This is a very thorough write up of the whole Alpha story and its various twists and turns. It is good to have it all written down in black and white. Atherstone tries to be balanced, reporting various criticisms at times and seeking to be candid. It is very useful therefore although it does tend to toe the party line rather insted of being more critical.
A number of things struck me. John Wimber, who died in 1997, had quite an influence on the whole HTB/Alpha world. Atherstone describes a meeting at HTB where Wimber claimed a word of knowledge that revealed that ten people in the room had athletes foot! Nine stood but Nicky Gumbel resisted at first, rather embarrassed. It is an amusing story in some ways yet for HTB's John Collins it was as though for an hour or two they were back in New Testament days seeing the disciples at work. This is utter nonsense. How the devils must be laughing to know this story.
More seriously still, there are claims of miraculous healing in the book. Most of it is the relief of aches and pains and unverifiable. But then there is a claim that someone was healed from blindness! A woman called Jean Smith from Cwmbran (where I am from) was the person supposedly healed in 1997. So I looked this up and saw that Dr Peter May mentions the case in a paper on the subject. He points out that this claimed healing was never validated by an ophthalmologist. And so it is mere hearsay. For Andrew Atherstone to repeat it in this unqualified way is irresponsible.
Another sad thing that is part of the story is the way that although Alpha originally had a good statement on the priesthood of all believers and the fact that sacrificing priests are not needed today. French RC bishops objected, however, when Catholic version so Alpha were made and so Gumbel deleted such statement from his Questions of Life.
It is not difficult to see good in the Alpha story but again and again there are things that are very unhelpful and so it still has to be avoided by right thinking Christians.
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