After training camp week, there’s one particular thing I’ve been wrestling with, (though there are a host of others, too).
A relationship with God is more than an experience, isn’t it? I’ve always puzzled over the emphasis the church frequently places on experiential and emotional engagement with God. By emphasis, I mean the tunnel vision perspective (almost solitary in some cases) on feeling God’s presence, and experiencing his love. Meanwhile, the body of the church goes on and on about the multidimensionality of who God is.
Side note: I’m sure there’s plenty of theological exploration of this issue –please be aware that I’ve read none of the aforementioned literature.
I understand that His love and grace is important, and is the most important thing (it is by His grace that we are saved eternally). What I still don’t understand is our hyper focus on emotionality. Didn’t God give us incredibly powerful brains that are capable of computing more than emotion? Why doesn’t the overall church seek to engage this too? If what God created was indeed created in His image and to His glory, then why don’t we seek to pull all of this in to how the church conducts worship?
I believe that it’s just as impossible to abandon emotion as it is to throw off culture. But I’m not asking for us to abandon emotion. I got to witness and participate in some incredibly powerful things during training camp. I am, however, asking for balance and inclusion of those who desire to seek and understand God’s greatness and holiness to the extent that we can.
I have one major thought as to why the church might be moving toward a more emotional experience:
In relatively recent history, the church focused on academic and cognitive interaction with God. As per usual, when there’s an intentional move away from one thing, it can cause an increase in momentum and a result in a swing to the opposite side that is equally far from a “balance” (think: a pendulum that’s every-slowing to a stop and getting ever closer to the “middle”).
When God was drafting blueprints for who I would be, He was sure to include a curious mind. This can, however, mean that I often go through life on “inquisition” mode – questioning everything, only to internalize any answers I find with a hearty helping of skepticism.
So there’s one more thing I’m willing to admit. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe emotions are more important. Maybe it’s just American culture – if you can even attempt to lump the United States into one culture – that focuses so much on cognition that we’ve forgotten how much emotion matters, and how much more powerful and integral it is to who we are as humans and children of the living God. I don’t know.
I have absolutely no idea, to be more precise.
And that’s where training camp left me. It chewed me up and spat me out. My relationship with Christ and Christianity is a whole lump of confused, of “I don’t know,” “I don’t even know what to think,” and “please someone just tell me what to believe so I don’t have to spend all of my mental and emotional energy wrestling with this.”
My name is Laura, and I’m a skeptic. And this is how God made me.
