Experience
of the living God and modern Experience as revelation of God.
How are they different?
To face this question and to address this subject is to begin to understand the basis of the new Episcopalianism that was clearly evident at the General Convention of the ECUSA in July 2000..
There was a time in the Church of God when one could speak of experience of God and not be claiming to have received new revelation from God. One was speaking of communion and fellowship with the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit through prayer, Bible reading, meditation, contemplation and sacrament. A right relation with God was seen as very much experienced in the affections because joy, peace, love, reverence, faith and hope are the fruit produced by the indwelling Spirit of Christ Jesus. Some of the Christian classics deal with true religion known in the affections – e.g., Jonathan Edwards, “The Religious Affections” and St. Bernard, “On the Love of God.”
The historic, Christian claim to experience God, the Holy Trinity, is related to a specific view of Revelation from God as being closed until the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus to the earth. All that God the Father has chosen to reveal of himself, his nature, attributes, will and ways is made known and recorded in the Holy Scriptures. The focus of this revelation is the Lord Jesus Christ. Through space and time Christians experience God and interpret that experience by the content and principles of the revelation recorded in Scripture. And Christian experience may be said in certain circumstances to confirm, illuminate, explain and personalize revelation for devout believers. But such experience however precious or mystical does not change Revelation or supersede or nullify it.
Thus God is known in His providence and grace through space and time especially within the Body of Christ but He is not truly known in any way that is contrary to the Revelation He has provided in Holy Scripture.
In recent times there has arisen the view that God (whoever precisely Deity is taken to be) reveals Godself to people today in and through modern Experience. Here Experience is taken to mean the human experience of liberation from bondage (via social, political and economic movements) and the explanation of human life and behavior by social scientists, economists, anthropologists, behavioral scientists and psychologists.
So there is Revelation recorded in the Bible and there is Revelation through history and particularly in and through modern western liberation movements. The latter revelation supersedes the former where it provides different and superior ways of understanding the nature and the naming of God, the nature of human life and relations as well as matters concerning the created order. The Revelation recorded in the Bible is taken to be seriously warped because those who received it and wrote about it were the victims of sexism, patriarchalism and heterosexism and they allowed these ideologies to color their understanding and writings.
Therefore it is possible for modern liberated Christians to affirm as the will of God for people today that which was clearly understood to be sin in former times. Not that God has changed as such, but that human beings have changed in their ability to read, appreciate and understand what God is wanting them to know and do. Modern Christians are thus reading the signs more perceptively than did the ancient believers and in so doing are experiencing greater freedom.
So to take the most well-known example. The traditional reading of the will of the God, Holy Trinity, states that all forms of sexual relations between persons of the same sex are wrong. The modern reading of the will of Deity states that there can be faithful partnerships between persons of the same sex which are blessed of God. Here the opposed positions both claim to be based on Revelation – the first on Scripture as traditionally understood and the second on the content and testimony of modern Experience understood as revelatory.
Religion based upon modern Experience is always in flux for it is always open to the future, as God continues to reveal Godself and people experiencing God are liberated into a growing ability to receive and understand this revelation.
Religion based upon Revelation recorded in Scripture is always looking to see how the will of God can be obeyed in every changing social, cultural, political and economic circumstances as the power of technology and science increase in society. The eternal law as it were is always being applied to a changing human scene. This is no easy task and leads to differing results in a complex world as honest attempts are made to grasp the problems.
So to return to the example of same-sex relations. Religion based on Experience is open to developing new forms of faithful, dynamic partnerships between persons of the same sex, persons of both sexes and people who are bisexual and transgendered. In contrast, religion based on Revelation in the Bible accepts only Christian marriage between a man and a woman as right, but is open to deepening its understanding of such things as “sexual orientation.”
In the end, when all the differences between the two approaches have been stated and explored, the major difference between historic, catholic Christianity based on the full authority of sacred Scripture and the new form of Christianity based upon both Scripture and modern Experience as revelational, is the Naming of God. For the first, Trinitarian Theism is foundational and God is known as first Transcendent, present beyond creation, and then as Immanent, present in creation. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, in His Person and by His Spirit bridges the Transcendent and the Immanent.
For the second, God is the God of process who is in a relation to the world like that of a mother everlastingly birthing her child. Thus God is not truly transcendent but he is really immanent and as such is involved in the processes in space and time in an essential way. Deity is not Three Persons in one Godhead but may be described as One God revealing Godself in three modes or aspects or forms.
Where do we place the heavy experientialism so prominent now in what is often called “charismatic” worship and fellowship?
There is great emphasis upon the emotions and it is sometimes difficult to be able to discern whether people are simply elated and excited by ordinary human powers (in much the same way as they are moved by sport, music and theatre) or they are ecstatic by the presence of the Holy Spirit in or upon them. The test would seem to be the fruit of such experientalism. If it is the Holy Spirit then He is the Spirit of holiness and purity and glory and will not lead people to say and do things that are forbidden by the plain sense of Scripture.
In practice the mindset and behavior of “charismatics” often seems to be similar to that of those who see revelation in modern Experience. And this despite the fact that usually “charismatics” are evangelicals who claim to hold the Bible to be the supreme authority for faith and conduct.
Where the emotions are given a prominent place in religion, and treated as being more important than reason then those involved easily come to believe that what they FEEL is what is right and thus to act so as to follow their feelings. In so doing they make experience as authoritative. They are not moved by careful argument addressed to the mind, allowing the mind filled with truth to sink down into the heart and inflame it, but rather they allow their heated emotions to pressurize the mind and will.