Mark Galli (HT: Alex Webster) has an interesting story in CT Online about the power of religious euphoria. He likens the attraction to, indeed the addiction to euphoria to attraction and addiction to a drug. Galli writes:
We disdain faith that is mere intellectual assent or empty formality. We want a faith that is authentic, that makes us feel something—in particular, one that enables us to experience God. When we describe the one time in the week when we put ourselves in the presence of God, we talk less and less about “worshipping God” and more about “the worship experience.” The charismatic movement, with its emphasis on experiencing the Holy Spirit, has penetrated nearly all churches. This religious mood, which characterizes our era, is epitomized by the title of Henry Blackaby’s continuing best seller, Experiencing God.
Now, Galli notes, it is possible to replicate the “worship experience” with a drug. Of course, for those of use who can remember the 60s and 70s won’t be much surprised. It was common to hear hippies talk then in terms now reserved for evangelical use.
Sometimes people object to my critique of the QIRE (see RRC) as if I’m just a kill-joy. I’m not. One great problem with the QIRE is that not only can you achieve the experience you crave with the right drugs, you can also do it with other world religions. In other words, it’s a natural phenomenon. It’s not supernatural. It’s not inherently Christian (just like the modern “tongues” movement, anyone can do it). Galli explains:
There are many reasons to question the amount of attention our age gives to helping people have memorable religious experiences. For one, other religions seem to be equally capable of giving people an encounter with transcendence. For another, as we now increasingly see, drugs seem to be able to do the same thing.
In other words, you don’t need Jesus to have that experience. If you don’t need Jesus to achieve the experience you want, then the experience you want isn’t Christian. I’m not saying that it’s demonic; it’s just natural but nature isn’t grace and redemption from sin.
You also don’t need Jesus to be good. The emergent folks want to take us back to early 20th-century liberalism, “deeds not creeds,” but Galli warns:
…what Christians bring to the world is a message embedded in a story, and nothing less than a God-given, God-revealed message and story.
What is distinctive about Christianity is its history and doctrine of redemption. Euphoria and good deeds (which are the building blocks of what many people today consider to be Christianity) aren’t distinctively Christian.
Once more, I’m not against genuine religious experience but I am against the QIRE. I’m not against good deeds, but I am against defining Christianity as good deeds. We manifest our faith (James does say, “show me your faith”) but our good deeds, to the degree they are good (they’re always tainted with corruption and sin) are always and only fruit of our union with Christ.
Galli says,
The Christian faith is, at its core, not about ethics or religious experience, but a message about a God who has gone to extraordinary lengths to be and remain on our side, to become the-God-with-a-name, Emmanuel, “God with us.” Christians are not primarily mystics (those who experience God in a special way) or activists (those who live the way of Jesus). We are mostly witnesses of who God is and what he has done and what he will do in Jesus Christ, the God who in Christ has “a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10).
He’s exactly right. Reformed people should understand this. We confess total depravity. We confess that God acted for us and that he has revealed himself to us chiefly in Christ and that his Spirit operates not apart from the Word written but through it and with it. We long for genuine experience of peace, joy, love etc but we long for them in Christ, by his Spirit, through his Word, in community with his people, through the due use of the ordained means. Our experience ought to be as Christ-centered as his Gospel is. Our good deeds ought to flow out of the Christ-centered gospel. More than that, our faith and life ought to be Trinitarian and insofar as that is true, it transcends natural euphoria (whether religious or narcotic) or our sanctity is not mere deeds but the grace of God the Spirit.
This post first appeared on the Heidelblog in 2010.
Amen! Thank you for this post. The categories of QIRE and QIRC (quest foe illegitimate religious certainty) are immensely helpful in making sense of alot of what we see in the church and the world vis a vis religion. This also points to the value of reading the Scripture with the Church, ie, in light of the reformed confessions, as they articulate the how the Church has been led by the Spirit to do the hard work of working out our theology, piety and practice as people who really believe the Bible to be the very Word of God. Truly the more we look to Christ and understand our salvation in him, the more we are enabled to rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory,” 1 Peter 1:8.
Dr. Clark,
I’m not a Reformed Christian (though I am in the process of a lengthy investigation of it), but this post is good. I’ve come to realize on my own that the “worship experience” cannot and IS NOT the backbone or substance of Christianity. Indeed, ultimately Christianity is about the Triune God, not us.
Hi Will,
Thank you for this. Amen!
I’m glad that you’re investigating. As you do please give due consideration to what the Reformed churches confess (http://rscottclark.org/category/reformedconfessions/) when assessing the tradition. Too often inquirers start with the quirky fringes of the Reformed movement(s), e.g., theonomy or the Federal Vision and the like. We do not confess these things and they are (mostly) modern movements, born in reaction to the culture rather than derived from and driven by the historic Reformed understanding of the Scriptures.
As to navigating the tradition, I hope you’ll read better writers. Among our better older writers I would point to Calvin, to Ursinus and Olevianus, to Perkins (not easy to get, however), Turretin and Witsius (both easy to get. Witsius is a little easier to read than Turretin). Among modern writers take a look at Sproul, Horton, and Hart. I’m not a huge fan of Jonathan Edwards. Whatever enthusiastic stuff you may read about him in print and online, there are important ways in which he was not terribly faithful to the Reformed tradition.
I wrote Recovering the Reformed Confession in part to help newcomers and inquirers. Chapter 5 (I think it’s ch. 5) is “The Joy of Being Reformed.” There is a great lot of audio resources on this under the audio/video resource section of the HB (on the right side of the page).
Blessings on your studies!
Dr. Clark,
You say, “Whatever enthusiastic stuff you may read about [Edwards] in print and online, there are important ways in which he was not terribly faithful to the Reformed tradition.”
This is interesting. Can you point me to any sources to further investigate this? I know Bavinck, for instance, took issue with his understanding of moral and natural (in)ability. Is this the type of stuff you are referencing?
Great post!
Hi Taylor,
Thank you for the encouragement. There is a discussion of these issues in Recovering the Reformed Confession.
There are at least three major areas of departure:
1. The doctrine of God. E.g., Muller on Edwards. See Hodge’s comment on Edwards’ panentheism (in RRC).
2. The doctrine of salvation (see RRC).
3. The doctrine of the Christian life (e.g., Religious Affections. See RRC).
4. Some HB resources.
spot on! people tag me frigid when I make the same case you’re making. keep it up! #SDG
Most Christians that are affiliated with churches that seek an “experience” are Bible believing Christians that profess to judge everything by God’s Word. However, the Biblical record on experiences with God make it clear that they are not pleasant encounters.
Moses and Israel before God . . . the Mount of Transfiguration . . . John caught up in the Spirit on the isle of Patmos. These were all encounters with God and they were all harrowing.
@Paul
Well, I think what is meant by the “experience” of God is that ecstatic feeling we get in the middle of some good worship. But granted, an actual vision given by God or being in the presence of however he manifests himself before us (Like with Moses in the desert) is going to be one of AWE in the fullest sense of the word. And frightening too, yes. There is a reason that even when angels, not God, appear before somebody they reassure the person to “not be afraid”.
Dr. Clark, this post is excellent, both what you cite, and your commentary. Thank you for reposting and all your labor, who are now finding things like this for our first time (meaning I haven’t been following your blog for very long). I really appreciate it!