The Atheist Blogger

The Alpha course is a 10 week introduction to Christianity, run here in the UK by various churches and Christian groups. It is organized by Nicky Gumbel, an evangelical Christian (surprised?) as an attempt to convert as many non-believers as possible to Christianity. The previous version of the Alpha course was aimed solely at Christians, teaching them more about their faith, but through Nicky Gumbel’s leadership, the course claims to have converted “many” people to the Christian religion.

One of the members of the London Atheist Meetup group (John Rico) recently endured the Alpha course, even going so far as to attend the weekend away they provide. The following is taken from an email John sent to a group of us, so it is written informally, but here is what happened on that weekend…

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The Alpha weekend course was held at a small out of the way cheap hotel a half-mile from the beach – we all had shared bungalows with aging and slightly crumbling plumbing and wall plaster, and then congregated in the hotel conference room for the speeches, periodically retiring to the adjoining dining hall for meals before reconstitution in the event hall. It’s billed as a weekend, but it’s more just a Saturday with a brief introductory chat on Friday night and a single light speech on Sunday before communion is given – more or less, this is a Saturday only thing.

And as I had a thing in London late Friday, I arrived very late on the coast and then slept in and missed the first of four Saturday lectures – not off to a great start.

I entered the hotel conference room as the second lecturer had just started and I wasn’t quite sure where to sit or what the seating arrangement was, so I leaned to one of the fellows who often gives lectures at the Alpha Course – the reformed atheist with the curly hair who’s always making jokes about how he was reluctant to join Alpha – and asked him if there was a seating arrangement. In keeping within his typically sardonic tone, as if I just “didn’t get it yet” – he said, “This is Christianity, man – there’s no rules.”

The preposterousness of that statement immediately floored me and I must have grimaced because he offered me a slightly odd stare as a rebuttal. Of course, this “no rules, no Hell, no doctrine”, is all keeping within the Christian-lite theology offered by the Alpha Course; God loves unconditionally and no mention of damnation.

I stood briefly at the back of the hall looking for my group when a girl whom rarely spoke during the regular alpha course flagged me down, waving her hand. I moved over to her and took a seat as she leaned in and explained that she and I were the only ones from the regular group in attendance…in any case, we had been “absorbed” by a larger group for the weekend. My initial thought was that this was merely an incidental absorption, something I would later find out to be an erroneous assumption. I made brief eye contact and let a few passing nods with my new group pass as a proper introduction as I settled into receive my spiritual guidance.

The talk was of the Holy Spirit. I had never bothered to so much as look throughout the guide book to see the subject of the speech, but it was immediately apparent that the course had been strategically designed to culminate in our acceptance of the Holy Spirit.

The lecture was more of the same – canned jokes teaching a moral lesson that were passed off as being someone the lecturer actually knew, that false story of the lecturer’s first weekend away with Alpha and how he had resisted because he “didn’t like Christians” and all the rest. One of the lying jokes, passed off as true, was that a woman who was an Alpha member was married to a devout atheist. She attempted to get her husband to go, and he repeatedly resisted saying, “Honey, I don’t believe in that crap, and you know my temperament, I can’t turn down a fight, and if I go, I’ll end up getting in arguments with everyone and then you’ll be embarrassed and mad at me.” The punch line of wisdom (each joke has to have one) is that the wife simply responded, “Okay.” (As in, it was okay that her husband would go as an atheist and openly argue with everyone.) The irony of this joke is that this is effectively what would later happen to me and it didn’t seem okay. The parcel of wisdom was followed up with a joke at the expense of atheists everywhere, as the lecturer, in his cocky smug tone said, “You can guess what happened to that atheist who was convinced he’d be able to come here and disprove God.” OUTRAGEOUS thigh-slapping laughter from the audience – this is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard!! (The atheist was converted!)

Afterwards, I meet my new group which consists of a rich former businessman who is now an ordained minister and missionary, his wife, another mousy woman who was prone to vacuous statements devoid of any intelligence, and an overweight teacher who would later admit to believing that Harry Potter had demonic influence. I then horrify them by refusing their offer of a joint prayer between lectures, by preferring instead to take a nap before the next session.

