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.".