In Alpha Course’s seventh video, we find some of its creators’ most fanciful guesses yet about exactly how their god and religion operate. This one covers divine guidance, which almost all Christians believe their god offers believers as a perk. Despite its nearly-universal status, however, they can’t actually tell us a single concrete thing about it. Today, we’ll check out this video and wonder together how a real live god who does real live things in the real live universe somehow can’t actually leave behind a single discernible sign of his actions or communications.
(This post and its audio ‘cast first went live on Patreon on 9/30/2025. They’re both available now! Answering Alpha tag for the other posts in this series.)
SITUATION REPORT: Alpha Course #7: How does God guide us?
Our AV Club on the Discord recently saw Alpha Course #7. This video asks (but refuses to answer) the question “How does God guide us?”
Indeed, most Christians believe their god guides them in some way and has some master plan for their lives. And yet there’s no way whatsoever for them to know exactly what exactly he wants them to do. That’s exactly why Alpha Course has so many problems with this question.
So instead of answering it, we get a lot of anecdotes and fluffy testimonies, along with the usual deluge of Bible verses which totally prove in a totally non-circular way that Yahweh totally guides his followers in the real world.
Instead of evidence for these claims, they peddle a promise. They assert that if we become Christians and follow Jesus’ orders, he will totally confirm after we die that we did everything correctly. (Because they’ve seen this happen, right? Oh wait.)
The idea of divine guidance exerts a powerful pull on a certain kind of person. It’s all but irresistible to the people Alpha Course videos persuade. But as with every single other Christian claim, it’s pure marketing hype. Worse, we’ll see in a few minutes here that Alpha Course’s cowardly creators are well aware of this simple truth.
A very quick rundown of Alpha Course #7
Emmy and Nigel return from the previous videos. I can’t remember Nigel’s real name, but he’s definitely someone’s Nigel regardless. I only remember Emmy because of a character with that nickname in the comic book series Amethyst of Gemworld.
(A note right before publication: Nigel’s real name is Toby. Emmy’s real name is Gemma. I was wrong on both counts.)
Whoever they are, they make a spectacular leap from insisting we all need guidance to it being instrumental in our sense of meaning and purpose, and from there they leap on ahead to their god being a valid and most excellent source of said guidance. It’s a dazzling Gish gallop. The presenters say they’ve made dreadful mistakes in their lives, but if only they’d listened to Jesus, they’d have avoided those mistakes. Yes, because fervent, devoted Christians never make huge mistakes in their lives, right?
A guy named Paul Cowley shows up to tell us about his terrible, drug-addicted father. He’s an “Ambassador” at the church where the main Alpha Course leader, Nicky Gumbel, pastors. Ambassadors are apparently church liaisons with their local community. One day, Cowley’s dad visited his home. For the trip back, Cowley upgraded his dad’s train ticket to first class. His dad looked very happy about it.
Three weeks later, his dad died of a heart attack. So now, Cowley thinks Jesus told him to upgrade his dad’s ticket. Seriously. I’m absolutely gobsmacked by the sheer lack of self-awareness required to present this story as a big win for Christianity.
Then, Nicky Gumbel poorly galumphs his way through the five apparent methods of divine guidance. We’ll cover those in a minute.
Around 20 minutes in, Paul Cowley shows up again. He claims with a straight face that he had literally never heard of Christianity before converting to Anglican evangelicalism in adulthood. Anglicanism, of course, is the official UK state religion. Gosh, what are the odds?!?
Emmy and Nigel return for the ending. They assert if you allow Yahweh to guide you in life, Jesus will tell you after you die that you did a good job.
This is so incredibly awful.
Divine guidance in a nutshell
To explore the idea of divine guidance in Christianity in a more substantial way, let’s start by defining what it is.
Or at least, let’s do our best to do that.
In Christianity, the term divine guidance refers Yahweh’s manipulation of humanity. He does this to achieve his ineffable grand plan for the universe. If humans accept this divine guidance, then they will stay out of trouble and definitely for-sure go to Heaven.
Divine guidance is supposed to be the clear voice of Jesus. In fact, he says in John 10:27 that his sheep know his voice very well. This guidance is supposed to help the sheep in both their daily lives and in their faith. It’s also supposed to help Christianity itself in some material way.
