Portrayal of Christians in Witch Finders

I picked up Witch Finders a couple of days ago, and I have a bit of a bone to pick with the portrayal of Christianity found in the book.  Now don't get me wrong, I have seen Christianity portrayed misleadingly in many of the nWoD books I have purchased, yet this is my first time starting a thread about any such issue in the forums.  Why am I starting this thread when I have not done so in the past?  Well, despite the fact that I have felt that nWoD books portrayed a shallow and unbalanced perspective of Christianity and Christians, I also was well aware that they were doing so within the realm of a fiction meant to portray horror.  I was able to get past this personally, even if I felt a caveat in one or two places that Christianity in real life was dissimilar to the portrayal in the books would not have been wholly out of order.  In fact, in the old forum I actually defended the concept of the Lancea Sanctum as the interaction between Christianity and the warped psychology of vampires.

With Witch Finders, however, things are markedly different for one single reason.  The author of one section explicitly states that a particular portion of the work is an accurate portrayal of Christianity in real life, and that statement is false.  Witch Finders page 49 reads in part "but every Alpha Course (really) includes an away weekend where people go to 'experience the Holy Spirit.'  That is, people who take one of these courses go away somewhere quiet to spend a couple of days experiencing the phenomena that characterized the Toronto Blessing."

For context's sake, the Alpha Course has, a few sentences prior, been briefly introduced as a fairly widespread, popular course in Christian basics (true).  The Toronto Blessing has previously been introduced as a Christian phenomena which began in the 1990's and "spread across the English-speaking world," characterized by people speaking in tongues, making sounds like animals, laughing, crying, and being rendered into states of "hypnagogic religious ecstasy" that caused, among other things, loss of either will or faculty to stand (also true).  The issue is that the Toronto Blessing is not nearly as common as Alpha, nor am I aware of any official or practical link between the two.  I have been through an Alpha Course, including the very real weekend.  The weekend included prayer, hymn-singing, quiet meditation, theological discussion, casual conversation with friends that had been made, hiking, and so on.  It did not include altered states of consciousness, speaking in tongues, or so on.  I know of others who have also been through Alpha Courses who have never mentioned anything similar to the Toronto Blessing in their own experiences.  Can I say that no Alpha Course has ever had a Toronto Blessing-style weekend?  No.  Alpha Courses are led by leaders recruited from congregations who have been through their own Alpha Courses.  If a couple of leaders want to practice Toronto Blessing-style "worship," then there is little to stop them.  Notwithstanding, this seems not only quite rare, but also certainly outside of the commonality between the two stated in the quotation above.

Let me be clear, I am not taking issue with an overarching portrayal of my religion in White Wolf books.  I am taking issue with the lack of factual accuracy regarding a specific statement explicitly reported as fact in a particular White Wolf book.  I perceive the Toronto Blessing phenomena in the same way some or many other critical Christians have, as a psychological rather than a spiritual phenomena which is therefore unhealthy for a congregation to practice.  As such, I take issue with the statement in question, which presents as truth that the very popular and widespread Alpha Course in which many Christians participate is in any meaningful way connected to the Toronto Blessing.

I also have gone through the Alpha Course.
It was in no way "life changing" as the whole "blessing" would seem to represent.
Indeed, I barely remember the course at all.
As a "true event" I also have dispute the claim of the author.

 

It will be interesting to see how this is responded to...

Atholl:

It will be interesting to see how this is responded to...

How about "whoops, some writer made a minor error of fact, thanks for pointing it out"? Because that's really all this is. One sentence (maybe one and a half) that happened to be factually wrong. Anybody taking issue with that can go eat their books.

Thanks for clearing that up.

While I can understand AC and TB not always being connected, it seems to me that there's plenty of connection between them.  Enough that, in general, it's fair to say that it is true that ACs try to incorporate the TB.

The two might have started separately, but when the guy that wrote the book on how to do Alpha (literally) thinks that Alpha and the Blessing should go hand-in-hand...  it's hard to say that they aren't connected in any meaningful way.

Huh. You mean something presented in a WW book is different than in the real world? Say it ain't so. ;)

Put another way (since I don't have WF to hand), does the book at any point say, "Hey, here's how this is in the real world!", or is the context entirely presented as being within the WoD?

Please reread the quote.  The author states "(really)" in the quote.  In my original post I make a specific point to differentiate between descriptions of Christianity in the WoD and in real life.  The referenced material explicitly describes real life.

Zeev:

While I can understand AC and TB not always being connected, it seems to me that there's plenty of connection between them.  Enough that, in general, it's fair to say that it is true that ACs try to incorporate the TB.

