Alpha Course - Day Five

Week 5 was a curious thing. There was a sudden shift from the theological to the practical. The topic for this week’s Alpha was “How and Why Should I Read the Bible”. The second part of this question was essentially waved past with a cursory nod while the weight and focus of the rest of the segment was placed purely on the “How”. The “Why” was simply described as a matter of faith – you either have it or you don’t – there was no real attempt to explain or persuade. The speaker, a sonorously voiced Welshman of impeccable Christian credentials (a preacher for over 40 years), simply stated that he was speaking from a position of having faith that the Bible was the word of God. No direct effort was made during the ensuing speech to address the concerns of those who weren’t quite so sure, which I thought was a shame.

As such, the talk this week, amongst a furious backdrop of clattering coffee machines was essentially a long exercise in identifying “starting points” and techniques for reading the bible, from the viewpoint that everyone had already accepted it was both worthwhile and 100% the word of God. Therefore, much of the advice went along the lines of “start with the Gospels”, “read it in the morning”, “ask for assistance and inspiration from the Holy Spirit as you read”. These are all viable and useful techniques for a practising Christian I am sure, but for the agnostic or atheist, the concept of starting a book anywhere other than the beginning, getting up early to read it especially, and asking for help from a ghost are not the practices of a sane and rational person. I sympathised with the aims of the speaker, to inspire people to read the bible in a concerted way, setting aside time and giving it the attention that it deserves (and yes, it does deserve attention – you can’t engage with Christianity even as an opponent or sceptic without knowing where their beliefs lie), but it was operating from a non-Alpha viewpoint in many ways – against the stated aims of the course to offer an “introduction” to Christianity, whereas this operated on the assumption that everyone present was “on board” with the “why” element.

That said, I didn’t want or need to be persuaded to read the bible – I have done in a limited way – but I was interested more in the reasons than the techniques. I wanted Christianity’s representatives to set out exactly why it is a desirable and worthwhile thing. This may have been unrealistic really – or perhaps slightly blinkered – I already know the answer to an extent anyway, but I felt that the reasons aren’t unequivocally true. The postulation that the bible is God’s word is grounds for dubiousness. The best that I could glean from this session in the way of a defence was that it was an inspired handbook to human nature. This was a good point, and well made, but surely not the intended reason for the creation of the bible in the first place. I stated during the group discussion that it was a “series of books describing a worldview”. This is the best I could do. I also had to preface this by pointing out that I wasn’t about to call anyone a liar, so introducing the topic as a matter of faith in some ways kills discussion stone dead. It’s a circular argument. You need faith to believe the bible. You need to believe it to read it in the proscribed manner. If you don’t believe it, you’re only going to examine it from an academic viewpoint (something that was stated as undesirable – there’s the emphasis on “relationship” and the “spiritual” again. I don’t know why; it seems to me that if God can create all the intricacies of the universe, he can surely knock up a collection of books that stand up to scrutiny).

Then there’s another problem – a very interesting interjection from Lee described the phraseology of the bible and how it needed to be contextualised in the language of the time – he used the example of “turning the other cheek”, and how literally being hit by different parts of the hand carried certain connotations to the contemporary Jews. Fantastic and very interesting – but this only displays a limitation. What was brought to mind for me was Marxism, harking back to week 3. Marxism didn’t fail in the West because of shaky economics alone, or purely malevolent intentions. It failed because it was a doctrine aimed at the vast majority of people – the workers – who also by definition are of largely average intelligence. It is also one of the most complex and intricate theories in existence. So, there’s an expectation that the average human being – the worker – will embrace an ideology that is incredibly complicated. It’s the same here, except that the complexities of the bible are not so much ideological as in terms of context. This is a limitation, surely – that future generations are excluded from the intricacies of the book by changing understandings as much as by transcription errors or man’s intervention. The point was put but not really satisfactorily answered – the response was that biblical things have made their way into popular language and were now understood universally. But the “turning the other cheek” example was one where it was frequently misunderstood in context – hence people often make the comparison with “an eye for an eye” as an example of inconsistency.

If the bible message was communicated by God now, and transported 2000 years back in time, who knows what kind of impenetrable slang it would contain that would be totally opaque to those historical Jews, or references to mind-bogglingly advanced technologies or trends. It’s interesting that an all-knowing and ever-lasting God would trust his sacred wishes to people whose words were basically restricted in direct relevance to a miniscule slither of eternity.

This week, we were joined by a Jewish girl, who proclaimed her faith to a collective shrug when I rather think she was expecting some kind of horror or uncomfortable reaction. I think she came along as moral support for someone who is really rather against Christianity but lacks the verbal ammunition to articulate it effectively. Unfortunately, I think if all the Jewish people in the world held an enormous summit to select a representative to take on the massed ranks of Christians in a theological battle, she might well have been close to last. She undermined her own position immediately by proclaiming that Catholics circumcised their children, and was generally very concerned with what she perceived as Christians discarding the “Mosaic Laws” of the Old Testament. These things were really covered more or less convincingly when the “covenant” was discussed previously, but in fairness I can’t recall if I simply read about it, and I don’t know if she was there either. Then oddly, precisely as her point was about to be tackled by the Welsh preacher, she simply got up and went to the toilet.

The point anyway, was that some of the laws and rules of the Old Testament were now considered to be actually rather good ideas for hygiene and health purposes (e.g. circumcision, not eating pork as pigs were known to live in amongst sewage). “Des” made the point that they were generally “captured wisdom” that might well have been preserved if they hadn’t been put into the bible, recalling the chicken and egg argument from previous weeks. Things descended into farce unfortunately as the Welsh preacher – Ben – was hard of hearing, and in the backdrop to the general babble, much time was spent repeating things for his benefit.

