is, we have to say that this is deeply troubling. They regard the talks on 'Who is Jesus?' and 'Why did Jesus die?' as 'pre-med'. The focus of their 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 such a testimony is repeated again and again. This is hardly surprising given that guests are taught, 'Physical heat sometimes accompanies the filling of the Spirit and people experience it in their hands or some other part of their bodies. One person described a feeling of 'glowing all over'. Another said she experienced 'liquid heat'. Still another described 'burning in my arms when I was not hot'. Still another said, 'I didn't 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 overwhelming feeling of love'.  [5]

Thus Alpha teaches a God who has no wrath, a Jesus who simply dies to communicate how loved we are and a Spirit who gives a feeling of being loved. Whereas the Bible teaches God who is not just love, but Holy and Just, Whose righteous wrath against us was borne by the Son, Jesus to redeem us and the Spirit who comes to glorify the Son. How different a gospel and Christianity the Alpha breeds. The doctrine of freewill has lead many a ministers to seek man-made methods and manipulations in evangelism rather than simply trusting the efficacious working of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the undiluted Word. Alpha is just another man-made alternative to the true Spirit-breathed evangelistic proclamation.

Listen to pastor Chris Hand of Crich Baptist Church, UK, for a more in-depth analysis of the Alpha Course. His address is very gracious, straight forward and illuminating.

The Alpha Course - A Critique (1)  Listen | Download

The Alpha Course - A Critique (2)  Listen | Download

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  BEC, The 'Alpha' and the 'Christianity Explored' Course, "Foundations", Issue no. 47 Autumn 2001 pp.36-44

[2] Tricia Tillin, Looking at - THE ALPHA COURSE,  Banner Ministries

[3] Ibid

[4] Questions of Life, pp. 155-163; pp. 199-215.

[5] BEC, The 'Alpha' and the 'Christianity Explored' Course, "Foundations", Issue no. 47 Autumn 2001 pp.36-44 

Why Hermeneutics Matter For Pastors

During a new church plant function, a local Charismatic pastor from Kerala, India, told his church members that if they believed, God would cause miracles to be wrought through their handkerchiefs and aprons, just like God did using that of Paul, as written in Acts 19:12. While this was being taught by this pastor, in a nearby church, another local Word of Faith pastor, took the people to Genesis 1 and taught them how they can also create blessings by speaking out the word like God did, when He created all things by speaking out the Word.

Where have these two pastors gone wrong?

The answer to that question in technical terms would be - in their hermeneutics. In other words, it is in their interpretation of scripture that they went wrong.  Their science of interpretation also known as hermeneutics, does not see any difference between descriptive passages and prescriptive passages in the Bible. Both of them took passages in the Bible which are descriptive in nature and preached them as prescriptive. Thus what God does in creation is no longer descriptive, but prescriptive – something which we are also to do. Thus even though no believer in New Testament days imitated the apostles and sent their handkerchiefs to heal anyone, the passage in Acts 19 becomes a prescribed pattern for today’s believers.

Hermeneutics matters as God’s truth matters. The above mentioned error is a common error made by pastors, especially those who have no background in serious theological education – whether formal or not. This error has caused untold damages to Christianity. The constant hunger of Christian leaders to preach mere-moralistic prescriptions has lead to the development of many faulty understanding of and teachings from the Scriptures, especially in the area of sanctification.

In grammatical terms, these two natures – descriptive and prescriptive are explained in terms of verb moods, as indicative and imperative. All pastors should know the difference between the two while interpreting scriptures.

The mood of a verb designates the relationship of the verb's action relative to reality. The following is a simple list of moods of verbs in the New Testament and what they generally signify:

• indicative - mood of certainty, actuality

• subjunctive - mood of probability

• optative - mood of possibility

• imperative - mood of command

As the list indicates, the New Testament uses indicative statements when discussing what God has done, is doing or will do. Imperative statements are used when saying what we should do. It is important to realize, not only that both moods are present in the Bible, but that there is a specific relationship between these two moods in the area of sanctification. Namely, what God commands us to do (the imperative) is based upon what he has done, is doing or will do (the indicatives). God is signifying by this consistent pattern that sanctification depends on God, but involves human volition and cooperation. [1]

Examples :

In the following examples, the imperative mood is underlined, while the indicative is in italics.

