World's fastest-growing evangelism program exploding in Canada

St. Paul's Bloor Street in Toronto held Canada's first-ever Alpha conference last year, but this spring it suspended the program. The priest-in-charge, Archdeacon Harry Hilchey, said that some Alpha courses there included physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit reminiscent of the Toronto Blessing; he blamed that and personality difficulties for causing divisions in one of Canada's largest churches.

However, that dispute, and a resulting full page of letters in the Anglican Journal, didn't stop almost 700 people turning out in Ottawa July 31-August 1, for the first of three Alpha conferences to be held in Canada this year.

Nickey Gumbel, the voice of Alpha on the videotapes used in the 10-week course of Christian basics, said in an interview that there is no connection between Alpha and the Toronto Blessing. He said his church, Holy Trinity Brompton, in London, England, has been stressing the importance of the Holy Spirit since Alpha's beginnings in 1983. That was long before the Toronto Blessing broke out at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (in 1994), he said. Gumbel said the Alpha courses have never concentrated on physical manifestations. "We neither encourage them nor discourage them," he said.

He says the Alpha courses have become so successful partly because they appeal to both the heart and the mind.

Archie Hunter, eastern Ontario coordinator for the Alpha program, says at least half of Alpha's appeal is intellectual. Several of the 10 weeks of videotaped lectures used during the Alpha course feature Gumbel discussing such subjects as the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.