A critique of the Alpha course’s attitude towards homosexuality (full version) (January 2002)

by John Rose

The main aim of the Alpha course is to convert groups of people to evangelical Christianity within ten weeks, a kind of fast-track route to God. It is advertised as a method to “Discover the meaning of life”. Behind this honourable philosophical guise, the Alpha course is in fact an evangelical group designed to convert rather than discuss.

The Alpha course has received much criticism from various different quarters. From within the Christian church it has received criticism from both the evangelical and liberal wings. Churches from the liberal wing, such as the Metropolitan Community Church, have criticised it for its “non inclusive stance and fundamental theology”,[1] while evangelists such as Reverend William Horsburgh, from the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, have criticised it for using “psychological manipulation techniques to convert members”.[2]

Criticisms of the Alpha course have fallen into various categories: as well as being criticised for brainwashing and being of cult status, the Alpha course has been denounced by those on various liberation campaigns, including the women’s liberation campaign, which opposes the course for its fundamentalist opinion of “the right to choose”, and the homosexual liberation campaign.

However, this essay concerns the Alpha course’s attitude towards homosexuality, AIDS and the “healing” of homosexuality. These arguments have been taken from various sources, including the course text “Searching Issues”, written by the spiritual leader of the Alpha course, Nicky Gumbel.

The Alpha course takes a misinformed view of homosexuality. The argument is presented in a way that seems to distance itself from fundamentalism, yet it is no more or less than this. In his Alpha course sessions, Gumbel, spiritual leader of the Alpha course, compares homosexuality to paedophilia. In a much-referred-to newspaper article reporting on course meetings, an agnostic asked Gumbel what was so sinful about a homosexual friend who since he was a child had found himself attracted to other boys. Gumbel replies:

If a paedophile said, “Ever since I was a child I found myself attracted to children”, we wouldn’t say that was normal, would we? ... Now, I am not for a moment comparing homosexuals with paedophiles ...[3]

However, he quite blatantly is; and furthermore it places the comparison into people’s minds, with the pretence that it is a reasonable argument.

In the course text, Gumbel outlines what he perceives as Christianity’s objections to homosexuality, and concentrates on the sinfulness of homosexuality, AIDS as a judgment from God and the exorcising of homosexuality. He starts by ignoring biological facts, and asserting for sure, “He [God] did not design our bodies for homosexual intercourse.”[4] The truth is that we have no idea whether our bodies were created for homosexual sex as pleasure.

Although I do not want to open up another Pandora’s box, it should be noted that Gumbel admits that sex, apart from procreation, is designed to be fun. “We saw that God designed sex for our enjoyment,” he says, and homosexual men who partake in homosexual intercourse have fun!

The Alpha course advocates the idea that homosexuality involves “shameful lusts,”[5] and labels homosexuals as “homosexual offenders”.[6] Not only does the course condemn homosexuals, it also condemns those who “not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practise them”.[7] In this way, any of us who accept homosexuals into our lives without “loving the sinner, hating the sin” is condemned.

The Alpha course text sends out a very strong message about homosexuality and AIDS, using a very confused argument. The passage below provides a very poor argument on closer inspection:

By the year 2000 it is estimated that 40 million people will be infected ... Worldwide, 90% of infections are caused by heterosexual transmission. However, in the UK heterosexual infection is still relatively small, although growing. Statistically, AIDS is still correlated to homosexual practice. Over three quarters of those who have died from AIDS probably acquired the virus as a result of homosexual intercourse. There is still, therefore, a strong link between homosexuality and AIDS in popular thinking in this country.[8]

