Question #2 - Spirit and Emotion

Spirit vs. Emotion…
“I feel like a lot of churches and Christians have become sensation seekers. How do I differentiate my emotion from the Spirit of God? How do I focus more on God, instead of what I feel? How do I explain this balance to my peers?’”

So, when I saw that question for the first time, I instantly saw myself about 20 years ago. It was my freshmen year in college and I was home for a break. I went and I saw my youth pastor and asked, “What is it about this tongues thing?” I had been at Crossroads Baptist Church (before it has switched to Crossroads Bible Church) my whole Christian life. Crossroads is as solid as granite on doctrine and part of that doctrine is to steer clear from all charismatic beliefs. At least is was then. My first year of Bible College, I met a lot of people, including many charismatics. What was this? I went to a black church one time and I saw what I had never seen before, people dancing in the aisles, people asking the Holy Spirit to fill them and heal them and do a jigety-jig in them. As I progressed through my college years at U.W., I met a few good friends who were legitimately godly people AND who were deeply charismatic. I know, amazing to me, too. I had a year in Hong Kong and my best friends there were very charismatic. I have a friend now who is famous for his blog and his belief in both a solid granite doctrine beliefs like Crossroads and yet he is also a charismatic. How can this be? There seems to be more of these kinds of people that are both mind-theological people and heart-charismatic people. I wrote a paper in seminary on why tongues were not for today. I have had very conservative friends whom I highly respect who have been raised in similar conservative circles that are on the same journey towards, what I call the middle, and that encourages me. So, I know that I am not alone.

And all of this climaxes into the last year and half I have been writing a novel on the Holy Spirit. Yeah, baby, I am writing a book. So, to say this question is something I have wrestled with for the last bunch of years is an understatement. The problem is that I am still wrestling and probing and asking questions and trying to figure it all out. (And yet I wonder if that is a bad thing at all. More on that later.)

But, in my young 38 ½ years of age (today is my half birthday), I have seen things and heard things and learned things. And so what it is worth, here it is: For most of you reading this, you are probably like me. You are on the conservative side of things and have been told to beware of all things charismatic. And yet as you entered college and met people and heard things, you have wondered about it all. I am not sure if this question is about charismatic vs. conservative, but I don’t see any other churches out there who are “sensation” seekers other than charismatics, so that is why I am basing my thoughts around this.

So here goes my attempt to answer this question, while also addressing the two that gave some great dialogue thoughts for getting this dialogue going (Thank you Jani and Ben… Please dialogue…Even small posts, verses, quotes, whatever…)

I want to start my thoughts by using a quote from the man, John Piper, a conservative feeler, as my starting point which I think answers the questions and gets it off and running in a great way.

“For many people the work of the head and the overflow of the heart are at odds. Thinking and feeling are like oil and water; they repulse each other.

Whatever the reason for this tension that exists in so many people, my own experience, my awareness of the experience of others in history, and my understanding of the Bible teach me that it is neither a necessary tension nor a healthy one, at least not to the degree that most people experience it. My goal is to help us all become the kind of folk for whom sound thinking kindles deep feeling and for whom deep feeling motivates sound thinking. Most of the opposition we feel between the heart and the head is, I think, due to learned behavior patterns which do not necessarily result from the nature of our emotions or our thought. We have been warned so often about not becoming a cold intellectual that we have trouble imagining the possibility of intellect that lights fires instead of putting them out. Or on the other side we have been taught to be so wary of fanatic emotionalism that we can scarcely believe that a tear in someone’s eye might be coming from a holy syllogism instead of a pathological passion.

God has given us minds and demanded that we use them in understanding and applying his Word. And God has given us emotions which are equally essential and which he has commanded to be vigorously engaged in his service.

If we neglect the mind we will drift into all sorts of doctrinal error and dishonor God who wills to be known as he is. And if we neglect the heart we will be dead while we yet live no matter how right our creed is. “This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me.” So my goal for us is that we put together what so many keep apart to their own hurt. Let us be clear in our heads and warm in our hearts. Let us feel with all our might and think with all our might."

Boom. So there it is. It is not one or the other, it is both. The problem is that we always tend to fall to one side. How do we stay in the middle? How do we do both? Well, the question for most of us is how do we feel our faith? How do we let our heart get as excited as our mind? I guess, first, by realizing that emotion is not only o.k. but also necessary. I know that most of you have experienced that kind of emotion only at a retreat or something unusual, but not on a normal basis. The second is, by getting in the word, by delighting in the word, by meditating on it day and night. The question is, is it easier to go from the word to excitement than from excitement to the word? Would you rather be a charismatic coming to middle in seeking the word or be a conservative coming back to the middle to have experiences?!?!? I don’t know the answer to that.

