Alpha Course Week 8 28th November
Numbers – 20 people, 5 men.
The Meal.
Oh dear !! Where did it all go wrong ?!! Hitting the bottom here. Don't know what happened, but I noticed that one of the regular ladies, someone I know to be a professional caterer, did not seem to be there. Perhaps she was otherwise detained at the last minute, but tonights meal was a hastily cobbled together “stew” - reminiscent of my student days. A cereal bowl with a sort of thick soup of potato, carrot, and some stewing steak. Nevertheless it wasn't ghastly, just basic. After was bread and butter pudding – no custard, not enough sugar, not enough raisins. The only way is up from here.
The Talking
Tonight’s topic was “Why and how should I tell others?” given by “father” who is a church elder. The “Why” was explained as bringing people to Jesus because they otherwise fill their lives with drugs and sex (I seem to be missing out somewhere!!) as well as the usual eternal salvation etc. The “How” was described in a mnemonic which I had never heard of before called the 5 P's – presence , persuasion, proclamation, power and prayer. The meaning of some these is self evident, but look it up on Google if you're interested. He followed up by a couple of examples – when the leader of the nursery next door left her job, some of the church members prayed for a Christian replacement to be appointed, which came about – a supposed example of the power of prayer, but I did not see how it related to the topic. Also he claimed that when people converted, they always found that someone said “Oh I prayed for that” - another example of the power of prayer. He mentioned William Wilberforce who had worked for 45 years to get the slave trade abolished – er – I've forgotten what the moral of that example was. As has been the case in the latter part of this course, all thought of “Explore the meaning of life” has disappeared and this is pure Christian evangelizing strategy – I wondered what I was doing here.
The Discussion
Same groups as last week with the exception that the meal group lady who likes talking about her grandchildren was not there - nobody knew why - and she was replaced by the vicars wife. Usual opening “Any questions or comments about the talk” , silence all round, short pause, and then I mentioned that I have a couple of comments. I don't know why the vicar doesn't just say to me straight off “What are your comments?”.
My first was that “father” mentioned the fear that he and his wife had experienced when they told their respective families they were “converting” to Anglicism from Roman Catholicism. I expressed surprise that it seemed almost as if they had changed religion. The Portuguese lady, who was a former Catholic due to her country of birth, weighed in about how they (Catholics) are not encouraged to read the bible, knew nothing about Jesus, and were generally a right bunch of bastards !! No trouble understanding her now, and no-one else had a good word to say about them !! For once I felt that I wasn't a representative of the most hated group of people – that honour definitely went to the Catholics !! Vicar took a more conciliatory tone “I know many fine and godly Catholics . .etc” but it was interesting to be an outsider looking in. If they cannot agree amongst themselves how do they expect anyone else to take them seriously ?
Next I mentioned that evangelising to people in this country comes over as preaching because most people already know at least the bare bones of the Christian “good news”. The rest of the group disagreed, claiming that people did not know who Jesus was or what Easter and Christmas meant – the other meal group lady kept repeating “Jesus is a swear word !” - that got quite annoying. I know why they were claiming this ignorance on behalf of the average man on the street, because it explains to them why very few people go to church, - far better think that than people have looked at the church and thought “No I don't believe in magic”. It was tempting to point out that Easter is an ancient fertility celebration to mark the coming of spring, and that Christmas has its origins in pre-history as a mid-winter festival to celebrate to birth of the new year after the winter solstice – both of which were later hi-jacked by Christians.
Next - “William Wilberforce worked for 45 years to abolish the slave trade. He probably could have got it done a lot quicker if the slave owners here and in America weren't able to call upon bible passages to support their trade.” Same lame excuses appeared here – things were different then and do not apply now – I said that only changes the question to “Who decides which Bible verses are irrelevant and can be ignored, and which must be adhered to rigidly – you? (to the vicar)”
I then mentioned the “power of prayer” example of the nursery leader. “Doesn't that mean that potentially a perfectly good and decent atheist candidate was denied the job because of prayer ?” This started another discussion about prayer similar to a previous one “Does God change the future in your favour when you pray to him ?” Some people mentioned that it was the same question from a few weeks back and I felt gratified that they had remembered it – maybe reflecting in a quiet moment the question will nag at them. The vicar said that God answers prayers in one of 3 ways – yes, no ,or wait. I countered that a God who answers prayer in those ways is impossible to distinguish from a God who does not exist. He then claimed to be able to look back on his life and determine the times when God had guided him or answered his prayers, I countered that he is starting from a prior assumption that God exists and is retrospectively interpreting past events to confirm that assumption.
The session was coming to an end and the vicar asked me, vis-a-vis the topic of the evening, whether I minded if people were evangelising to me, either here in the church or in the street. I said I didn't mind in the church considering the place it is, but that if someone approached me in the street with that in mind it would be at least 30 minutes before they could get away from me !! This raised quite a good laugh.
I should say that all this discussion is done in a good-natured and friendly way now – much like a dinner party discussion. The structure has settled into a routine – I make notes during the talk and come to the discussion with half a dozen questions ready. Nobody else seems to be interested in raising anything so we work through my questions where I am able to get in some of my “bullet points”. The rest of the session then becomes me against the rest, defending my non-belief. The group I have been allocated still isolates me from everyone who may be tempted by my arguments – I firmly believe that is deliberate although it has been denied.
Helped put chairs away said goodbye and left.
