In The Netherlands, a certain openness to the gospel can be seen. Especially amongst young people there is interest. Also the lately started debate about norms and values, seems to be making people curious about the book upon which the Christian and Jewish faith is built. At the same time, the growing visibility of Islam has given rise to questions about our own Dutch identity and the role of the Christian faith in this. The generation which after the sixties took a deliberate distance from church and faith, seems to have brought up its children with an open mind.

One clear evidence of this interest for the Christians book is the wide interest which the Dutch Bible Society managed to arouse for the New Bible Translation in October 2004. This new translation dominated the Dutch media for at least one and a half weeks after its presentation to Queen Beatrix in Rotterdam. The publicity still goes on. The sales figures are unparalleled.

It must be one of the factors which has resulted in the success of the Alpha course also in post modern Holland. People who have come to know and love God with the help of the Alpha course, also join the Reformed Churches. The reformed singer-songwriter Wim Buenk even wrote ten Songs for Alpha.

Although from the beginning, reformed believers and reformed churches have worked with the Alpha course, it has also started a stream of criticism, positive and negative. This criticism has not touched the form but especially certain aspects of the content. In this article I am trying to weigh up criticism and appreciation of the Alpha course, coming from reformed circles

The Alpha Course: Course with Two Books⤒🔗

The Alpha course attempts to spread the gospel with the help of a missionary learning group. A course is offered covering a number of evenings and a weekend. People who want to know more about the Christian faith, are invited to come and get to know God, the Bible and the believers. But it is not only a course with teachers and a textbook.

A deliberate call is given to church members to circulate invitations within their own network and to attend themselves. It is the intention that there is a good atmosphere within the group. The meal together at the start of the evening helps this. The participants and leaders get to know each other well. The climate is favourable for friendships to come into being.

This side of the chosen method is directed at the coming into being of a personal relationship with God via personal relationships with believers. The reference to Christ must be there in word and in the deeds of the believing participants. Their hospitality, their attention and love for the participants must be at one with the love and mercy of God through Jesus Christ of whom the Gospel speaks.

The design of the course has deliberately paid attention to the work of the Holy Spirit. Not only as topic of one or more lessons. I mean that the organizers and the group leaders and the congregation supporting the course are made aware that the course wants to be a channel for the Holy Spirit. It is He, after all, who forges the band with Christ. He is the creator of faith. He makes people aware of sin and misery. For this reason the Holy Spirit is emphatically involved in the course through prayer. Prayer receives a place in the course evenings and in the course leadership. But also in the prayers surrounding the course, in a special prayer group, in the meetings of the church, constant prayer is made for the recreating work of the Holy Spirit.

It is thus interwoven with the Alpha course strategy, that it is a course with two books. The one book is the guide in the teaching, the work book for participants. This book points to the Bible, God’s Word. Here, the teachers are the people who give the talks, and the people who lead the discussions. The believers who are present constitute the other text book. They point in word, attitude and prayer to the Lord Jesus, who lives and rules at God’s right hand. For this reason they are available to the Holy Spirit. He is the teacher who works with the letters He has written in the faith of the leaders, 2 Corinthians 3:2-3.

This is important when weighing up the criticism. What is not present in the work book for participants, is not necessarily missing in the course. The leaders have a large input with their talk, but especially with their attitude, their example, their prayer, their speaking about faith issues.

What is Valued in the Alpha Course←⤒🔗

There have been expressions of appreciation of the Alpha course brought forward by various reformed writers.

For a start, people have sensed a great respect and joy for God in the course. People have been especially addressed by Gods love for mankind as that is expressed in the course. This is a great stimulant for the believers who participate, also to live out their faith in personal relationships. It is a fine way to practice mutual relationships based on trust. In your methodology you deliberately give a place to the need and the questions people have.

Subsequently people recognise the great respect for the work and the person of the Holy Spirit. Given the emphasis on prayer it can be seen that there is no reliance upon the capacity of people to bring themselves or others to repentance. People have no power to bring others to faith and repentance. The Spirit must give that. He must do that. He must do that alone. He must do everything.

