The Beauty of the Christian Faith: Introduction: Sources: Experience

I’m working on an adult curriculum titled “The Beauty of the Christian Faith.”  It explores the basic elements of Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed.  I’ll be posting excerpts as they’re done.  Here’s the fifth part of the introduction.  Prior posts can be accessed through the Beauty of the Christian Faith Page.

Introduction

The sources of Christian theology are scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.  Every variety of Christian theology draws on each of these sources.  One of the first decisions we must make when thinking theologically is how to understand the nature of, and relationship between, these sources.

Experience

“Experience” is lived, relational knowledge.  For Christian theology, “experience” includes our encounter with Jesus Christ; the movement of the Holy Spirit in individual persons, in the Church, and in history; and the forms, practices, words, images and sensations in and through which we have known God.

Christianity is not an “idea.”  Rather, Christian faith is at heart a relationship with the living God.  In scripture, authentic knowledge of God is often compared to intimate sensual experience:  sexual love, a boisterous feast, sweet perfume, resounding music, cool water, warm bread, fragrant wine.  “Taste and see that the LORD is good,” says Psalm 34.

“Experience” is connected to the “practices” of Christian faith.  “Practices” are ways of doing things that have developed and become standardized over time.  Piano players, for example, are taught to use a certain sequence of fingers in order to play the notes of a given scale.  The practice of using this particular sequence of fingers has become the standard way to play a scale because, over time, it has proven an effective means of reaching and producing all the notes in the scale.

Christians have always engaged in two central practices:  baptism and the regular celebration of the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist.[1]  Both of these are tactile ways of entering into the reality of the presence of Christ and of the common experience of the Church throughout history.  In baptism, we quite literally “see” God’s goodness as the old life of slavery to sin is washed away and we are raised clean and new, a member of a people sealed with grace; and in the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist, we quite literally “taste” the provision of Christ’s body and blood in the yeasty tang of the bread and the sharp tannins and round fruits of the wine.

Other vital Christian practices include prayer, scripture reading, meditation, fasting, and corporate worship.[2]  In prayer, we bring our requests to God and we seek and wait for His wisdom.  Scripture reading is the practice of reading the text of the Bible in order to hear what God wishes to say to each  of us personally through the text (in some churches this is called lectio divina).  When we mediate, we focus intentionally on a particular portion of scripture or a scriptural thought or image.  Fasting involves voluntarily forgoing something we desire for a defined period of time.  Prayer, meditation, and fasting are intertwined because they are often practiced together.  Corporate worship is the practice of joining together with other Christians in a designated place and time for communal song, prayer, scripture reading, and partaking in the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist, with an orientation towards exalting God for who He is and remembering what He has done for us.

When we participate in these practices, we learn about God through experience.  Often, this sort of knowledge cannot adequately be expressed in rational logic or even in words.  A person who has lived with God for many years often possesses insights that escape quantification.  To return to our analogy of music, it is like a pianist who can perform a Mozart sonata with exquisite beauty and nuance because she has lived with the music in a way that transcends technical study.  Good theology is thinking about God that has been lived and experienced.