Alpharisms

December 2004

By: K. B. Napier

The Alpha course is one of the biggest and latest spiritual confidence tricks in the world and many thousands succumb to its charms every week, all around the world. What makes it a scam? Its self-aggrandisement coupled with its Arminian presentation of the Gospel, and a charismatic source.

You cannot escape the fact that praise is given to Alpha and not to Christ, even within its own promotional literature. For so many weak Christians today the logo and brand of Alpha is greater than the Gospel it purports to preach!

Christ said “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.” His commandments include the proper preaching of His Gospel. The apostle Paul defined this as the Gospel that he and the apostles preached – anything else was to be considered ‘anathema’. There can be no doubt whatever that Alpha does NOT preach this authentic Gospel, but a ‘gospel that is no gospel’. Therefore, it is anathema.

Its leaders and supporters have no excuse. The Gospel is tied inextricably to the truths of predestination and election. Alpha rides roughshod over them, denying them existence. The reason is obvious – if Alpha actually preached the genuine Gospel it would lose almost all of its adherents!

Why? Because those who adhere to it prefer the weak and godless teachings of Arminianism, which give Man the position of mini-gods. To remove its influence would be to remove their own influence! It would also remove their false belief systems.

It is no coincidence that Alpha came from a charismatic cess-pit. Satan wishes to build up a staggeringly vast empire of ‘almost Christians’, whose very presence and work tries to annul the true Gospel. I refer to charismaticism as a cess-pit because that is what it is. Charismaticism is a cess-pit, because it contains huge numbers of heresies and anti-Bible teachings and practices.

I say that leaders of Alpha are useless*, without spiritual discernment. No Godly status can be given to spreaders of spiritual muck! (*In scripture the word ‘useless’ is applied to anything that has no spiritual worth to offer).

It is also no coincidence that Alpha has a strong and growing Roman Catholic contingency, even though Christians throughout the ages have considered Catholicism to be the harlot of scripture. Having studied and taught The Revelation, I can only concur that the description in that book of the harlot really does appear to fit Rome, with its multi-layered strata of evil and error. Roman Catholicism is just as much a cult as Mormonism and JWism. Yet, Holy Trinity, Brompton, the managers and perpetrators of Alpha, could not care less. To them, any untruth is fine and any association is acceptable.

I repeat what I have said in my original assessment of Alpha, that all who teach or lead Alpha are not called by God to do so. I can say this without fear of contradiction, because God does not prompt any Christian to support or preach heresy!

It is also my contention that those who lead Alpha groups do so because of their own immense failure to be obedient servants of the Most High God. They do not obey, they believe heresy, and teach the same. There is no way I can cushion these facts.

(Am I being harsh? I do not think so. I have learned that talking softly in the face of continuous heresy does nothing. I can talk softly to those I meet face-to-face, and whose heart is repentant or at least willing. But hardened hearts require more of a jack-hammer than a weak smile! You will find this to be so in scripture itself).

Only those without a mandate to preach and teach will support and teach Alpha. It gives them some kind of status and meaning in life, because their own lives are woefully lacking in truth and real godly intent. That is, they have no calling from God, so their next best move is to associate with a successful movement. I do not care who this applies to – for it applies to all who lead Alpha.

Alpha pretends to be the catch-all course for everybody! God’s Gospel does not say that it catches-all in its net. God does not throw out an invitation to choose salvation. He chose whoever would be saved even before He made the world!

Logic tells me that if God chose everybody who will ever be saved, before He even made the first man and woman, then it stands to reason that no man or woman can ever choose to be saved.

They cannot alter God’s decision, for those who are saved in time have already been saved in eternity! Give away as many suppers as you wish – they will not make Christians. They will not save. Pray as ‘hard’ as you wish, you will not be saved if you are not elect. Learn an immense background to ‘Christianity’, but it will still leave you at square one, without a Saviour or hope. Election is the key.

But, Alpha arrogantly carries on regardless, preaching a lie and taking the praise for it. And the lie is so huge it drags in big names such as popes, archbishops, pop stars and sportsmen. They are all deluded, every one of them, and none of them have any idea of genuine Biblical theology.

Time and again my critics tell me that Alpha is a genuine tool of the Gospel, so they can tolerate its ‘errors’. This is not God’s way. He tells us that His word is perfect and that He does not cause men to commit or believe error. Rather, when we find error we must oppose it and demand repentance.

In this paper I give just a few brief notes about present Alpha news. I will leave praise for Alpha to all who are deluded and whose theology is dead. Do not speak to me of numbers or of people supposedly being saved ‘by Alpha’, because they are worthless facts based on a lie. If you don’t believe me, look at 2 Thessalonians, where we are told specifically and clearly that God has chosen whom He wishes to save. Deny it at your own peril!

Good News

One local vicar, after reading our material on Alpha, took down his Alpha posters and stopped the course. I thank God for his testimony and courage, especially for a man in a denomination at the forefront of promoting Alpha!

God’s Managers?