Everybody is also in agreement that the course rightly emphasises that believing means coming into a personal relationship with God. Included in this is the appeal throughout the course to your own responsibility. There is an urge towards the making of choices. This is a biblical notion. A person can only be born again and come to faith by God. But if that happens, the person also begins to believe himself and repents. In order to persevere, the participant is also directed at the reality of the struggle with evil.

Finally it is good to see how the Bible is accepted and recommended as authoritative Word of God in the Alpha course. There is appreciation of the large place which is made for the role of the local church in the work of God. The church as community of believers comes extensively in the spotlight as work of the Spirit who works rebirth, in the chapter headed ‘What does the Holy Spirit do?’ (Work book, chapter 8) The chapter ‘What about the church?’ (Work book, chapter 14) is full of healthy teaching from the New Testament about the church as ‘people of God’, as ‘family of God’, ‘body of Christ’, ‘temple of the Spirit’ and ‘bride of Christ’.

Criticism of the Alpha Course: Content←⤒🔗

In the Reformed churches, people have been bothered by issues in the course material which do not follow the line of Biblical teaching. The most objections are against chapter 9: ‘How can I be filled with the Spirit?’, and against chapter 13: ‘Does God still heal today?’

Looking more closely at lessons about who the Holy Spirit is, and what He does, the question of how someone is filled with the Holy Spirit is addressed. On the basis of this chapter, it appears that the expression ‘filled with the Spirit’ is used in a distinct way: that is – being filled with the Spirit in such a way that you are going to do unusual things, and especially: to speak in tongues.

In the Bible, speaking in tongues or in a language which you have not learnt is an expression of being filled with the Spirit. As the Spirit fills you, means that He takes control of your intelligence, your will and your feelings. He convinces you of the greatness and majesty of God and of his great love for you. He makes you absolutely willing to serve Jesus Christ, the crucified one on the throne, king and redeemer. And his supremacy is expressed in having the frankness to speak of this. This is not a one off experience, although a hefty start is not unusual. It is a gift accompanying faith. You can also expect to know periods of inner resistance and weakness wherein the old debauchery wins ground again.

Paul’s recommendation in Ephesians 5:18-21 has to do with this: ‘do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery, instead be filled with the Spirit’. This does not mean that being filled with the Spirit has to be compared with drunkenness. It means: surrendering to the Spirit, protects you from falling back into your former way of life and helps you to live in a way which pleases the Lord. How do you let yourself return to the liberating regime of the Spirit? By speaking to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. By listening to how your brothers and sisters praise the Lord and thank Him for everything that He has done for them. Be taken by your fellow believers to the throne of God. Read in their thankfulness the majesty of His love. Look at your life in the light of the work of Jesus Christ. Let their example help you to bow deeply before Him.

Being full of the Spirit, is being full of Jesus Christ, of his word. In your words and deeds you are one great reference for Him. On the point of being full of the Spirit, you speak of God’s great deeds, proclaim the word of Christ and win respect for Jesus Christ the Lord. You will not be held back by anyone. You flow over with honour and praise. The Spirit will not let Himself be held back, certainly not by language barriers and cultural borderlines. This is the message of the Day of Pentecost. The Spirit wants to take the message of Christ to all peoples and nobody and nothing resists Him. Human limitations neither.

The Alpha course itself states it and reformed authors emphasise it: if ‘being filled with the Spirit’ means that you are going to do unusual things, especially to speak in tongues, a division between believers who are filled with the Spirit and believers who are not, occurs. But the Holy Spirit connects people by faith to the throne of Christ. Following Christ characterises the congregation as a whole, the congregation as the Spirit’s place of residence.

