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This article analyses the Alpha Course, the 15-session evangelising programme designed by Holy Trinity Brompton. It argues that it is a popular form of evangelism influenced by the 'charismatic' movement, which aims to initiate participants into a particular religious 'experience'. It further argues that the course aims to stimulate participants to locate themselves, psychologically and socially, within a 'charismatic' worldview. The article aims to examine, phenomenologically, the Alpha 'experience', through an ethnographic analysis of the course and in particular its Holy Spirit weekend. The article relates Alpha to the wider beliefs and practices of the 'charismatic' movement and religious experience and assesses what it means for contemporary Christianity. It seeks to show that the initial 'experience' gained on the Alpha Course is continued within 'charismatic' experience in church meetings and services and looks at the personal empowerment and social control that may be at work.

This article examines the Dutch Catholic Church. It is based on a qualitative ethnographic analysis of a particular Dutch Catholic community. It seeks to demonstrate that despite a decline in the church since the 1960s many Dutch parishioners are becoming active in redefining the church and attempting to revitalize Catholicism, creating democratically organized local communities where laity and local clergy, women and men, work together as equals in negotiating change, but argues that this may involve "unofficial" practices, possibly at odds with "official" church hierarchy controlled doctrine, which may resist acknowledging them and resist change. By examining these issues, the article aims to understand the dialectic and tension between what could be termed "popular" and "orthodox," "private" and "public," beliefs and to examine the constraints or possibilities this may place on the church. In this sense, the article also aims to explore how religion, thought to be vulnerable to recent change encouraging individual independence from social institutions, may negotiate (or reject) new developments. Although challenged, Catholic identity may still be valued and provide individuals with resources for negotiating new developments. However, the success or failure of this may depend on the nature of the struggle for authority and influence between "official" and "unofficial" versions of Catholicism.

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