Ephesians 4:32 : Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Philippians 2:12b-13 : work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

I Corinthians 5:7 : Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

Romans 6:12-14 : Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Sinclair Ferguson exhorts pastors to preach the gospel imperatives as rooted in the glorious indicatives of the gospel. He says,

The great gospel imperatives to holiness are ever rooted in indicatives of grace that are able to sustain the weight of those imperatives. The Apostles do not make the mistake that’s often made in Christian ministry. [For the Apostles] the indicatives are more powerful than the imperatives in gospel preaching. So often in our preaching our indicatives are not strong enough, great enough, holy enough, or gracious enough to sustain the power of the imperatives. And so our teaching on holiness becomes a whip or a rod to beat our people’s backs because we’ve looked at the New Testament and that’s all we ourselves have seen. We’ve seen our own failure and we’ve seen the imperatives to holiness and we’ve lost sight of the great indicatives of the gospel that sustain those imperatives. Woven into the warp and woof of the New Testament’s exposition of what it means for us to be holy is the great groundwork that the self-existent, thrice holy, triune God has — in Himself, by Himself and for Himself — committed Himself and all three Persons of His being to bringing about the holiness of His own people. This is the Father’s purpose, the Son’s purchase and the Spirit’s ministry. [2]

This explains why most of the New Testament Epistles begin with explaining the doctrine and then moves onto practical applications of truth. Apostles first made the hearts of their hearers believe the doctrinal truth and then instructed their minds to apply it practically. In other words, indicatives first and as the foundation of the then coming imperatives.

Pastors do you follow this Apostolic pattern and gospel logic while you preach?

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  Gary DeLashmutt and Dennis McCallum, The Indicative and Imperative Moods

[2] Sinclair Ferguson, Our Holiness: The Father’s Purpose and the Son’s Purchase, 2007 Banner of Truth Conference.

Why Theology Matters For A Church

It is perhaps considered normal these days for churches to have a non-theological or even anti-theological stance. However this does have very many consequences, all of which are dangerous for the health of the church. Sure crowds can still be won and pews can still be warmed, however if 'church' is defined by the Scriptures, then to have that church, one needs to have sound theology. 

Here is an excellent excerpt from “The Quiet Revolution - A Chronicle Of Beginnings of Reformation in The Southern Baptist Convention” by Ernest C. Reisinger & D. Matthew Allen, where this point is driven home powerfully. Read the waterfall model of what the authors are proposing as the effects of having bad or weak theology.Though written in the context of Southern Baptist churches, the case is very much applicable for the wider Evangelical scene.

First, many of our churches have a weak theology. Consider, for example, the doctrine of salvation. In many Southern Baptist churches, regeneration (or being born again) has simply lost its meaning. No longer does it refer to a divine act of the Holy Spirit in giving a sinner a new heart and a new life, and bringing that person from spiritual death to spiritual life. Instead, being born again is simply a synonym for what happens when a person "makes a decision to accept Jesus Christ into his heart as personal Savior." Or worse, it means to "come forward" or "walk down an aisle."

This was driven home to one of us (Allen) forcefully recently when a friend casually mentioned that his brother-in-law wanted to get saved, but he had to wait until Sunday when he could go to the local Baptist church and "walk forward" to the front to receive Christ. It apparently did not occur to him that he could believe and repent and be converted in his own home. Still further, the common twentieth century Baptist view of eternal security is fundamentally flawed. We dip ‘em and drop ‘em, and take comfort in the fact that they are saved even though they never darken the door of a church again. After all, "once saved, always saved." In this way, we ignore – to the eternal loss of many – that the flip side of God’s preservation of the saints is the biblical teaching of the saint’s perseverance in Christ. We have forgotten the historic Baptist belief that those who do not persevere are not carnal Christians; they are not Christians at all!

Predictably, this weak theology leads to weak evangelism. Much of what is called evangelism in our Baptist churches is shallow, manipulative and decision-focused. The principal tools of the trade are altar calls (in which the pump is primed by well-placed counselors who set the example in walking to the front of the church) and the "sinner’s prayer," in which the person "invites Christ into his life." Then, we give immediate assurance to the person who prays the "sinner’s prayer" that he or she is eternally secure in salvation. Never mind the life and practice tests of 1 John. (Cf. 1 John 5:13; "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.").