The second lecture: I sit on the end away from the creepy missionary. And then, right before the lecturer starts, he switches chairs with the Harry Potter hater on my left so that he’s sitting next to me. This lecture is again on the Holy Spirit and how tongues and speaking in tongues is just one manifestation that the Holy spirit has consumed the body and made communion with the soul. As usual, I don’t stand for the song, but this time, I get a gentle lift in my arm from the minister who is not so subtly suggesting that I rise. And although I regret it, I do rise.

Our God is an awesome God, he reigns from Heaven above!..
(More singing)

Finished, we then we sit and as they start talking, I’m half-listening while playing on my iPhone. They play a video of people who were afraid to speak in tongues and how they overcame their fears. Throughout the minister doesn’t think I’m paying enough attention and periodically leans over, and always gripping my arm as he whispers something in my ear that is meant to make me pay more attention. At first it’s useless information – that he knows the guy in the video. That’s nice, now let me get back to my iPhone.

But then, his interruptions are more frequent and more direct, he taps me on the shoulder and I look over and he motions at my phone that I should put it away. Feigning confusion and a poor ability to read body language, I shrug my shoulders in a bewildered sort of way and continue on…

It’s Saturday lunch and the old missionary man is taking an unusual interest in me and my life – I mean, the Christians are always polite and friendly, but he’s being almost creepy about it, and he’s “touchy” too…and I don’t liked being touched. A friendly arm around the shoulder which would only be removed after I visibly brushed it off, a gentle touch on my forearm – friendly, but gripping slightly – that sort of thing. In fact, the entire group is giving me just “too much” attention – I suppose I called attention to myself by showing up late and then ducking out for a quick nap. There’s a few polite jokes at my expense about arriving late and taking a nap when I should be studying and learning about Christ.

The final lecture…all this time, I’m assuming it’s all a build-up for Sunday morning, that on our last day, it will congregate in some weird communion. But instead, the speaker asks everybody to stand, and I realize, to my ABSOLUTE HORROR, that we’re about ready to start speaking in tongues. The minister grabs me by the arm and gently starts to pull me away from the group, saying, “Come on, let me talk to you outside.” I lightly pull my arm from his shallow limp grip and politely say, “No thanks, I’m fine!” (I need to see this!)

And…I’d like to add…I participate as much as possible in this moment…I too stand…and we all stand quietly for a long time, a very long time, and then we’re asked to sway, and we do this while standing for a long time, and then stand and sway and hold our arms out and just, let them hang out there, and we do this…and to be honest, the effect is pleasant. You do start to get a bit of a buzz, a peaceful calm that fills you. And I begin to feel it…the Holy Spirit entering my body!!!!!

Of course, this isn’t the Holy Spirit, but only what Buddhist monks have realized for millennia, that the body is very susceptible to trance-like meditative states, a state reinforced by the group behavior. (I should add that during all this time, the creepy old minister is standing RIGHT behind me, slightly just outside my peripheral line of vision, as if just watching me or there to intervene should I act out of order.)

And then…it starts. The lecturer with the microphone starts to sing in tongues. But it’s not the sloppy gurgling sounding tongues, it’s melodic and high-pitched nonsensical singing. And slowly, it builds, all throughout the room, until it’s a roaring chant with all these different pitches and rhythms and variations of melody…and I’m FREAKING THE FUCK OUT! My eyes darting all around me, their lost in the rapturous gaze of Jesus fire!!! I turn around and the cranky old minister is just watching me. He offers me an awkward uncomfortable smile…deep down he too knows this is stupid.

This goes on for maybe five minutes and I think it’s going to end, but then suddenly everyone starts to come to the podium to reveal their revelation…their visions…their prophecy…

“I feel, someone in the audience is hurting…someone’s been betrayed, and they can’t reconcile this betrayal yet…God says healing is coming…”

“I don’t know if this belongs to anyone, but I saw a vision of a field? A field with a big house, maybe it’s a memory, maybe it’s someone’s home, but there’s a house, and it’s an empty house, a house longing to be filled.”

And strangely, some of them are VERY specific…

“I’m seeing a young girl in a meat market in Belgium and the girl suffers from a crippling of the legs, don’t know who that is, but God’s thinking of you.”

