In Review
Repackaging Christianity
Alpha and the Building of a Global Brand
Protesting Poverty:
Protestants, Social Ethics, and the Poor in Brazil
Negotiating the Christian Past in China
Memory and Missions in Contemporary Xiamen
Age of the Spirit
Charismatic Renewal, the Anglo-World, and Global Christianity, 1945–1980
South Asia’s Christians
Between Hindu and Muslim
Pastoral Power, Clerical State
Pentecostalism, Gender, and Sexuality in Nigeria
The Moralist International
Russia in the Global Culture Wars
Women in World Christianity
Building and Sustaining a Global Movement
Repackaging Christianity: Alpha and the Building of a Global Brand
By Andrew Atherstone
Hodder and Stoughton
At the start of this century, the archbishop of Paris at the time, Jean-Marie Lustiger, cited the two gifts of modern Protestantism to his own Roman Catholic Church. One was the Pentecostal movement; the other, more surprisingly, was the Alpha course. This innovative tool for evangelism originated in 1977 at Holy Trinity Brompton, a London Anglican parish that is a de facto megachurch. Curious inquirers are recruited through friends and informal contacts, who invite them to meet for dinner, a lecture, and a discussion, with the goal of leading participants to a decision for Christ. The global influence has been phenomenal, and the organizers claim some 25 million course alumni worldwide. Andrew Atherstone explains the phenomenon sympathetically but not uncritically in this useful volume.
