To be worried my sister is doing the Alpha course?

[Southtrainer]

Just for a bit of context. My family is and always has been agnostic and left wing. My sister (early thirties) recently met a new partner who comes from a very religious evangelical Christian family. Their relationship surprised us all thinking there was be such a gulf that they wouldn’t stay together long but recently my brother told me my sister is doing the Alpha course and he was concerned she might have some pressure on her to convert to their religion. I’d this right? I’ve never had any experience of this course or religion. I’m worried. Thanks for any info or experiences x

That's interesting, Enid. It chimes in with my sister's experience (mentioned upthread) of a group being encouraged to believe God had done all sorts of utterly trivial things in response to their prayers purely because they had prayed. She was amazed that so many supposedly intelligent people bought into it, but it was probably the power of groupthink.

Faith is not supposed to be rational, unless I've missed something?

We attend a CofE church, which is very small but welcoming to single parents (the largest group of those "not welcome" that are mentioned above). No faith healing though some light laying on of hands. Nobody has leapt up in a service and claimed to have grown a leg back.

I'm not sure we'd do Alpha (personally, I find the descriptions of the course very light weight - not enough theology). But we try to welcome people of all ages and backgrounds, and try to reach out. We have study groups (same idea, just home grown and probably more theology based).

There is a large very High Church CofE locally which would be more your thing if you were gay or lesbian (especially if you were younger/single/didn't have children) as it has more young/single/childless people and the previous vicar was in a CP with his partner. I don't know quite how he squared that with the church not wanting to marry him and his partner, but that's his issue I feel.

And I'm a scientist - this doesn't seem a conflict to me - it's just two different ways of describing the same phenomenon. I can say that I love my children, or I can describe the physiological and neurological processes that go on when I hug them or look at them with a positive feeling in my head.

I agree completely, my Alpha experience was coercive and damaging. Be very careful

Agree with Enid Spyton, I meant.

It is also a huge money making organisation
“Lord, I’m praying to you to help everyone to be generous today, Lord, and donate to cover the costs of all the people who were unable to pay for the cost of their Holy Spirit weekend…”

@Againstmachine

I'm a atheist.

The alpha course is fairly innocuous. However I don't think any religion ought to be able to offer courses to try and get people in, the same way as I believe religious schools have no place in society.

I disagree with you. I think it is important for people to have an understanding of different religions and why they believe what they believe. To be honest I think Philosophy should be taught in schools. We should encourage children to ask the big questions in life and then teach them how other people have answered these questions including what religions say.

Some religions are culturally based such as Hinduism and they are not necessarily driven to convert people. But other religions are driven by trying to convert non-believers including Christianity and Islam. So long as everyone has the freedom to teach their faith openly and the free will to reject religion peacefully this will be a richer world for it.

@EnidSpyton totally agree. They get away with seeming harmless because of the charity work. I went to soul survivor as a young person. It’s was a creepy purity cult that negatively impacted a lot of my life choices.

When I tried to ask question in my small group at the Alpha course I was told
“This isn’t theological college”.
When I did the recommend readings every week and came prepared to talk about each new topic the leaders of my group suggested that people who are very interested in religion but “do not give their lives to God” could have the devil working in them.
This is a fundamentalist, evangelical, money making branch of the Church of England.
No sex before marriage, no homosexuality. So many people started getting married after the emotionally charged worship in the course that they had to start a marriage preparation course to help them get to know each other properly before marrying so they could have sex without sin. Sin and guilt a massive part of the course. Of course, only God can heal you and take that sin away.
It brings in new people to the church and has the cover of the outreach work with prisons, homeless, alcoholism and drug addiction.
Dangerous.

"Your experience is your experience, Tanith. It also proves nothing.

Not sure what your point is here."

You claimed your experience proves you right, EnidSpyton.
It proves nothing of the kind.

@Hairbrushhistory1 I'm so sorry for your experiences. As a fellow survivor of this purity cult who has also been damaged by it, you are not alone!

