Against Alpha

An Update About Our Opposition to the Alpha Course...
With Reasons Why

By: K. B. Napier

WHY?

Why do we oppose the world famous Alpha course? Articles have already been published by Bible Theology Ministries (BTM), and these are also available to view on our web site. In this paper we will look at Alpha’s own newspaper, ‘Alpha News’ (UK Edition), No. 23.

Comments will be made by myself (Barry Napier) about the contents, but our main concern is with the direct accrual of praise for its own work, rather than for God. Hopefully this will be shown clearly. When the Toronto Blessing was still hot news, I warned that an even more virulent form of charismatic deception would soon be unleashed.

At first, I thought that this might be a more spectacular version of the Toronto Blessing. A far more spectacular version is indeed about to occur, with the ‘actual’ appearance of Jesus and angels at charismatic meetings. But, an insidious wave had already begun in the UK! It was the Alpha course. It is not a product of the Toronto Blessing, but is simply a part of the ongoing deception of the churches and the unsaved, and the destruction of true preaching.

What we will be seeing, very soon, is wave after wave of charismatic-style heresies. These will give way to a wider and more eclectic movement, incorporating New Age and cultic groups. This is already happening with the acceptance by Alpha’s ‘mother’ (Holy Trinity, Brompton) of Roman Catholicism and a variety of cults.

The place of Alpha in all this? (See attached schematic illustration).

Well, the Toronto Blessing can be likened to a blunt instrument that bludgeoned the churches in to submission to Satan. It ‘softened up’ Christians to error and taught unbelievers that the deception was authentic church teaching. They did not know better, and came to believe that ‘extra-Biblical’ was okay. The Alpha Course takes a more subtle, gentle, approach (the ‘good cop, bad cop’ method!), and is re-shaping in people’s minds and hearts, what evangelism really is, and what ‘the faith’ is all about. Like victims of kidnap who come to love their kidnapper, charismatics and neo-charismatics have come to love the errors they now adhere to.

Thus, Alpha is the starting point for a theological journey that begins with charismatic spiritual heresies, enters in to ecumenical error, and will continue in to uncharted waters of stupendous and catastrophic proportion, involving all kinds of godless systems and cultic beliefs. Alpha, then, is the present key to changing minds and shaping beliefs – beliefs that are extra-Biblical. Read our articles for more details on Alpha’s beliefs. This paper will simply reinforce the reasons for our adamant and continuing opposition.

We call on all genuine Christians who have not been duped, to oppose the Alpha course steadily and continuously, for unless we do so, it will engulf every aspect of our faith and practice. The aim of Satan is not just to dupe unbelievers in to thinking they are saved, or even to dupe Christians in to adhering to a godless system. His aim is to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ from within, by moving the parameters. He is changing words and phrases, meanings and motives. He is attributing what is evil to God, thereby making it very easy for him to move in quietly as a thief who wants only to attack the strong man of the house.

Many people will read this paper, but only a few will accept its warning. This is to be expected, as dupes will prefer their deception, whilst the ‘remnant’ of God will obey the Lord. We expect the Church to be ravaged many times over the coming years, more by those who think they are ‘Believers’ than by those who totally reject God. Remember the warning and beware. Watch and be vigilant, for the next ‘victim’ could easily be you, or me.

Is the honour of God enough of a reason to oppose a false movement? Is the safety of your soul sufficient reason? And the place of truth in your heart and mind? Then oppose Alpha now.

An Archbishop’s Lack of Discernment

Page one of edition 23, Alpha News, has big headlines. Do the words praise God? No – they praise Alpha. And that is one of the biggest features of this course – its self-glorying. The headline is ‘Archbishop tells 10,000 of ‘Alpha Revolution’ ’. The Anglican leader was speaking at a conference called by Billy Graham, who is noted for his capitulation to heresy. Dr Carey said that “Alpha had revolutionised many churches and made many new Christians.” Other quotes by him concentrate on Alpha and not on God, or on the need for an evangelist to be prompted to speak by the Holy Spirit. Instead, emphasis is put squarely on man and his invented course; it is Alpha and not God, that is given the glory.

If the course was merely given out as a course, that would be another matter. But to praise a course devised by men for bringing in ‘new Christians’ is indicative of its true nature and the nature of those who lead and teach it. Alpha does NOT ‘make new Christians’. If anyone becomes a Christian because of the course (which I do not accept because it does not preach the real Gospel), then it is God, not the course, that did it. Dr Carey is right about Alpha revolutionising the churches...but it is a revolution of evil, not good. It causes churches to abandon God’s purposes and ways, by adopting men’s ways.

