In Alpha Course #12, its creators share how newly-converted Christians can make the most of the rest of their lives. But they’re not actually that great at it. Today, let’s check out their suggestions—and wonder together if, indeed, one could build a meaningful life out of them.
(This post and its audio ‘cast first went live on Patreon on 4/28/2026. They’re both available there now. Please support my work—see the end of this writeup for options, and thank you for whatever you decide to do! NOTE: Alpha Course has a wonky numbering system. I’m using the numbers provided on the videos themselves, but their titles are what are important here. Session titles don’t tend to change, while numbering frequently does. Answering Alpha tag.)
SITUATION REPORT: Alpha Course finally gets to the fun stuff
After an Alpha Course hiatus, we are back in the saddle with #12! This one, intended to be shown after their big Spirit Weekend, finally gets down to telling viewers how to “make the most of the rest of [their] lives.”
A note about numbering: Every so often, Alpha Course leaders rejigger their session numbers. This is the 11th video we’ve seen, but it’s noted as #12. In the 1990s, this title was #15—and it was the last session in the entire series. It’s the title that matters, not the number particularly. Also, I’m aware that in this post’s voicecast, I refer to the female host of the series interchangeably as “Emmy” and “Gemma.” My apologies.
Also, this video is meant to be viewed after Alpha Course attendees have been through the big Spirit Weekend. Alpha Course is built around this weekend. It’s a key part of their conversion process. We can’t overstate its importance. This is the weekend where, ideally, their attendees will speak in tongues and become fully converted.
Here’s what goes down in it:
After stressing how we only get one life on Earth, our usual hosts Toby and Gemma return to tell us they’re going to show us how to live meaningfully. Nicky advises us to make our lives “living sacrifices” to Yahweh. And to do this, we must conform not to the ickie secular world, but to Christianity. At the same time, we must be authentic. Toby thinks Jesus is the most authentic human who ever lived as well as the “most integrated.” (This essay might throw a wrench into that assumption. Also, here is a Gnostic take on Jesus.)
Nicky Gumbel, the leader of Alpha and its main public face, tries to cold read us (and so do Toby and Gemma; cold reading is a real theme in this episode). Nicky guesses that we’re watching Alpha because we secretly want “what Christians have.” But we’re scared of change! Don’t worry, though. He promises that Jesus will never take “good things” out of our lives. He only takes bad things.
That leads into a huge section about not having unapproved sex. Nicky and the other hosts use a lot of purity-culture language here to make unapproved sex sound degrading and harmful. It certainly doesn’t have to be. Nor do I find plausible the claim that marriages conducted according to Christian rules are much better than ickie secular ones—especially after my horrific first marriage to a TRUE CHRISTIAN™ man.
But Nicky finds a way to top that. He makes the astonishing claim that Paul “never condemns” people for not listening to Yahweh. (We’ll talk more about that in a minute.)
Around midway through, Gemma and Toby mention “living sacrifices” again. They explain that the phrase means giving “Jesus” time and energy. This means conducting private religious devotions, yes, but also attending church and being kind to others.
Along the way, we meet two people who claim their pre-conversion lives were just awful. After conversion, they’re much happier and living meaningful lives. One is an ex-convict who converted in prison, then devoted his life to prison ministry. The other used to run a nightclub, but now operates a charity focused on helping people get clean water in impoverished countries.
We (the folks in our watch party) liked the second guy. In particular, he’s clearly dealt with Christian condemnation for not evangelizing the people his charity helps—and he seems steadfast in refusing to listen to those Christians.
Meaning in life: Alpha Course’s suggestions, as far as I can tell
I had to add “as far as I can tell” up there because this is a particularly rambling episode. It’s hard to tell if they’re still trying to convert their viewers/listeners, or if they’re settling down into how to live life as a Christian.
- Absolutely don’t have unapproved sex.
- Obey the rules of your Christian flavor.
- But be authentic and integrated too!
- Don’t skip church or religious devotions.
- Be kind to others.
- Make sure Jesus likes whatever you do for a living.
- Proudly tell people about your religious devotions.
It’s not an absolutely terrible list of guidelines, but one wonders why Alpha Course needed to say any of this. After all, a real live god now inhabits their intended audience. Shouldn’t this god be able to tell his followers what he wants them to do? Is any of this list really hard to piece together on one’s own?
And even if Christians follow this list to the letter, many still feel their lives are meaningless. What should we make of the millions of Christians going through such emotions? In my own experience, I’ve met far more Christians like that than I’ve ever met who were thrilled to greet each new morning. As for authenticity, the more zealous the Christians are, the more they remind me of the people of the dystopian series Autodale. In that series, all adults wear masks to hide their real selves—lest their tribe tear them apart for wrongthink:
Authenticity is impossible in modern evangelicalism. It might be easier in the mainline and progressive flavors of Christianity, where leaders make fewer demands for obedience and conformity. But it won’t take evangelical converts long to learn that they really can’t talk about certain things with their new church community.
Really, though, my main observations were on the weirder parts of this episode. They didn’t dwell on their actual topic for long, at any rate.
Nicky the Theologian on Paul the Apostle
Without question, Nicky’s claim about Paul blew my mind the most. I exploded when I heard that. He claims at around 10:20 that Paul never condemns anyone.
Has Nicky actually read anything attributed to Paul? Or does he assume his audience never has?
Either way, he’s flat wrong. Here’s the beginning of Paul’s letter to the Galatians (1:6-7)
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.