And this goes on for another five minutes, this wave of people who take the microphone and say absurd statements. If I was going to have my moment where I publicly revealed myself as an atheist, this would be it…I strongly wish I had the courage and the foresight to approach the stage and say something really bizarre and just over the top, to see if the absurdity of my statement would break their rapture or be lost in their rapture. But as it occurred to me to do so right as they were ending that bit, and as I tried to simultaneously summon the courage (should I do it?! Should I?!) and also think of what to say (the most important and difficult part), we moved onto praying for others.

The lecturer said, “And we will now move about the room, asking others if we can pray for them.” And before he had finished the
sentence, my entire newly adopted group had converged on me as if a trap had just been sprung, surrounding me on all sides asking if it was okay to pray for me. Such desperate neediness in their voices. It was very obvious this had been discussed before hand by them and that they had been anxiously awaiting this moment they knew would arrive. Apparently, I’ve been the subject of some concern by my group for awhile – a concern I was never notified about.

No…no, it’s not okay for you to pray for me. I don’t want any of you praying for me.

And that’s when the minister motions me outside with a wave of his head. I nod. Sure, now I’m ready. Now that I’ve witnessed what I witnessed, now I’m ready to talk.

We move outside just the two of us while everyone inside runs around the room praying for one another. We sit on a bench in the sun and he is full of bravado, of a smug intellect, of an unparalleled capacity for debate earned through thirty years as a Christian that he’s just waiting to unleash upon me.

He starts off by wanting to know why I’ve come. And, taking the alpha course at face value, I explained it was supposed to be for non-believers and that was me and that’s why I was here. And then, in a bit that’s still a lot creepy, he knows my full name which I had never offered, and says, “Johnny Rico, attends the first two weeks, skips weeks three, attends week four, and then doesn’t show up until the Alpha weekend. (I should add that I still don’t quite remember my own attendance record, so I’m not sure which weeks I did and did not show at, but he knew. Oh he did know!) And then he says, he just figures it might be more productive with me to have a conversation rather than to just pray for me, and that he and my regular Alpha course group leader had “discussed my case” together.

And it’s at this moment, that I realize that my pairing with him was not accidental, but that I’ve, more or less, been assigned a handler. Mind you while these actions may appear hostile as I write them, all of this is offered with traditional Christian graciousness and faux friendliness. And so, I put it all on the line, I’m an atheist, and these are my problems with Christianity…
Unfortunately, for him, he didn’t quite know who he was dealing with…to be honest, he was doomed the moment he stepped into the ring with me.

Lions and lambs, my friends. Lions and lambs.

I’ll save you all the specifics of my rant as it would just be preaching to the converted, but what’s important is that I awed this man of Jesus with my tirade. I think he quickly realized I knew my shit because rather quickly he gave up attempting to argue half his positions and agreed with me that prayer doesn’t work, that the Bible can’t be taken literally, that the Bible is a work of man, and that there’s no scientific or historical evidentiary support for Jesus whatsoever.

And so, left with nothing, he sighed heavily, and with a deeply troubled heart, as a last ditch effort, he began telling me his story of conversion. And, after sixteen or so minutes when he still hadn’t gotten to the point, I interrupted him and said, “Please forgive the interruption, but I’m far past being convinced by the subjective anecdotal evidence of personal spiritual relief being offered by individuals of whom I know nothing about.” (Or something like that.)

Our conversation in total lasted an hour and a half and, to be honest, I really did dominate the conversation. Not in a mean or aggressive way (he did most of the talking, while I mostly listened), but in that I had effective counter-arguments for each and every tactic he tried, counter-arguments for which he had no response and had to admit as such. It was a play by play of every dumb Christian argument, and each of them rolled out in the same familiar repetition, and as such, it was so easy to perform each parry and counter thrust that I didn’t have to exert any energy thinking about my responses and could instead just be amused by the whole thing.

It ended with him saying that he wasn’t the person I should be speaking to, that he was an old man and wasn’t very good at debate, and that it was his son (whom has recently graduated from Oxford with a PhD in divinity) that I should be arguing with. I graciously offered that I didn’t know if I wanted to debate an Oxford PhD and we both laughed. And then, he suggested the absurd idea that all of my questions (which he couldn’t begin to answer) would have perhaps been responded to and maybe I would be a believer if I had attended the WHOLE Alpha Course and not just shown up on random weeks.