@Tanith, yes it does. My experience serves to prove that these people exist. If what I was saying about evangelical churches wasn't true, then I wouldn't have experienced it. Many other people on this thread have verified the truth of what I'm saying. Just because you don't like it, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Christians like you who want to deny this element of the religion are a huge part of the problem.

But then gradually you'll get frozen out.

Some things ar not for everyone's taste and lifestyle.

@CatsArePeople

But then gradually you'll get frozen out.

Some things ar not for everyone's taste and lifestyle.

Like having gay friends...

There are numerous posts which show that this is clearly not the case. Lots of people have repeatedly explained how they know gay Christians, churches which have no issue with homosexuality and gay ministers.

@EnidSpyton

I'm really sorry to hear of your experiences. It is clear that you have seen & experienced the very worst side of "corporate Christianity" over a number of years and I can't defend those organisations which seem focussed on mass enrolment, control & financial growth rather than on what they are supposed to be doing, which is freely sharing the unadulterated & simple gospel of Jesus Christ.

Whilst you are clearly & understandably bitter about your experiences, I hope that you might still, in time, be able to filter out the unattractive noise of these large organisations and allow a "still small voice" to convince you of the spiritual truths that you are no doubt already aware of.

Speaking to the broader audience here, it would be good if you could understand & even forgive Christians for wanting to interest you in the things of God. I know it's really annoying and very uncomfortable but, given the things we believe to be true, we do have real concerns for your eternal futures.

If it's all just a load of codswallop & mumbo jumbo then, yes, we have all been wasting our time for the last 2000 years - but if it is true, then one day you might not thank those Christian friends, colleagues & family members who failed to give you a heads-up on what is to come.

@ricepolo

There are numerous posts which show that this is clearly not the case. Lots of people have repeatedly explained how they know gay Christians, churches which have no issue with homosexuality and gay ministers.

BUT the Alpha course was created by a man who is homophobic and who has compared gay men to paedophiles.

The OP's sister's boyfriend is also homophobic.

So the fact that there are some churches who are accepting of gay people is irrelevant to the topic of THIS thread.

The type of church the OP's sister is attending to do the alpha course is the type of church that has produced her homophobic, creationist boyfriend.

The Christians on this thread sound like the women who bleat #NotAllMen whenever misogyny is discussed. Just because your church is welcoming doesn't mean the rest are. Your experience does not negate the experience of so many others. Your attempt to downplay the rampant homophobia in the church is shameful. You know it exists. Stop pretending it doesn't.

@CatsArePeople

But then gradually you'll get frozen out.

Some things ar not for everyone's taste and lifestyle.

OP's sister has stopped seeing her gay friends since meeting her boyfriend.

I attend a liberal evangelical CofE course. DH and I were brought up by hard left wing anti-inflammatory religious parents (mine lapsed Catholics/Christians his Marxists).

We both did the Alpha course, for me it was part of my journey to coming to Faith, for him it was out of curiosity (hi didn't finish the curse).

Whilst I do have reservations about HTB and their particular branch of charismatic evangelism (and interpretation of the Bible on issues such as homosexuality, divorce, abortion etc) off you choose the right Church it shouldn't be an issue.

Out of every Alpha course we run I would say that less than 5 'convert' and continue attending Church, so the odds aren't great.

Equally, please don't worry that by becoming a Christian you equally become a bigot, one does not have to follow the other.

@LefttoherownDevizes
"Equally, please don't worry that by becoming a Christian you equally become a bigot, one does not have to follow the other."
I do so agree with this!

Meh, I’ve done an Alpha course and firmly of the belief the Bible is entirely symbolic and Christianity as it’s been presented for the last few hundred years at least is a bastardisation of the true meaning for use as a control mechanism. I never felt anyone was trying to convert me.

Maybe meeting someone has enabled your sister to challenge her beliefs. Maybe being surrounded by left wing agnostics has not enabled your sister to fully explore this before.

Just let her get on with it. It’s not like she’s been recruited into some death cult.

Is the real problem you’re worried about your sister having fundamentally different views to yours?