That sounds pretty condemning to me. And here’s 1 Corinthians 5:1-3, which contains some harsh condemnation indeed:
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is intolerable even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been stricken with grief and have removed from your fellowship the man who did this? Although I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, and I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present.
In verse 5, he tells his audience to “hand this man over to Satan!” What should we make of that? Could it be just general encouragement for the flocks? I doubt it.
I could also name-check 1 Corinthians 3, which opens with Paul condemning his audience as worldly infants who keep arguing among themselves and trying to one-up each other. Or better yet, check out 1 Corinthians 4:21, where Paul mildly suggests beating his “arrogant” readers with a rod to correct their behavior.
And I doubt many evangelical women are unfamiliar with Paul’s demands for the subjugation of our entire sex to men. He made demands of women (regarding our clothing, grooming, and behavior) that simply don’t get applied to men, ever, in modern evangelicalism. Whether these verses are taken out of context or not (and they probably are), evangelical leaders can and do use them to rationalize how they treat women.
So in a very real sense, Nicky has completely rewritten Paul to be more palatable to the modern age. I shouldn’t be shocked anymore by such rewriting efforts, but apparently there’s still some shockability left in me still. This was egregious.
Cold reading for fun and profit in Alpha Course
For such a short video, cold reading pops up an uncomfortable number of times.
Cold reading is a form of manipulation in which one person picks up subtle cues from another to make educated guesses about them. However, the target doesn’t know this information was easily gleaned, and so thinks it was gifted to the reader via supernatural means. Tarot card readers and so-called psychic mediums practice this art.
Used unscrupulously, cold reading can bolster the cold reader’s claims to supernatural knowledge. And these readers can get really good at it, too! Most of us give off those cues all the time, with them radiating out from us like auras from head to toe. The show Sherlock has its hero making liberal use of those sorts of cues:
But what we have here is barely cold reading. Nicky, Toby, and Gemma can’t see us at all. They don’t know anything about us beyond that we’re watching their video. So they’re left with educated guesses about the sorts of people who’d choose to watch an Alpha Course video.
First, there’s Nicky at 5 minutes in. He assumes those watching totally want what Christians have, though they’re nervous about change:
Perhaps you came to Alpha because you saw a change in a friend or a family member, something about their life seemed attractive, and you wanted to find out why. But at the same time, you think “Mmm, not sure I want to become like that.”
In itself, this isn’t a bad guess about the average Alpha Weekend attendee. I’m willing to bet most people attend because another Alpha graduate invites them. But it’s certainly not a supernaturally-gained insight.
At 12 minutes, we get more cold reading. Toby and Gemma make some wild guesses about the effects of Alpha Weekend:
Toby: I don’t know if you might have prayed after the last session when there was that opportunity to ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit. If you did, you may have had an amazing experience of God. Maybe you felt deeply moved as the Holy Spirit touched your heart in a profound way. Maybe you actually found it quite overwhelming!
Gemma: Or perhaps you feel a bit disappointed. You might say well I was hoping I’d have this amazing experience, but to be honest I don’t think I felt much at all.
Toby: Well, maybe you’re just thinking, “I found it really difficult!” Maybe you’re thinking, “I didn’t find it easy at all.” Maybe you felt like running away!
In this way, our hosts accidentally let on that there’s no steady, reliable effect on people after going through Spirit Weekend because its effects are completely subjective. Nobody is making contact with anything supernatural. So our presenters must provide the full range of possible reactions to Spirit Weekend. How that key weekend hits someone depends massively on their personality, expectations, and goals.
The problem with meaningful living: It’s hopelessly subjective
In similar fashion, meaningful living is, itself, subjective. There’s no over-arching meaning given to humans by any gods, so we have to figure it out as best we can for ourselves.
As a result, what’s meaningful to me might not be meaningful at all to you, and vice versa. For example, I don’t think I’d have found life meaningful as a parent, but I also know parents who can’t imagine life having meaning aside from their children. I find life very meaningful as a writer and armchair religion analyst, but I’m sure that not everyone would find it equally so.
As far as I can tell, this is how to live a meaningful life no matter what religion you might be:
- Work out what’s really important to you.
- Develop realistic goals based on those things.
- Do things that are conducive to those goals.
- Avoid doing things that would work against those goals.
- Be ready to start again at #1 a few times during your lifetime. Priorities can and do often change.
If your goal is to lessen animals’ suffering, then figure out what that means to you, how you can realistically impact the situation, and then go forth and conquer. It might mean donating money and time to animal shelters, working to destroy animal abuse rings online, fostering baby animals, becoming a park ranger, etc.
The results of your brainstorming might not look meaningful to absolutely everybody on Earth, and that’s okay. Whatever they are, they will still contribute to you living a life that you can look back on with happiness and pride, and as little regret as possible.
What I’m describing may sound simplistic. But it’s not anything anyone told me when I was younger, and I really wish someone had. Instead, I wasted a lot of time praying to get my life’s meaning handed to me on a silver platter, but no gods deigned to do that for me (or any of my Christian friends, who were as mystified as I was).
As a result, I had to work it all out for myself—just like every human on Earth has had to do, whether they dress it up as divinely-given or not. It just would have been nice if I’d known in advance that I’d need to do that.
I suppose that in the end, it got done, and that’s what’s important. The answers we find for ourselves have always mattered more anyway.
NEXT UP: My goodness. A Southern Baptist finally offers us what we asked for: Support for his supernatural claims. I can’t wait to see what he’s found! See you soon! <3
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A cold reading endnote:
You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
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