Firstly, “AIDS is still correlated to homosexual practice” is a loaded statement. Statistically in the UK, there are more heterosexual transmissions than homosexual transmissions. As a proportion of the population, Gumbel is right, especially if you take his extremely dubious estimations as to the size of the gay population, as stated at the start of this chapter on homosexuality. Gumbel even admits that the incidence of heterosexual infection is on the increase. (Since the book was written, heterosexual transmission has increased at an even faster rate.) He then places assumption and ambiguity into the argument: “Over three quarters of those who have died from AIDS probably [my emphasis] acquired the virus as a result of homosexual intercourse.”[9] He has not provided any empirical evidence for this assertion. This produces ambiguity, and the more ambiguous and leading the statement is, the easier he can leap to the conclusion, “There is still, therefore, a strong link between homosexuality and AIDS in popular thinking in this country.” This conclusion is unrelated to the premise, unless you read the conclusion as, “There is still a strong link between homosexuality and AIDS”. This is the desired result: ambiguity. Again, this leads people to believe what Gumbel believes without explicitly stating it. Gumbel’s argument is neither sound nor valid – the conclusion does not follow from the premises. Moreover, the argument opposes what educated people the world over have been trying to remove: the idea that AIDS is a gay plague. Furthermore, the assertion that AIDS is a “judgment” on homosexuality is offensive and false, and is just as logical as saying AIDS is a judgment on Africans by God.

Using the analogy of a drink-driving car crash in which innocent people are hurt,[10] the course text then compares drunk drivers to homosexuals and the innocent victims to heterosexuals and Africans with AIDS, which again is deeply offensive. He blames the overwhelming presence of AIDS among heterosexuals on homosexuals. (In his text, as quoted above, Gumbel estimates that 90 per cent of the population with AIDS are heterosexual.) Gumbel then compares the “unnatural” nature of homosexuality to “crockery which is not dishwasher proof” and says that, just as crockery “may crack if it is put into the machine, we were not designed for homosexual or promiscuous activity. These activities exceed our physical, emotional and spiritual tolerance and are likely to cause damage in all these areas in the long run.”[11] In his humorous article, John Preston highlights one of the tactics the Alpha courses employ, using practical and modern analogies. “Now this is clearly a very ‘modern’ and practical analogy, but what exactly does it mean? ‘Be careful with your teapot’, would seem to be the gist of it. ‘Do not put it on the wrong compartment. Otherwise your spout will fall off.’ ”[12]

Perhaps the most offensive part of Gumbel’s chapter on homosexuality is the part where the text says: “Sometimes the innocent are also hurt, whilst others get away with it entirely.”[13] This implies that some homosexuals without AIDS have escaped. Gumbel’s whole argument is extremely odd, as it assumes a very imprecise God. (However, perhaps this is beginning to delve too far into theology.)

Gumbel’s text also sends out very confused messages about homosexuality and promiscuity. While it hints that heterosexuals can be promiscuous in an earlier chapter, it rather assumes that all homosexuals are promiscuous, pairing “homosexual activity and promiscuity”[14] together. Most gay people find this offensive, as being gay in no way, shape or form implies promiscuity.

The text then advocates a course of action that even practitioners of it have turned against: the “curing” of homosexuality. Gumbel, in the course text, tries to force his opinion on the reader:

There is a great deal of evidence that homosexual orientation is something that is acquired or learned.[15]

This is grossly incorrect. There is no such “great deal of evidence”. There are theories, as presented by Freud and others, but that is all they are. There is no real evidence either way as to what causes homosexuality. Gumbel wants the reader to believe him on this, as he wants to make it seem that, if homosexuality can be learned, it can be unlearned. Homosexuality, according to the Alpha course, is caused by one of the following issues: “lack of love and affirmation from a same sex parent; a dominant, controlling or overprotective and possessive mother; a weak, ineffective or rejecting father; incest or sexual abuse”.[16] None of this can be substantiated. The argument is presented in such a way as to exploit the potential vulnerability of those attending the course.

The course text quotes Tony Campolo’s book 20 Hot Potatoes Christians Are Afraid To Touch to support the idea that homosexuals should suppress their urges:

Christians with a homosexual orientation [should] fight against their desire for homosexual behaviour through the power of the Holy Spirit.[17]

Suppression of natural sexual urges can be very dangerous indeed. One of the leading theories as to why the London nail bomber David Copeland carried out his acts of hatred against the gay population was that his actions were due to suppressed sexuality.