The irritating Scotsman who unfortunately found his way into my group was nearly crying with frustration, plaintively whining “Please listen… please listen to me” when he was trying to speak to Ben during a period where he was looking elsewhere or speaking to someone else. My hackles up, I promptly ignored him entirely as virtually everything he said was gratingly inane anyway. When he started speaking as if he were one of the leaders of the group, dispensing his wisdom on what “we should” be doing. I could only sit and rub my eyes, grinding my teeth. And I prayed. For him to shut up. God apparently wasn’t listening.

During this period, the staff at Costa started to put Christmas decorations up around our seats. It was surreal.

All in all, despite the frustrations it was a pretty good week by Alpha standards. I’d give it a solid 6 out of 10. Next week there’s talk of there being a website up and running where we can submit our questions in advance (which feels slightly like cheating). I wonder what prompted this – whether some Christians did feel outgunned, or whether it was a perception that some people were afraid to speak up in a group context. Who knows.

Finally, we were asked to read the bible in the spirit which was described this week. To see what happens. I’ll give it a go. I’m nothing if not intrepid.

Alpha Course - Day Four

It's been rather too long since I updated this blog with the events of day 4, for which I should apologise - it's mainly owing to a busy period with work but in truth, there was also an experimental side to steering clear which was intended to see if a little distance added any new perspectives. In this case, having had a period to digest and gather insight hasn’t really worked. I have felt rather divorced from proceedings since last Wednesday’s session, the theme of which was prayer, and as such I haven’t dwelled quite so fully on things as I have done previously as I haven’t been forced to order my thoughts by writing this blog.

However, I’ll try to recreate the events of last week as faithfully as possible with respect to events and to my reactions.

The session was interesting primarily for the continued challenge it offered from Week 3. I was fortunate enough to be in the same group as some of the more analytical Alpha-ites – “Des” from week 1 and also the Canadian Jesus Team leader who really does facilitate the discussion very well.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m resented a little by other members of the group. It’s possible that this is purely paranoia, but I do feel as though sometimes I monopolise events, though I am obviously only speaking in the framework of the topic at hand. Moreover, I’m clearly one of the few dissenting voices.

All the same, I will attempt to curb my participation a little for tonight’s meeting. It will be interesting to adopt a more observational position, if only to see if the dynamics change, and if some of the quieter members of the group step up to the plate a little more. I think I just intensely dislike the kind of dumbstruck, uncomfortable silence that seems to occur at the start of every group. There’s not much of a fraternal or friendly feeling, though I suspect it’s because I am not really overly open to that in general, let alone in the very unusual circumstance of willingly discussing the question of God with a group of strangers. I wonder how things would progress if we were all on a jury, snow-bound and isolated, forced to stay put until we’d reached a decision. I think it might be a couple of months before some of them even spoke.

Before the session, I was moderately enthused about the subject, enough so to write some preliminary thoughts into my notebook. My initial thoughts revolved around the idea that prayer removed the power of self-determination – by being slavishly deferential to a “higher power”, there’s a very real risk to me that you lose focus on the steps needed and the power in your own hands to change things. That said, most people only do tend to pray when the hope of influencing things themselves is lost. This very point was put to me by Des – as to whether I ever “prayed”. He used a bad example – being stuck in a traffic jam, which doesn’t work for me for a number of reasons. But I knew what he meant, and transposed his logic mentally to something more meaningful. It was definitely true that at times of extreme despair or fear something resembling a prayer comes to mind. That’s not entirely explicable by conditioning alone – I haven’t been around anyone who would outwardly admit that, but it’s possibly learnt behaviour from society and popular culture. Or possibly the question that the Alpha course proclaims to tackle – “Is there a God – YES/NO” is subconsciously on the minds of a lot of people. And given the right stimulus externally, they will all shuffle to the edge of the “Yes” cliff and peek over it (if they don’t exactly chuck themselves off). So yes, I admitted that there were times, I spoke silently to something or someone else.

I further admitted that it was true that no proof as such would attest to the “power of prayer” as advertised. I think I said a “signed legal document” from God might be enough to convince me that a “prayer” had been answered. Which I immediately knew kind of reduced the “mysterious wonder” of prayer to nothing more than a mechanical “contract” governing cause and effect. Touché, Jesus Team.

The mystery of Christianity is beautiful, truly. But it’s not a basis for embracing it (for me at least). It just means it’s self-consciously defensive in many ways – that it’s constantly on the back-foot against those who’d seek to dissect it and disassemble it. For me, it’s a snowball effect across the ages, as fractures and inconsistencies are discovered it seems like they’re justified and rationalised in ever more ingenious/ludicrous ways. It’s hardly surprising that after over a thousand years of extremely intelligent people’s passionate diligence, that there’s no universal refutation possible, and that most of the logical anomalies are written off as the “mysterious ways” of an unknowable God.

And that’s the point, we can’t know God in that “inside-out” way, as we would essentially “be” him. Instead, we’re sold the idea of a “relationship” with him. This is again rather hard to justify for me, and brought me again to the subject of hell.

I was slightly annoyed at this point to be told that I was “fixated” with hell. By a Christian. Which seemed extraordinary. In any case, I stated that what Christians stated was unconditional love was neither unconditional or particularly loving. I can’t pretend that hell doesn’t exist if I am to engage with Christians on a level playing field. They believe it does, so I do them the courtesy of operating on that assumption when talking to them. I didn’t invent it after all.

I was told that God doesn’t send anyone to hell, that we choose our path. Well, that’s fine, but again, it’s not really unconditional is it? Nor do I find the idea that God has “booby trapped” this life of “free will” with the spectre of hell particularly loving. Especially given the spurious reasons for ending up there. What’s that? You devoted your entire life to helping the poor and needy? Well come on i… hold on? You’re a Muslim? Elevator’s over there chum.

