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5 Oct 2007 Alpha Course: Week 1

[Alpha] Not a great start to the course. Having a stressed out day at work, bad traffic on the roads, turning up half an hour late, being in a crappy mood. Arguably I wasn't in the right frame of mind to listen to a bunch of Christian stuff. But I still persevered and was pleasantly surprised that I was just in time for dessert. After the food we all gathered round the minister, given our course booklet and began to listen to him speak.

This week's session is who Jesus Christ was. This got me excited. We were going to get the historical and actual facts about Jesus Christ. We were going to be presented with artefacts. We were going to be given a Discovery Channel style presentation. Or so I had hoped.

What we were actually given was one scarcely fill A5 side of paper with a few sentences about there being historical Roman and Jewish documents and a table stating the 6 different versions of the bible (the earliest existing copy being around 900 AD, there's no copy of the first ever edition of the bible). Hardly compelling evidence.

The rest of the talk was about what was written in the bible (like Mark 10:21) and all the various things that Jesus Christ had said about himself (again, more bible verses). There was also a couple of quotes from C.S. Lewis saying that there were four possibilities about Jesus Christ:

  1. He was a con man, which Lewis believes is not possible because no con man would die for something that he would get nothing out of it (I'm sure there are lots of conspiracy theories on Jesus' death but this entry is already too long for me to go into)
  2. He was insane, which Lewis believed is not possible (I can't remember why)
  3. He was evil, which Lewis believed as not evil mainly because of the goodness he spread
  4. He was in fact God made flesh, which Lewis believed was the only logical possibility.


I was not convinced. None of what the minister had said convinced me that Christianity was the right way. He only repeated a lot of things that would only be worth any value if you were a Christian already. That and Jesus Christ made a lot of claims that made him sound very arrogant (simply put, a whole bunch of "I am" this and "I am" that).

After the chat we were all broken up into small groups to discuss the things that were said as well as Christianity as a whole. Firstly we were given a small ice breaking exercise so that we got to know a bit more about the group members, then the floor was open for anyone to talk about anything that was said today.

I took this chance to voice my opinion.

One of the things the minister said that one of the difference between Christianity and other religions was that in other religions there are a set of rules that one must follow to essentially be a part of that religion and to be a good person. However with Christianity there are no rules. All that Jesus said was to "Follow Me" (Mark 1:17). Thereby Christianity is different.

Hold on a minute. Follow me? That's very open ended. Jesus asked us to follow him. What does that mean? Follow his footsteps literally? Copy what he does, thereby following in his footstep? Now to me that seems like a set of rules to follow. How exactly is this different from other religions?

I told this contradictory opinion to the group. One person mentioned the 10 commandments in the old testament, a set of rules. Another person states that there are in fact two guidelines to Christianity; Love Jesus and Love Thy Neighbour. Another person stated that you don't need to follow these guidelines. Yet I have seen other 'religious' people that don't follow their guidelines to the letter. To me the statement the minister said seemed a bit crap. There seemed to be a common theme with Christianity is this whole 'having a relationship with him', which is something I've heard being repeated several times by many Christians.

Our time had run out but I left feeling a little unsatisfied, like the answers I was given were not what I wanted to hear. Like they lacked any real backing to them. I left the church with a sense that Christianity was not quite right. I certainly was not getting closer to the light as it were.

Next week session is titled "Why did Jesus die?"

Posted at: 10:35 AM

Your Thoughts

RORIDGE said on Thursday 11th of October 2007 at 05:26:43 PM

Gravatar C.S. Lewis was also a devout Christian, and therefore bias.

Look at the Chronicles of Narnia, they are all based around Christianity.

I didn't believe that was the case, but now that you know, go and read the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe again and see how preachy and Christian it really is. That's what I did, and it's almost like they are hidden messages in it to indoctrinate kids... the lion is a dead give away really, odd huh?

SKEDDY said on Friday 19th of October 2007 at 01:38:12 PM

Gravatar My fiancee and I recently went to a Catholic church, and it was wierd seeing how the mass was done compared to my C of E Church. One was by the book, do this, do that, the other was more laid back, telling it in a way I could relate to.

Princess said on Monday 22nd of October 2007 at 06:13:14 PM

Gravatar Why do people assume that Christians are obsessed with indoctrinating children and young people? I'm a youth worker for a Church and our main focus is to encourage young people to think for themselves

TonyIsLoveAndFuckin said on Tuesday 4th of December 2007 at 08:44:11 PM

Gravatar I thought it was a religious rule to "get 'em while they're young"? Hence things like catholic schools, rather than just a normal school run by priests...

If that's not the case then why *force* children to undergo religious studies?

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