I didn’t know what else to say and walked off. I was planning on hanging out with the Christians for the evening festivities, but I needed a break and went into town to see a movie.

The next morning…

So today, I get up, and head to breakfast. There’s polite conversation at the table. The minister’s wife has obviously been informed of our encounter because she immediately explains that neither of them are good people to explain the intellectual side of Christianity and that I should argue with her son, but she’s pretty sure she knows where I’m coming from because she has the same doubts all the time. (I doubt it.)

And I’m COMPLETELY fine with not talking at all about religion and just making small talk. But almost immediately, the minister starts asking me to tell the people at the table about the sort of concerns I have because it’d be good for them to hear it and get another perspective. I demure, because I’m not ready to regurgitate a thoughtful and long-winded diatribe with bacon and eggs in my mouth. And I try and change the subject to just peaceful queries regarding his mission work which sure does sound interesting. And immediately he brings it back to Christianity and says that, “What I don’t get about Christianity is that God is a loving God, that he loves me unconditionally, even if I don’t love him, God loves me.”

And to this I respond, “Really? That’s funny, because I thought I was going to burn in Hell for all eternity for not accepting Jesus Christ as my savior and that doesn’t sound like the actions of a loving deity.”

He says it IS loving, actually. That God has shown himself to me and I refused to accept God.

I respond by reminding him that just yesterday he agreed that:
1. People have a responsibility to be rational beings.
2. That the Bible cannot be trusted as the literal word of God.
3. That there’s no evidence of any kind for the Bible.

So why, under such conditions – conditions that God created – was it fair to punish me for not believing?

“Yes,” he responds. “But you CHOSE not to believe.”

I sigh. It’s like he can’t follow a single line of thinking.

Again, I reiterate that I see nothing loving about a God which will punish us with eternal damnation for the very finite sin of temporal disbelief.

His response is that God created us, so God has the right to destroy us.

“That may be,” I reply. “But it’s certainly not loving.”

“No,” he counters. “That IS love!”

Somehow Hitler and Stalin entered the conversation and it was suggested from here on out that, theoretically, I won’t just be burning in Hell, but burning in Hell with Hitler and Stalin.

(War is peace. Slavery is freedom. Ignorance is strength.)

And then I repeat his assertion back to him, “So I’m going to burn in Hell for all eternity because I don’t believe in God, and that makes God loving? Boy that’s a REALLY loving God, soooo loving!!!”

And then the minister had a slight meltdown moment, he was troubled, you could see it in his brow, but he wasn’t just troubled because I was being impertinent, he was troubled because he couldn’t rectify the conflict of ideas I had presented to him, and that’s when, in response to a statement I had offered with a bit of sarcastic and emotive emphasis meant to sound as such, he said that I should, “Enjoy burning in Hell with Hitler…”

…and he said it just as I got up to leave.

He wasn’t mad at me, it was more that he felt he couldn’t help me, that if I was going to continue with my un-Godly ways, well then I’d just have to resign myself to burning in Hell with Hitler. And I could immediately tell he didn’t mean to say it, he was just frustrated with my flippant disregard for that which he feared most in the world and offered an accidental and careless statement which he seemed to immediately regret. (So, no, I feel no need to go to the Alpha authorities with this.)

I felt that he had adequately concluded my own argument for me and left to my room for another brief nap. (I’m all about the naps. Naps are good.)

And then, it was group time. By the time I arrived, I found that the group had arrived early and was informed that they had discussed it, and prayed on the matter, and decided that they would continue to take me into their group for the day – although it was insinuated that it was a close vote.

Jolly good!

So I sat down, and then I explained that I didn’t want to monopolize the conversation with my atheism, and that they could all discuss god and I just wanted to listen, and I wouldn’t participate as I didn’t want to be rude. They all quickly turned the conversation to me, anyway.

This, by the way, was I believe, an attempt at an intervention. The old man, having failed by himself, was now going to take me on with the group on his side.