Next week - “Does God heal today?”
regards
pgrimes15
Numbers – 20 people, 5 men.
The Meal.
Oh dear !! Where did it all go wrong ?!! Hitting the bottom here. Don't know what happened, but I noticed that one of the regular ladies, someone I know to be a professional caterer, did not seem to be there. Perhaps she was otherwise detained at the last minute, but tonights meal was a hastily cobbled together “stew” - reminiscent of my student days. A cereal bowl with a sort of thick soup of potato, carrot, and some stewing steak. Nevertheless it wasn't ghastly, just basic. After was bread and butter pudding – no custard, not enough sugar, not enough raisins. The only way is up from here.
The Talking
Tonight’s topic was “Why and how should I tell others?” given by “father” who is a church elder. The “Why” was explained as bringing people to Jesus because they otherwise fill their lives with drugs and sex (I seem to be missing out somewhere!!) as well as the usual eternal salvation etc. The “How” was described in a mnemonic which I had never heard of before called the 5 P's – presence , persuasion, proclamation, power and prayer. The meaning of some these is self evident, but look it up on Google if you're interested. He followed up by a couple of examples – when the leader of the nursery next door left her job, some of the church members prayed for a Christian replacement to be appointed, which came about – a supposed example of the power of prayer, but I did not see how it related to the topic. Also he claimed that when people converted, they always found that someone said “Oh I prayed for that” - another example of the power of prayer. He mentioned William Wilberforce who had worked for 45 years to get the slave trade abolished – er – I've forgotten what the moral of that example was. As has been the case in the latter part of this course, all thought of “Explore the meaning of life” has disappeared and this is pure Christian evangelizing strategy – I wondered what I was doing here.
The Discussion
Same groups as last week with the exception that the meal group lady who likes talking about her grandchildren was not there - nobody knew why - and she was replaced by the vicars wife. Usual opening “Any questions or comments about the talk” , silence all round, short pause, and then I mentioned that I have a couple of comments. I don't know why the vicar doesn't just say to me straight off “What are your comments?”.
My first was that “father” mentioned the fear that he and his wife had experienced when they told their respective families they were “converting” to Anglicism from Roman Catholicism. I expressed surprise that it seemed almost as if they had changed religion. The Portuguese lady, who was a former Catholic due to her country of birth, weighed in about how they (Catholics) are not encouraged to read the bible, knew nothing about Jesus, and were generally a right bunch of bastards !! No trouble understanding her now, and no-one else had a good word to say about them !! For once I felt that I wasn't a representative of the most hated group of people – that honour definitely went to the Catholics !! Vicar took a more conciliatory tone “I know many fine and godly Catholics . .etc” but it was interesting to be an outsider looking in. If they cannot agree amongst themselves how do they expect anyone else to take them seriously ?
Next I mentioned that evangelising to people in this country comes over as preaching because most people already know at least the bare bones of the Christian “good news”. The rest of the group disagreed, claiming that people did not know who Jesus was or what Easter and Christmas meant – the other meal group lady kept repeating “Jesus is a swear word !” - that got quite annoying. I know why they were claiming this ignorance on behalf of the average man on the street, because it explains to them why very few people go to church, - far better think that than people have looked at the church and thought “No I don't believe in magic”. It was tempting to point out that Easter is an ancient fertility celebration to mark the coming of spring, and that Christmas has its origins in pre-history as a mid-winter festival to celebrate to birth of the new year after the winter solstice – both of which were later hi-jacked by Christians.
Next - “William Wilberforce worked for 45 years to abolish the slave trade. He probably could have got it done a lot quicker if the slave owners here and in America weren't able to call upon bible passages to support their trade.” Same lame excuses appeared here – things were different then and do not apply now – I said that only changes the question to “Who decides which Bible verses are irrelevant and can be ignored, and which must be adhered to rigidly – you? (to the vicar)”
I then mentioned the “power of prayer” example of the nursery leader. “Doesn't that mean that potentially a perfectly good and decent atheist candidate was denied the job because of prayer ?” This started another discussion about prayer similar to a previous one “Does God change the future in your favour when you pray to him ?” Some people mentioned that it was the same question from a few weeks back and I felt gratified that they had remembered it – maybe reflecting in a quiet moment the question will nag at them. The vicar said that God answers prayers in one of 3 ways – yes, no ,or wait. I countered that a God who answers prayer in those ways is impossible to distinguish from a God who does not exist. He then claimed to be able to look back on his life and determine the times when God had guided him or answered his prayers, I countered that he is starting from a prior assumption that God exists and is retrospectively interpreting past events to confirm that assumption.
The session was coming to an end and the vicar asked me, vis-a-vis the topic of the evening, whether I minded if people were evangelising to me, either here in the church or in the street. I said I didn't mind in the church considering the place it is, but that if someone approached me in the street with that in mind it would be at least 30 minutes before they could get away from me !! This raised quite a good laugh.
I should say that all this discussion is done in a good-natured and friendly way now – much like a dinner party discussion. The structure has settled into a routine – I make notes during the talk and come to the discussion with half a dozen questions ready. Nobody else seems to be interested in raising anything so we work through my questions where I am able to get in some of my “bullet points”. The rest of the session then becomes me against the rest, defending my non-belief. The group I have been allocated still isolates me from everyone who may be tempted by my arguments – I firmly believe that is deliberate although it has been denied.
Helped put chairs away said goodbye and left.
Next week - “Does God heal today?”
regards
pgrimes15
