Lost at Sea (5 page)

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IT IS SATURDAY MORNING
in the countryside near Kidderminster, and Nicky is offering us the strangest invitation. He is going to beckon us into the supernatural, where he hopes we will physically feel the Holy Spirit enter our bodies. Nicky says that he very much hopes people will speak in tongues. “I’m so glad you could make it,” he tells me.

“I’m glad to be here,” I say, although I am thinking, “Are you a cult leader?”

We’ve been arriving all night—in BMWs and Mercedes and Porsches—at the Pioneer Centre, a residential youth club booked for the weekend. The traffic was terrible. I was stuck in a jam behind a minivan emblazoned with the words “Jews for Jesus,” and toyed with the idea of taking this to be another message from God, but I chose to discount it.

We are staying in dormitories—six to a room. Nicky and Pippa are not bunking up with the flock: Nicky says he needs space to concentrate. I don’t think the agnostics quite grasp the reality of what will unfold in the next thirty-six hours. Many are completely unaware. Tongues! How can Nicky make this happen?

The next morning, we laze in the sun and then we are called into the chapel, a big pine hut. Tonight, England will play Germany. Nicky takes to the stage: “Now, some of you may be thinking, ‘Help! What’s going to happen?’ Well, first, I hope you have a wonderful time. Enjoy the weather, enjoy the sports, but, most of all, I hope we all experience the Holy Spirit.”

Nicky says the Holy Spirit has often been ignored by the Church because it sounds “weird and supernaturally evil.” He says the Church fears change, that he once said to an elderly vicar, “You must have seen so many changes,” and that the vicar replied, “Yes, and I have resisted every single one of them.” We laugh.

Nicky says this is a shame, because when people open themselves to the Holy Spirit, you can see it in their faces. “Their faces are alive!” Look at Bach and Handel and Da Vinci, he says. They had the Holy Spirit. Whatever line of work we’re in—we could be bankers, “or journalists”—we can be filled to overflowing. Nicky says that it is absolutely amazing. “All relationships involve emotions. I don’t say to Pippa, ‘I love you intellectually.’ What I say is, ‘I love you with my whole being, my mind, my heart, my will.’ Ah, but that’s in private. The British don’t display emotions in public, do they?” There is a silence. “Just imagine,” he says, “that England will score a goal tonight. I think some people will go, ‘Yeaah!’” There is laughter. The audience is relaxed. “If a comedy film makes us laugh out loud in the cinema, the movie is considered a success. If a tragic play makes us weep in a theater, the play is considered a success. But if a religious service makes us weep or laugh, we are accused of emotionalism!”

And so it goes on, with Nicky managing to make the most alarming prospect seem acceptable. Speaking in tongues would normally be something absurd—horrific, even. But imperceptibly, gracefully, Nicky is leading us there.

We have a few hours off. We swim and play basketball. The crowd is, as always, mainly white and wealthy.

A criticism leveled at Nicky by other Anglicans is that Jesus cast his net wide to embrace poor fishermen, whereas Nicky seems to concentrate on rich widows, Old Etonians, and young highfliers. This annoys him, far more than the accusations that he is a cult leader. He points out a group of men on the edge of the basketball court. They lean against a picket fence, watching the game with an inscrutable vigilance, huge and tanned, like a prison gang during their hour in the yard.

“You absolutely must meet Brian,” says Nicky. “He’s quite amazing.”

Brian is not his real name.

“I was a villain,” says Brian. “A professional criminal.”

“Were you in a firm?” I ask.

“
I was
the firm,” he smiles. “Say no more.”

From Brian’s demeanor—he looks the archetypal English crime boss—I don’t doubt this for a moment. It makes me smile: Most vicars will proudly introduce you to some redeemed petty thief in their flock; once again Nicky attracts someone from the apex of his chosen profession. Back in the eighties, Brian was caught trying to pull off an enormous importation of cannabis. He was sentenced to ten years in jail. In 1994, while in Exeter prison, Brian heard about Alpha. To curry favor with the chaplain, he called Nicky and asked him to visit the prison. Nicky sent a team instead.

“And within weeks,” says Brian, “all these hard men were waving our arms around like we were in a nightclub. Can you imagine it? People getting touched by the Holy Spirit, boys I knew who got banged up for some really naughty crimes . . .”