The two might have started separately, but when the guy that wrote the book on how to do Alpha (literally) thinks that Alpha and the Blessing should go hand-in-hand...  it's hard to say that they aren't connected in any meaningful way.

Alpha came out of Holy Trinity Brompton Church, London.  The author you are referring to, Nicky Gumbel, was one of the early participants and leaders of Alpha.  This church later came to practice the Toronto-style worship that Witch Finders describes.  The issue is whether or not Alpha itself incorporated in any official or wide-spread way the Toronto-style worship.  I have never seen or heard anything that the two were connected, and my personal experience as well as the experiences of others I know who have taken Alpha courses and reasearch into the subject online leads me to believe with significant confidence that they are not.  The statement quoted from Witch Finders is certainly untrue, as the statement as written allows little room for individuals to participate in Alpha without participating in the Toronto-style worship.  The quotation from Witch Finders is not less untrue because those largely responsible for the development of Alpha also participate in Toronto-style worship.  The only question at issue is whether Alpha endorses or promalgates Toronto-style worship in any way, and the answer is that it does not.

The problem is that this is straying well into the realms of subjectivity and interpretation, and out of the realms of solid factual points.

While I admit I haven't done a large, in-depth, level of research, the Alpha home page lists the weekend course as being about getting in touch with the Holy Spirit.  This seems to often include experiences similar to the Toronto Blessing.

I see enough things going either way, that it undermines, to me, the claim that this is a complaint solely about a clear indisputable fact.

Zeev:

The problem is that this is straying well into the realms of subjectivity and interpretation, and out of the realms of solid factual points.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

Having now read the relevant section, there's nothing in there that would make me, as a casual reader, interpret that section as a description of a real Christian practice, or make me think less of the Christian religion.

Zeev:

the Alpha home page lists the weekend course as being about getting in touch with the Holy Spirit.  This seems to often include experiences similar to the Toronto Blessing.

That's the problem, though.  Experiences of the Holy Spirit aren't often anything having to do with the Toronto Blessing.  Christians have claimed experiences of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost, 50 days after Christ's resurrection.  The Holy Spirit is something Christians claim to experience in private and in public, in worship and in daily life, in quiet and loudly.  The idea that an experience of the Holy Spirit is equatable to the Toronto Blessing is mistaken as the Toronto Blessing represents only a very small proportion of the total claims of experience of the Holy Spirit.  This mistake could account for the error of the quoted portion of Witch Finders, but it's a mistake that I consider pretty easily avoidable with even a brief look into the Holy Spirit from the Christian perspective.  As such, it's a mistake that, if the author wanted to delve into a discussion of real life Christianity, not only could have been avoided, but should have been.

Sammi:

Atholl:

It will be interesting to see how this is responded to...

How about "whoops, some writer made a minor error of fact, thanks for pointing it out"? Because that's really all this is. One sentence (maybe one and a half) that happened to be factually wrong. Anybody taking issue with that can go eat their books.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Well, it was handled a lot more sympathetically than the issue of Irish stuff in Mage.

Christiangoth:

That's the problem, though.  Experiences of the Holy Spirit aren't often anything having to do with the Toronto Blessing.

I think the problem is that you're taking the book in a way not intended a bit.  The book didn't say that the weekend Holy Spirit courses were about the Toronto Blessing, but that they were about experiencing the same core phenomenon.  There's a difference between going to experience the Toronto Blessing and going to experience the Holy Spirit with a group who's core leaders highly encourage Toronto Blessing like expressions of it.

Again, the book doesn't say that they go off for the TB, it says, "go away somewhere quiet to spend a couple of days experiencing the phenomena that characterized the Toronto Blessing."

That's not the same thing.

Christiangoth:

  The idea that an experience of the Holy Spirit is equatable to the Toronto Blessing is mistaken as the Toronto Blessing represents only a very small proportion of the total claims of experience of the Holy Spirit. 

However, the Alpha Course isn't all of Christianity, and its creators do subscribe to a TB style experience, even if that is not how all of the rest of Christianity would see it.

I'm not seeing how the association of AC and TB is unfair, unwarranted or even false, nor am I seeing how this is supposed to relate to some mistake about Christianity, Christian doctrine or etc. on the large scale.

The point of the passage you're talking about was not about an essay on Christian life in general.  It was a story hook about a specific incarnation of Christianity.

Atholl:

Well, it was handled a lot more sympathetically than the issue of Irish stuff in Mage.

I'd say it has a lot more to do with Christiangoth's attitude than anything else.

Zeev:

Atholl:

Well, it was handled a lot more sympathetically than the issue of Irish stuff in Mage.

I'd say it has a lot more to do with Christiangoth's attitude than anything else.

Or the writer who responded here is a nicer person.