The Alpha course not only encourages homosexuals to suppress their sexual urges, but encourages homosexuals to “be healed”. In a Guardian news article, Gumbel affirms that “gay people need to be healed”.[18] This is a very dangerous course. Courage is a UK-based Christian ministry that used to run healing courses, “helping people to ‘come out’ of homosexuality”. On the healing of homosexuality, they say that “experience has proved this to be a counter-productive approach”.[19]

In other words, it does not work and they are no longer doing it. Not only does it not work, but also it is wrong and offensive. The poet William Blake once said: “Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.”[20]

In the course text, Gumbel references a 1955 survey by the British Medical Association, concluding: “Homosexuals can be so changed through conversion that their sexual desire loses its mastery”.[21] At this point in history, homosexuality in the UK was illegal, and was to remain so for over a decade. Homosexuality was also to be recognised as a disease by the World Health Organization for another 35 years. Times and attitudes have transformed greatly since the publication of this report. The methods involved in the conversion of homosexuals in the 1950s and earlier were horrific. Electric-shock therapy and treatment with the drug metronidazole (a drug that induces vomiting when mixed with some other drugs) were not unheard of. While Gumbel recognises that “some working in this field have sometimes used morally dubious means to alter the orientation, and the end does not justify the means”,[22] he does still strongly advocate the ends by saying that “some healing takes place now in this life”.[23] All of this is incredibly offensive to the gay community.

Gumbel advocates “healing” people when they are young:

The older a person is, the harder it is to change. Like any behavioural pattern, the more it is followed, the more it will become fixed. The psychiatrist, John White, writes: “Once I experience physical pleasure with a member of my own sex, I am more likely to want to experience it again. The more frequently I experience it, the more fixed will the pattern become.”[24]

This is not a case of “stopping people before it is too late”: it is a case of targeting people when they are most vulnerable, when they are just coming out. By advertising the Alpha course to students, who are usually at this point in their lives, the course is targeting students directly.

The Alpha course encourages homosexual people to “discover the root of their homosexuality”.[25] One “ex-gay” quoted by Gumbel said that in his experience, lack of affirmation by a father was “an important factor in their homosexuality”.[26] Encouraging people to find their root has no point, as one past event does not lead you to homosexuality; nor does the lack of love from a father. Homosexuality is very complex, and perhaps should not be understood in terms of causation. Finding a root is the first step of the far-from-constructive “healing” process.

The course text then moves on to use prejudice once more to affirm a “fact”. “Homosexuals often define themselves by their sexuality – ‘I am my sexuality’ ”[27] is a gross mistruth. Homosexuals come in all shapes and sizes, and to say that homosexuals are one-dimensional beings is grossly offensive and wrong. The notion that this is trying to affirm is that homosexual relationships are less loving than heterosexual ones – again, very offensive, and linking homosexuality to promiscuity:

Healing is not an act of repression, but the way into freedom ... The inevitable outcome is sexual wholeness – wholeness in all relationships. Homosexuals often define themselves by their sexuality – “I am my sexuality.” Knowing freedom in Christ, we cease to define ourselves by our sexualities and see sex in terms of relationships and not relationships in terms of sex.[28]

In his chapter on homosexuality, Gumbel refers to lesbianism only twice: once to say “The incidence of homosexual activity among women is even more rare”[29] and, secondly, to highlight a case study of a “healed” lesbian, and does not even consider the notion of bisexuality.

Gumbel captures the reader to agree with him in two main ways. Firstly, he uses nonobjective articles as sources, all written before homosexuality was removed from the World Health Organisation’s list of diseases, and some from before homosexuality was legal. Secondly, he places in “facts” that are no more than opinions based on very dubious arguments and analogies. “AIDS is still correlated to homosexual practice”[30] and “This is due to the way we are made and designed to live”[31] are prime examples.

Along with those who criticise “psychological manipulation” and brainwashing, there are those who claim the Alpha course is a cult that targets the most vulnerable in society, owing to the high levels of conversions and the convulsive behaviour exploited by some of the most vulnerable converts. Students are an ideal target for the Alpha course, and I do not use the term “target” lightly. The Alpha course is directly targeting students by placing an Alpha course on campus. As a student, you are encouraged to join every society going to make new friends. Alpha sells itself on companionship and a ready-made network of friends. There are those who would have joined the Alpha course to make new friends in a new area of interest, and will have found themselves in a very vulnerable situation.