It’s ridiculous. It’s more than that in fact, by any human parameter it’s entirely and terminally unlovable. I fear that I descended into a slightly sarcastic and sneering mode around this time; I lost patience for maybe the first time with someone who tried to recount to me that hell was an invention of Satan. Who created Satan, for heaven’s sake (pun entirely intentional).

Free choice and free will is an illusion it seems. It’s not free – there’s a rather hefty price, and it’s not unconditional. At the root, I can’t understand any entity – God or otherwise – demanding continual praise and obedience for doing anything at all – even creating the universe. Who praised him before then? Aliens? Dinosaurs? Absolutely not, according to the bible. So why does he need this praise now? Was he feeling insecure?!?

It just doesn’t paint a picture of something lovable. It paints a picture of something horrendously narcissistic and controlling, prone to tantrums. This “worship” element has never sat well with me. What does God get from our servile kneeling and singing and crying out? Does it satisfy him? Did “smiting” so many people satisfy him? Did he get what he wanted from that?

More mystery, the kind of mystery that means we can’t interrogate him. We can’t know what he meant by all that.

A convenient kind of mystery really, if one was to be uncharitable in an analysis.

Alpha Course - Day Three

"Religion is the Opiate of the Masses" - Karl Marx

Surprisingly, just this quote was uttered in a much-improved Alpha course last night. By a Christian no less. Admittedly, he had employed it to explain that, on the contrary, he was not partaking in any kind of illicit or hallucinatory drugs, but it was nonetheless unexpected.

As I say - the entire event was much improved from previously. The dynamics of the group seemed more settled, the protagonists from last week's irritations were deliberately avoided and there was actual considered conversation which emanated more from a fraternal discussion than an orchestrated effort on behalf of the course leaders.

It also featured a painfully slow start, despite my efforts to accelerate proceedings by being somewhat controversial directly off the bat.

The theme of this week's meeting was faith - or more specifically "How can I find faith?". Again, I am forced to reject the initial premise of the course as I wasn't (and aren't) particularly looking for it. I'm looking to reach an understanding really, but this particular day did force me to confront my reasons and personal beliefs far more than I have previously, which is surely at least one of the implied aims of the course.

As expected, the evening proceeded in leisurely fashion, with some people's elastic interpretation of 7pm continuing to amaze me. Despite the fact that the course has not yet started at that time, and indeed has usually started more like 7.30pm at the earliest, I think that the period of discussion beforehand is illuminating in discovering the character and personality of the people involved. As such, I spent a good half an hour talking with Lee, who was the "youth pastor" at Kerith church. Though I think we didn't "click" as such, having very little common ground, we still managed a very interesting chat about his background and his "journey". I asked him to pass on my thanks to the girl from last week who he turned out to know from his church capacity, as I found her the most persuasive person there from a Christian position.

Lee's speech was interesting and impassioned, and covered his own experiences of finding God, and did so unapologetically and with enthusiasm.

This was clearly going to be a directly relevant forum to discuss experiences and backgrounds, as opposed to previous weeks where I still maintain it was frustratingly irrelevant. Fair enough. I was more than prepared to sit through people's meandering tales of how they found God, struck by lightning in their Mini-Metro or being prayed over at some kind of ghastly "Jesus Camp". If I sound dismissive, it's because I was. I was peculiarly out of sorts before this started, my confidence in the process was lagging, I was starting to suspect that I would get no real satisfaction from the course and that it was not going to really offer anything that simply reading a textbook while being squawked at by an angry parrot wouldn't.

I was proved wrong - most people's tales (even the ones I heard before) were self-evidently "real" to those people and as such they were able to discuss them lucidly and confidently; they didn't sound as if they had learnt the answers by rote or were reading from a card.

That said, I (predictably) disagreed with the central concepts - that Christian relationships with God are "personalised", that "religion" was somehow a lesser phenomena to this "relationship", and that God is love and gives us "free will" to make a choice.

I'll explain the events of the course with reference to each of these areas including my own reactions.

The talk started with the question of how we each felt about Lee's speech. There was a rather long silence - people seemed a bit reticent. I am not sure if Lee's presence at the end of the table had intimidated people from taking the "bull by the horns" so to speak and voicing their opinions. It didn't bother me particularly and I made my first point, one I was really rather proud of in retrospect.

"I think it's true, but it's not the truth. I think it's evidence, but it's not proof".

A few wide eyes at my unintentional rhyme, and Lee softly said - "I respect that". I then had to clarify for people, who either wilfully misunderstood me, or just weren't able to grasp the concept. "Evidence of what!?" one person exclaimed. I stated it was evidence that Lee truly believed it. It wasn't proof that I should.

More silence, and the discussion moved on after a few hesitant opinions from people around the table. We were asked what we would put on a form that prompted us to define our "religion".

The balance seemed a little bit more favourable this time, with maybe as many as three "agnostics" out of ten or so people. This was counterbalanced by a lady I will describe generously as "quirky" who sat proudly displaying her crucifix necklace and interrogating every person as they sat down as to their name and church-going status. I resented this intensely, as she had nothing to do with the course leadership.

Anyway, most people answered either "Christian" or "Agnostic" or "None".

The point of this was clearly to draw a distinction between the stated allegiances of people and what Christianity really meant in the view of the Alpha course - that the core of the belief was about a relationship with God and not necessarily on following spurious rules or commandments or adhering to labels. Again, my point was that many people across the world have "relationships" with all kind of things, but are "precluded" from the Christian heaven by the necessity of the rules - that the only way to God was through Jesus. Discounting their experiences was nothing less than a very odd type of baseless arrogance - that their experiences are either invalid or mistaken or don't happen in the same way, yet no-one can with any certainty say this.

The same things that Christians hold up as irrefutable - experiences and relationships - are inadmissible from other faiths it seems, notwithstanding that "different" approach to religion previously discussed with respect to Muslims.