Obeying divine guidance is supposed to richly reward Christians. The blog More Than Yourself outlines four benefits to Christians who obey: Receiving Yahweh’s gifts; treating others better; serving others and giving generously; and most creepily of all, freedom from having to make their own decisions all the time. (How very Handmaid’s Tale that last one sounds!)
Another blog, Candidly Christian, took a stab at it as well. Their four benefits are: Strength for life’s struggles; peace from pain; more trust in Yahweh; increased faith. Strangely, these four benefits don’t look like the ones on that other list!
A blogger with Focus on the Family tried her hand at it too. Her list of benefits: Peace, rest, contentment, communication, and love. Well, now we have five benefits, and more than half of them don’t appear on the other lists.
If Christians can’t even agree on what divine guidance looks like and does for them, they’re probably going to have trouble with everything else. But that doesn’t stop them from feeling certain that it’s super-important.
A nearly universal belief in Christianity
Not much in Christianity can be considered universal. Christians have been squabbling about every single belief and claim about their religion from its very beginnings. But the idea of divine guidance is a contender for one of the more universal beliefs in the religion.
According to a 2018 Pew Research study (PDF of study, titled “When Americans Say They Believe in God, What Do They Mean?), 63% of Christians in general think their god (or some higher power) determines most or all of what happens to them. Mainline Christians and Catholics, of course, tend to agree less often (53% and 56% respectively), while evangelicals tend to think so 72% of the time. An even higher percentage of Christians (83%) believe their god controls both major and minor events in their lives.
In 2025, George Barna wrote about an evangelical-led study that revealed that about 2/3 of Christian respondents generally (and 99% of the Christians he identifies with Texas sharpshooter logic as the real deal “integrated Christians”) believed their life choices often or always reflected Yahweh’s guidance and influence.
These numbers indicate that evangelicals tend to be the most intense Christians when it comes to divine guidance. Online, you’ll find no shortage at all of evangelical sites promising to tell you how to be sure you’re following Yahweh’s orders (and not your own—or even Satan’s).
If I knew nothing whatsoever about Christianity and watched this video or read these sites, I’d come away thinking:
For a religion that follows a for-sure real god doing for-sure real things in the for-sure real world, gosh, it sure seems hard for Christians to figure out what he wants at any given time. He’s really bad at communication.
IN THE WILD: Evangelicals, on how divine guidance works
At Donna Reidland’s blog, we find a Rube Goldberg device of divine guidance:
It’s that combination of His Word, the circumstances of our lives (the secret intimations of his will in the hints and turns of Providence), and His Holy Spirit’s guidance (which he enables his people to understand and take direction from).
You’d think instead of those twists, she could admit she really has no idea how to detect her god’s will. But she’s not alone. Here’s a smattering of completely cringe methods from a kids’ Bible site, Wonderink:
In this ancient Bible-reading method, I invite the Holy Spirit to highlight certain words or phrases in a verse or short passage. I read it several times slowly, out loud when possible, and notice what stands out to me. [. . .] For a couple months, I traded my pen for colored pencils, and as I read Scripture in the morning, I drew what stood out to me. [. . .] Sometimes after reading a story about Jesus from the Gospels, I will close my eyes and picture the face of Jesus. [. . .] Inhale: Abba (or “Father” ) … Exhale: I belong to you. You can make anything a breath prayer. . .
It’s hilarious to read all that and realize that after doing all of that, that writer still has no idea what her god wants to tell her. Nor really does Rowdy John Piper over at Desiring God. He flat-out admits that the Bible can’t be Christians’ only guide, but he can’t actually point to a single concrete form of guidance his god uses. Instead, we get non-guidance as the guidance:
So the Bible is the input into that new mind, and the Spirit takes the word and begins to shape our thinking, mold our emotions, so that even when there’s no explicit command in Scripture for this decision you’re facing, you weigh all the alternatives and you’re weighing those alternatives with the mind of Christ.
Piper’s entire post reminds me of a scene from Better Off Ted (2009). In it, Ted and his boss Veronica must create a business presentation for an initiative that doesn’t actually exist:
Other Christians, like Jana Carlson, compare divine guidance to “the look” couples give each other when it’s time to leave a party:
When we receive the grace bought for us by Jesus Christ and experience the joy of fellowship with Him, we can also enjoy His gentle guidance by staying attentive to His instruction by reading and studying His Word, and submitting to His leading by responding to His Word in obedience.
