Catch me if you can

It's a Wednesday evening in early summer, and you'd think some fancy soiree was taking place in Knightsbridge, west London, on beautiful lawns set back from Brompton Road. Porsches and Aston Martins are parked up, and attractive young people, even some famous names, in casual wear and summer dresses are wandering up a tree-lined drive.

But this is no soiree. We are agnostics. We are entering a church - the Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) - to sign up for the Alpha course, led by Nicky Gumbel. He is over there, welcoming agnostics; he's good-looking, tall and slim. It sounds impossible but Gumbel's course, consisting of 10 Wednesday evenings, routinely transforms hardened unbelievers, the entrenched faithless, into confirmed Christians. There will be after-dinner talks from Gumbel, a minister at Holy Trinity as well as head of Alpha, and then we will split into small groups to discuss the meaning of life, etc. There will be a weekend away in Kidderminster. And that's it. Salvation will occur within these parameters. I cannot imagine how it can work.

However, at a cautious estimate, in Britain alone and in less than a decade, a quarter of a million agnostics have found God through Gumbel. To name one: Jonathan Aitken. "I am a man of unclean lips," he told the Catholic newspaper, the Tablet, " ... but I went on an Alpha course at Holy Trinity Brompton, and found great inspiration from its fellowship and the teachings on the Holy Spirit." The Tablet added, "He has done Alpha not once but three times, graduating from a humble student to a helper who pours coffee."

Gumbel's supporters say that, within C of E circles, he is now more influential than the Archbishop of Canterbury; they claim that Alpha is saving the Church. Other people say some quite horrifying things about Nicky Gumbel. I am told it is almost impossible to get an interview with him. His diary is full until 2003. His people were apologetic. They said that the only way to really get to know Nicky, to understand how he does it, was to enrol in Alpha.

"Hi!" says a woman wearing a name-tag at HTB. "You're ... ?"

"Jon Ronson."

"Jon. Let's see. Great!" She ticks off my name and laughs. "I know it feels strange on the first night, but don't be nervous - in a couple of weeks' time, this'll feel like home."

I drift into the church. There are agnostics everywhere, eating shepherd's pie from paper plates on their laps. Michael Allison, one-time permanent private secretary to Mrs Thatcher, is here. So is an ex-England cricket captain. I spot the manager of a big British pop group. Samantha Fox found God through Nicky. I wonder whether Jonathan Aitken will pour the coffee, but he is nowhere to be seen tonight. And now Nicky is on stage, leaning against the podium, smiling hesitantly. He reminds me of Tony Blair. "A very warm welcome to you all. Now some of you may be thinking, 'Help! What have I got myself into?'" A laugh. "Don't worry," he says. "We're not going to pressurise you into doing anything. Perhaps some of you are sitting there sneering. If you are, please don't think that I'm looking down at you. I spent half my life as an atheist. I used to go to talks like this and I would sneer."

Nicky is being disingenuous - we know that there are no talks like this - Alpha is uniquely successful, and branching out abroad, so far to 112 countries, where they play Nicky's videos and the pastor acts the part of Nicky. "This just may be the wrong time for you," says Nicky to the sneerers. "If you don't want to come along next week, that's fine. Nobody will phone you up! I'd like you to meet Pippa, my wife." We applaud. "Hi!" says Pippa. "We've got three children. Henry is 20, there's Jonathan, and Rebecca is 15."

Nicky assures us that we are not abnormal for being here. The Bible is the world's most popular book, he says. This is normal. "Forget the modern British novelists and the TV tie-ins," he says, "44 million Bibles are sold each year." He says that the New Testament was written when they say it was. "We know this very accurately," he explains, "through a science called textual criticism." He says that Jesus existed. This is historically accurate. He quotes the Jewish historian Josephus, born AD37: "Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works ... the tribe of Christians so named after him are not extinct to this day." I am with Nicky thus far. My knowledge of Josephus is sketchy, but he strikes me as a reliable source. But the agnostics here - it soon becomes clear that Nicky can read our minds - are thinking, "But none of this proves that Jesus was anything more than a human teacher."