It was asked whether someone who didn't know - who just did not know what to think - would be allowed into heaven.

The answer, which was tip-toed around, was essentially "no", but wrapped in a lot of platitudes about "those who don't know about Jesus being weighed by the balance of their lives" - I can't recall the exact wording - the intent was clearly that the ignorant (not merely the prevaricators or procrastinators, mind) are judged on their deeds and their heart in due course. Why this concept isn't simply extended to everyone, I have no idea.

So, for me, the Alpha course makes a pretty disingenuous claim that religion and "relationship" are separable when this relationship is governed inflexibly by the same rules that people have founded religions on throughout the last 2000 years and beyond.

Take up thy bed and walk....?

It was stated again that God is love - that he is all forgiving. I stated that the "existence" of hell dictates that it's not love that is motivating people to embrace him but a form of fear. I bluntly stated that what Lee was describing was not love. He stated that we as humans have the choice to pursue God or not. I said that wasn't then a choice. The game is loaded from the start with the "ultimate reprisal".

I likened it to a beautifully wrapped present, that if we choose NOT to open explodes in our faces and condemns us to an eternity of suffering. That's not a gift, nor is it a choice. It certainly isn't love.

Someone mentioned that their relationships with their friends were not forced, relating the conversation back to the concept of free will. I didn't get a chance to say that their relationships with their friends didn't have a system of causal logic that condemned them to hell if they weren't sufficiently "good" at friendship either.

As the conversation had got a little heated (at last), we moved on.

For the first time, I was directly challenged. A chap sitting next to me asked me what I believed. This genuinely threw me off, as to this point I had been a mainly reactive participant. Now I felt a slight panic at having to respond to a specific call to define my position.

I stated that my beliefs were difficult to package, that I rejected the God as described in the bible, and that I supposed I had my own God.

I was furiously berated by the quirky lady who shouted "Why is it YOUR God!! Why can we not share him!".

I was bemused by this - and wanted to simply say "You've got yours, I've got mine, what's the problem?!". She was distracted by a Jesus Team member who I think was pretty keen on things not escalating to a Question-Time-With-Nick-Griffin style pantomime showdown.

She then said "We all need guidance! We need guidance!". To which I responded that I didn't. I knew what was right and I knew what was wrong. The origin of that knowledge was pretty "chicken-and-egg" in the scheme of things - whether living in a country with a Christian heritage had defined those things, or whether everyone knew anyway, and that the religions just wrote it down neatly.

In the interests of balance, I should say that a spirited defence (no pun intended) of Christianity was undertaken by "Eric" from the first week, who was both eloquent and persuasive in his own way. He stated that to start with an evaluation of heaven and hell was the incorrect way to approach it. You had to start with God, and only then will anyone hope to understand the reasons for the rest of the plan. I understood his sincerity with this, but I rejected his logic, which seemed to amount to "believe in God and then hell will make sense". In some ways it's true - you can't appreciate how scary falling is unless you've climbed a mountain.

However, crucially to me, that doesn't make the mountain worth climbing in the first place.

Even if it existed.

The discussion toward the end took a genuinely interesting turn. Focus shifted from me, which was nice, and toward a new person (who may have been an attendee last week in a different group). She stated that she had felt she was a believer until she heard the testimonies of the other people around the table - which seemed to universally feature a genuine "eureka" moment. She felt unsure in response if her own belief was very tangible at all - that she had just been "waiting for it to happen".

It was genuinely interesting to see how the Christians around the table responded - they were very supportive, asking about her experiences, also stating that her attendance at Alpha in the first place was proof of something (incidentally, this is a recurring theme - "you're still here on week 2/3!" as if it evidence of some kind of notional victory for the Alpha-ites).

Anyway, seeing their responses stood as a very intriguing insight into the mechanism of the course - she struck me as someone I would give short odds on to convert wholesale to the Alpha brand of Christianity by the end of week 10.

All in all a much more positive experience, which engaged directly with some interesting ideas, entirely unexpectedly. I would say this was a good 8/10 on the Alphaometer. I was challenged directly for the first time really, and eventually something resembling a free exchange of ideas broke out. People did seem very reluctant to speak this week; it's a bit useless to speculate why, but it might well be related to the "irrefutable" nature of faith. Because it can't be undermined without undermining the adherents.

The meeting ended, and Lee approached me and shook my hand.

"You have a very interesting mind", he told me.

"Thanks" I responded "It's the only one I've got.".

Alpha Course - Day Two

Picture courtesy of Freefoto.com

The sight that inspires devotion and faith in millions of Christians worldwide - the cross.

Last night's course aimed to discover the reasons Christians believe that Christ died on this avowedly brutal contraption.

However, a confused, difficult and all-round odd night culminated merely in a feeling of cynicism, frustration and general annoyance in which the aim was not fulfilled for this correspondent.

I don't want these accounts to linger on the ephemera of the course environment; the little niggles and difficulties that the organisers have tried or failed to overcome. It's not a commercial enterprise, and there's no money involved. As such, I don't want this to be Watchdog. Or Watchgod, passing critical judgement on what is basically a volunteer set-up.

But the fact remains that there were, in my opinion, pretty severe obstacles again to running a fruitful and interesting course last night.

First and foremost, the ratio of Christians to non-Christians was even higher than last week.

Now, I'd like again to stress that it's not "safety in numbers" I'm particularly concerned about here. I am more than able to defend my own points, and discuss those of others without feeling the requirement for some kind of notional numerical back-up. Indeed if last night was a barometer, judging by the deeply confused interjections of someone who was perhaps the only other unequivocal agnostic/non-believer, I'd much rather it was only me.

Anyway, my point is that if you're trying to create a non-threatening, non-judgemental, welcoming introduction to the faith - and I'd like to stress the word "introduction" - then it might be worth thinking about how this looks to someone who has no prior involvement with religion whatsoever.

