Answering Alpha is a series of reviews of Alpha Course , which is an evangelism-focused series of lectures and Bible studies. The “course” aims to introduce outsiders to Christianity to basic concepts like sin, the afterlife, who and what Jesus is, and why everyone needs to convert.
First developed in the UK, it now runs all over the world in many different languages.
And as you might suspect, it sucks.
As we wrap up our look at Alpha Course, one fact stands out above all others: This isn’t a very persuasive series. We’ll bring everything home now by summarizing the entire thing, then evaluate it for effectiveness. (This post first went live on Patreon on 7/28/2026. Please support my work—see Read more
We’ve finally arrived at the very end of Alpha Course, the UK-based evangelism series that stands unrivaled as the most popular one of its kind. To cap off their series, our hosts are going to try to make church membership and attendance completely essential to one’s experience of Christianity. But Read more
In Alpha Course 15, we learn all about divine healing: Why it happens, how to interpret a lack of healing, and the enormous effect these miracles have on evangelism and one’s own personal faith. But along the way, the hosts accidentally reveal that miracles don’t really happen—and that they’ll do Read more
In Alpha Course #14, viewers learn that they should ‘tell others’ about their conversion. That means how to do personal evangelism. But the video accidentally reveals just how poorly Christianity fares as “good news” worth sharing. (This post and its audio ‘cast first went live on Patreon on 7/3/2026. They’re Read more
In Alpha Course #13, the hosts kindly teach their viewers how to resist the wily wiles of the wiliest coyote of them all, Satan. Here, we learn that it’s not so much about resisting evil as it is about Jesusing the Jesus-Jesus just as hard as we can. And from Read more
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 Read more
Alpha Course has been around for decades. So have criticisms of it from every single corner of Christianity. Today, let me show you some of those criticisms—and what they mean for Christianity itself. (This post first went live on Patreon on 1/2/2026. No voicecast today, sorry! My voice is doing Read more
At this point in our Alpha Course mega-review, we must stop to discuss speaking in tongues. The Christians who do it really like it! But not everyone knows what it is or how it’s done. So today, let me offer you a crash course in one of the weirdest worship Read more
When a group of us watched Alpha Course #10, we weren’t expecting this level of duplicity and evasiveness. The video promised to reveal an answer: ‘How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ But in reality, it spent almost a half hour to give three short instructions. Once I Read more
In Alpha Course #9, we began quite a strange pivot into Charismatic-specific flavors of Christianity. That’s no accident, either. As we’ll see today, the masters of Alpha Course might say it’s ecumenical, but this course really aims for one specific destination in converting viewers. We’ll trace the origins of this Read more