Nicky tells an anecdote: he says that he once failed to recognise that his squash partner was Paul Ackford, the England rugby international. Similarly, Jesus's disciples, in the region of Caesarea Philippi, failed to recognise that their master was the Son of God. I could live without the squash anecdote, though it presumably works for some people. Nicky says that Jesus could not have been just a great human teacher. When he was asked at his trial whether he was "The Christ, the Son of the Living God, he replied: 'I am.'" Nicky's point is this: a great human teacher would not claim to be the Son of God. "You must make your choice - either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else he's a lunatic or, worse, the Devil of Hell. But don't let us come up with any patronising nonsense about his being a great moral teacher. He hasn't left that open to us. He didn't intend to." This final logic (a quote from one of Nicky's heroes, CS Lewis) is impressive to me. It remains in my mind.

Then it's on to the small group. I am in Nicky's group: typically, it consists of around 10 agnostics, some from the City, some from the dot.com world, some professional sportspeople, strangers gathered together in a small room in the basement. We sit in a circle. I wonder what will happen to us in the weeks ahead. For now, we verbalise our doubts. We gang up on Nicky and his helpers: his wife, Pippa, an investment banker called James and his doctor wife, Julia, all ex-agnostics who found Christ on Alpha. We ask them antagonistic questions. "If there's a God, why is there so much suffering?" And: "What about those people who have never heard of Jesus? Are you saying that all other religions are damned?"

Nicky just smiles and says, "What do the other people here think?"

At the end of the night, Nicky hands out some pamphlets he's written called (such is the predictability of agnostics) Why Does God Allow Suffering? (answer: nobody really knows) and What About Other Religions? (answer: they will, unfortunately, go to Hell. That includes me - I am a Jew). I am enjoying myself. I drive away thinking about the things Nicky said. I play them over in my mind. But by the time I arrive home and then watch ER, my mini epiphany has all drained away and I go back to normal. I cannot imagine how any of my fellow agnostics will possibly be converted by the end of the course.

As the weeks progress, the timetable becomes routine. Dinner, a talk from Nicky, coffee and digestives, the small groups. But the hostile questions have now become slightly less combative. One agnostic, Alice, who is the financial manager of an internet company and rides her horse every weekend in Somerset, admits to taking Nicky's pamphlets away with her on business trips. She says she reads them on the plane and finds them comforting. We talk about the excuses we give our friends for our weekly Wednesday night absences. Some say they're learning French. Others say they're on a business course. There is laughter and blushing. I miss Week Three because I am reporting on wife swapping parties in Paris. On Week Four, Nicky suggests I tell the group all about wife swapping. The group asks me lots of questions. When I fill in the details, Nicky shakes his head mournfully. "What about the children," he sighs. "So many people getting hurt." He's right. Nicky ends the night by saying to me: "I think it's important that you saw something awful like that midway through Alpha."

On Week Five, Nicky talks about answered prayers and how coincidences can sometimes be messages from God. He says he keeps a prayer diary and ticks them off when they are answered. As Nicky says these things, I think about my own life, about how my wife and I were told we couldn't have a baby - about how awful those years of infertility were, how every month was like a funeral without a corpse - and then we did have a baby, and thought that our son, Joel, was a gift from God.

The moment I think about this, I hear Nicky say the word "Joel". I look up. Nicky is quoting from the Book of Joel: "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten." Later, I tell the group what happened. "Ahhh," they say, when I get to the part about us having a baby. "Ahhh," they say again, when I get to the part about Nicky saying Joel, and reading out an uncannily appropriate quote.

"Well?" I say.

"I don't know," Nicky smiles. "I think you should let it sit in your heart and make your own decision."

"But what do you think?" I say.

"If I had to put a bet on it," he says, "coincidence or message, I'd say definitely, yes, that was a message from God."

The subject is changed. "So?" says Nicky. "How was everyone's week?"

Tony sits next to Alice. He is the most vociferous agnostic in the group. He always turns up in his business suit, straight from work, and has a hangdog expression, as if something is always troubling him.

"Tony?" says Nicky. "How was your week?"

"I was talking to a homosexual friend," says Tony, "and he said that ever since he was a child he found himself attracted to other boys. So why does the church think he's committing a sin? Are you going to Hell if you commit a sexual act that is completely normal to you? That seems a bit unfair, doesn't it?" There is a murmur of agreement from the group.

