Consumer Christianity

'Ellie Mumford told us a little of what she had seen in Toronto.....it was obvious that Ellie was just dying to pray for all of us.....then she said, 'Now we'll invite the Holy Spirit to come' and the moment she said that one of the people there was thrown, literally, across the room and was lying on the floor, just howling and laughing....making the most incredible noise.... I experienced the power of the Spirit in a way I hadn't experienced  for years, like massive electricity going through my body...One of the guys was prophesying. He was just lying there prophesying.'

John Ball writes:
Twenty years ago Consumer Christianity was all the rage, and the Toronto Blessing was its outward manifestation.
Its more subtle manifestation was the Christianity-lite Alpha course written by the vicar of a West London Anglican Church. His name is Nicky Gumbel, educated at Eton and Cambridge and it was he who spoke the words above. One of his disciples, Justin Welby, who was also educated at Eton and Cambridge, is now Archbishop of Canterbury.
Alpha subtly alters the Christian faith in order to pervert the love of Christ into the service of the welfare warfare state and the Disintegrated Society. Hence, inward feeling is exalted over outward service, Christ is put to the service of the great commodity, My Life, suffering is reduced to losing a few 'friends' who might think we've gone a bit strange, gifts of the Spirit are reduced to ecstatic feelings, and worst of all it preaches that Christ 'offers' us salvation, putting the emphasis on the isolated all-important 'believer', whose assurance is in their faith or their decision or their commitment.
Thus the individual is trapped firmly on Terra Firma, a docile and obedient drone, uncritical and self-absorbed.
Christ does not offer us salvation, He IS our salvation. God is Love. God is the ultimate giving. God is perfect. God is Truth. And the Holy Spirit is God's breath that breathes upon us, quickening us poor wretches who were dead in sin, quickening us with love, hope, thankfulness, kindness and generosity.
We hear less of the more spectacular Charismatic gifts these days, but that is because the underlying heresy of Consumer Christianity has become mainstream.
Alpha simply isolates, giving the illusion of Redemption, while all the time keeping the victim chained in the prison of the self.