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A is for Alpha, B is for Brand:
Flexible religion? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Obviously not: It’s all around us. Today millions of people are choosing and fashioning their own religiosity from a range of available options. They aren’t necessarily committed to the faith they were born into and often don’t even accept as absolute the principles of religions they like. Instead, one may assess what a given religious option has to offer and whether it may be good for dealing with whatever you want to deal with in your life. The believer is a consumer under no obligation to commit. Religious loyalty is akin to brand loyalty, which lasts as long as the individual is satisfied. In other words, welcome to the New Age, in which taking the boundaries between faiths dogmatically is little more than a barrier to the sine qua non of personal spiritual growth. In the New Age there is no contradiction between consulting your Tarot reader after you finish your Hindu meditation and then curling up with the quasi-Christian A Course in Miracles while you plan your trip to participate in a sweat lodge. The movement is organized as a market. Demographic research profiling the types of customer likely to buy “New Age” is for sale to those responsible for marketing New Age products; publishing magazines discuss and influence trends in New Age book and tape sales; and business magazines analyze the marketing of the New Age in various sectors. There are also numerous trade organizations (e.g., NAPRA) and trade magazines (e.g., New Age Retailer) specializing in the New Age sector. It is in the commercial interests of New Age entrepreneurs to promote as many types of goods and services as will be acceptable to participants. The New Age stands the notion of doctrinal purity on its head. This milieu presents options, referring the consumer to a range of choices, always respecting the personal right to choose “what is right for oneself.” New Age magazines cover the activities of numerous groups and present knowledge from many spiritual traditions, while healing centers offer a range of therapies and workshop centers run courses on a variety of topics. Seminars and exhibitions bring together speakers, businesses, products, practices and philosophies stylistically unified through offering ways of enhancing spiritual and physical well being. In these spaces, one may pick up leaflets en masse, each inviting you to do this or buy that. So in the face of the amazing growth of the New Age in recent decades and the virtual cornering of the ‘market” in Christian conversion by fundamentalists, what kind of riposte can established denominational Christianity make as participation dwindles? Well, first of all it must acknowledge that for those on the more secular/agnostic/atheist side religion may connote all that is boring, confining, authoritarian. It’s all about obedience to some transcendent being and that privileged social apparatus, the Church, which represents the divine authority in our earthly sphere. There are more than a few people living today who have sour memories of strict Christian schooling or upbringings. Should! Should! Should!: Religion can all too easily fit into the same category of phenomena as homework, despotic teachers and nagging parents. And you don’t have to be a Marxist to see the way religion can be a tool for social control. In fashioning good beings, inculcating primary values into them, it more often than not sanctifies socioeconomic imperatives such as the work ethic, war and the gendered divisions of labor. Let’s just say that mainstream religion has an image problem when it comes to a certain portion of the population and it’s one that hangs about as doggedly as the smell of musty old texts. But herein lies the challenge too, because Christianity is a religion with a conversional imperative. How then may present-day denominational Christianity reconstruct itself to grab the attention of contemporary souls in our diffuse symbolic universe? The answer is the introductory course to Christianity called “Alpha,” and it means joining in the cacophany of persuasive images; it means responding to flexible religion through a smart strategy that ditches the traditional Christian baggage on the level of image and instead co-opts the style of that which is popular. Alpha is “promotional” Christianity, not simply conversional Christianity. Alpha was started at an Anglican church in London, Holy Trinity Brompton, about 20 years ago. It is a short foundation course in Christianity incorporating multimedia teaching and group work, with the full version extending to 15 sessions. The course has been continually developed by the London team that holds the copyright to the materials. To date, 17,000 churches have run courses by purchasing the materials. Between 1994 and 1998 the number of participants has at least doubled each year; it suddenly took off in 1999 with 1.5 million participants (three times as many as 1998). The groups that run the course do so knowing the Alpha brand’s track record of success. And in a win/win situation, Alpha, in turn, is able to plough the economic benefits accruing from the scale of its activities into enhancing quality, flexible delivery and teacher training opportunities. It is basically an ecumenical Christian franchise that exploits economies of scale and global brand value to allow for cheap distribution of high-quality sales materials that make for efficient marketing on local levels. It is the Avon of religion. Integral to the Alpha brand image, and its most important aspect in terms of persuading religious consumers on the lookout, is the promise of persuasion without preaching. It lets us know that this isn’t the same strain of authoritarian Christianity that threatens personal liberties. Through this it makes a play at the New Age market of spiritual seekers looking for user-friendly tools for their personal spiritual growth. Alpha marketing materials spell out what’s in it for us through nifty formulas that reassure us that the course revolves around our questions and offers answers in an interactive setting, rather than ramming thou shalts down our incredulous postmodern throats. So Alpha, according to the blurb, means:
Alpha is still a type of evangelism though, providing a way for people to join established mainstream Churches that still do largely teach obedience to traditional Christian philosophies (maverick priests aside). It is currently running in churches of all the major denominations - Anglican, Baptist, Elim, Episcopal, Free Church, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Salvation Army and United Reformed. But what’s new is the way that institutions that might otherwise seem stuffy and conservative have chosen a new type of interface with the public, one that suits the times and provides the means for people to go through a consumer-style deliberative process of choosing their commitment. The Alpha Web site, which seems partially oriented at persuading Christians to run the course, explains how the course developed throughout the 1990s, proudly proclaiming: "By taking account of literally thousands of questionnaires, the Alpha course has been adapted and improved so that it is truly molded to the perceived and experienced needs of this generation. Stripping the gospel down to its bare essentials, it makes Christianity accessible to men and women of today’s culture." As course organizers realized non-churchgoers were increasingly attending and converting to Christianity, the Alpha ethos was developed. "The method of welcome, the atmosphere of the small groups, the food, the seating, the flowers, the sound, and the material of the talks themselves were all changed to make them as attractive as possible to the person who walked in ‘off the street’." The course designers stipulate that all questions should be treated as important, none as trivial and that nobody should be pestered if they decide to leave the course. By appropriating the New Age workshop format and allying it with a brand name, Alpha creates a product (albeit usually only costing the price of the food supplied at each session) that is somewhat distinct from “Christianity.” The religious consumer is under no obligation by taking the 15 sessions, though as always sales techniques are strategically designed to accommodate the consumer’s right to choose. Alpha does this by emphasizing the opportunities participants have to express their concerns, making them feel enfranchised in the Alpha setting. Alpha then is booming. All inhabitants of our planet could be expected to have taken it within 12 years if its exponential growth continues, which I suspect it won’t. And if this is true we can expect its decline to have more to do with product cycles and market saturation than the faith of humankind.
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