"First of all," says Nicky, "I have many wonderful homosexual friends. There's even an Alpha for gays running in Beverly Hills! Really! I think it's marvellous! But if a paedophile said, 'Ever since I was a child I found myself attracted to children', we wouldn't say that that was normal, would we?" A small gasp. "Now, I am not for a moment comparing homosexuals with paedophiles, but the Bible makes it very clear that sex outside marriage, including homosexual sex, is, unfortunately, a sin." He says he wishes it wasn't so, but the Bible makes it clear that gay people need to be healed.

"Although I strongly advise you not to say the word 'healed' to them," he quickly adds. "They hate that word."

The meeting is wound up. Nicky, Pippa and I stay around for a chat. We talk about who we feel might be on the cusp of converting. My money is on Alice.

"Really?" says Nicky. "You think Alice?"

"Of course," I say. "Who do you think?"

"Tony," says Nicky.

"Tony?" I say.

"We'll see," says Nicky.

I drive home. In the middle of the night it becomes clear to me that I almost certainly had a message from God, that God had spoken to me through Nicky Gumbel.

Woman leads church boycott in row over evangelical pig-snorting

A woman has walked out of her church and is holding services in her living room because she says she cannot bring herself to 'snort like a pig and bark like a dog' on a Church of England course. Angie Golding, 50, claims she was denied confirmation unless she signed up for the Alpha course, which she says is a 'brainwashing' exercise where participants speak in tongues, make animal noises and then fall over. Mark Elsdon-Dew of HTB, Holy Trinity Brompton, said the Alpha course included lectures on the Holy Spirit. 'It affects different people in different ways,' he said.

The Times, May 11, 1996

Of course, stumbling upon this press cutting comes as a shock. I had no idea that the shepherd's pie, the nice chats, that these things seem to be leading up to something so peculiar; something that will, I guess, occur during our weekend away in Kidderminster.

I visit Mark Elsdon-Dew, Nicky's press man. I have grown fond of Mark. "Do anything you want," he frequently tells me. "Go home, if you like. Really. Any time you want. Don't worry, I won't phone you up! Ha ha!" Mark was once the Daily Express's news editor, but then he did Alpha and now he works for Nicky, in a Portakabin on HTB's two-and-a-half acres. Nicky has so many staff - more, even, than the Archbishop of Canterbury, says Mark - that there aren't enough offices in this giant church to accommodate them all. I want to test Mark, to see how honest he will be about the negative press. I ask him if any journalist has written disapprovingly about Nicky. "Oh yes," he says excitedly. "Hang on, let me find them for you." Mark rifles through his filing cabinets and retrieves a sheath of articles. "Look at this!" he says. "And how about this?" One article, from the Spectator, suggests that Nicky's organisation is akin to the Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, something that looks like the C of E, acts like the C of E, but is something else, something malignant, growing, poised to consume its host: "For now they need the Church of England for its buildings - but they are very aware that through the wealth of their parishioners they wield an influence over the established Church that far outweighs their numbers."

"If you think that's bad," says Mark, "you should see this one." Oh good, I think. It reads: "HTB's divorce from the real world, together with a simplistic and communal response to all problems, a strong leader, and a money-conscious hierarchy, are trademarks of a cult."

"And here's a real stinker ," says Mark. The Alpha Course: Is It Bible-Based Or Hell-Inspired? This last one is from the Reverend Ian Paisley. His conclusion, after 15 pages of deliberation, is that it is Hell-Inspired.

Usually, when a discovery such as this presents itself midway through researching a story, I feel nothing but glee. On this occasion, however, the gaiety is tinged with indignation and relief - indignation that these people, this apparent cult, has managed to get under my skin, to instil in me feelings of some kind of awakening, and relief because I no longer feel the need to deal with those feelings.

It is Saturday morning, in the countryside near Kidderminster, and Nicky is offering us the strangest invitation. He is going to beckon us into the supernatural, where he hopes we will physically feel the Holy Spirit enter our bodies. Nicky tells me that he very much hopes people will speak in tongues. "I'm so glad you could make it," he tells me.