Of course, if Yahweh’s marching orders were even a fraction as tangible and unmistakable as “the look,” atheists wouldn’t exist—and Christians wouldn’t be so utterly baffled about detecting their god’s desires.
Alpha Course whiffs the serve completely about the processes of divine guidance
Remember Nicky Gumbel’s five methods of divine guidance? Here they are:
- “Commanding scripture.” Direct orders that can be identified in the Bible for general situations.
- “Compelling Spirit.” Through prayer, or a strong desire to do something.
- “Counsel of the saints.” Advice from other Christians.
- Feelings. Yes, seriously. Does the guidance feel good, loving, and peaceful?
- “Circumstantial signs.” Portents, coincidences, etc.
These are far from the only methods. The “Christian Literacy Project” offers ten of them. But all of these lists of methods share the exact same problem: Aside from Bible verses that appear to offer direct instructions, all other methods are subjective. Worse, they require nothing supernatural. And even when it comes to Bible verses, determined Christians can easily work around them.
In the video, Nigel pops up (at 13:49) to tell a story about how he totally wanted to live in France, and OMG! It’s a real live miracle! A friend of his turned out to know a person hiring in France! Of course, Nigel had to do all the usual legwork to get the job. Still, he insists that Jesus orchestrated the entire situation because the god of quarks and quasars definitely wanted him to be in France.
Of note, Nigel doesn’t say he knew ahead of time that Jesus wanted him to go there. He desperately wanted to, is all. It’s obvious that he’s using the power of hindsight here.
It’s like that iconic scene in Willow (1988) where the High Aldwin throws some mystic bones to get a supernatural opinion about a newfound baby. He confesses to Willow that the bones don’t really tell him anything. Instead, the wizard finds out how Willow feels about the baby, then interprets the bones’ message for his village. That’s the same thing Nigel does in this video.
Welcome to divine guidance, folks! It’s just like Whose Line is It Anyway? Everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.
In this video, Alpha Course should have been telling audiences exactly how to know what Yahweh wants them to do, but none of its descriptions look like the real world. Any K-Pop superfan could come up with the same exact ideas.
But the problem with divine guidance is a dealbreaker
One Christian asserts: “The Bible is the gold standard when it comes to guidance, judge everything else by it.” Unfortunately, it’s incredibly easy for Christians to override the Bible.
Back when Big Love was a popular series in the mid-2000s, I hung out on HBO’s official forum for it. There, I constantly encountered otherwise-uptight, middle-aged evangelical men who were absolutely convinced that Jesus wanted them to marry a second wife and practice polygamy like in the show. If that forum had had an official bingo card, that exact situation would have been its center square! The sheer contortions these guys did with Bible verses and personal revelation would have made an Olympic gymnast jealous.
But motivated reasoning can become dangerous, too. Just about every predatory minister out there uses personal revelation as a way to procure and manage victims—and especially to cover up their own hypocrisy. It’s incredibly easy for predators to distort Bible verses and characterize red-flag behavior as normal and acceptable. And Jesus never seems to warn these predators’ victims in time for them to escape lifelong trauma.
Even aside from these two common and obviously self-serving situations, most Christians know plenty of peers who are getting frustrated with their inability to discern their god’s will for their lives. Hell, most Christians are themselves unable to do so. When I was Christian, I heard and saw many evangelical and fundamentalist guys endlessly praying to figure out Jesus’ commands for them. It just seems weird that an omnipotent god has so much trouble making himself understood!
And here, we’re only talking about Christians figuring their own situations out. We’re not even getting into Christians who think they know what their god wants someone else to do!
Anyone who’s been Christian for long knows the bitter truth about the lies Alpha Course offers here
As one might suspect, Christians don’t seem to find any difficulty at all in assessing their god’s will for other Christians. It’s always easier for them to take a speck out of someone else’s eye than to remove the log in their own.
Alas for all of them, there is no way whatsoever to discern who’s right and who’s wrong in any squabble about Jesus’ true opinions. Each side only has completely subjective arguments to support their claims. Sometimes, you even see Christians talking about this exact truth, not that it changes anything.
To Christians, those holding competing opinions are not actually correctly hearing Jesus’ voice. No, those other Christians are actually mis-hearing their own voice—or maybe even that of demons! (So much for the flocks knowing the shepherd’s voice, huh?)