While this essay is distinctly anti-Alpha-course and antifundamentalist, it is in no way intended to be antireligious or anti-Christian. We live in a highly diverse, multicultural, multiethnic, multifaith, multisexuality community and we must respect this diversity. When it comes to the Alpha course, there is a straight choice: between allowing them to take advantage of vulnerable students who might be exploited, and standing firm with gay students who feel affronted at being called abominations. This is not a matter of freedom of religion or freedom of speech. Rather, it is a matter of freedom of thought and our responsibilities to fellow students. The Alpha course is not about “preaching to the converted”: it is actively targeting vulnerable people and turning them into evangelical Christians who do not question the validity of the arguments with which they are presented. It has been argued that the Alpha course no longer looks to the Bible for spiritual leadership, but to the writings of Nicky Gumbel. His core texts and the accompanying supplementary texts have sold well over two million copies worldwide. Instead of preaching for respect and harmony, it claims a monopoly of truth, disguising opinions as facts, and encouraging people actively to judge others, directly against what the Bible says (in Romans 2:1): “Do you, my friend, pass judgement on others? You have no excuse at all, whoever you are.” (Good News Bible.)

There is no need for the Alpha course to use Derwent junior common room (JCR). In York alone there are 25 Alpha courses running. Derwent JCR should not provide a platform for this kind of hatred to be preached, and should take a responsible attitude to the letting of the JCR. The Alpha course does not comply with York University Students’ Union’s equal-opportunities policy. The Alpha course must not remain in Derwent JCR and must not be able to target students.

John Rose
Derwent College, University of York
January 2002

References

All biblical quotes in the main section of this essay are taken from the Good News Bible. Gumbel’s book, Searching Issues, sources the New International Version.

[1] MCCEL, “What is the Lambda Course?”
[2] Rev. William Horsburgh, Reverend of Ryedale Evangelical Church (Yorkshire), quoted in Ian S Bruce, “Outrage over Geri’s links to anti-abortion, anti-gay group”, www.sundayherald.com.
[3] Jon Ronson, “Catch me if you can”, Guardian, 21 October 2000.
[4] Nicky Gumbel, Searching Issues, Chapter 5, Kingsway Publications 1994 (1995 revised), p. 80. [5] Ibid., p. 81. [6] Ibid. [7] Ibid. [8] Ibid., p. 82. [9] Ibid. [10] Ibid. [11] Ibid., p. 85.
[12] John Preston, “I am Alpha and you are saved”, Sunday Telegraph, 5 August 2001.
[13] Nicky Gumbel, Searching Issues, Chapter 5, Kingsway Publications 1994 (1995 revised), p. 84. [14] Ibid., p. 85. [15] Ibid., p. 87. [16] Ibid.
[17] Tony Campolo, 20 Hot Potatoes Christians Are Afraid To Touch (Word Publishing, 1988), p. 110, quoted in Nicky Gumbel, Searching Issues, Chapter 5, Kingsway Publications 1994 (1995 revised), p. 86.
[18] Jon Ronson, “Catch me if you can”, Guardian, 21 October 2000. [19] Ibid. [Editorial note: Since this essay was written, the Courage Trust has declared that its mission was wrong, and that same-sex love is “God-given”. Jeremy Marks, the 48-year-old founder of the trust, told the March 2002 issue of Lesbian and Gay Christians of his change of views.]
[20] Quoted in The Little Book of Gay Love, Penguin Books, 1998.
[21] “Homosexuality and Prostitution” (BMA, 1955), p. 92, quoted in Nicky Gumbel, Searching Issues, Chapter 5, Kingsway Publications 1994 (1995 revised), p. 88.
[22] Nicky Gumbel, Searching Issues, Chapter 5, Kingsway Publications 1994 (1995 revised), p. 88. [23] Ibid. [24] Ibid., pp. 88-9.
[25] From the film, But I’m a Cheerleader.
[26] Nicky Gumbel, Searching Issues, Chapter 5, Kingsway Publications 1994 (1995 revised), p. 90 [27] Ibid., p. 90. [28] Ibid. [29] Ibid., p. 79. [30] Ibid., p. 82. [31] Ibid., p. 85.