Walking the line between theology and experience
"Religious experience needs good theology the way a traveler needs a reliable map. A traveler with lots of enthusiasm but no map for the journey is a dangerous person to travel with. Together you can get hopelessly lost."
– Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love
I’ve been reflecting on this quote for awhile relative to my own journey with God and the Church. My experience as a Christ-follower is one that has ebbed and flowed along the polarities of experience and belief. I remember as a young Christian being almost exclusively experiential and pietistic in my orientation, in no way denying the importance of believing rightly, but certainly focused more on experiencing God in intensely personal ways.
After spending time in formal study at Bible College and Seminary, I found myself moving in the opposite direction. I didn’t completely ignore my experiential moorings, but became more and more dedicated to theological exploration, establishing doctrinal certainty and affirming the orthodox creeds.
Upon reflection, I have noticed that during my time on the experiential side of the spectrum I became very suspicious of those on the other side. For whatever reason, I just assumed that they represented cold, impersonal, and perhaps dead faith. They may have acquired a significant amount of information and knowledge about Christianity, but in so doing lacked a personal and passionate relationship with God in Christ.
Then, as I moved to the other side of the spectrum and began to be more doctrinally oriented, I became increasingly skeptical of those who resided on the experience side of things. I would often refer to ‘those’ people with a degree of disdain, and likened them to children; cute to look at, but lacking any level of theological insight. They jumped around (sometimes quite literally) from one crisis encounter to another, with no apparent concern for doctrine and theology. They were ‘flakes’; dangerous to the historic Christian faith and therefore should be called to task as often as necessary.
To be honest, I don’t think I liked being on either side of the trajectory. Both places, while offering positive elements, ultimately left me wanting. I assumed that a person would either camp on the one side and live an experience-based Christianity, oftentimes ignoring the importance of theology, or on the other, where doctrine reigned, to the neglect of personal experience. Again, both camps have their own set of concerns.
Over time, and through various influences, I began to see the deficiencies inherent to both locations and looked for another way. After reading numerous books, articles, and testimonies from well-respected and seasoned people, I began the slow progression toward the center.
I don’t believe for a moment that the spectrum has a line directly in the middle and that we could even find one if it did exist. All I do know is that the closer I came to a middle way, balancing on the fine line between experience and belief, the more content and secure I became. I began to realize that no one group has all the answers and that we actually need each other if we are to have balanced lives.
On the one hand, we need vibrant and passionate relationships with God that are deeply personal and corporate, and that are undeniably experiential (Paul wanted to ‘know’ Christ in Philippians, which refers to knowing Him personally). On the other hand, we need to hold on to the idea of ‘faith seeking understanding,’ so that we can anchor our experience of God in His own self-revelation in Christ as recorded in the witness of Scripture. In essence, we should learn to ‘walk in the ‘truth’.
This is exactly what Clark Pinnock was trying to communicate in the quote above. Our experience of God needs to be grounded and rooted in biblical investigation, theological discovery, and doctrinal faithfulness. Experience by itself will lead us off track and leave us wanting; sometimes wandering aimlessly with no sense of direction and sabotaging any possibility of longevity.
Conversely, doctrinal dogmatism with no experiential element will make us into legalists, offering criticisms that only further the divide. Clark was right. We need both “enthusiasm” and “theology”. In fact, good theology can and should lead to informed enthusiasm. One without the other will never suffice.
In the end, dogmatists need to learn from revivalists; reformed churches need to learn from the emerging church movement, and we all need to work very hard at finding a happy medium along the trajectory of faith. As the late Stanley Grenz wrote, we need to “renew the center”. God help us in this quest.
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