Alpha Course - week 2

I was disappointed with the first week of the Alpha Course for not really getting into any real issues, so I was very glad that this second week proved to be a lot more thought provoking.

The topic this week was 'Why Did Jesus Die?'. The talk focused on how the cross and Jesus' death are probably the most fundamental parts of the Christian faith, something I hadn't fully appreciated until now. It's strange, as the phrase 'Jesus died for our sins' is so commonplace in Western culture, but the implications I hadn't seriously considered before.

I really enjoyed the group discussion on the topic. Out of the 6 atheists from last week, 2 had disappeared, to be replaced by two who both made it clear they had been dragged along by their regular church going friends. But their contributions were really interesting. One questioned the convenience of having Jesus dying for our sins, whereas the other saw it completely the other way, that full commitment to God and good is anything but convenient. We also raised the question of motivation, potentially the issue I have most difficulty with with Christianity. Shouldn't we do good because it is inherently good, rather than becaus we want eternal life?

During the discussions, the committed Christians are normally quite bland with their replies, often just asking what other people think, but they spoke out quite forcefully on this. It seemed that for most of them, they rarely thought about good/sin in terms of the consequences, in terms of heaven/hell, rather it seemed like a good guide to how they should live their lives. In fact, it almost seemed like they were quite uninterested in the notion of heaven/hell. I'm not quite sure how this ties with the traditional church teachings, but I was interested to see this quite modern interpretation of faith. I also found their lack of absolutism very comforting; just like I didn't want to be a fundamentalist atheist, these were anything like the fundamentalist Christians I was so keen to defeat.

It is a shame then, that the discussions are very short, we had to stop just as I felt we were delving into big issues. It is certainly spurring me to return in future weeks though.

As for the food, I made the suggestion that they need to run some Alpha exercise classes alongside. Again, abundance of chocolate everywhere, and this time, main course was a side-sticking cheesy pasta bake. No one told me you can get fat at Alpha.