REMEMBER the Reverend Archie Coates? He made it onto this blog last October when he arrived in Brighton to reclaim this, Britain’s “most godless city”, for Jesus.
Coates came to atheist Brighton – home of the Freethinker -Â to establish a franchise of London’s evangelical Holy Trinity Brompton church at the failed Anglican St Peter’s Church.
The thing was about to close when Holy Trinity took over the crumbling landmark building in the hope of reversing its fortunes.
As part of its revival plans, the church this week launched an Alpha Course – just weeks after the National Secular Society revealed that Alpha had launched a programme to bring its literalist brand of fundamentalist Christianity to state schools up and down the country.
The NSS is receiving increasing numbers of complaints from parents who are alarmed by the number of evangelical groups that are being allowed into schools to spread intolerant religious teaching, but the Alpha Course is by far the most organised and widespread.
The Times Educational Supplement recently reported the growing influence of the Alpha trend. It cited Archbishop Blanch Church of England High School in Liverpool, where “Youth Alpha” courses have been running for three years and had 300 pupils participating. Each runs for eight weeks at lunchtime and is promoted throughout the school on notice boards and in assemblies.
Liverpool, incidentally, has one of the highest rates of homophobic crime in Britain. And according to Liverpool city councillor Steve Radford, it has the second highest proportion of pupils in faith schools after Wigan, with around half of all schools in the area attached to a religious denomination. He added that the churches are still powerful in the city, which has a sizeable Catholic population.
The course was set up with the headteacher’s backing by Reverend Kate Wharton, the Bishop of Liverpool’s appointee on the school’s board of governors. She claims that the Alpha Course is a “balanced introduction” to Christianity.
What she does not mention, says the NSS, is its homophobia and the final sinister “holy spirit” session that encourages participants to speak in tongues and behave hysterically.
Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said:
This is real fundamentalist stuff all wrapped up in reassuring words and delivered by a bloke in a jumper with a permanent smile who looks remarkably like Tony Blair. This is not a ‘balanced introduction’ to anything; it is a carefully planned attempt to push people in a very specific direction. It is deeply manipulative and has no place in schools paid for by the taxpayer.
Quoted in the TES, Jonathan Bartley of the Ekklesia Christian “think tank” said the courses deal with doctrine rather than Christianity as a way of life.
It’s about sin, hell and resurrection and what people must do to get to heaven. I would be very worried about the adult content being used in schools unless it has been heavily modified.
He said that governing bodies of “faith schools” (who are mostly representatives of the local diocese) are “overstepping the mark” in pushing these courses in schools.
Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the NSS, told the TES:
We have pupils, a captive audience, funnelled into hardline proselytising on school premises. These schools should be seeking permission from parents, but I’ll bet they aren’t.
Our man in Brighton, Dr Robert Stovold, signed up for the new St Peter’s Alpha Course. He is somewhat of an Alpha veteran.
I went to the first few weeks of one course, to all twelve weeks of another, and got part of the way through yet another course before I reluctantly decided to stop going.
Why would someone content with atheism bother going to four Alpha Courses?
Stovold explained:
Well, I think religion asks all the right questions – it just gets all the wrong answers! Â By asking critical questions and supplying relevant information, I hope I can engineer a more rational outcome than might otherwise be the case.
He added:
Christians today are a mixed bunch, if the Alpha Course is anything to go by. At the one extreme are the happy-clappy evangelicals. They’re great in the sense that they’ll rigorously proclaim the truth of just about every word in the Bible, and they really give you something to argue against. On the negative side though, they turn very nasty if you start asking awkward questions, and (in my experience) they’ll boot you off the course!
At the other extreme are the more thoughtful Anglicans. While the atmosphere there’s a lot friendlier, I sometimes find myself thinking along the Pythonesque lines of “Is this the right room for an argument?” Anglicans tend to listen intently and politely to all that you have to say  whilst somehow managing to remain completely unfazed by it.
The Alpha Course was developed by Nicky Gumbel of Holy Trinity Brompton, London. The current Vicar at St Peter’s, Archie Coates (currently Associate Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton) and the Curate is Jonny Gumbel (son of Nicky, who masterminded Alpha).
The Anglican nature of the church is something of a mixed blessing – on the downside the people don’t seem to be making much of an attempt to answer my questions (Evangelicals come up with some awful answers, but you can’t fault them for trying). On the plus side though, the atmosphere is relaxed, and I haven’t been kicked off the course. But I am only in the first week …
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The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:15 am
Trying to reclaim Brighton for Jesus? They’ve got to be joking! Brighton is far more likely to convert them into rational, tolerant, fun-loving hedonists.
