Course-developer Gumbel interviewing Cardinal Schonborn: ‘What Alpha is doing is the deepest desire of the Lord.’
By Steve Weatherbe
Can evangelical Christians teach Catholics a thing or two about evangelizing? Cardinal Archbishop Christoph Schonborn of Vienna clearly thinks so, and more and more Catholic leaders are agreeing. Early in May Schonborn, Pope Benedict’s collaborator on writing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, told an international conference of Alpha, the highly effective Protestant evangelistic program, “What you are doing – what Alpha is doing – is the deepest desire of the Lord…What I see here is amazing, the Lord is bringing us together in unexpected ways.”
Schonborn was being interviewed onstage by Nicky Gumbel, the Anglican priest who turned the 12-week entry level course on basic Christianity into a uniquely effective way to draw the unchurched to Christianity. Gumbel, whose approach has always been broadly ecumenical, was honored as guest speaker at the Catholic Church’s International Eucharistic Conference in Dublin last year.
Can evangelical Christians teach Catholics a thing or two about evangelizing? Cardinal Archbishop Christoph Schonborn of Vienna clearly thinks so, and more and more Catholic leaders are agreeing. Early in May Schonborn, Pope Benedict’s collaborator on writing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, told an international conference of Alpha, the highly effective Protestant evangelistic program, “What you are doing – what Alpha is doing – is the deepest desire of the Lord…What I see here is amazing, the Lord is bringing us together in unexpected ways.”
Schonborn was being interviewed onstage by Nicky Gumbel, the Anglican priest who turned the 12-week entry level course on basic Christianity into a uniquely effective way to draw the unchurched to Christianity. Gumbel, whose approach has always been broadly ecumenical, was honored as guest speaker at the Catholic Church’s International Eucharistic Conference in Dublin last year.
Catholic leaders are probably so enthusiastic because, as Schonborn admitted, they still haven’t figured out what to do about the late Pope John Paul II’s call for a “New Evangelization.”
Alpha or something based closely on it, could be a part of the answer, says Father Dean Henderson, a parish priest in Victoria, British Columbia. “It’s not just adequate. It’s superlative.” It not only provides a way for a parish “to fulfill Jesus’ mission to seek and save,” says Henderson, “ it also stirs up the faithful.”
Typical Alpha supper: Basic Christian apologetics.Alpha was developed it in its current form at Holy Trinity Brompton, an evangelical Anglican parish in London, in the late 1980s. (See The Christians: The High Tide and the Turn, p. 412.) Under Gumbel’s direction since 1990, it is now being taught in 169 countries and has reached 22 million people. Alpha for Catholics is in 64 countries and doing especially well in Latin America. The basic program offers 15 video lessons featuring the irrepressible Gumbel, spread over 12 evenings and one weekend. Participants share a supper, watch a video, and discuss in small groups. Honest scepticism is encouraged and opened for considerate discussion by the table leader. Existential questions, basic Christian doctrines on the Incarnation, sin, salvation and prayer lead to evangelical specifics about being “filled with the Holy Spirit.”
This leads conservative Catholic groups like the web-based Our Lady’s Warriors to declare that Alpha “silences the truths of the Catholic Church,” especially the centrality of the Church and the sacraments.
But the lack of Catholic content is actually a good thing, according Steve Mitchell, Alpha USA’s national director for Catholic outreach, because Alpha is geared to non-believers. “The model for the Catholic Church used to be 'believe, belong and behave'. That won’t work now. We need to start with a basic profession of faith. There will be plenty of time later to buy into the sacraments and the ecclesiology."
When Mitchell signed on to Alpha USA three years ago, there were only 60 parishes with the program. Now there are 300. “In the next three years we hope there will be 3,000.” Catholics are warming up for several reasons, says Mitchell: “The New Evangelization preached by Pope John Paul II and picked up by Benedict XVI certainly left many in the Church asking, ‘Do we stand on street corners or go door-to-door like Jehovah’s Witnesses? Because we sure don’t want to do that.’”
In fact many ignored John Paul II’s call but couldn’t ignore dwindling parish membership. “We knew we had to do something,” says Mitchell. And here was a program that “really works. About half the people who take it in our parish make an initial commitment to Christ during the course.”
One who did was Steve Tuttle, a Michigan engineer whose life “flipped a complete 180” because of Alpha. “It’s basic Christianity,” he says. “And I realized I was basically ignorant about Christianity.”
Paradoxically, “The first thing that is likely to happen after Alpha is that your church membership goes down,” warns Father James Mallon, pastor of St. Benedict’s Parish in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “We’re down 20 percent. But our giving is up 100 percent. The number of parishioners involved in discipleship is up 300 percent.” The departed faithful are those who prefer an inward-looking parish to one focused on evangelization, Mallon believes.
Another problem can be that a parish uses Alpha to “renew” itself, but not draw in new believers. “Ninety percent of those taking it are parishioners, and once they’ve taken it they move on to the next program,” says Mallon. “But Jesus didn’t say go forth and believe. He said go forth and bring me back disciples.” In other words, Alpha should be permanent and outward-focused. That is hard work for a lot of volunteers, especially volunteer cooks. Fr.Mallon’s parish does nine Alpha programs a year, including one for young mothers, two in pubs, and two in prisons.