"I'm glad to be here," I say, although I am thinking, "Are you a cult leader?" We've been arriving all night - in BMWs and Mercedes and Porsches - at the Pioneer Centre, a residential youth club booked for the weekend. The traffic was terrible. I was stuck in a jam behind a mini-van emblazoned with the words "Jews For Jesus", and toyed with the idea of taking this to be another message from God, but I chose to discount it.

We are staying in dormitories - six to a room. Nicky and Pippa are not bunking up with the flock: Nicky says he needs space to concentrate. I don't think the agnostics quite grasp the reality of what will unfold in the next 36 hours. Many are completely unaware. Tongues!? How can Nicky make this happen?

The next morning, we laze in the sun and then we are called into the chapel, a big pine hut. Tonight, England will play Germany. Nicky takes to the stage: "Now, some of you may be thinking, 'Help! What's going to happen?' Well, first, I hope you have a wonderful time. Enjoy the weather, enjoy the sports, but, most of all, I hope we all experience the Holy Spirit." Nicky says that the Holy Spirit has often been ignored by the Church, because it sounds "weird and supernaturally evil". He says that the Church fears change, that he once said to an elderly vicar, "You must have seen so many changes", and that the vicar replied, "Yes, and I have resisted every single one of them". We laugh.

Nicky says that this is a shame, because when people open themselves to the Holy Spirit you can see it in their faces. "Their faces are alive!" Look at Bach and Handel and da Vinci, he says. They had the Holy Spirit. Whatever line of work we're in - we could be bankers,"or journalists"- we can be filled to overflowing. Nicky says that it is absolutely amazing. "All relationships involve emotions. I don't say to Pippa, 'I love you intellectually'. What I say is, 'I love you with my whole being, my mind, my heart, my will'. Ah, but that's in private. The British don't display emotions in public, do they?" There is a silence. "Just imagine," he says, "that England will score a goal tonight. I think some people will go, 'Yeaah!'" There is more laughter. The audience is relaxed. "If a comedy film makes us laugh out loud in the cinema, the movie is considered a success. If a tragic play makes us weep in a theatre, the play is considered a success. But if a religious service makes us weep or laugh, we are accused of emotionalism!"

And so it goes on, with Nicky managing to make the most alarming prospect seem acceptable. Speaking in tongues would normally be something absurd, horrific even. But imperceptibly, gracefully, Nicky is leading us there.

We have a few hours off. We swim and play basketball. The crowd is, as always, mainly white and wealthy. A criticism levelled at Nicky by other Anglicans is that Jesus cast his net wide to embrace poor fishermen, whereas Nicky seems to concentrate on rich widows, old Etonians and young high-fliers. This annoys him even more than the accusations that he is a cult leader. He points out a group of men on the edge of the basketball court. They lean against a picket fence, watching the game with an inscrutable vigilance, huge and tanned, like a prison gang during their hour in the yard.

"You absolutely must meet Brian," says Nicky. "He's quite amazing."

Brian is not his real name. "I was a villain," says Brian. "A professional criminal."

"Were you in a firm?" I ask.

"I was the firm," he smiles. "Say no more." From Brian's demeanour - he looks the archetypal English crime boss - I don't doubt this for a moment. It makes me smile: most vicars will proudly introduce you to some redeemed petty thief in their flock; once again Nicky attracts someone from the apex of his chosen profession. Back in the 80s, Brian was caught trying to pull off an enormous importation of cannabis. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail. In 1994, while in Exeter prison, Brian heard about Alpha. To curry favour with the chaplain, he called Nicky and asked him to visit the prison. Nicky sent a team instead. "And within weeks," says Brian, "all these hard men were waving our arms around like we were in a nightclub. Can you imagine it? People getting touched by the Holy Spirit, boys I knew who got banged up for some really naughty crimes ..."

That was the first time a prison had run an Alpha course. Brian was transferred to Dartmoor and took Alpha with him. Other converts did the same. That's how it spread through the prison system. Today, 120 of the 158 British prisons run Alpha courses; some have six-month waiting lists.

