When I review Alpha Course evangelism videos, I double-check my ideas by consulting a printed manual for the entire course. This time around, when I reviewed its fourth video, the manual contained an interesting discrepancy between its syllabus and the video’s actual contents. Today, let’s dive into this very telling discrepancy.
(This post first went live on Patreon on 8/1/2025. It’s available there now! No voicecast today, I’m sorry. Answering Alpha series tag.)
SITUATION REPORT: The Alpha Course manual and that magical hey, that’s weird moment
Alpha Course isn’t just a video series. Its creators intended for their videos to be shown in the greater context of a group. The videos are supposed to lead into a Bible study and group leaders’ hype.
In addition to videos, Alpha Course prints a manual for the entire series. I own that manual. It contains mostly basic outlines of the content in the videos. Up until now, it hasn’t differed overmuch from the videos. I’ve done little more than give it a cursory glance each week just to make sure I’m on track.
The fourth video offers ostensible reasons to have faith:
However, I noticed something odd when I checked out the manual for my usual quick reference.
The manual contains a third ostensible reason why Christians can feel confident in believing Christian claims. The video does not include that third reason.
The missing third reason in Alpha Course #4
In the video, we saw Christians offering two main reasons for having faith in Christian claims:
The Bible itself.
Flaw: Circular reasoning, which can be dismissed out of hand. The source of a claim cannot also be used to support the claim, just as Harry Potter books cannot be used to establish that Hogwarts and magic are real.
Jesus’ supposed historicity.
Flaw: Absolutely no contemporary evidence from 4BCE-35CE exists for the existence of Jesus, his followers, his miracles, or his trial/death/resurrection. Worse flaw: Even if there were, it wouldn’t make the Bible’s supernatural claims about him—or anything else—true.
Now, the manual offers a third reason:
III. The Witness of the Spirit
When someone becomes a Christian, God’s Holy Spirit comes to dwell within them (Romans 8:9)He transforms us from within
Our characters [cites Galatians 5:22-23]
Our relationships
The manual then asks readers a question:
Which of the following changes have you already experienced in your life?
- New love for God
- Desire to read the Bible
- Sense of forgiveness [I’m not sure if it means feeling forgiven or being more easily able to forgive others]
- New concern for others
- Enjoyment of worshiping God
- Desire to meet with other Christians [for example, church and Bible study groups]
The manual also notes that “the witness of the Holy Spirit” also includes “a deep, personal conviction that I am God’s child.”
Nothing in this third section appears in the video. The word “witness” does not appear at all, and the video barely mentions “the Holy Spirit.” Its testimonies mention some post-conversion attitude and behavior changes, but those changes are not dwelled upon by the presenters. Nothing about those converts’ stories sounds supernatural in the least, either. They clearly ached for a sense of belonging. They wanted to feel nurtured and cherished. It’s not surprising that they’d alter their behavior and thinking to better fit in with the communities promising them all of that.
Defining ‘the Witness of the Spirit’
In Christianese, the Holy Spirit or the Spirit as it appears here (always with capital letters) functions as Yahweh’s manifested power. It is the third part of the Trinity, with the others being the Father (Yahweh himself) and the Son (Jesus). Christian artists often represent the Spirit with a dove in flight—often with a little sprig of an olive branch in its beak to represent the peace Christians think their god brings to humankind. They believe that Yahweh possesses his followers and that a spark of his divinity inhabits them. This spark supposedly guides their thinking and actions.
So when Alpha Course’s creators talk about “the Witness of the Holy Spirit,” they mean the tangible changes that they think should occur in new converts’ behavior. The “changes” they mention are very common in Christian thinking. They think that Christians should behave markedly differently from non-believers. Anyone seeing them from afar should immediately know that this person is very different from the norm!
Obviously, none of these beliefs are based in reality. They’re not true—and Christians themselves know it. Most converts have a rush of euphoria and bliss right after conversion, but since there’s no god at the center of Christianity these changes don’t last. They revert back to their baseline, so to speak.
