Word Among Us Touts Experience-Based Alpha Program

Below is a video that dissects the spiritual booby-trap known as known as Alpha.  It is a program devised by protestants, ostensibly to facilitate evangelism (such as protestants understand the word "evangelism").  Alpha seems to emphasize protestant priorities such as "relationship" and "experiences".  Actual errors seem to include (at least implicitly) the "sola scriptura" heresy and disregard for the Sacraments and Magisterium.

At 9:17 we hear the question, "why are you promoting error to Catholics?"  That is a question that should be addressed to the Word Among Us magazine, for their Easter 2019 issue features an article that sings forth the dubious praises of Alpha.  Indeed, as I read this article, it makes evangelism sound like one big, slick marketing campaign.  Its title is most telling: "Relationship First".  That is flat-out not Christianity.  Since they are "sola scriptura", let's look at Scripture, namely the Gospel of Mark.  What's the first recorded word of Jesus from that Gospel?  Is it "relationship"?  Is it "experience"?  No, it's "Repent".

14:30 "It allows you to become a Christian without change...".  Therein lies a big danger to souls.  Let's look at what today's gospel would have been if we were in "B" cycle.  It's when Jesus sent the 72 disciples on a preaching tour to preach the gospel of repentance.  It wasn't a gospel of "experience" or "personal fulfillment", but of repentance.

Time does not allow me to recite all the ills of Alpha, but I will touch on a few.  This link states that Alpha has been linked with the dangerous practice known as the "Toronto Blessing".  I don't know the precise nature of this linkage but I'd suspect that might be found in this anthology.  About thirty years ago I was affiliated with the Mother of God Community, from whence sprang the Word Among Us.  Towards the end of its heyday, it started dabbling in the "Toronto Blessing".  I knew enough to avoid participation in it like the plague.  Such are the dangers of overemphasis on "experience" and disregard for the Sacraments and the Magisterium.  If you take a look at the bottom of that "anthology" link, you will see that Cardinal Burke condemned Alpha.

Two years ago, the Word Among Us advocated the new age practice of centering prayer. Now they've linked up with Alpha bile.  This is the kind of nonsense that will happen when one stokes lusts for spiritual "experience" instead of preaching the truths of the Catholic faith.  I'd advocate the avoidance of WAU.

Preach The Gospel With Truth, Not Cutesy Gimmicks And Fads

In the Vortex below, Michael Voris speaks of a loss of Catholic identity and its ramifications on Catholic education.  While he focuses on the problem as it happened in South America during the 1970s (and he states, in a roundabout fashion, that Cardinal Bergoglio started that snowball careening down the hill), it happened in the United States during the mid-1960s, thanks to the so-called "spirit of Vatiican 2".

I was in Catholic parochial school at the time.  I noticed a paradigm shift almost immediately.  Being a child, I couldn't identify the cause or nature.  All I know is that one year we were:

• learning solid Catholic doctrine
• were starting our day with prayers coming from the principal's office over the pa system
• and attending the First Friday Masses.  

The next year:

• Doctrine went out the window as we "learned" that Martin Luther King was a saint (he had not yet died), made felt banners and listened to Andy Williams sing "Born Free"
• Morning prayers ceased
• First Friday Masses were abandoned
• Listened to a parish "groovy priest" strum his guitar (This priest was later suspended by Cardinal O'Boyle for publicly dissenting against Humanae Vitae)

Only by God's grace do I still have my faith.  Many of my former classmates don't.

Two days ago, Church Militant published the news that Cardinal Burke, International Director of the Marian Catechist Apostolate, directed that the Marian Catechists were to have nothing to do with the protestant-inspired "Alpha In A Catholic Context" program.  Furthermore, the Cardinal warns against "magical formulas" e.g., gimmicks and fads that are used in place of what the Church has always done in her 2000 year history of proclaiming Christ: proclaim the simple truth with no embellishment whatsoever.

The Vortex speaks of several of these gimmicks that plague the Church.  There are others.  Have you ever noticed on social media how priests are becoming seduced by such nonsense?  We have:

• Singing priests
• Break-dancing priests
• Cooking priests

How about priests that simply carry on with their priestly ministries without foisting upon us the details of their various hobbies - especially when those hobbies detract from the dignity and decorum incumbent upon them, owing to the indelible mark upon their souls from the Sacrament of Holy Orders?

Now take a look at the "cooking priest" link.  Notice the somewhat subtle pandering to worldly sentiments he (and/or Catholic News Agency) seems to embrace.

• "offers non-Catholics insights into the human side of a priest's life".  The "human side"?  Why specify some hypothetical "human side"?  What other side would there be?  A priest is not some alien from outer space or some swamp monster.  To concede to the usage of such banal language only validates any silly notions of the priesthood.
• "There is this impression in our world that priests are always serious, they only do religion. I wanted to break down that [perception], and say ‘hey, we are still real men. We still have interests and excitement in a lot of other ways’"  
• Again, why the need to prove a priest is "a real man"?  And by what standards?  This statement smacks of trying to justify the existence of the priesthood in the eyes of the world.
• The perception that priests are "always serious" must be taken in light that those with such perceptions are often those who themselves are silly and superficial.  Should the priest, the "alter Christus", descend to that level?   In a previous post, I spoke of St. Joseph Cafasso and his series of talks on the priesthood.  
• "Fr. Schnippel expressed hope that his participation in the show would inspire people to face daunting challenges in their own lives."  How about inspiring them to save their souls by turning to Christ in His Church?  See how the embrace of these gimmicks turns the focus to temporal matters instead of one eternal destiny?

Let us pray that these cheap distractions are jettisoned asap so that priests and religious can be about their most solemn duties.