That was the first time a prison had run an Alpha Course. Brian was transferred to Dartmoor and took Alpha with him. Other converts did the same. That’s how it spread through the prison system. Today, 120 of the 158 British prisons run Alpha Courses; some have six-month waiting lists.

Then there is this, from the March 2000 Alpha newsletter: Texas governor George W. Bush was so impressed by the impact of Alpha in the British prison system that he wants to start a trial program at once in his state. “And all that started with Brian in 1994,” says Nicky. “It was such an amazing year.”

Indeed it was: On January 20, 1994, at a concrete church next to Toronto Pearson International Airport, 80 percent of the congregation, apropos of nothing, suddenly fell to the floor and began writhing around, apparently singing in tongues and convulsing violently. Rumors about this milestone—which became known as the Toronto Blessing—quickly spread to Britain. Nicky flew to Toronto to see it for himself. Was it mass hysteria or a miracle, a real experience of the Holy Spirit?

“I don’t talk about it now,” says Nicky. “It divides people. It splits churches. It is very controversial. But I’ll tell you—I think the Toronto Blessing was a wonderful, wonderful thing.”

Nicky returned from Canada and spoke passionately at HTB about the Toronto Blessing, and his congregation, too, began rolling on the floor, etc. The services soon became so popular, with queues around the block, they were compelled to introduce two Sunday evening sittings—and still not everyone could get in. HTB became Britain’s richest church. (It still is: Last year’s income was $2.34 million.)
This evangelical euphoria lasted the year, with miracles such as Prison Alpha cropping up all over the place. And then it ebbed away.

But its influence has lasted. The Toronto Blessing was the kick-start Alpha needed. Alpha began at HTB in 1979 as a brush-up course for rusty churchgoers. Hardly anybody attended. It trundled along, causing no ripples, until Nicky arrived in 1991. Nicky is the son of agnostics. He discovered God while studying for the Bar at Cambridge, and gave up a career as a barrister to be ordained into the Church of England, in 1986. He saw Alpha’s potential. What if he began targeting agnostics? What if he gave it an image makeover?

“Nicky bought standard lamps back in 1991,” says Mark later that afternoon. “He took an interest in the food. There are flowers. Young, quite pretty girls welcome you at the door. Nicky identified some very important things. First, informality. Second, the course: People like the idea of going on a course, whether it’s yoga or Christianity. Third, free and easy: We don’t force anything down people’s throats. People have a horror of being phoned up. And, finally, boredom: We will not bore you.”

Nicky’s new direction—combined with his charisma, his dazzlingly constructed weekly talks chipping away at our doubts, and the Toronto Blessing—caused Alpha’s popularity to explode through the nineties. In 1992, there were five Alpha Courses in Britain; a hundred rusty churchgoers attended that year. By 1994, there were 26,700 attendees. By the end of last year, there were 14,200 courses around the world, with 1.5 million attendees. Nicky has sold more than a million books.

Alice had a wedding to go to, but hopes to arrive by this evening. The rest of our group gathers on the grass. We talk about our feelings about the Holy Spirit.

“I’ve got to say,” says a woman called Annie, “the idea of speaking in tongues really freaks me out.”

Nicky nods and smiles.

“I agree,” says Jeremy, who works with asylum seekers. “I really don’t want to be seen as some kind of freak.”

“You won’t suddenly become weirdos,” explains James, one of the group leaders. “You won’t lose your sense of humor, or your mates, or whether you drink beer or not.”

“We shouldn’t get too hung up on tongues,” adds Julia, James’s wife, and a fellow group leader. “Tongues is just one of the many gifts. Tony? What do you think?”

Tony lights a cigarette. “Do you have to believe in God before you receive the gift?” he says. “Because it seems strange to ask someone you don’t believe in to prove that he exists.”

I wonder what makes Nicky think that Tony is our group’s best candidate for conversion.

“The Church likes to put God in a box,” says James. “The Church wants to make God safe. We think the Church has lost the plot. We just want God to be God. As the Apostle Paul said, ‘I would that you all speak in tongues.’”

We ask if they can speak in tongues, and they all say they can. James has been speaking in tongues for several years. Julia was fearful at first, but now does it a lot. Nicky and Pippa are extremely well versed in tongues, which, they say, literally means “languages never learned.”

They say that on countless occasions they have heard people who can’t speak Chinese, for instance, speaking in Chinese tongues. Such miracles appear to be commonplace once one enters the arena of tongues—as we will do at around 6:30 p.m. tonight.

