The Christian faith always has direct social implications. It is not a privatised religion but overflows into practical action and community transformation. This is seen clearly in the Alpha movement, which has been putting on courses for 45 years. Alpha is a global phenomenon, one of the leading brands in Christian evangelisation, created at Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in central London. More than 28 million people have attended the course worldwide, nearly five million in the UK, and many have become Christians as a result. Alpha’s pioneer, the former barrister Nicky Gumbel (see photo), has won plaudits as a Billy Graham for the modern age.
Alpha’s ambition, expressed in its famous catchphrase, is to see not only “lives changed” but also “society transformed”. Alpha has matured over three decades, with frequent revision of Gumbel’s books and films, and this emphasis has become increasingly explicit. For example, he suggests that to pray “Your Kingdom Come” in the Lord’s Prayer is to pray for the nation to be transformed in the areas of politics, economics, social justice, crime and education. Drawing lessons from church history, he praises John Wesley, the father of Methodism, as not only a preacher by also “a prophet of social righteousness”. Gumbel’s other heroes include campaigners such as William Wilberforce, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Questions of Life, the core Alpha text, has sold more than 1.7 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 40 languages. Recent editions reveal a great leap forward in the maturing of Gumbel’s social theology. “We experience the Holy Spirit not just so that we have a warm feeling in our hearts,” he declares, “but so that we go out and make a difference to our world.” Another of his popular paperbacks, The Heart of Revival, was published in the late 1990s, when many churches were excitedly looking for evidence of “revival”. Gumbel wrote: “True and lasting revival changes not only human hearts but also communities and institutions. Love for God and love for neighbour go hand in hand.”
Alpha has been controversial because of its emphasis on “experiencing” the Holy Spirit, sometimes shown in ecstatic phenomena such as “prophesying” or “speaking in tongues”. Yet Gumbel asserts that “one of the first marks of experience of the Spirit is a desire to make a difference to the poor”. Indeed, he identifies extreme poverty as “arguably the greatest moral and ethical issue of our day”.
Highlighting the dangers of global warming, deforestation and species extinction, Gumbel calls Christians to be at the forefront of environmental campaigning, again as an act of love for the poor and marginalised who often suffer the brunt of environmental destruction.
Throughout its history, the Alpha movement has aimed to embody these principles, with a strong emphasis on social engagement. These roots go back many decades. Bishop Sandy Millar, Gumbel’s mentor and predecessor as vicar of HTB, felt called to ordination half a century ago, when he started volunteering in the early 1970s with the London City Mission in the Seven Dials district near Covent Garden. They ran a Christian outreach for alcoholics, addicts, ex-convicts and gang members who came in off the streets, and their premises became known in Soho as the London Miracle Mission. There Millar witnessed “God’s love for the poor” in action, combining evangelism with practical service. These priorities are always interwoven: “Our ultimate service to humanity is to preach Christ, to be the life of Christ in the world and to bring everyone to the knowledge of God.”
Similar motivations underpin the Love Your Neighbour (LYN) campaign, initiated by HTB in response to the pandemic. The LYN network harnesses the energies of churches and charities across Britain to offer crisis support and community care, including food provision, mental health groups and drop-in cafés. They also delivered one million “Bags of Kindness” to people in need during the 2021 “Love Christmas” initiative.
Alpha runs side by side with these compassionate ministries, which are a natural overflow of Christian faith.
At the end of this month, Nicky Gumbel hands on the baton at HTB after 36 years as curate and vicar, a period of dramatic growth and church multiplication. Under his continued leadership, Alpha enters a new chapter in preparation for the year 2033, which will be celebrated by Christians worldwide as the 2,000th anniversary of Jesus Christ’s Great Commission to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth. From that divine commission flows compassion. As individual lives are changed when people encounter Jesus, the society they inhabit will be transformed.