Following Russell Brand’s baptism, there has been a lot of interest generated in the media about celebrities and evangelicalism including this rather sneering article in The Times. John Stevens, National Director of the FIEC (Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches) shared the link on Facebook and commented to the effect that whilst there is a tendency to sneer at Alpha, Nicky Gumbel and HTB, we should be able to recognise thar God has used Gumbel and the Alpha Course significantly in evangelism.
The responses were fascinating, noting that the FIEC tend to represent, though not exclusively conservative evangelicals. In the main, the Fellowship tends to be reformed and leans non-Charismatic. Some people commented that they had attended Alpha, used the course in their churches and knew people who have become Christians through it. However, others were quick to condemn the course outright. For them, it was a gateway to a kind of mixture of Catholicism and prosperity teaching because the course has been used by Catholics and because Gumbel has quoted, approvingly people such as The Pope and others we might not agree with on many things.
For the record, Alpha is not my approach of choice. My preference is towards approaches that get people more quickly into Scripture and in fact, we do better to use home grown stuff rather than relying on something developed nationally or internationally. That’s why, I tend to link people into our First Look materials and also why, although I’m happy to share the materials for free for others to use, I’d prefer you to do your own thing in your own church/community. However, I, like John am able to recognise that Alpha has been used by God in an incredible way and I personally know people who are part of God’s family, forgiven, justified, believers in Jesus because they were invited to Alpha. Our own church offer the course as one option for people wanting to explore faith in Jesus.
I think that those objecting and reacting strongly to John’s comments were confusing two questions. There is the question of whether or not you and your church would choose to use the course. You may decide that it isn’t appropriate and it is legitimate to do so because you find its approach culturally unhelpful in your context or because you have issues with its theology. I’m not sure that worrying about whether other churches you disagree use the course is relevant, any more than the fact churches/networks you disagree with might end up using the same Bible translation or singing the same songs. I’m also pretty relaxed about who gets quoted. I might choose to quote the pope myself, that doesn’t mean I agree with or endorse everything he says. Nor would most of my readers assume that it did.
The other question is quite distinct. It was that question and that one alone that John was dealing with. It’s whether or not we can recognise that God has used Alpha for good, for the Gospel, Well, it is worth noting that God used the moralistic teaching of the church that lacked the Gospel to prepare people’s consciences and hearts for the Gospel message to be preached clearly by John Wesley and George Whitfield. So at a minimum, we should be able to see how God might use Alpha at least to get people thinking about God.
However, I believe we can go further. Is Alpha imperfect? Yes? Have there been false converts? Undoubtedly. But sadly, anyone who has been in Gospel ministry long enough and is willing to be honest will sadly have heart breaking stories of people who seemed to profess faith, got baptised and are nowhere near God, the Gospel or church today.
So, I need to keep coming back to the point. There are people in God’s kingdom now, who came to faith through Alpha. It is important that we recognise this and that as part and parcel of this, we recognise, without equivocation that other believers are true believers, are our brothers and sisters in Christ, even when we disagree on significant issues.
I am personally, Reformed, baptistic, charismatic, with a preference for independent but interdependent churches. I love old hymns but enjoy contemporary worship music. I really don’t like choral services. All of those factors will affect where I’m comfortable church wise and will shape how I approach teaching and preaching. However, if I meet an Arminian, paedo-baptist, non-charismatic who loves traditional choral evensong, then they are no less my brother or sister in Christ.
It’s important that we get these things clear for two reasons. First, there has been some talk recently about how we do better at evangelical unity. We can only get that unity if we recognise the difference between first, second and third order matters. If we make second or third order issues into first order, gospel issues we may be the ones falling into the Galatian error.
And this leads me to a second point. We tend to assume that those who are narrowly purist are doctrinally purist too but the inability to recognise others as brothers and to acknowledge where God has worked because it doesn’t fit our preferences betrays some serious doctrinal weakness. It raises questions about our understanding of God’s Sovereignty, the Doctrine of Grace and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Faithroots 