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The Role of Experience in Religious Belief
Live from the Mecca of Mormonism SALT LAKE CITY, Utah
This is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. –
Show 36A Are you Experienced?
Taped August 18th 2020
Aired August 24th 2020
Having an inquisitive – even an intrusive disposition at times – I’ve met a LOT of people and gotten them to talk about life, values and especially religion – intimately. I’ve read William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience a couple of times and have, over 40 years of focused observations of people in general – often in public settings – learned what makes them tick, how they relate to the rest of the world around them, and what kind of lives they choose to live relative to these factors. I’ve also watched hundreds (perhaps maybe a thousand) of souls leave the confines of Mormonism, and venture out into other religious and non-religious expressions. I’ve observed Christianity first-hand from the Calvary Chapel mindset (for more than two years full time) and have had the opportunity to observe the lives of charismatics, the hyper and zealous, the fanatics, the intellectuals and the sinful saints and what they focus upon in their believes.
Defining Experience
Tonight, I want to group people from all of these expressions into two groups – those who PRIMARILY (that’s a key word here) PRIMARILY stand on what they have “experienced.” Our experiences certainly help shape and form us into who we are and how we think, but as believers, should experience serve as passive participants in what we actually do and believe, framing what we are about or should our experiences be the foundation of who we are? In other words, as believers, do we want our experiences to define us – to drive and shape our walk, or do we yearn for and look to, something more?
I propose to you tonight that believers look beyond their experiences and yearn and seek for something more – something more powerful and influential which overtake our subjective experiences and reshape them (and us) into something more balanced, something more reasonable, something less material and human to something more spiritual and Godly. In downtown Salt Lake City many homeless people might be categorized as those who are “defined by their experiences.” I converse with them all the time and when the rubber meets the road generally hear from the alcoholic how Daddy beat them or Mommy didn’t support them, or whatever. These things are real, and detrimental to be sure – but as Christians should they continue to define who and what we are?
Experiences and Society
Society at large is strongly moved and formed by experiential motivators – some negative, some positive – but all pointed to as defining elements to who we are. On the negative we all have a backpack full of experiences that have caused us pain and negative reactions, but on the other side, even as a culture, we more and more embrace and welcome experiences to continue to define us and give our lives meaning including adventures, challenges, and even daily and weekly things that help us feel – like the music, films, escapism, romance and fantasy. Our cults of personality capitalize on the human desire for experience and often seek to manipulate us through powerfully spoken and written words, changing the course of individual mindsets in entire nations, when effective.
We might liken most of our experiences to impactful emotional events – positive and negative – but I suggest that these, on either side, will not sustain the Son or Daughter of God. In fact many of them will only serve to undermine the truth, obscuring it for what feels good or right. In my first-hand experience with Mormonism I started to notice on my full-time mission how experiences (aka emotional events) were foundational to people and the way they saw truth. I first saw it when other missionaries would bear “tearful testimonies” about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and in some of the video tapes the LDS church produced which focused on, even preyed upon, emotional experience to get people to join in a good cry – and then call that cry the Spirit.
I’ve watched it as believers very weak in the flesh run (in droves) to Christian concerts and amplified worship services on Sundays as a means to feel something – but like Chinese food, most are hungry again for something substantive a couple hours later and are left hollow. Quite frankly, when it comes to most elements in life but especially religion, the most damaged religious souls I have ever met
The Importance of Knowing God Through His Word
In my life are those unfortunate people who live by what they feel, rather than what they have come to think – those who thrive on experiences instead of hard-won knowledge, those who really don’t care for facts but care for feelings. Whether drugs, orgies, protests, or Christian concerts, the drivers are all the same – people seeking emotional, experiential highs.