•   •   •

AT 6:00 P.M. WE ARE BACK
in the chapel. Nicky is onstage, telling us nothing bad will happen to us.

“You don’t need to speak in tongues. It is not the most important gift. But tongues is a beginner’s gift, and Alpha is a beginner’s course in Christianity, so it would be wonderful if you tried.” We steel ourselves. The door opens. It is Alice. She has missed Nicky’s comforting preamble and has arrived just in time for the main event.

“If you ask for the Holy Spirit, you’re not going to get something terrible,” says Nicky. “Shall we give it a try? Shall we ask Him?”

“Mmm,” say the crowd contentedly.

Nicky softly begins: “Please stand up and close your eyes. If there’s anyone who would like to experience the Holy Spirit, maybe you’re not sure, I’d like you to say a very simple prayer in your heart . . . a very simple prayer . . . It’s OK. . . . I now turn from everything that is wrong . . . now hold out your hands . . . hold them out in front of you . . . if you’d like to . . . some of you might be experiencing a weight on your hands . . . you might be thinking nothing’s happening . . . but you might be feeling a peace . . . a deep peace . . . that, too, is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. . . . Jesus is telling you He loves you . . . He died for you.”

This is when the first sob comes: At the front, someone begins to cry. “I sense that some of you would like to receive the gift of tongues now.”

I wobble on my feet. Later, James tells me that wobbling is a possible sign of the Holy Spirit. I open my eyes for a moment and look at the group. Tony is grinning, his eyes bulging, like a schoolboy in a pompous assembly. Alice, who is entirely unprepared, is looking perplexed and uncomfortable. I close my eyes. I imagine those who have been in this spell before me—Jonathan Aitken, for instance, and the business executives and celebrities.

“Start to praise God in any language but the language you speak. . . . Don’t worry about your neighbor. Your neighbor will be worried enough about himself. . . .”

And then the tongues begin. I thought it would be cacophonous, but it turns out to be haunting, tuneful, like some experimental opera.

I think some people are cheating—I hear French:
“C’est oui. C’est oui”
—but mostly it is quite beautiful. I open my eyes again and look around. Mark, Nicky’s press officer, is speaking in tongues. So are James and Julia. All these people I have known all these weeks are speaking in tongues. Tony has refrained from tongues, but he is no longer grinning, either. He is crying. Alice looks ready to explode with anger. She barges out of the chapel. “Be a little bolder now. . . .” Nicky carries on. “Just continue to receive this wonderful opportunity. . . .”

James walks over to me: “Is it working for you?” he asks.

“Well, it might have,” I reply, “but the truth is, I’m a journalist, so I couldn’t keep my eyes closed.”

“Would you like me to pray for you?” he asks.

“OK,” I say.

James rests his hand on my shoulder. “O Jesus, I pray that Jon will receive Your wonderful spirit. God. Please come and fill Jon with . . .”

It is not working. The spell has broken. I tell James again that I’m sorry, but I’m a journalist. (This is no excuse: The picture editor of a Sunday newspaper is speaking in tongues to my left, as is a producer of Channel 4 documentaries in front of me, for the first time in his life.) So James changes tack. “Oh, thank You, Jesus, for Jon’s wonderfully inquiring journalistic mind. . . . Please help Jon’s career . . . no, not his career . . . his wonderful journalism . . . and may his journalism become even more wonderful now he is working in Your name, Jesus Christ. . . .”

I tell James I’m sorry and follow Alice outside, where half a dozen furious agnostics have gathered on the grass. “Why didn’t anyone tell me I’d signed up for a brainwashing cult?” says one. “I felt like I was in a pack of hyenas. I wanted someone to come up and ask me if I was OK, and instead someone came up and said, ‘Would you like me to pray for you?’”

Alice is devastated: “I used to think Nicky was fantastic. He really gave me room to investigate my feelings about the Lord. But now I’m thinking, ‘Just get me away from these weirdos.’ I’ve been dragged all the way out here under false pretenses, and there’s no escape. I am actually very, very upset.”

We turn out to be in the minority, and watch as the new converts file out of the chapel, red-eyed from crying or smiling beatifically. Tony is one such convert, but he is not smiling. In fact, he seems miserable. “Something overwhelmed me,” he says. “I didn’t want it to. I tried to resist it, but I couldn’t.”