In Alpha Course #6, Christians try very very hard to make the Bible sound utterly relevant and important to everyone’s lives. They fail, of course, just like every other video so far has failed to accomplish its own stated goals. But as usual, it’s how specifically they fail that should interest us. This failure speaks to some huge issues with Christianity itself, ones that nobody at Alpha Course can possibly ever resolve.
(This post and its audio ‘cast first went live on Patreon on 9/5/2025. They’re both available now! Answering Alpha tag for the other posts in this series. From introduction: Schoolhouse Rock “Hanker for a Hunk’a Cheese” – video in Endnotes below.)
SITUATION REPORT: Alpha Course #6: How and why should I read the Bible?
The sixth episode of Alpha Course’s film series is subtitled: “How and Why Should I Read the Bible?”
It follows the usual trajectory for these videos, beginning with normies talking about the Bible, then a series of anecdotes, a few talking heads weighing in, and finally an exhortation based on a Bible verse as a last-ditch zinger.
But this video is different from the others in one respect:
It fails so much harder at demonstrating that the Bible is worth reading on its own merits.
A quick rundown (QRD) on Alpha Course #6
“It can be hard to sift out the really important from the superficial. For many people, the Bible seems outdated, boring, or just plain hard to understand. What can the Bible possibly say to us in the 21st century?” [Alpha Course, 00:42]]
Alpha Course’s creators tell us that the Bible is “the most popular book in the world.” But less than one minute in, their own interviews with normies on the street have already shown us that almost nobody has actually read it!
Despite their own normies’ words, Alpha Course’s talking heads assure us that many people in the past have considered the Bible very important. With so many people thinking the same way, it’s just got to be true!
Along with these assurances, the video’s creators offer numerous anecdotes about various people who’ve committed crimes by distributing Bibles. They interview Maryam Rostampour, who famously got arrested in 2009 in Iran for promoting Christianity. Later, Christian mathematician John Lennox (at 13:10) assures us that many noteworthy European scientists were Christians “in some sense.” (LOL, dude’s trying to avoid mentioning Deism!) However, he ignores that until recently, it was illegal not to be. And reconciling science with the Bible is irrelevant to this video anyway.
Out of nowhere, someone tries to square away the Problem of Suffering (at around 10:15).
Then, Nicky informs that Yahweh has revealed himself to humanity in the Bible. He throws in an Appeal to Beauty, too, insisting that glorious night skies are also manifestations of Yahweh. [citation needed] But don’t forget that Jesus is another such manifestation!
Alpha Course’s two weapons.. no, make that his three weapons… er, four? Nobody expects the Spanish apologetics! Don’t expect evidence for anything here, though.
Finally, around 14:40, Gemma and her sidekick show up to tell us the Bible is “full of practical wisdom and principles for relationships,” along with advice about forgiveness and parenting. Yes, because modern people definitely need to know how to treat women like property and serious diseases like demonic possession. Alas for her, the only people who benefit from the Bible’s take on forgiveness are predators—and its parenting advice has traumatized countless children.
At 20 minutes in, the video’s creators finally tell us to read a little bit of the Bible every day, perhaps through a phone app—and to do it in an environment as distraction-free as possible. They’re admitting that the Bible is completely boring. But Gemma assures us that if we read a few verses a day and pray for Yahweh to “speak to [us],” he totally will and the Bible will become totally exciting!
Near the end, Nicky asserts that his atheistic father totally had a deathbed conversion (similar to what some opportunistic reprobates claimed after Christopher Hitchens died). He concedes that there’s no evidence for the claim, thanks to a few coincidences with specific Bible verses. He forgets that when a Christian dies, a lot of people will be thinking about the same Bible verses.
Undeterred, Nicky ends with a smirky question: “Do you think the Lord may be trying to speak to you?” It’s hard-sales cringe at its worst.
Speaking as his target demographic, my answer remains: “No, because he isn’t real. He can’t talk to anyone.”
Scoring Alpha Course #6
To summarize, here are Alpha Course’s reasons why everyone in the modern day should read the Bible:
- Tons of people in the past thought the Bible was amazing.
- It sells tons of copies and its apps have tons of downloads.
- Without the Bible to set boundaries for them, people’s lives get all higgledy-piggledy and they never learn how to treat others.
- Occasionally, Bible readers notice weird coincidences relating real-world events to the Bible verses they’ve been studying lately.
Actual reasons to find the Bible relevant and interesting: 0/10
Video accidentally revealing how irrelevant and uninteresting the Bible is: LOL
Number of Nicky smirks: OVER 9000
The Problem of Suffering: Nope, still not solved
Way better life guides: Emily Post’s Etiquette; All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
A 1969 Armenian movie about an 18th-century poet: Still way more relevant to modern audiences
Not beating the: “Ignorant Tight-Ass Club” scene from West Wing
Score: This video sucks.
It’s the opposite of evangelism. It’s nothing but reasons to reject Christianity.
The problem with Alpha Course’s reasons to read the Bible
Appeal to popularity: Tons of people can share really bad opinions. After all, Christians almost universally approved of slavery until about 200 years ago. So it doesn’t matter how many people think a particular book is good. That doesn’t mean that I’ll think it’s good. Or that it’s really good at all.
Appeal to beauty: No “argument from X/appeal to X” ever rises to the level of compelling evidence for Christians’ extraordinary claims, but this one bombs the worst. Just as every other Christian does when trotting out this argument, Nicky Gumbel ignores all the scary and unpleasant stuff in our world to make that case. I doubt anybody looks at an Ebola virus and thinks Jesus must be real.