God knew this about our human flesh, and that is why he says things in scripture like:
BE STILL . . . AND KNOW . . . THAT I AM GOD . . . Psalm 46:10
How do we know that he is God which allows us to be still? Generally speaking, people come to know God by His word – that is how we know him. Through His word by the Spirit. Jesus said to his apostles, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” Notice nothing about feelings, experiencing, tears, emotions, but: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
It can be boring to some. It can lack the excitement of the experiential, but again, from what I have seen, the most centered, stable, mature, peaceful souls on earth are those who do NOT feed on experience, but rather on the Word of God.
The Road to Emmaus
I want to read from the last chapter of Luke to illustrate the point I am trying to make. The setting is Jesus' deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. and resurrection and two men who on the third day of it are for some reason walking away from Jerusalem.
Luke 24:13
13 And, behold, two of them (disciples) went that same day (the day Yeshua was resurrected) to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. (or 7 miles away)
From what we will read it seems that they were pretty disappointed with the death of the Lord.
Verse 14-16
14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened. 15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Yeshua himself drew near, and went with them. 16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.
We don’t know why they didn’t know him – perhaps it was supernatural or maybe it was because, as Mark 16 says, he appeared to them in another form. All this line really means is they did not recognize him.
Verse 17-19
17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? What has affected your minds so much that you talk this way and are so sorrowful? 18 And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? 19 And he (Yeshua) said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Yeshua of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:
Notice how they describe him. Yeshua has asked them what things had transpired, and they said “Concerning Yeshua of Nazareth, who WAS A PROPHET MIGHTY IN DEED (miracles) and word (teaching/preaching) before GOD and all the people.” They did not refer to him as the Savior or Messiah – perhaps because they apparently believed that he was not the Messiah at this point as His death had apparently led them to doubt that title. But they did distinguish him still not as a fraud, but a teacher sent from God who was mighty in deed and word.
Verse 20-21
20 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. 21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done.
“We anticipated that He was the one who would have redeemed Israel, as this mighty prophet, but besides all this: “today is the third day since these things were done” meaning he is dead and therefore not the anointed one who would save the Nation of Israel from Roman rule. To a Jew, to go three days in the grave was the sure sign that a person was dead.
Verse 22-24
Now at verses 22-24 the plot thickens now as the doubts of these men is expressed when they add:
22 Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulcher; 23
The Encounter on the Road to Emmaus
And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.
24 And certain of them which were with us (Peter and John) went to the sepulcher and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not. So, it seems that these men had been given the report from the women at the grave that
- His body was missing
- Angels said he was alive, and
- His missing body was confirmed gone by two of the disciples (or of them that were with us, as Cleopas says).
Bottom line – these men did not believe that Yeshua was the promised Messiah. They deemed him a great prophet, but not the one to Redeem the Nation in large part because he did not redeem them from Roman rule but died instead.
Now his body was missing, but these men did not embrace the angel story that he was alive, it seems, but only the fact that his body was gone. And they were headed AWAY from Jerusalem – which is fitting with their opinion of things. Now this view I’ve presented is supported by what Yeshua says to them in verse 25:
25 O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
He is reproaching them for not seeing or perceiving not only what he had so clearly predicted but what had been foretold by the prophets. Where “fools” sounds contemptuous to us today it was not used that way here – it was more a description of their blind state: O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
The Role of Prophecy
All that the prophets have spoken – which were many, many things in reference to Him. Interestingly, many of our modern “higher critics” (like Bart Erhman) reject much of what the prophets said about Yeshua prophetically and suggest that most old testament passages were misappropriations by the living apostles (or by believers today) and assigned to him but Yeshua himself admits that the prophets spoke abundantly about him. And he adds at verse 26
26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
In other words, in light of the prophesies about me, should I have not suffered these things as a means to enter into my glory? But Yeshua does not stop here with them.
Scriptural Confirmation
LISTEN to verse 27 (it really important to the point I am trying to make)
27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Here’s my point relative to experience and to the Word of God. Yeshua COULD have just said – Hey, look at me! Handle me. Experience me. You’ll never forget it, baby! But he TOOK the time to teach them from scripture the PASSAGES that would sustain his appearance to them!