Dr Carey said, “Alpha’s great success lies in its ability to take evangelism out of the church into the home and to bridge the gulf between church and community.” What a garbled message this man proclaims! True evangelism is never done within the churches – evangelism is about men called of God reaching the lost, where they are. That churches no longer do this is to their shame and a sign of their immaturity in Christ and lack of knowledge!

As for ‘bridging the gulf between church and community’, that, too, is garbage. The ‘gulf’ can NEVER be bridged, because it has been placed there by God! The saved (the Church) are unique. They cannot ‘mix’ happily with the unsaved, who are forever divided from God and the Church by their unsaved state. There is no common ground, for the saved are ‘new creatures’ who, as Paul rightly puts it, already have one foot in heaven.

To say that Alpha bridges a gap between the saved and the unsaved, is to admit to total ignorance. I have heard Dr Carey trying to explain to a perplexed interviewer what the ‘Gospel’ is. He flunked it and gave a load of old nonsense that had no connection with what scripture says. Let it be repeated – there can be no bridge between the Church and the ‘community’ (an euphemism for ’unsaved’!). This is because God has decreed it to be so. If a man could build such a bridge, then the death of Jesus Christ would have been in vain and His resurrection is not needed. This is, fundamentally, why we oppose ‘community churches’. They suggest that salvation is merely a change of position along a continuum, where we start as ‘unsaved’ and slide across to become saved just by agreeing with certain teachings, or by ‘choosing Christ’. This is the ‘Gospel’ of Alpha!

The Gospel, according to Alpha, is about easing the pain of society by ‘christianizing’ it. This fits in well with Dr Carey’s theme, which was ‘Preaching Christ to a Broken World’. Probably, most readers will think there is nothing wrong with that title, because it is such a familiar theme in their own church’s preaching. In which case, they will need a lot of deprogramming! The whole point of preaching the Gospel is NOT to make people feel better, but to proclaim God’s anger against sin and to tell them that though they are sinners bound for hell, Jesus Christ has taken their punishment and they can be free in Him. This is what Peter preached to the Jews in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, and the same message applies today. Culture has nothing to do with it.

The Archbishop – and Alpha – though, think differently. He said that we need to “promote an effective evangelism rooted in the culture of those to whom we speak...I believe that you and I need to understand our culture, to find out what makes them tick – what they value most, what they are most concerned about, what they fear most in life.”

What bunkum! It is not our business to ‘promote’ a system of preaching or teaching as though it were equal to scripture. ‘Effective evangelism’ has nothing to do with studying the needs and wants of society, or their fears. Analysing these trends and then responding to them is not what evangelism is about. True and effective evangelism occurs when a man called by God to evangelise, speaks God’s word of salvation to a wicked generation. It is effective only when God has told the evangelist who to speak to, when, and how.

Evangelism cannot be taught or learned. It cannot be reduced to a system or course. A course, at its best, is only a resource, a way of studying matters that are necessary to know. But evangelism takes place when a man of God speaks as God prompts. This will be different on each occasion – Alpha is rigid and fixed, a mere psychological system. The ‘root’ is not man, but God.

Effective evangelism takes no heed of society’s whims and fancies, or even its fears. To build upon the perceived wants, needs and fears of men is to build on sand. What men think they need, or want, or fear, is irrelevant to God’s Gospel. He has no interest in the thinking or desires of the unsaved. He just speaks and demands they obey! The Gospel tells a man – you are a sinner bound for hell. You offend me and you cannot appear before Me unless you are saved. Alpha is as far removed from this as it can be, believing that fun, jokes, and a cup of tea, are a fine substitute for God’s own ‘method’.

People flock to Alpha because it does NOT preach the true Gospel! Alpha folk have discovered psychological elements that, put together, work admirably. That is because they study what people want, and they give it to them. Marketing! Sadly, one USA bishop told the truth to an homosexual woman (read later report), who rejected him for being so Biblical. After he had attended an Alpha course, though, he would not admonish homosexuality but offered ‘love’ instead...and so the woman was attracted to the ‘church’.

This is called ‘playing to the gallery’. It is Satan softening the truth to accommodate the views and feelings of the unsaved. I am not saying we must deliberately offend people...the Gospel can do this all on its own. There are times when we must be blunt and outright. There are times when we must be loving and gentle. Only God can determine which way we must approach people and the approach will be different every time.

Dr Carey’s ignorance is further shown as he says, “Many people...are put off...’institutional religion’...It doesn’t seem to offer a way in for them. Their interests lie in sport and fun and art and theatre and nature and books and good food and good wine.” Oh dear – what a bungler!

There IS no ‘way in’ for the unsaved. Only God can save a man or woman. It does not matter how de-institutionalised a church is. No church should be an institution anyway. But, if it is, and its members try to make it ‘fun’, they are wrong. Dr Carey is talking about the ‘clowns for Jesus’ approach, balloons, and so on. I saw a ‘church service’ on TV recently. The leaders were dressed as clowns with garish make-up, balloons, and told jokes. Children performed acrobatics and the clowns got up to clown things.