Then there is this, from the March 2000 Alpha newsletter: US Governor George W Bush was so impressed by the impact of Alpha in the British prison system that he wants to start a trial programme at once in Texas. "And all that started with Brian in 1994," says Nicky. "It was such an amazing year." Indeed it was: on January 20, 1994, at a concrete church next to Toronto airport, 80% of the congregation, apropos of nothing, suddenly fell to the floor and began writhing around, apparently singing in tongues and convulsing violently. Rumours about this milestone - which became known as the Toronto Blessing - quickly spread to Britain. Nicky flew to Toronto to see it for himself. Was it mass hysteria or a miracle, a real experience of the Holy Spirit? "I don't talk about it now," says Nicky. "It divides people. It splits churches. It is very controversial. But I'll tell you - I think the Toronto Blessing was a wonderful, wonderful thing." Nicky returned from Canada, spoke passionately at HTB about the Toronto Blessing and, lo and behold, his congregation, too, began rolling on the floor, etc. The services soon became so popular, with queues around the block, that they were compelled to introduce two Sunday-evening sittings - and still not everyone could get in. HTB became Britain's richest church. (It still is: last year's income was £5.1m.) This evangelical euphoria lasted the year, with miracles such as Prison Alpha cropping up all over the place. And then it ebbed away.

But its influence has lasted. The Toronto Blessing was the kick-start Alpha needed. Alpha began at HTB in 1979, as a brush-up course for rusty churchgoers. Hardly anybody attended. It trundled along, causing no ripples, until Nicky arrived in 1991. Nicky is the son of agnostics. He discovered God while studying for the Bar at Cambridge, and gave up a career as a barrister to be ordained into the C of E in 1986. He saw Alpha's potential. What if he began targeting agnostics? What if he gave it an image make-over?

"Nicky bought standard lamps back in 1991," says Mark later that afternoon. "He took an interest in the food. There are flowers. Young, quite-pretty girls welcome you at the door. Nicky identified some very important things. First, informality. Second, the course - people like the idea of going on a course, whether it's yoga or Christianity. Third, free and easy - we don't force anything down people's throats. People have a horror of being phoned up. And, finally, boredom - we will not bore you."

Nicky's new direction combined with his charisma, his dazzlingly constructed weekly talks chipping away at our doubts, and the Toronto Blessing caused Alpha's popularity to explode through the 90s. In 1992, there were five Alpha courses in Britain, 100 rusty churchgoers attended that year. By 1994 there were 26,700 attendees. By the end of last year, there were 14,200 courses around the world, with 1.5 million attendees. Nicky has sold more than one million books.

Alice had a wedding to go to, but hopes to arrive by this evening. The rest of our group gathers on the grass, and talk about our feelings about the Holy Spirit. "I've got to say," says a woman called Annie, "the idea of speaking in tongues really freaks me out." Nicky nods and smiles.

"I agree," says Jeremy, who works with asylum-seekers. "I really don't want to be seen as some kind of freak."

"You won't suddenly become weirdos," explains James, one of the group leaders along with his wife, Julia, Nicky and Pippa. "You won't lose your sense of humour, or your mates, or whether you drink beer or not."

"We shouldn't get too hung up on tongues," adds Julia. "Tongues is just one of the many gifts. Tony? What do you think?"

Tony lights a cigarette. "Do you have to believe in God before you receive the gift?" he says "Because it seems strange to ask some-one you don't believe in to prove that he exists." I wonder what makes Nicky think that Tony is our group's best candidate for conversion.

"The Church likes to put God in a box," says James. "The Church wants to make God safe. We think the Church has lost the plot. We just want God to be God. As the Apostle Paul said, 'I would that you all speak in tongues.'"

We ask if they can speak in tongues, and they all say they can. James has been speaking in tongues for several years. Julia was fearful at first, but now does it a lot. Nicky and Pippa are extremely well-versed in tongues, which, they say, literally means "languages never learnt". They say that on countless occasions they have heard people who can't speak Chinese, for instance, speaking in Chinese tongues. Such miracles appear to be commonplace once one enters the arena of tongues - as we will do at around 6.30pm tonight.

At 6pm, we are back in the chapel. Nicky is on stage, telling us nothing bad will happen to us. "You don't need to speak in tongues. It is not the most important gift. But tongues is a beginner's gift, and Alpha is a beginner's course in Christianity, so it would be wonderful if you tried." We steel ourselves. The door opens. It is Alice. She has missed Nicky's comforting preamble and has arrived just in time for the main event. "If you ask for the Holy Spirit, you're not going to get something terrible," says Nicky. "Shall we give it a try? Shall we ask Him?"