Worse, with the exception of “new concern for others” (which could mean anything), nothing on Alpha Course’s official list of changes benefits anyone but the new convert and their new church community. It’s really noteworthy that Alpha Course didn’t include all the stuff Jesus told his followers to do.
- If someone forces you to walk one mile with him, then go with him two miles. (Matthew 5:41)
- Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matthew 5:44)
- Feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked, tend the sick, visit the prisoners. (Matthew 25:35-36)
- Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. (Luke 6:27-28)
- Turn the other cheek when someone slaps you, and if someone demands your coat offer them your shirt too. (Luke 6:29)
- Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:36)
- Wash the feet of your fellow Christians. (John 13:14)
- Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:12)
Perhaps Christians find that list boring.
Why didn’t Alpha Course #4 include this third reason?
To be as charitable as humanly possible here, it’s possible Alpha Course’s creators didn’t include “the Witness of the Holy Spirit” for understandable reasons.
They clearly aim the videos at non-Christians—they even included a Sinner’s Prayer at the end of this one. The third reason wouldn’t make sense to someone who wasn’t converted, particularly since Christians don’t act particularly differently from other people. And non-believers might notice that nothing on the “Witness” list actually makes any Christian a better human being than non-believers can manage.
As well, the videos are short sound bites. They don’t go into much of anything in detail. Each one is like a sales brochure in that way. Their creators clearly intend them to whet curiosity and encourage potential buyers toward a sale. Three data points might have seemed like a bit too much to include.
I can see a darker reason for not including “the Witness of the Holy Spirit,” too.
Including that list of tangible changes might only remind viewers of how little believers change upon conversion. Their list looks like nothing more than the results of excitement over joining a new fandom. New believers seeing the list in the video might also assess themselves and realize how very unenthused they feel about studying an ancient book of mythology or attending church with people they might not know or like yet.
So leaving that third thing out might protect the first fragile sparks of faith in viewers who don’t realize just how lackluster Alpha Course’s evidence really is.
The Problem of the Lack of Christian Witness
We expect any group to have some bad apples. How the group responds to those bad apples tells us a lot about how safe the group is for its more vulnerable members.
Many years ago, when I was Christian myself, we talked a lot about maintaining our witness. The word witness included our reputations, our credibility as Christians, our honesty and courage, and more. Losing one’s witness was about the worst thing we could imagine someone doing. Christians could lose their witness through being caught committing hypocrisy and displaying personal flaws like not being able to apologize and make amends for mistakes.
Back then, Christians believed that a lost witness could doom normies to Hell because they wouldn’t take evangelism seriously or ever want to join churches full of bad apples.
But a lot has changed since those days. Christians today seem far less worried about their witness. They belligerently display their hypocrisy, then get angry at onlookers who mention Bible verses forbidding whatever they’re doing.
(Like hey, I get it. Those reminders must sting! But if you’re going to put your rulebook on display, don’t be shocked if non-players notice violations of your rules. It’s no different from noticing a professional poker player drew too many cards—or whatever they do that might be blatantly against the rules. I don’t play poker. Hopefully, you get the idea.)
Christians who want to do better are kicking against the goads
At this point, Christianity itself—particularly the evangelical end of it that Alpha Course’s creators call home—is little more than a political identity. A cultural alignment. Tribalism with an extra coat of Jesus frosting. A reason to treat other people with rudeness and cruelty.
It’s really got to suck for Christians who want to be better than that. Who want to be more than that. They’re fighting a losing battle.
And this video series won’t help at all. Alpha Course’s first two reasons to believe were bad enough. But this third one?
“The Witness of the Holy Spirit,” as displayed by Christians themselves, presents us with one of the best reasons to reject Christianity. As Christianity continues to decline, that truth will only get more and more obvious.
NEXT UP: Yet another evangelical turns out to be a sexual predator. I realize that doesn’t narrow things down much. But there’s a lot going on with this one. We’ll check out his rise and fall next time. See you soon!
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