All of this was supposed to be the way to interest the unsaved, but it looked just like what it really was - a circus. It was a bizarre and unbiblical farce, prompted by Satan, not by the Holy Spirit. The way to a man’s heart may well be through his stomach – but the way to his soul is through the Holy Spirit’s regeneration, which highlights the man’s corruption. There is no ‘way in’ to the Church for the unsaved. The only way they can be ‘in’ the Church is if they are elected by God to be saved.

Dr Carey spoke of making our faith ‘accessible’ to the unsaved. This is impossible, because of the gap put between the saved and the unsaved by God.  Carey talks of us ‘serving’ the community. Friends – we are not here to serve the unsaved community! We are here to serve Almighty God – and part of that service is to speak the truth to people, who want to know nothing about salvation or the state of their own souls, if salvation involves telling them they are sinners bound for hell.

No matter what fun ‘method’ we use, it will never make faith accessible to the unsaved. Faith is the province of the saved, and no-one else. It is a pity that the supposed ‘leader’ of Anglicans does not know this. It is also appalling that such a man pretends to speak for the Church, when he has not even an inkling of the truth.

The best word Dr Carey gave was that Alpha “sits very happily with the culture of the modern world.” How very true! That is indeed the reason for its success – it does not preach the Gospel. If it did, it would not be a success, for the Gospel offends those who are not elected. Many who had not heard of Alpha were thus introduced to the course. And so this evil device spreads even more.

Invaluable – But Who To?

When Rome approves of something done by ‘Protestants’, you can be sure of one thing – what it approves of must be in Rome’s own interests. The Catholic Archbishop for St Andrews and Edinburgh, UK, says that Alpha makes an invaluable contribution to evangelism. This is another way of saying that Alpha is compatible with Roman Catholicism...and with any other system of belief that is Arminian and cultic.

Many Roman Catholic churches now use the Alpha course and the reason is easy to see, as another UK RC bishop puts it (Ambrose Griffiths, Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle): “This is the first time ever, you know, that the very same course is being used by every Christian church in pretty well every country in the world. That is an incredible achievement. It’s very hard to think that it is other than a work of the Spirit in which we rejoice.”

There are two ways to look at such a statement. Firstly, it was uttered by a Roman Catholic bishop who delivered an address at a packed Alpha conference. A Roman Catholic bishop has no idea Who the Holy Spirit is in reality, for he is unsaved. His allegiance is firmly with Rome and with Rome’s unchanging belief in its own dogma. Rome cannot and does not preach the true Gospel. He does not understand what a ‘church’ is, so what does he mean by ‘every Christian church’? He can only mean those churches that agree with Rome and which, by definition, have no discernment.

Every Christian church does NOT teach Alpha.  Our church does not, nor do many churches I know of. By definition, any church that teaches Alpha is in agreement with Rome, whether or not it knows it. So, secondly, to allow a Roman Catholic bishop to speak at an Alpha conference (which is not unusual), the alpha hierarchy must agree with the bishop and his beliefs. So, we have a cult bishop who teaches heresy and a false gospel, saying that it ‘must’ be the Holy Spirit Who gives the success to Alpha, though he cannot possibly know the presence of the Spirit. We also have the Alpha hierarchy who do not know the difference between a true church and a false one. They also introduced the vile Toronto Blessing to the UK and called that ‘of the Spirit’.

Between them, then, Alpha and Rome are a sorry, heretical, mess without an ounce of spiritual integrity. They are the blind leading the blind in a happy but useless picnic, eating poison and rejoicing in the fine fare! Alpha is NOT the work of the Holy Spirit. It is part of the same Satanic ploy that brought us the Toronto Blessing. It is linked inextricably to other Satanic movements such as Pensacola, and the coming Benny Hinn-promised sightings of Jesus and angels. And it will be linked with far worse charismatic-ecumenical movements in the near future.

The bishop describes those who are unsaved as having ‘fallen away’. Thus, they only have to ‘return’ to a position they once had. Hence, all we need to do is to ‘persuade’ them by using Alpha and cups of tea! Arminian and unbiblical. Those who are unsaved are not simply ‘fallen away’. They never had a holy position to begin with! They are dead in their sins and will never, ever, reach heaven, unless they are saved. And no method in the world, including Alpha, will ever change that. Only the Holy Spirit can save a person, if that person has been elected and is then regenerated. We cannot persuade anyone to be saved.