Because it at times appears as a case of massed ranks of Christians arrayed against the people the course was actually intended for - those who need or want an introduction.

Christians, in whatever guise, have access to apparatus in which these questions are already answered. Why on earth they turn up in such numbers to what essentially is a "Christianity 101" exercise is beyond me.

Take last night for example. I was sat on a table for the group discussion with perhaps 9 or so people. Of that number, two could be identified as "outside the club" of which I was one myself.

Time and time again, one of the participants, a rather fey Scotsman that I didn't care for at all, airily bemoaned the "intensity" of the discussion.

Now, not being a Christian myself, I'm still prepared to treat the matter of someone who many believe was the "Son of God" being whipped, tortured and having 6inch nails driven through his wrists with some degree of reverence and gravity.

I felt it might have been a little bit disrespectful to get the party balloons out and start cracking jokes to "lighten the atmosphere".

This chap, ostensibly a Christian from his comments and demeanour, seemed to want to participate in some kind of Women's Institute tea party. What's more, the clear inference he made through voicing these concerns was that everyone else round the table was somehow culpable for making him uncomfortable. I'm reigning in a deep temptation to swear here, mindful of the disposition of some of the readers of this blog, but surely it would be better for him to toddle off if he didn't like it, rather than assume some kind of authority over everyone else by making theatrical hand gestures intended to "calm us down".

I'm not a violent man, but I nearly chucked a coffee cup in his face.

The other issue, as I alluded to before, was the small amount of conversational "real estate" I could realistically and politely lay claim to. This wouldn't be too significant if I could reasonably expect anyone else to be asking the same questions as me, but as established above, that is a spectacularly unlikely eventuality.

Bottom line - some people feel very real animosity toward Christians. If their first step is to attend an Alpha course as part of a healthy dialogue, they are not going to be put at ease by a sense of being embattled by people who should already know the answers. Nor does it look as if it's particularly easy or straightforward to understand.

Anyway, that said, there were some plus points. The talk this week was spiritedly delivered by a chap called Pete, who was clearly a little nervous. My gripes were not purely with the content of what he said, but with the constant need to contextualise everything in terms of modern culture.

As such, his discourse covered the likes of Robbie Williams and the TV series Prison Break. Personally, I get nothing from these comparisons - they feel patronising and inane - but I was mindful I wasn't the only person in the room. There were a number of younger people who may well have responded better to this type of approach. For me, it was about as relevant as saying "Hey guys! Jesus is cool! Who's seen 'Happy Days'? Well, he's just like the Fonz!".

Another plus point was the really commendable and articulate thoughts of some of the younger members of my group - especially one girl whose name escapes me. She was really impressive, giving answers that made me pause for consideration. And she delivered them in such a way that made her endearing; she wasn't cocky or confident, but her comments had a real internal logic to them. Unfortunately, in amongst everything else, my recollection of her exact responses have become rather lost.

My group this week contained different people (a purposeful move on my part), and as such some different perspectives. I won't introduce them all in turn as it seems rather excessive, so instead I'll just mention a few points that arose from the discussion.

Firstly, I asked quite early on why God changed. My question was around why God, who has supposed mastery over time, is immortal and infallible, changed from the vengeful, intolerant, war-like, punitive God to the love-filled forgiveness God in the New Testament.

He didn't need to. He could be either, demonstrably. So why did an entity who has mastery over eternity, who knows everything to the smallest detail in his "plan" change from the Old Testament to the New? Why not simply be consistent? Did he make a "mistake"? Change his mind? If so, he's not infallible, so in short he's not God.

Or if it was intentional, then why did he go through the process of stoning, turning to salt, drowning, burning and all of the other myriad ways he smote his enemies? The reason put forward was that it "provided a counterpoint". As though we should count our lucky stars that God is being kept away from the gun cabinet by Jesus. Not good enough for me. Frankly, if I wanted people to love me, I wouldn't do so by committing murders and slaughter to bring into sharper focus how much money I give to charity. This all paints a picture of a God that is not difficult to love, but downright impossible.

This is even without the spectre of hell, which was not even really directly broached.

I also asked what happened to those that were killed as a direct result of God's commands, or by his direct intervention pre-New Testament. As their sins hadn't been "cleansed" by Jesus, purely because they'd been born at the wrong time, were they now condemned? Where is the logic for that when God knows that at a later point, everyone's sins will be forgiven anyway? Were these people a "lost cause"? Is anyone? That's a pretty anti-Christian viewpoint.

To be fair, Leon, who gamely tried to work it out, ceded and said he didn't know.

Leon was, however, able to give a partially convincing answer to another point I brought up.

I stated that as things were so "experience-centred" with Christianity, it was difficult to put any rational store by them. I also stated the point from week 1 that I hadn't raised, that Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and other denominations would swear by their own experiences just as vehemently as "proof" of their particular beliefs, meaning they're largely pointless as "evidence" of the rectitude of Christianity.

Taking the bull by the horns, Leon was able to make a very salient point. He rightly asked if I had personally spoken to any Muslims about their faith, to which I answered I had not. He stated that he had, and that the emphasis in Islam is around "tangible" things rather than spiritual things (he actually said that Muslims were not spiritual - I think charitably he was using a Christian definition of "spirituality", taking in elements of supernatural experience of God/Jesus/Holy Ghost here). I found this a really interesting point - he stated that the difference was that Muslims did not have a "relationship" by Christian definition with their God - they were more focused on the "word" and the law of their religion. Totally feasible, and a good answer, but it did not really address my point, which was neither specifically about Muslims alone or about the specifics of "Godly interaction". I was really making the point that individual experiences on matters of faith are meaningless in the big picture, that there was no reason we should take these as evidence of anything in particular because all faiths have them and they're all "real" in isolation.