Coincidences: People in all religions experience coincidences just like those Nicky Gumbel describes in the video, and they attribute them to their particular gods. I was pagan when my mom died, and I also experienced some very powerful coincidences around that time! But I never thought Yahweh was behind them. Neither do believers from other religions. (See also: Forer effect and frequency illusion.)
Need for boundaries: As a group, Christians do not follow their own holy book’s rules, except for the ones they personally like and feel are manageable. Even then, many of them disobey whenever they think they can. Worse, their leaders are virtually immune to accountability for their hypocrisy.
Attacking perceived incongruities with science and the Problem of Suffering: As we saw last time when we looked at the Last Ideology Standing, attacking criticisms doesn’t magically make one’s own claims look more credible. Making the Bible into a source of perfect, ultimate morality or (worse yet!) a history book only cheapens it.
My own struggles with the Bible: I knew what I wanted it to be, but it just wasn’t
Christians themselves know the Bible’s supposed to be super-relevant and important. But it doesn’t feel that way. Constantly telling themselves so doesn’t change a thing. It’s the same for prayer. It’s supposed to feel like communicating with a living god, but almost no Christians experience that feeling unless they are really good at working themselves up to it.
I’ve read the Bible. It’s largely completely boring unless you are way into ancient history, the evolution of Ancient Near Eastern god-beliefs, and the process of mythmaking. Lots of it is brutal and cruel—and far too much of it is absolutely evil to modern eyes. What isn’t evil often comes off as bizarre, like the sticks that determined coat color in sheep or the two “tests” with the sheep fleece.
So just like every Christian I knew at the time, I found it very difficult to study the Bible. Instead, I did what almost all Christians do: I chose particular Bible verses to study using tribe-approved explanatory materials.
This led to the hilarious situation that many ex-Christians find themselves in after deconversion: Seeing Bible verses and going “Wait, why didn’t I notice that when I was Christian?” There’s a reason why that’s such a common sentiment! Often, you don’t really perceive the weirdness or evil in the Bible till you stop believing in Christianity itself. At that point, it becomes a constant parade of surprising discoveries.
What this video reveals about Christianity itself is a total dealbreaker
If the Bible’s really so incredibly relevant to literally everyone on Earth, Alpha Course should be able to explain why very succinctly and quickly. Its creators shouldn’t need to rely completely on anecdotes—or even miracle claims, as Nicky does at the video’s end.
Instead, all they have is anecdotes. And no matter how many anecdotes someone assembles, they’ll always be just anecdata. They won’t ever be facts. And Alpha Course has none. They can’t tell us how we’ll know that Yahweh is talking to us versus us imagining it happening. They can’t show us that daily Bible study has tangible effects on anyone’s health or happiness. Compare and contrast their attempts with couch-to-5k (C25K) running guides, which have no trouble supporting their wellness claims with compelling evidence.
More and more, the Bible emerges as a document that’s really only relevant to a certain relatively-small segment of people—and even most of those people barely touch it. Those entirely outside of the Christian bubble, like folks in countries where Christianity is a minority faith, will find it even less relevant.
The appeal to popularity is such a failure of an argument for Alpha Course to make
All these Alpha Course talking heads can say is that lots of people have, in the past, found the Bible to be relevant and important to their lives. While that fact may be important to the people in question, it says nothing about others finding it so. Really, that’s the key issue with this entire video.
If you noticed that crack earlier about the obscure Armenian movie, then you might have already guessed that I love The Color of Pomegranates. The more I watch it, the more I get from it! I’ll gladly talk about why I love it, too: its rich symbolism, its intense connection to both its subject and the viewer, its emotional hooks, its creators’ obvious love for their homeland and culture, its rich tableaux that look so much like medieval triptych paintings, its nonlinear style of communicating feelings rather than narratives, and more. Modern movies that use visual symbolism (like 1993’s Schindler’s List, with its use of the color red) basically got it from this one movie. There’s so much to enjoy here, even for someone who isn’t from that part of the world!
Alas, I am very nearly alone in that opinion. And yet others’ opinions can’t make it irrelevant or unimportant to me. Obey your thirst, as the great bard once said. If we all liked exactly the same things, it’d be a boring old world.
So I fully expect that a lot of people find the Bible very interesting for many reasons. I value it as a mythmaking account of one civilization’s relationship with and understanding of their gods—not just Yahweh, but also Baal, Asherah, and others. Others really love the scholarship done around it, the archaeology of Bible-described sites, the book’s poetry, or even its endless “begat” lineages.
It’s just not a book I consider relevant enough to require me to make regular studies of it. These days, a growing number of people seem to agree.
Telling people that the Bible is super-duper-mega-double-death-dog relevant to others won’t tell them why it should be relevant to them. It’s painfully obvious that Alpha Course has no idea how to communicate that kind of relevance. And it’s not hard to imagine, either, why they can’t.
(Be watching for my announcement of date of the next Alpha Course watch party! I’m thinking September 19th, 6p PST, but will let you know for sure next week.)
NEXT UP: ZOMG, a new religion study has come out that knocked my socks off! I can’t wait to show it to you! See you soon! <3
Please support my work!
Thanks for reading, and thanks for being part of our community! Here are some ways you can support my work:
0 Comments