When my Pentecostal church found out I refused to have children, they dogpiled me. Luckily, I’d grown more comfortable in my own skin since my wedding day to Biff! I’d married him despite deep personal misgivings about the idea, all because I thought Jesus had told me to do it. But I refused to budge about children. I told my churchmates that Jesus had already confirmed I’d never have children, and I held firm despite their barrage of demands that I conform. My refusal flew in the face of their doctrinal stances, and so they refused to accept that Jesus had approved my life decision.
Similarly, hardline right-wing Christians refuse to accept the same reasoning from women who think Jesus has called them to become pastors. They insist those women just heard wrong, or are sinning through pride and rebelliousness, or are even being influenced by demons.
(I know one fiery female pastor I’d just love to hear go off on that stance! It’d be like watching fireworks in Dubai on New Year’s Eve, I’m sure.)
Weirdly, the accusers never stop to wonder if maybe they’re the ones mis-hearing their god. Jesus always agrees with them!
The ultimate cowardice of Alpha Course
One of the wildest moments in the watch party came from a cradle atheist in his 70s. He asked a pointed question: If he’d happened upon Alpha Course in the wild and watched these videos, would he feel compelled to believe Christian claims?
As one, everyone else in the chat replied:
At best, Alpha Course might tip a few people into belief—but only if they were already windmilling their arms as they toppled over that ledge. If anyone makes the mistake of taking Alpha Course hype too seriously, though, they will soon learn the truth.
Indeed, every single person associated with Alpha Course has learned it already. They know, deep down, that nothing supernatural is making their decisions for them. They can tell us nothing real about their god, his will, or any potential ways of discerning his will.
And we know they know because they’re doing their best to fog the lens with pointless testimonies and lists of blahblah. They’re giving us a presentation on a product that isn’t even real, just like we saw in that Better Off Ted clip.
Are they lying to themselves, or to their audience?
In either case, careful wisdom-seekers know it means Christianity isn’t a good guiding philosophy for people in the modern day.
Then again, it probably wasn’t in its earliest days, either. That’s why we have so many hints in the New Testament (like in 1 John 2) about its groups struggling hard to keep people in those first crucial years.
Alpha Course aims for worried people who need to be told what to do
When it comes to how we figure out our life decisions, Christians think three sources help us:
- Divine guidance
- Human reasoning
- Demonic whispers
In truth, however, there’s only one source:
Human reasoning.
I get that it’s scary to make one’s own decisions. For anxious people who don’t trust their own judgment, it feels so much safer to farm out those life decisions to someone with hopefully better judgment. Unsurprisingly, many Christians try to farm them out to Yahweh.
But as we’ve seen, there’s no way at all to know exactly what Yahweh wants any of them to do. So to prop up all their empty advice, Alpha Course tells us to seek the “counsel of the saints” (read: churchmates’ opinions) and try to find Bible verses that perfectly fit a particular situation.
Deconversion can be a really chaotic, tumultuous time for this reason alone!
But we’ve always known how to fly
When we deconvert, we ex-Christians find ourselves in a universe where the buck stops with us.
But it always did. It always stopped with us. We just put a bunch of imaginary steps in front of that last one.
In truth, we were always the ones making the decision, just as Dumbo was always the force behind his power of flight. His lucky black feather had nothing to do with him flying. Similarly, even when I thought Jesus was telling me to marry Biff and everyone around me was telling me the same thing, ultimately it was my decision—and my mistake—to make. As completely indoctrinated as I was, it was always me at the end of that flowchart.
Christians think their god gives them help as they muddle through their lives. But divine guidance is simply a lucky black feather.
If deconversion takes away that feather, friends, we can still fly.
NEXT UP: The ongoing and increasingly hilarious hype about a supposed huge revival going on with Gen Z. (Spoiler: It’s as real as divine guidance!) See you soon! <3
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Endnotes.
I couldn’t find a good place for this in our topic today, but this Anglican freaking out about the “new view” of divine guidance must be seen to be believed. This guy is absolutely seething about the notion that somewhere out there some Christian leaders might think that maybe Yahweh doesn’t guide all of his followers in every particular. But don’t miss his fretful rabbiting about how daily meals don’t count as important divine guidance topics. He’s just so very worried about it all.
It’s a universal truth: What one Christian considers an essential doctrine, another considers foulest heresy. What one Christian considers unimportant fluff, another considers a “gospel issue.” They’re all on the same planet, but they’re living in all different worlds. So here’s a classic 80s song about a couple with the exact same problem:
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