Using a football analogy, a Halifax Town supporter would no doubt cheer his team as loudly as a Manchester United supporter and proclaim to the world that Halifax were the world's greatest team. And in his heart he would mean it. It's demonstrably untrue by every single parameter you could care to mention though. For this reason, newspapers do not report the chants of individuals at Halifax Town as "proof", "evidence" or "fact" at all - these people are sincere in their love, but however sincere they might be, it's untrue. Man's capacity for self-delusion is enormous. This sounds judgemental in relation to Alpha, but it's a general point.

I also made a point that religion seemed to come to people when they were least able to make a reasoned decision - in desperation, in childhood, in despair, in illness. This inadvertently offended "Delta" who proclaimed that religion had come to her when she was quite content as a result of her husband's faith. Again, I was on thin ice, and perhaps guilty of generalising. If I was, it was because (and this was something that was borne out yet again) virtually everyone's experience of finding God was prefaced with "I was in a really bad place at that time, my life was full of sin...". This is part of the reason that it's decried as a crutch, for the weak and vulnerable. It's not a viewpoint I totally adhere to anyway; I think there are many reasons for going to church, but it was as an add-on to the general point I was making about the limitations of experience.

When I was asked at the end of the session how I felt, again agitated by the environment, I simply said "deeply cynical". I wanted to say that I felt it was all a beautiful lie. The kind of lie that makes you feel better, but at its heart is still a lie.

"No, your bum doesn't look big in that."

"Yes, we're all going to heaven, and Jesus was just like the Fonz."

To cap off a frustrating experience, the "round table" continued and upon the turn of one the young girls at the end, I was surprised to hear her address me directly to the effect she "didn't understand" my points. If it was possible to feel vindicated, frustrated, apathetic and demoralised all at once, then this hybrid feeling would probably sum me up the end of this particular course.

All in all, a 4/10 again but for different reasons.

Organisationally, it was better. In terms of leadership, it was worse (much worse - the discussion didn't seem to me to be conducted and facilitated very well). I think the Scottish chap single handedly knocked a couple of points off himself truth be told and soured it all. A theological discussion was never going to be a chilled out knockabout laugh-a-minute romp through the daisies, least of all when the subject under discussion was the crucifixion.

The exception is unless everyone there agrees anyway.

So in the end, as someone who meets exactly the criteria of who the course is meant for, I was made to feel like a misfit because I wanted to take it seriously.

Alpha Course - Day Two Preface

Well the time has rolled around for the second session tonight, titled "Why Did Jesus Die"?

It will be interesting to see exactly how much we address the "old ground" from last week moving forwards; we didn't seem to me to have reached a definitive and unilateral conclusion on the historical nature of Jesus, and I sense this will present problems tonight.

Much of the content seems to be designed with the same kind of logic as CS Lewis's quote - that if you accept the preface of the first session, then the second follows on with what appears to be the completely sound deployment of reason. It seems that the argument is a cumulative one.

Akin to standing on a bridge with several toll booths across it, I find that the price of even the very first is extremely expensive, and that I am supposed to make an enormous leap of faith that suspending my judgement is going to be worth the rewards on the other side. It's a metaphor that extends beyond the Alpha course...!

The structure makes sense from one perspective - how can any sensible discussion occur of what the death and resurrection of Jesus actually means if you don't accept that he existed in the first place?

So to continue in the spirit that the course intends, I suppose it's going to be an exercise in suspending these concerns (and dodging through that toll booth without paying) in the interests of getting a rounded overview of Christian beliefs, exactly the flexibility that Christianity does not itself afford - you can't selectively believe the bible after all.

They're beliefs. Not facts. This is where the water gets extremely murky.

I am still deeply undecided about this. Again, my own position was possibly hasty. I'm prepared to accept that Jesus was a man. I'm not prepared at this stage to accept he was the son of God, and crucially that he even claimed he was.

The comment from David last week keeps coming back to me - that I'm "in the right place" to address these concerns. I guess we will discover whether that's really true moving forwards.

Alpha Course - Day One

I arrived for around 6.35PM, though the course itself started at the advertised time of 7PM. Costa Coffee had been approached to stay open until 9PM to accommodate the course. The venue had some distinct pros and cons, more of which later.

I decided to partake in a quick drink before events began, and ordered at the counter, where I was promptly asked if I was there for "Bible Group" by the server.

Not knowing quite how to take this comment, I was thankfully rescued by her slightly more savvy colleague who clarified that she meant the Alpha Course. I confirmed that I was.

I certainly wasn't there for Bible Group. That carried an entire raft of presumptions and connotations that I was frankly unwilling to countenance at that point. I knew what she meant, I suppose, but I wasn't quite ready to identify myself as part of a Bible Group which conjured images of bearded men discussing obscure passages of the gospel with dowdy women over tea and garibaldis in dusty church halls.

There were already a small group of people gathered at this time, and as I anticipated, it wasn't long before I was approached and welcomed by some of the course administrators/leaders.

I was vaguely aware of some of them through visiting the Kerith church previously. In case alarm bells are ringing at this point over my objectivity, I should state that I was very much there in an observational capacity. The analogy I used at the time was that it was rather like attending a football match, sitting right in amongst the home fans, when you don't support the team at all.
Besides, none of them recognised me, and I was perfectly open and happy to chat as I would with anyone else.

Part of me had to beat down the suspicion that this was all part of a wider and more intricate 'recruitment drive' - as if their friendliness was disingenuous - a deliberate ploy to make it more difficult for people to openly disagree with them. Almost as if it would be a slight on their hospitality to take issue with anything they said. This was clearly a tad irrational and I discarded that pretty quickly.

In due course one of the leaders stood up and gave a quick speech. He briefly covered the theme of the first session, which was due to be an examination of who Jesus was.
I found what he said on a few accounts rather flawed to say the least.