Alpha only provides a happy environment, one that does not point starkly to a person’s sin. It works well because it makes a person feel good about himself...’God loves you’ is the constant slogan – even though God does not say that in His word. God’s love is always conditional. Charismatics insist that it is unconditional, even though all of scripture says otherwise. The ‘condition’ is election and predestination. If this condition is met, ONLY THEN is salvation given in a person’s lifetime. Then, the condition is that we repent of our sins. There is no mention of us just ‘loving God’ back. We can do that only if we have been saved.

So, think very hard about Roman Catholic involvement, because it says much about the Catholics and about the one who joins with them. Both are in serious error. To put it very simply, if something is accepted by Rome, then be very careful and reject whatever is being accepted, for Rome only accepts what is to its own benefit and furtherance. Thus what is accepted must be heretical.

Am I saying that no-one can be saved in an Alpha meeting? No, I am not. If this is confusing let me explain...Salvation is entirely in the hands of God. He chose everyone who will ever be saved, before the world was made.  In every predestinated person’s lifetime, God will provide the initial regeneration of his soul and his spirit will be made alive. This may, or may not, be at the same time as he hears or reads the Gospel.

Then, the Holy Spirit will cause the person to repent and ‘be saved’. At no juncture in all this can a course or another human being bring that salvation about. Not even the elected man can effect his own salvation. Therefore, a man is saved regardless of, and independent of, anything he might hear or see or feel coming from a course or other person.

That is how I can tell you that no man is saved by Alpha. He might be saved whilst attending Alpha, but not because of the course content as such. He will be saved regardless of Alpha because the Holy Spirit has altered his heart and made his spirit alive. He might then respond to parts of Alpha (those that speak the truth – and I acknowledge that the course does that at times). But salvation is not due to Alpha. It is due to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, an action that is apart from Alpha and any other method.

Even after saying that I must stress that no man should attend an Alpha course, for it is alien to what God really says. Not so much in most of its wording, but in its ethos, manner and underlying beliefs. And, also, in its charismatic/ecumenical ‘flavour’ and aims, which are all Arminian and unscriptural. In such an atmosphere, then, salvation is incidental to, and not because of, Alpha.

Big Business Feel

Another disturbing matter is the ‘big business’ feel to the Alpha course. I am not talking about financial gain, but about the way everything is so structured. The fact that there is structure at all is enough to cause me to sigh. No doubt the Alpha folk would say that the structure has become necessary because of the success of Alpha. My response is that we cannot ‘structure’ what God is doing. If He alone calls men to be evangelists, and He alone gives them what to say, to whom, and when, then the whole idea of making a structure is superfluous and arrogant.

Jesus did not have a big company or structure behind Him. He had no structure at all. Paul did not have a structure. The Church supported and backed him, but there was no structure that directed his ministry. There are centralised offices for Alpha and the head office at Holy Trinity, Brompton. There are large numbers of ‘leaders’, books, conferences, you name it and everything reflects the ‘big business’ attitude. If Alpha was just a book or a course, then offices would be acceptable. But Alpha pretends to be God’s voice in this age for evangelism! That makes it all a parody of evangelism.

The centralisation strongly shows the need to keep power for the authors and main leaders. The course offices insist that those who lead an Alpha course stick rigidly to its contents and approach. The aim, they claim, is to maintain ‘quality control’!! There is no comparison with what scripture says, where God implements the ‘quality control’ with direct commands, rewards and even punishments, for His ordained men!

If the course really is of God, then why insist on human measures of control and administration? To me, it is all a stench, for it reeks of meddling and invention. At Amsterdam over 700 ‘leading evangelists’ (???) heard and accepted the Alpha course presentation. These went back to their cities and countries to spread the word (of Alpha). The same way the Toronto Blessing spread. And the same way a plague is transmitted.

Alpha likes to bring on the ‘big guns’ to lend credence to itself. At a Vancouver Conference, the guest speaker was George Gallup, of Gallup Polls fame. He said that Alpha was “an anointed ministry, arriving on the world scene at God’s appointed hour.”  Once again, I say ‘Oh dear’! He might be able to discern trends in society, but he certainly is unable to discern spiritual movements. Alpha is an anointed ministry – but anointed by Satan. And it is Satan’s appointed time, not God’s.

Summary

When the Toronto Blessing was doing its vicious work, few Christians understood why we were so opposed to it. Even today, after the results have been quantified and qualified, they prefer to remain silent and let it all get brushed under the carpet. The same people let cults move in to their area without a struggle. They do not support real evangelists and real preachers and teachers. So, it is likely that this paper, too, will be thrown aside. Some will write to me in anger, cynicism, or plain abuse. Friends, these are people without discernment. They do not understand God, or salvation, or the true nature of evangelism. Are you like this? Or will you look to God and see that what we are saying is true, honest and urgent?

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