In Zambia, I work with a lot of pastors and more specifically, I teach 15 pastors regularly. There are some who come from very charismatic backgrounds and as we teach them the word, they see their erring of the Charismatic church which focuses all on emotion and experience. As they get grounded in the Word, they find their excitement getting stronger and stronger as they balance feeling with the Word. We also have some Anglicans and Baptist who are solid in the Word but lacking in feeling maybe. And as they spend time learning the Word with us, they find themselves getting more and more feeling in their faith, I think. We are coming to a place in our class where we stop trying to defend and throw stones, but to be at a place where both are necessary.

As I was thinking through this topic, I realized that how we show emotion is different and that could be cause for some of the confusion: There is a book called Sacred Pathways written by a guy named Gary Thomas who lives in Bellingham. He writes about nine ways that people feel God.

Here is summary of spiritual temperaments:
Intellectual - Loving God with the Mind:
These Christians live in the world of concepts. They may feel closest to God when they first understand something new about Him.

Contemplative - Loving God through Adoration:
These Christians seek to love God with the purest, deepest, and brightest love imaginable. They want nothing more than some privacy and quiet to gaze upon the face of their heavenly Lover and give all of themselves to God.

Enthusiast - Loving God with Mystery & Celebration:
Excitement and mystery in worship is the spiritual lifeblood of enthusiasts. They are inspired by joyful celebration; cheerleaders for God and the Christian life. They don't want to just know concepts, but to experience them, to feel them, and to be moved by them. They like to let go and experience God on the precipice of excitement and awe.

Caregiver - Loving God by Loving Others:
Caregivers serve God by serving others. They often claim to see Christ in the poor and needy, and their faith is built up by interacting with other people. Caring for others recharges a caregiver's batteries.

Activist - Loving God Through Confrontation:
These Christians define worship as standing against evil and calling sinners to repentance. They are energized more by interaction with others, even in conflict, than by being alone or in small groups. Activists are spiritually nourished through the battle.

Ascetic - Loving God in Solitude and Simplicity:
Ascetics want nothing more than to be left alone in prayer. Let there be nothing to distract them--no pictures, no loud music--and leave them alone to pray in silence and simplicity.

Traditionalist - Loving God Through Ritual and Symbol:
Traditionalists are fed by what are often termed the historic dimensions of faith: rituals, symbols, sacraments, and sacrifice. They tend to have a disciplined life of faith and have a need for ritual and structure.

Sensate - Loving God with the Senses:
Sensate Christians want to be lost in the awe, beauty, and splendor of God. They are drawn particularly to the liturgical, the majestic, the grand. They want to be filled with sights, sounds, and smells that overwhelm them. The five senses are God's most effective inroad to their hearts.

Naturalist - Loving God Out of Doors:
The naturalist seeks to leave the formal architecture and the padded pews to enter an entirely new "cathedral", a place that God himself has built: the out-of-doors.

The reason I like this is because where some people might show the excitement of God by clapping and shouting, others are more about being somber and doing rituals and symbols and both are being totally sensationally and emotional in their faith, just in different ways.

(If you want to see where you are: go to this link for an online assessment: it is pretty cool and interesting. http://www.sacchurch.org/action-steps/sacred_pathways.htm )

So to answer the question, the foundation has to be the word, but the Word is alive, not dead. There must be emotion and the mind working together to know and feel God. Sometimes emotion leads to the word. Other times emotion must be pulled along and stirred up and kindled afresh. But, both are important and necessary to know and feel God. As you know yourself better and experience God in pathways that are more you, than you can kindle your time with God in more efficient and effective ways that add feeling to truth. This will also help you from being judgmental and critical of others.

It is true that there have been charismatic churches that have gone way beyond in my opinion. But, are there conservative churches that have done the same? If your church is not preaching the word, but is really excited, than, I think you are in trouble and your friends are in trouble. But if your church is preaching the word but it seems more like a classroom than a worship service, that could be a problem, too.

Regarding the charismatic ways, I would encourage you to learn from them and let God teach you through them. Seek the Holy Spirit and allow Him to fill you with emotion and feeling and to stir up for you passion and joy. If you are charismatic, make sure you are involved in a church that teaches the word. The feelings, while at times may seem to be wonderful, but if they are not genuine or coming from the word, they will not last if they are not attached to substance (maybe like eating candy. It taste good, but doesn’t last.) The answer isn’t either/or. It is both. And that is the beauty, and the difficulty of it all.

I guess my biggest point that I have learned over the years is to just be humble. Be humble with your friends. Learn from them. Ask questions. Grow in your understanding and in your knowledge. The key is Jesus Christ, crucified, risen again, living in us, bestowing on us the Holy Spirit for the Glory of God. That is the foundation of truth. But, beyond that there is a lot of room for learning.

Thoughts?