It is very very popular

It is very, very popular.”Mr Howarth’s colleague, Michelle Shirley, said the courses, which varied in the way they were delivered in individual churches, were run in a “very professional and organised way”. “The definition of a cult is only used when considering a group’s method, and not its message or philosophy Alpha is a Nineties way of sharing the Gospel. There is a problem in attributing these things to God.”However, Mr Howarth said he did not believe Alpha members were in any danger of being harmed by cult leaders. I would put that down to adrenalin rather than the Holy Spirit. You could get the same feeling on the Last Night of the Proms. How can you confirm that God is good? By seeing a miracle.”He finds the raw emotion of the Toronto Blessing difficult to handle “A lot of people say it gives them a feeling of euphoria.

But some see this approach as “love bombing” – the deliberate manipulation of visitors’ emotions by displays of affection, a technique often used by religious cults.In a recent interview, Donald Reeves, the former rector of St James’s, Piccadilly, said the Church of England was moving away from being a national church. Nothing that HTB does, he said, can be described as Anglican. “They are moralistic, sex-obsessed and unkind – more like a cult than a church.”A cult, according to Ian Howarth, director of the Cult Information Centre in London, is a group or organisation which uses psychological coercion to recruit and indoctrinate people, so that all previous influences – spiritual, social, intellectual, financial – are replaced with a new set of values and explanations which change the recruit’s “reality”. In a message of support, he said: “As someone who has strongly supported the growth of Alpha (in) recent years, I was delighted to hear of the proposals for the National Alpha Initiative this September.”But Alpha is not the traditional face of Anglicanism. It presents its brand of Christianity in a carefully scripted package.

Recruits are entertained over a three-course meal, and the after-dinner conversation in small pre- arranged groups centres on fundamental questions of existence and social problems. Weekend seminars follow, and the course finishes with a celebratory supper party.Alpha’s appeal is twofold: the music, dinner parties and weekends away offer its converts a cohesive social network, while the discussion groups provide answers to life’s problems.And those who embrace Alpha’s teachings are expected to receive the holy spirit in a fit of wailing, shaking and falling on the floor. This demonstrative form of Christianity is known as “the Toronto blessing”.HTB takes pride in its use of “the method of welcome”: free meals and friendship to people who “walk in off the street”. Themed posters are to appear on the notice boards of more than 4,000 churches, in a pounds 500,000 advertising blitz.The unprecedented initiative will offer everyone in the country the chance to join a free 10-week “Alpha course”. But the methods used on the course have been likened to mind-control, and Alpha has been accused of creating “a Mickey Mouse religion which is cheap, graceless and addictive”.The evangelical push, paid for by donations and a pounds 100 contribution from each of the churches involved, has been warmly welcomed by Dr Carey. THE ANGLICAN Church next week launches its biggest-ever recruitment campaign. But the techniques it is using to win over new converts have been compared with those used by religious cults to lure the weak and vulnerable.