Speaking to the broader audience here, it would be good if you could understand & even forgive Christians for wanting to interest you in the things of God. I know it's really annoying and very uncomfortable but, given the things we believe to be true, we do have real concerns for your eternal futures.

This is the kind of thing that really pisses people off about Christians. Just keep your nose out of other peoples’ eternal futures and worry about your own.

[quote paws17]@EnidSpyton

I'm really sorry to hear of your experiences. It is clear that you have seen & experienced the very worst side of "corporate Christianity" over a number of years and I can't defend those organisations which seem focussed on mass enrolment, control & financial growth rather than on what they are supposed to be doing, which is freely sharing the unadulterated & simple gospel of Jesus Christ.

Whilst you are clearly & understandably bitter about your experiences, I hope that you might still, in time, be able to filter out the unattractive noise of these large organisations and allow a "still small voice" to convince you of the spiritual truths that you are no doubt already aware of.

Speaking to the broader audience here, it would be good if you could understand & even forgive Christians for wanting to interest you in the things of God. I know it's really annoying and very uncomfortable but, given the things we believe to be true, we do have real concerns for your eternal futures.

If it's all just a load of codswallop & mumbo jumbo then, yes, we have all been wasting our time for the last 2000 years - but if it is true, then one day you might not thank those Christian friends, colleagues & family members who failed to give you a heads-up on what is to come.[/quote]
You have a serious case of spiritual arrogance, @paws17. Yet again, the idea that people who don't swallow this guff just haven't encountered it, and just need a pamphlet or a nudge to attend a service, a mini-sermon? Many of us know it all too well. We grew up in it, are thoroughly well-versed in scripture, took a long hard look at it when we became adults, and said 'This is just a man-made attempt to contend with the fear of death and the unknown, like all other religions.'

It's not 'codswallop', but neither does it deserve adherence. It's possible it's adult to live a good life without the carrot of an eternal reward, or the bit you're so arrogantly concerned by, @paws17 -- the prospect of hellfire for everyone else from your all-merciful god.

So thanks for the 'heads-up' on the damnation you confidently believe is waiting for everyone who doesn't appease your supposedly omnipotent, all-merciful deity who seems to require an awful lot of worship and maybe devote the spare energy to considering whether 'worshipping' in church is any different to a wiitchdoctor in a pre-Enlightenment society appeasing the local spirits.

Participants are pressured by the final weeks of the course to engage with the concept of the Holy Spirit, to have hands laid on them in healing, to speak in tongues, to prophesy over one another, etc. Much like the psychics and faith healers Christians decry, this Holy Spirit nonsense relies on cold reading people and confirmation bias

From what I saw with my friend - they seem to elevate perfectly ordinary observations to the status of divine prophesy. It all seems very naive, credulous and confused.

Not quite true! Roman historians Tacitus and Josephus both record John the Baptist and Jesus in their historical (and not Christain) writings along with the whole of the eye witness accounts from the New Testament.

Tacitus and Josephus were both born after the assumed death of Jesus. So not exactly first hand accounts.
And to take the NT as 'gospel' proof of Jesus' existence (see what I did there?) Is rather like marking your own homework.

I know it's really annoying and very uncomfortable but, given the things we believe to be true, we do have real concerns for your eternal futures. If it's all just a load of codswallop & mumbo jumbo then, yes, we have all been wasting our time for the last 2000 years - but if it is true, then one day you might not thank those Christian friends, colleagues & family members who failed to give you a heads-up on what is to come

Bloody hell, that sounds like the sort of threat a mobster would make to a small business owner.

@brokendark

I know it's really annoying and very uncomfortable but, given the things we believe to be true, we do have real concerns for your eternal futures. If it's all just a load of codswallop & mumbo jumbo then, yes, we have all been wasting our time for the last 2000 years - but if it is true, then one day you might not thank those Christian friends, colleagues & family members who failed to give you a heads-up on what is to come

Bloody hell, that sounds like the sort of threat a mobster would make to a small business owner.

Indeed, Still, with no eternal future to worry about I won't lose sleep over this