Of course, the inherent result of a weak soteriology and weak evangelism is a weak membership. We base membership on a "profession of faith," rather than evidence of a changed life. Our churches baptize preschoolers and accept professions of faith from couples living in open sin. By inviting so-called carnal Christians into our fellowships, we populate our rolls with unregenerate church members.

The result of a weak membership is a demand for weak worship. Our congregations have not learned to go beyond the pabulum of shallow praise choruses so prevalent in our worship services today. The self-centered nature of these choruses is manifest. The one doing the praising is more central than the one praised in such choruses as "I Bless You," "I Just Want to Praise You," "I Only Want to Love You" and so on. This is not God-exalting worship! It is man exalting! Woe to those who are more impressed with our "love for God" than God’s love for us!

One newspaper advertisement for a church in Tampa, Florida boasts of its "casual worship." What an oxymoron this is! How can worship – acknowledging the "worth-ship" of Jesus Christ, the Holy One, God of very God, light of very light – be casual? This type of worship approach is defended as an attempt to be all things to all people. What it really represents is an attempt to co-opt the world’s values. For churches that have lost their biblical moorings, adapting worship practices to the world is not an irrational response to a worldly church membership. The problem, of course, is that it is an acutely unbiblical response.

Given these appalling facts, is it any wonder that the greatest segment of converts to the Mormon church comes from Southern Baptist congregations? And, is it any wonder that most of our Southern Baptist churches have a stagnant or declining membership? The Wall Street Journal reported in 1990 that, of the 14.9 million members of Southern Baptist churches (according to an official count), over 4.4 million are "non-resident members." This means they are members with whom the church has lost touch. Another 3 million hadn’t attended church or donated to a church in the past year. That left about 7.4 million "active" members. However, according to Sunday School consultant Glenn Smith, even this is misleading, because included in this "active" figure are those members who only attended once a year at Easter or Christmas. The only conclusion to be drawn is that our Southern Baptist Convention is a denomination of unregenerate church members!

This, then, is the diagnosis: contemporary evangelical churches as a whole, and a large number of Southern Baptist churches as a subset (dare I say the majority?), are devoid of biblical and theological thinking, have abandoned a high view of the sufficiency of Scripture, and have traded in biblical values for modern notions of modernity. In our judgment, evangelicalism is collapsing of its own weight. [1]

Thus weak theology leads to weak evangelism, which in turn leads to weak membership, which determines the worship of the church, which thus ultimately affects the glory of God in the church. Thus theology matters as the glory of God in the church matters. For those who are indifferent to the theological shallowness of the Evangelical pulpit and does not see it as a grave issue, remember  the glory of God is at stake. If the glory of God is not worth fighting for, then there remains nothing worth fighting for.

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  Ernest C. Reisinger & D. Matthew Allen, A Quiet Revolution A Chronicle Of Beginnings Of Reformation in The Southern Baptist Convention,  Ch. 2

Treasuring Christ Above All Things

Biblical Exegesis

R.C. Sproul interviews D.A. Carson on Biblical Exegesis.

Preaching Christ From the Old Testament

Fred Malone is the pastor of First Baptist Church, Clinton, Louisiana. He received the MDiv degree from Reformed Theological Seminary (1974) and the PhD degree in New Testament from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (1989). He is the author of A String of Pearls Unstrung and co-wrote with Ernest C. Reisinger the introduction to the republished version of Abstract of Systematic Theology by James P. Boyce. Dr. Malone is a Board Member of Founders Ministries, the Midwest Center for Theological Studies, the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, and serves on the Administrative Council of the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches in America.

Here is Dr. Malone on the importance of and how to preach Christ from the Old Testament.

Preaching Christ From the Old Testament (Audio)  Listen | Download

Interview with Dr. Russell Moore

Download : Video | Audio

Living Dangerously For the Glory of God

Albert Mohler Jr. serves as the President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Here is an excerpt from a recent convocation message, Mohler preached  at Southern Seminary, entitled "The Year of Living Dangerously".