Alpha assumes that God is unable to operate without humanly-appointed managers! That is why there is a proliferation of conferences and seminars and centralised control.

It does not matter which sector of society you wish to aim at, Alpha folk have a ready-made answer, which involves leaders attending a conference, to be told how to run the courses.

Compare with the way the churches originally began. It is very clear in scripture that the apostles visited an area and preached. They then taught the new Christians doctrinal truths, which they expected to be obeyed.

After that, Paul and the others continued to visit as they could, and sent letters of advice, rebuke and help. But there were no conferences or seminars! Each local church grew as the Lord wished it to grow. Their growth in spirituality depended on their obedience, not on newly written ideas from a human point of view.

Paul did not establish marriage conferences, as Alpha does. He just taught the whole counsel of God and expected everyone to obey. Today, we are in a far better position for we have the whole counsel of God in writing. The answer to marriage problems is not to attend an Alpha course on marriage, but to read God’s word and obey everything in it.

Then there are the ‘tried and tested ways’ that Christians can copy, to help the poor and the excluded in society…again provided by an Alpha course! Scripture contains the principles for all these things – why go to charismaticised heretics for answers when God has already given them?

Or, what about building thriving and growing churches? Of course – Alpha has the answer! For goodness sake, friends, shake off the lethargy and sin! Turn from the glittering baubles offered by Holy Trinity, and turn back to God. His word has the answers, not Alpha. Stop wasting your time on Alpha and get back to reading God’s word for yourself. Don’t rely on the interpretations of Arminian teachers.

Then there are conferences to help Christians who wish to offer help to ex-offenders. Again, we must go back to scripture, where the principles of help are given. Very often, today, Christians help those in society whom God has Himself rejected.

Christians who help in this way heap coals of God’s anger upon their own heads. I even heard of one pastor who teaches that God wishes to offer love to all who are reprobate, even though scripture says the exact opposite.

It seems that charismatics specialise in helping reprobates, who stand condemned by God for sins which make them utterly wicked. To help men condemned by God is heresy and is itself wicked. Be careful whom you help, friends, for you might otherwise incur God’s wrath.

I have no problem with helping ex-offenders IF they turn from their crimes and repent. If they do not, Christians have no business helping them. Sadly, too many Christians help people who are sinful haters of God.

Our Sad, Theologically-Challenged, Sinful, Archbishop!

Dr Rowan Williams is said to be an academic whiz-kid. Why, then, does he have such sinful theological views? His academic brilliance is not found in his ‘spiritual’ pronouncements – his views on homosexuality are just one example of his ineptidude. Behind it are his theological errors.

Is he truly a born-again person? I cannot tell. Some of his words seem right – but that is easy for anyone who spends his time in an Anglican frock. His views, which are based on his theology, are very unsound, leading many into the jaws of deceit. 

However, his view that Alpha is “an open door” is correct – an open door for cults and the occult to get into the hearts and minds of thousands of people; an opening for so many churchified errors.

The archbishop likened the Christian faith to a landscape, and Alpha as a guide through it. Once again, we have a supposedly Christian leader describe Christianity as something you can simply learn about. The implication is serious – that Alpha (or any other Arminian heresy), by chatting about a variety of things, can somehow produce Christians by ‘guiding’ them through topics of interest.

His argument speaks of people seeing ‘Christians’ acting out their faith ‘seriously’ and so wanting to be like them. In other words, choosing Christ rather than being elected to salvation before time began. Sadly, when he was Bishop of Monmouth, he encouraged all priests in his diocese to attend an Alpha course.

Rev. F.

Rev. F. has a responsible public position. Yet, he supports and promotes Alpha. When a lady questioned him about it, he got on his high horse and told her that he knew his stuff because he was studying for his PhD!! Oh dear, what a childish way to respond! This is the way men typically fob-off genuine critics.

In my own emails to him I spoke of his spiritual paucity – because that is what a person has when he or she supports Alpha, knowing the hard evidence from scripture that denounces it.

His non-responses were typical of those who have no argument, for he did not answer a single objection put to him. Instead, he quoted the thousands who disagreed with me (charismatics and pro-charismatics, of course), and even relies on Yonggi Cho, who most reformed Christians now recognise as a man on the wrong path.

To support this deluded view, Rev F. resorts to an old but well-used charismatic ploy. To quote: “Let us let God be the judge of Alpha and the work of the Holy Spirit in the world.” Oh dear again! God has ALREADY judged Alpha in His word!! Read scripture and you will find evidence against Alpha. No problem.

In my own 34 page original criticism I listed a number of known heresies inherent in Alpha. We already have a  long and growing catalogue of unholy activities found in charismatic circles. So, why do we need to ‘wait’?? What’s extra to scripture?

Like so many, Rev. F. is deluded and cannot discern what is spiritually right or wrong. Instead of arguing his position from scripture, he quotes others and resorts to vagueness. Alpha is already judged and found wanting. Yet, this man, like many others, hangs on to deception. Why? Because he has nothing else in his life, nothing that is genuine.