He stated that Jesus was a historical character. I hadn't really accepted this, and still don't to be honest.

He stated that there was historical evidence for his existence. I don't really accept this fully either. I'm a history graduate and I happen to know a bit about the reliability of sources and the nature of "evidence". Evidence is an extremely misleading word to use without qualification in an ancient context. It certainly doesn't pertain to proof. It pertains to "what's left". That's not quite the same as "evidence" that would stand up in a court of law. What's more, there is far from universal acceptance about the accuracy of the "marquee sources" of Christ's existence.

Josephus is widely considered to have had his account tampered with by later Christians.
Tactitus has been the subject of speculation that he wasn't even talking about Jesus, and Suetonius the same (this Wiki gives a decent primer - but in the interests of balance I should say that Wikipedia equally isn't the best source to use and should be considered a pointer for further reading).

Maybe the most bewildering comment that the speaker made was that the bible describes "blood and water" flowing from Christ's side post-crucifixion and that this was therefore somehow proof that it had really happened.

The problems with this are myriad, but I would definitely be more inclined to believe it if a) Christ was the only person in the history of the world to be crucified and b) he was the only person in the history of the universe to have been skewered in such a way post-dying. As he was, even by Christian reckoning, not the only person to have been crucified, it's a fair bet this phenomenon had been witnessed quite a few times with individuals over which there was no claim to divinity.

To his credit, the speaker did state that the people in the room did not have all the answers.
I was content to listen and make a few notes at that point.

Afterwards, everyone split into three roughly equal groups.

Without over-stressing this point, I personally think that the background noise and lack of space really presented a major obstacle in the way that the discussion progressed - I couldn't hear a great deal of the conversation that occurred at the opposite end of the "lozenge".

Anyway, the “dramatis personae” of my group were (names changed for privacy - I only mention some basic information on age and background in order to give a little character to them for the reader):

• Roy– a 50-something gentleman, oddly reminiscent of Dennis Norden, attending for "curiosity"
• Margaret – avowedly already a Christian, around 40 years old, a suggestion of a foreign accent
• Jeff – mid-20s, tall and shaven-headed local chap who by his own admission was "99% a believer"
• Delta – a young member of the Kerith church, she was there to help deliver the course
• Steve - a guy in his 30s with a Mancunian accent, he was already a Christian by his own admission, and stated that his family had all attended the course
• X - a mysterious random girl who turned up late and therefore didn't get to introduce herself
• Des - 30s, a Lancashire accent, stated he was there "under duress", which amused me greatly
• Ernie – a very friendly guy - another member of the "Jesus Team" which I am going to start using as shorthand.
• David - The main Jesus Team leader of the discussion, a very personable guy with an American accent, and clearly quite educated on the subject - I think at one stage he inferred that he had attended university in the US in completing a theology degree or something similar, and this did seem to show through, as he was pretty articulate and well informed
• Keith - A South African guy of about 50 who was attending to accompany his friend, who was
• Thomas - Extremely tall chap, again a current churchgoer, also South African, perhaps in his early 40s
• Me - (Jim) - early 30s, a self-confessed cynic, there out of curiosity. I was told that I was "in the right place".

First, immediate and inescapable conclusion - I was seriously outnumbered as someone who you could optimistically label an "agnostic". Among a group of 11, I could identify 3 people who were definitely not affiliated to Christianity in any way.

This surprised and irked me a little. The course had been intended as an introduction for non-Christians hadn't it? Why were so many people who were already in various degrees secure in their faith attending this course - "an Introduction to Christianity"?

This did, I freely admit, make me feel rather defensive from the off in addition to the generally uncomfortable environment. It wasn't that I needed numbers on my "side" - it was that in logical terms, I was given less chance to participate than I might have, in the interests of getting everyone's views and accommodating everyone's chance to speak. It struck me as akin to turning up to the cinema and being stuck in a bad seat behind a lot of people who had already seen the film.

First off was a quick round-robin of whether Jesus existed in the opinion of each person. I was the sole dissenting voice, in that I stated I didn't think he did. This was actually a slight misrepresentation of my own position. My position is that I don't know, and that neither does anyone else with any degree of certainty by conventional measurements. I think the environment and the demographics of the group had made me slightly more strident than I had intended to be.

Responses to this ranged from unease, to shock, to stating that most biblical scholars (and "even Dawkins") agreed that he was a historical figure. I didn't cede this exactly, again being aware of the limitations of the evidence, but this led us onto the next identifiable component of the discussion.

The conversation moved to the by-now famous quote of CS Lewis and a big part of the "Alpha rationale" for Jesus's veracity. The quote in question is as follows:

CS Lewis

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

The reactions to this were interesting after a slow start. Margaret interjected with a slightly puzzling defence of Jesus against a claim no-one in particular was making - that he was a "looney". She derided the ignorance of people who made this claim, making a salient point that experience of "madness" could be defined as quite relative. She spoilt her point a little later on by scoffing at Hindus for "worshipping an elephant", which undermined her insistence that knowledge and enlightenment was so important.

Something I found increasingly frustrating, but not entirely unexpected, was how each member seemed to frame their thoughts on these issues via the prism of their own experience. Whilst it might inform their opinion and explain things to themselves, it's not particularly helpful in a wider context. In this case, the question of Jesus's existence (or not) is not contingent on what happened when you were a child, on whether you had personally experienced religion or where you were born and what your parents did. It's a human imperative to share this information to explain your point, but it's rather irrelevant when you're trying to establish facts rather than perceptions. Nonetheless, we perservered. Des in particular skirted the very point I later brought up, by saying that the definitions were too narrow.