And bam! Bam! Bam!…the questions from all sides. And at first, I must admit, I did lose my footing a bit…for example, there was a question about whether or not I saw the glory of creation in everyday life…I said that I thought it was glorious but done by processes of evolution…and everyone immediately laughed at how poor and naïve I was to think such things. This was quickly followed up by a conversation of who created the Universe then…to which my response elicited more laughter. Polite laughter. Not meant to be mean, but condescending nonetheless.

The problem was that these were all long conversations which needed to be carefully conducted and explained and I was being given ten seconds of response before the next question was fielded and they felt empowered by their numbers.

I knew I needed to go on the offensive and quickly did so when it was suggested that there were no atheists in foxholes and that eventually I would kneel before God. The minister laughed as he said it proudly and forcefully, “All knees WILL bow before God, whether they like it or not.” He smiled at his wife and looked at me with pity. I think he also threw in some Biblical verse.

And then I said, well, actually, I WAS an atheist in a foxhole. I was on an infantry team in Afghanistan and almost died numerous times and not once did I feel the need to pray to God. And actually, I do know what it’s like to be a Christian because I grew up as a devout Evangelical who prayed each and every night and felt I had a deep personal relationship with God. I talked about Mithra and earlier historical claims of Jesus and then brought up religious relativism, forcing them to be in the defensive posture…how do YOU know you’re praying to the right God when there are a billion Muslims who say that you’re wrong. This brought about the most stupid stream of explanations, “But Jesus is the only true God!”

But, my tactic worked and soon THEY were on the defensive attempting to justify their feelings and moments of conversion, each of which I immediately minimized, made light of, and explained away through various psychological processes, something that infuriated them and made them even MORE on the defensive…

…but within their passions, they got sloppy and now they were offering up really stupid comments it was obvious they hadn’t thought out and which I could easily use against them. Shit like, “If you feel it, it has to be true…”

Okay – and I have to take a break for a moment here – I’m not the type of guy who likes to brag, in fact, 90% of the time I’m very self-deprecating and playing my few admirable qualities down – but it’s almost impossible to do such when explaining the rest of this conversation. I don’t know if they’re just not articulate speakers and perhaps have a rich and thoughtful interior life that they simply can’t explain, or if they’re just well…fucking dumb – I mean, seriously – the level of discourse barely approached intermediate competency.

We talked for thirty or so more minutes, and it was beautiful, I had a reply for everything! And I was getting pretty fierce…for example, there was a statement about how it’s not just mindless thinking, that God has to be understood intellectually, and I ripped into her saying she didn’t get to appropriate reason to explain God, that you can’t sit here in front of me, unable to articulate a single piece of evidence, and then say God has anything to do with reason, you don’t get to do that. (She looked down at the ground sadly.) Another one said that the Muslims were all wrong, a position which derived from my forcing her into a defensive posture to justify her belief, and I called her out on it and said that was the most arrogant thing I had ever heard, and I quite meanly said, “Who the hell do you think you are to discount the intense religious convictions of a billion people on the planet, that shows the most remarkable lack of humility!” (Truth be told, I’m guilty of discounting the religious convictions of even greater numbers of people, but I was attempting to win a numerically lopsided argument, not be fair.)

I was quite forceful about it all. Never really mean, but certainly assertive and blunt.

And when it ended, the minister’s wife just reiterated over and over that I needed to speak to her son, the minister looked troubled and had kind of just shut-up for a long while, one girl was still trying to work through the implications of the idea that people in other religions believe their religion with just as much intensity as she did, and the lady who thought Harry Potter was demonic looked at me with this quiet gaze of absolute hatred and contempt.

And the girl whom I was normally in a group with thought real hard and then said, “So you believe in God, you just don’t like organized religion, right?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t believe in God. At all.”

And her mouth kind of hung open as she considered this which she had never considered before – that someone could sincerely not believe in God. Amazing that even after I had just spent forty minutes bashing every religious and theological impulse they had, that she would even ask such a stupid question.

And then, it was time for communion. The minister suggested that I maybe wait outside, you know…only if I wanted to.

But I had enough, shook hands, and left.

They could keep their damn communion.

And now I’m home.

The End