Wonder if they’ll join in next year’s Pride march?
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:26 pm
You may wish to read one schoolgirl’s experience of the Alpha indoctrination course here:
http://www.secularism.org.uk/alpha-course.html
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:29 pm
I can’t prove this but my gut thinks that when the fundies start their preaching crusades in schools they pick up only those that seem to already have a leaning toward bigotry, fear, and hate and their fundy BS targets that and attracts them so they will always find some to join and follow.
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Liverpoo, incidentally,l has one of the highest rates of homophobic crime in Britain.
Most appropriate typo ever?
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Whoops! Typo now fixed!
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:47 pm
The Plymouth Brethren were very fond of Emmaus Courses – sort of puerile question-and-answer type correspondence courses in Bible doctrine, often linked to instruction classes similar to “Catechism” – and I often wonder whether this was the inspiration for the Alpha Course. They were also evangelical and fundamentalist in approach, and widely used by missionaries, but also much used in British prisons, to my amazement! As you finished each module, you were issued with a worthless certificate showing your “score”, and the whole thing seemed pitched at a very low level of intellect indeed. Mindless rote learning was the order of the day! Emmaus Courses, in turn, reminded me of Young Sowers League, which was run by the Scripture Gift Mission when I was a boy. Kids answered questions on each Chapter of a Book of the Bible, and each answer consisted of copying out the verse which answered the question (catechism-like again!). Awards started with a New Testament, progressed to a Bible, and culminated in a Bible Encyclopaedia, I believe. Did any other readers belong?
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:07 pm
I recall reading somewhere about travelling preachers doing “Revivals” in tents that resembled circus big tops, in the nineteenth century I think. There was much emphasis on Heaven and Hell and everyone present was invited to come on down to the alter rail to be “Saved”. The revivals were well attended, I think due to the lack of entertainment available at the time, and the whole thing carried on until everyone present had made a commitment to give themselves to Jesus.
The drawback was that once the hysteria had died down, people just went back to their lives and carried on as if nothing had happened. The revivalists even had a word for these folk, “Backsliders”.
I wonder what proportion of those that become Christians via the Alpha Course become backsliders very shortly afterwards?
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:12 pm
A couple of years ago an evangelical friend of mine invited me along to one of those nights. I think he felt I might have a sudden conversion. Being confident in my athiesm I went along to see what it was all about.
The bloke presenting it had the obligatory jumper and perma-grin. After the course introduction, he turned to his bible, got a scary glassy-eyed look and turned to the class stating ‘this book is 100% truth and 100% fact’. I burst out laughing, and continued to do so, every time he came out with some stupid comment.
I’ve yet to be invited back.
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Gosh, @Stonyground – “Tent Evangelists” were still doing the rounds when I was a young man, and I’m not THAT old! It was all fire and brimstone, with the flames of hell virtually licking around the pulpit!! I expect they are still operating in Ireland even now. I can tell you, though, that there was a lot of scepticism about their “converts” – usually persuaded after a lot of highly charged and emotional pleading and cajoling. People used to say the they weren’t backsliders because they had never even frontslid!
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:14 pm
I’ve just thought up a new game:
Liverpoo
Brighto
Ringwoo
Crome
Glasgo
I must have too much time on my hands!
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Here is a master evangelist at work – possibly the greatest that the world has ever seen. Notice how he begins with a premise that his listeners will readily agree with, and swiftly builds on that with much more shaky material, not giving them chance to weigh things up or challenge what he is saying, and all building up to the final “appeal”. Add to that the very highly charged emotional atmosphere of the meeting and it is no wonder that so many “come forward”!
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:28 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inLmaG6qR7E
BTW I did wonder why the comments on this series of videos were all so relentlessly positive, until I found that none of my own appeared! As with all these “seekers after truth”, the posters are monitoring the comments and eliminating anything negative – what a surprise!!
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:03 pm
off topic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl.....owl-advert
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:50 pm
The sad effects of religious indoctrination. If your child shows similar symptoms get him or her to a rationalist as soon as possible!
January 23rd, 2010 at 10:17 am
Barry, I know the Christlamists may not spot it, but shouldn’t ‘unphased’ be ‘unfazed?’
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:10 pm
A little off topic but just wanted to say: my great-grandma used to be a preacher in those tent revivals! Even tho I’m a flaming atheist now, I’m kinda proud of her just because those churches generally frown on women preachers and so she was being a rebel in her own way, even though she was using religion to do it. Go Grandma!
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:43 pm
My comment above refers to the pic on Rog’s link of the American footballer with the Biblical reference written on his face!