Moreover reformed authors are afraid that the Alpha course gives priority to the Spirit before Christ. The period after Pentecost may well be ‘the age of the Spirit’ (chapter 9), but the Spirit is out to lay that link with Christ. He makes Christ known on earth. In his policy Jesus Christ comes first. If you see the ‘age of Christ’ to be closed in one way or another, you run the risk of letting the reconciliation be a one off closed happening, and sin a station which you leave behind. The ‘pockets of resistance’ which threaten your salvation (ch 10), become too much like incidents.

There is also a special chapter dedicated to the question of whether or not God still heals today, chapter 13 in the handbook. There is criticism of this, in combination with chapter 6 about prayer. It is right that what God has said in the Bible goes first (chapter 11) in order to decide what His will is. This creates caution in the ‘experiencing’ of God’s guidance in prayer. This experience should be tested. The same should be said about prayer. In his prayer, a believer responds to God’s promises. You climb to God’s throne via the steps of his promises.

For this reason, it is important to pray with discernment, also when you express deep desires before the Lord, you search for connection with His own word. For this reason, he who asks God for healing from his sickness will not be able to connect to God’s promise that he gives healing to every believer who asks for it. There is a promise of healing to be sure. But this is joined to the promise of forgiveness. The forgiveness of sin is the heart of redemption, the begin. Renewal and healing are given with this and follow this.

Criticism of the Alpha-strategy←⤒🔗

Alongside this criticism of the content, there is also criticism of the strategy. Things which should be told to interested people on the first introduction are not mentioned, or not mentioned enough. I name as examples:

1. That God’s promise of redemption is the heart of the gospel and that faith is accepting this promise, and trusting in it.
    
2. That prayer is connecting up with God’s promises.
    
3. That the destruction caused by sin is great. The power of sin is broken through faith but is not put out of action, so that the tempter can always find the weak place in God’s children. It makes confession of sin and guilt, coupled with the request for forgiveness, necessary every day.
    
4. That the Spirit brings you to Christ and that reading the Bible is discovering and meeting Jesus.
    
5. Some people also miss a lesson about baptism,
    
6. Others would have liked to have seen a more emphatic connection with church and worship service. If you are not clear about these things from the start, you can lay stumbling blocks in the way of faith for your pupils.

There are elements in the Alpha course which pull biblical truths out of position, and therefore can influence the practice of faith adversely and cause great frustration and disappointment in believers. At such moments, the value of the ‘second text book’ is great: what is missing can and must be brought in from the word and practice of the believers.

You can ask yourself if this is an effective way of teaching, if you have to correct the text book or even contradict it. Nevertheless, for many reformed churches, this is not a reason to stop using the course. Why the Alpha course then? Various reasons are given for this. It is a well known ‘make’ which is very familiar. The set up meets a need and is effective. In the course itself, the relationship between the course leaders and the group swiftly becomes more important than the course book. There must also be trust in the Holy Spirit and the capacity of God’s Word to make its own point.

Above all, it is not only the right of charismatic Christians to think about the work of the Holy Spirit in people coming to faith. The Canons of Dort, chapter III/IV pay attention to conversion and its means. This confession stands up for the use of those means. ‘The supernatural working of God whereby he regenerates us, in no way excludes or cancels the use of the gospels, which the most wise God has ordained to the seed of regeneration and the food of the soul.’ And today – the Canons of Dort warn­ those who give or receive instruction in the church should not dare to tempt God by separating what He in his good pleasure has willed to be closely joined together (Ch. III/IV, art. 17).

Today it may still be necessary to call for preaching and teaching, for proclamation of the gospel and instruction. Today there may be even more need for a course which deliberately brings its students in contact with the regenerating Spirit and His work (Ch. III/IV, art. 11). This does not lead to a distant approach but to a personal advancement, in your dealing with each other, also in your prayer for each other. You are not just telling about something in the Bible, but you show what Somebody means to you. You give room to the emphasis on the Spirit by asking Him for regeneration through God’s Word and the gift of faith through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And also by pointing to your king in heaven, through your words and deeds. Jesus Christ brings people into His kingdom through His Word and Spirit. The Alpha course has found a way to give a place not only to the Word but also to the work of the Spirit in the process of missionary instruction.