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.