In other words if experience was enough FOR HIS DISCIPLES, and would have carried them, I think Yeshua would have just shown up, given them a front row seat to his resurrected body, and considered that enough. But he expounded the scriptures about Him beginning with Moses! And then he revealed himself, presumably when he took over as master of the meal and gave them bread in their own house or residence. Then he disappeared.
Now, this event alone is telling. But listen to what happens next.
33 And they rose up the same hour (remember it was night and they had a 7 mile journey to get back) and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,
34 Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.
35 And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.
36 And as they (the two men from the road to Emmaus) thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, “Peace be unto you.”
37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.
38 Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?
And then he gives them an experience of a lifetime, saying:
39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
40 And when he had thus spoken,
Yeshua's Resurrection and Its Distinctions
Evidence of His Victory
He shewed them his hands and his feet. Apparently, the invitation for them to handle him and see him was not enough to convince them as verse 41 says:
41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? In other words, they were still suspect or in shock and did not rejoice immediately at seeing his hands and feet. Our phrase, “it was too good to be true” might help us understand their response.
At this point Yeshua takes it a step further – and this is a significant step when we think about it. He says to them or asks them: “Have you any here any food?” (verse 42)
42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. 43 And he took it, and did eat before them.
The Distinction in Resurrection Bodies
Now, I want you to think about this. Paul says that the bodies believers have will be like a seed that must die, and go into the ground before it can bring forth the heavenly body, which when we compare a corn kernel to a corn stalk, we can see that they are VERY different things in very different forms. But because of Yeshua’s resurrection, many people have assumed that our resurrection will mimic his to a T. Yeshua had to come back in and with the body that was put in the grave, for his body was prophesied that it would not see corruption. They had to handle and see and touch the very body that was crucified and laid in the grave as a means to identify him AS having risen.
IF he had risen with his heavenly body alone, the one we are all going to receive at death, they would have probably just assumed that he was, in fact, a spirit. I point this out at this point by the fact that Yeshua uses his body to eat in front of them. When we eat, whatever goes in is digested, the nutrients are assimilated into our bodies, and the remainder is expelled, right?
Our resurrected bodies will not be eating. There is no need – unless there is some sort of spiritual food we consume. But the heavens are not full of resurrected people eating material food, digesting it and expelling the rest. That is what material bodies do. Paul makes it very clear that the resurrected bodies we will receive are spiritual and not earthly. So Yeshua eating here is a huge distinction between His resurrection and ours. He HAD to have His body to evidence His victory over the grave. We Do NOT!
The Role of Scripture
He had to evidence his victory to others. We do not. He evidenced his victory through expression in his former shell. We will not. (verse 44)
44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, (meaning, what I am showing you is the fulfillment of everything I said to you while I was with you) that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
LISTEN And then what does he do with these disciples? The same thing he did with the two men on the road to Emmaus (verse 45)
45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, It’s really interesting that Yeshua did not just rely on the amazing fact that He was standing there in a resurrected body before them, that he let them touch him, that he ate food to prove he had risen from the grave.
AGAIN – this is the second time – He actually went to the scripture and taught them how it spoke and prophesied of him. It’s a significant underscore of the utter importance of the scripture in bringing people to the truth and to stability in their walk. He did NOT just give them an experience. He fed their faith, which comes by hearing of the Word.
We cannot overstress this enough in the lives of believers today as we live in an age where experiential religion is preferred over a knowledge of the Word. Never forget that even after showing himself twice to the two on the way to Emmaus and then to the eleven and those with them, he opened the scriptures and taught them from them.
The Role of Spirit and Scriptures
The minds and hearts of his children, and washes out the old, formulates the truth and fortifies the spirit lives of His own. The scripture Old and New by the Spirit.
The Insufficiency of Experience Alone
The experiential alone will not sustain us just as Yeshua did not appear to these disciples alone and consider them seeing him enough.
Importance of the Word
The Word The Word The Word by the Spirit.
Write your comments below and we will discuss them tomorrow night, here on Heart of the Matter.
