marriages, some Alpha conversions don’t last – mine didn’t, and the divorce was painful. The little family of our Alpha group didn’t last either. We kept meeting for a few months, but I don’t think any of us still go to HTB (most now go to smaller local churches).
Perhaps I looked to church for the wrong things – I was more hungry for community than for God. Communities and religions are man-made, imperfect. If you make an idol of church, you’re bound to be disappointed.
I don’t feel I can call myself a traditional Christian any more, because I decided I didn’t believe Jesus’s death saved humanity or that the only way to God is through Him. People have ecstatic experiences in many different cultural contexts; they don’t always lead to Jesus, but they can still be good for us. I struggle to believe the bold hypothesis put forward by Jesus: that there’s an omnipotent personal God who loves us and all we have to do for grace is ask for it (Matthew 7:7; John 14:13). My near-death experience felt like grace, but I’ve also seen awful suffering in people’s lives, where they have begged God for help, and it hasn’t obviously arrived. So I’m agnostic. Sometimes people seem to access help from beyond, but it’s not reliable, predictable or knowable.
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