After some time, I spoke up and pointed out that the entire quote was in my opinion terminally disingenuous. That it makes several assumptions and also presents only 3 "logical" outcomes which are entirely fabricated within a system of cause and effect created by the author. I was interrupted slightly by Eric who agreed and made a point that I am unfortunately unable to recall, but which was along the lines supporting the thrust of Lewis's argument anyway. I accepted the possibility (whatever it was) and then put forward a hypothetical suggestion that there might be a 5th, 6th or countless other explanations. I stated that if there had been a historical figure called Jesus, it's perfectly possible that he was a very charismatic and clever political antagonist, never claimed to be the son of God and that this was conferred upon him afterwards (something I've since found has been partially corroborated as a theory). I also stated that it was possible he was simply a symbol for a movement or an embodiment of an ideal. As a parrallel (one I have just created, though I wish I'd thought of it at the time), there have never been lions in England, but they appear on our national coat of arms and football shirts. To accept Lewis's logic, you had to accept Jesus ever existed, which of course was pretty problematic in the first place given my previous position.

The conversation moves on, with a cursory nod to this possibility, in particular by Des who seems impressed by the point.

Jeff now spoke (the 99%'er), stating that he went to church and was impressed, but had trouble reconciling how happy everyone seemed. To me this was a telling point - the inference that there was something troublingly false about the entire church going community.
I thought to myself "Amen to that" and then mused on the irony.
Of course, Jeff's comment was a wild generalisation, but it's also as valid as anything else that was said. He seemed to imply that church had focussed on being a welcoming and unified "whole" at the possible expense of authenticity of feeling among the communion. Or that it was a club for happy people. This is speculation of course, and I am wary of interpreting things that weren't intended.

Comic interlude #1 happened about now:

Roy at this point launched into a mini-tirade "The thing is, only the most extreme and stupid American people believe in the creation happening as in Genesis. "

He was saying this to someone he clearly didn’t realize was an evangelical American Christian who I reckon it was odds-on believed in creationism. I think I was the only one that noticed, but it made an interesting point - that many outsiders to the Christian faith in the UK don't realise and cannot believe that anyone in this country would for a second believe something like creationism. I don't know if it's covered in detail on the course, but if it is, he's in for a shock I think.

The conversation meandered onwards and Ernie brought up an interesting point - or an interesting conversational gambit, depending on your viewpoint. The crux of his point was that no-one could show me Jesus. That our experience would be different in each case. This struck me as rather convenient. Delta also spoke to say that she had experienced Jesus and considered him 100% real. This struck me as unhelpful - again it was centred on personal experience, and it also meant that to contradict her was to call her a liar.
To even discuss facts in the face of such personal and spiritual "evidence" seemed like a real problem suddenly.

I didn’t get a chance to say anything about every religion swearing by “experience” of their particular deity, and that if she’d grown up in Afghanistan she’d have no doubt been just as devoted a muslim. I felt this might have been incendiary, and disrespectful, and in a sense was just as insubstantial an argument as any about "experience" might be.

The second comic interlude occurred about this point in proceedings. An exchange occurred that was quite brilliant in its all-round confusion.

Des: [makes a point about faith, referencing a self-defeating aspect of Dawkins' own writing].
{slight pause}
Keith: What did you say? Is he the guy who wrote about the universe?
{puzzled silence}
David: I think... that was Stephen Hawking?
Keith: No, the guy with the monkeys.
Simon: No, that was Charles Darwin.
Keith: Ah right. Thanks.

From Dawkin to Hawking to Darwin in one smooth evolution.
And then the group wrapped up.

All in all I would give the first course a 4/10. Too many people not interested in a discussion but just thinking it’s some kind of Holy "Jeremy Kyle" exercise, when that really wasn't meant to be on the agenda.
The key issue was that it was too noisy and too crowded though - without these it would have been a higher mark.

I hope that next week will see the space addressed a bit more effectively, or alternatively that the numbers will thin out.

Alpha Course - My Reasons

I took the step to attend the Alpha course after watching a television programme, broadcast in late June, presented by Jon Ronson, following the events of the course itself and the participants.

Ronson has also written for the Guardian on the subject, a piece that also makes interesting reading for anyone considering the course.

The programme was undeniably intriguing - a mixture of people seemed to attend, it appeared to be well-meaning or subtle enough not to appear anything else, and the techniques employed did not seem to me to be particularly sinister or pressurised, although there was one particularly uncomfortable section which dealt with "Speaking in tongues".
That said, I am always sharply aware of the editing methods employed by mainstream television companies, and it left me wondering what had been omitted and what had been enhanced.
Moreover, it gave a forum to voice thoughts and feelings on the big issues (perhaps the biggest issue) in a way that nothing else seemed to.

As such, my interest was piqued and I decided to register, indeed during the programme itself via my trusty laptop.

On a note of balance, if any atheists out there are running an equivalent in the area - perhaps the "Beta Course" will kick off sometime soon - I'd be more than interested to hear about it as a comparative exercise!

Alpha Course - Preface

Hello there.

I started this blog primarily to record my musings on the Alpha Course, run by Kerith Community Church that I attended on Wednesday. It was the first session in a series of ten, and was held at Costa Coffee in Bracknell.

From looking around the web, there were precious few accounts that I could locate which recorded the kind of thing that happens in a reasonably neutral tone. There seemed to be a fair few rabid and militant atheists, and equally rabid and insistent Christians, neither of which really sheds light on the events and intentions and techniques of this course. As such, over the next few weeks, I will endeavour to record my own thoughts and feelings as honestly as possible.

There are, of course, some problems extant with this approach - I'm not a Christian, I'm not an investigative journalist, and I'm not trained in theology. Nor am I entirely an atheist - my stance is difficult to sum up in a neatly labelled package. However, to re-iterate, I will record my thoughts and feelings as faithfully as possible, in the hope that these will inform and assist anyone out there who is considering attending a course, for whatever reason to come to a conclusion either way.

Thanks
J