"Mmm," we say, contentedly.

Nicky softly begins: "Please stand up and close your eyes. If there's anyone who would like to experience the Holy Spirit, maybe you're not sure, I'd like you to say a very simple prayer in your heart ... a very simple prayer ... It's okay ... I now turn from everything that is wrong ... now hold out your hands ... hold them out in front of you ... if you'd like to ... some of you might be experiencing a weight on your hands ... you might be thinking nothing's happening ... but you might be feeling a peace ... a deep peace ... that, too, is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit ... Jesus is telling you He loves you ... He died for you."

This is when the first sob comes - at the front, someone begins to cry. "I sense that some of you would like to receive the gift of tongues now."

I wobble on my feet. Later, James tells me that wobbling is a possible sign of the Holy Spirit. I open my eyes for a moment and look at the group. Tony is grinning, his eyes bulging, like a schoolboy in a pompous assembly. Alice, who is entirely unprepared, is looking perplexed and uncomfortable. I close my eyes. I imagine those who have been in this spell before me, Jonathan Aitken, for instance, and the business executives and celebrities. "Start to praise God in any language but the language you speak ... Don't worry about your neighbour. Your neighbour will be worried enough about himself ... "

And then the tongues begin. I thought it would be cacophonous, but it turns out to be haunting, tuneful, like some experimental opera. I think some people are cheating - I hear French: "C'est oui. C'est oui" - but mostly it is quite beautiful. I open my eyes again and look around. Mark, Nicky's press officer, is speaking in tongues. So are James and Julia. All these people I have known all these weeks are speaking in tongues. Tony has refrained from tongues, but he is no longer grinning, either. He is crying. Alice looks ready to explode with anger. She barges out of the chapel. "Be a little bolder now ..." Nicky carries on. "Just continue to receive this wonderful opportunity ..."

James walks over to me: "Is it working for you?" he asks.

"Well, it might have," I reply, truthfully, "but the truth is, I'm a journalist, so I couldn't keep my eyes closed."

"Would you like me to pray for you?" he asks.

"Okay," I say.

James rests his hand on my shoulder. "Oh Jesus, I pray that Jon will receive Your wonderful spirit. God. Please come and fill Jon with ... " It is not working. The spell has broken. I tell James again that I'm sorry, but I'm a journalist. (This is no excuse - the picture editor of a Sunday newspaper is speaking in tongues to my left, as is a producer of Channel 4 documentaries in front of me, for the first time in his life.) So James changes tack. "Oh thank you, Jesus, for Jon's wonderfully enquiring journalistic mind ... please help Jon's career ... no, not his career ... his wonderful journalism ... and may his journalism become even more wonderful now he is working in Your name, Jesus Christ ... "

I tell James I'm sorry, and follow Alice outside, where half-a-dozen furious agnostics have gathered on the grass. "Why didn't anyone tell me I'd signed up for a brainwashing cult?" says one. "I felt like I was in a pack of hyenas. I wanted someone to come up and ask me if I was okay, and instead someone came up and said, 'Would you like me to pray for you?'" Alice is devastated: "I used to think Nicky was fantastic. He really gave me room to investigate my feelings about the Lord. But now I'm thinking, just get me away from these weirdos. I've been dragged all the way out here under false pretences, and there's no escape. I am actually very, very upset." We turn out to be in the minority, and watch as the new converts file out of the chapel, red-eyed from crying or smiling beatifically. Tony is one such convert, but he is not smiling. In fact, he seems miserable. "Something overwhelmed me," he says. "I didn't want it to. I tried to resist it, but I couldn't."

"What was it?" I ask.

"The Holy Spirit," says Tony.

"What did it feel like?"

"Like when you're trying not to cry but you can't help yourself. I was thinking of all the reasons why I didn't want it to happen - you know, the Christian lifestyle - and then Nicky came over to me and started whispering in my ear."

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'I sense that you have had a Christian experience in the past'. And that rocked my world, because I have, and I didn't tell anyone. That's why I came on Alpha. I wanted to decide, once and for all, yes or no. And ..." Tony sighs discontentedly. "God spoke to me just now. He said, 'You can come back.' "

Read part two of 'Catch me if you can' here.

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