{"id":2216,"date":"2011-07-27T06:12:41","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T13:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=2216"},"modified":"2011-07-27T06:12:41","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T13:12:41","slug":"the-beauty-of-the-christian-faith-introduction-sources-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2011\/07\/27\/the-beauty-of-the-christian-faith-introduction-sources-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beauty of the Christian Faith: Introduction: Sources: Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m working on an adult curriculum titled “The Beauty of the Christian Faith.”\u00a0 It explores the basic elements of Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed.\u00a0 I’ll be posting excerpts as they’re done.\u00a0 Here’s the fifth part of the introduction.\u00a0 Prior posts can be accessed through the Beauty of the Christian Faith Page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

The sources of Christian theology are scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.\u00a0 Every variety of Christian theology draws on each of these sources.\u00a0 One of the first decisions we must make when thinking theologically is how to understand the nature of, and relationship between, these sources.<\/p>\n

Experience<\/h2>\n

\u201cExperience\u201d is lived, relational knowledge.\u00a0 For Christian theology, \u201cexperience\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Christianity is not an \u201cidea.\u201d\u00a0 Rather, Christian faith is at heart a relationship with the living God.\u00a0 In scripture, authentic knowledge of God is often compared to intimate sensual experience:\u00a0 sexual love, a boisterous feast, sweet perfume, resounding music, cool water, warm bread, fragrant wine.\u00a0 \u201cTaste and see that the LORD is good,\u201d says Psalm 34.<\/p>\n

\u201cExperience\u201d is connected to the \u201cpractices\u201d of Christian faith.\u00a0 \u201cPractices\u201d are ways of doing things that have developed and become standardized over time.\u00a0 Piano players, for example, are taught to use a certain sequence of fingers in order to play the notes of a given scale.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Christians have always engaged in two central practices:\u00a0 baptism and the regular celebration of the Lord\u2019s Supper or Eucharist.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In baptism, we quite literally \u201csee\u201d God\u2019s 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\u2019s Supper or Eucharist, we quite literally \u201ctaste\u201d the provision of Christ\u2019s body and blood in the yeasty tang of the bread and the sharp tannins and round fruits of the wine.<\/p>\n

Other vital Christian practices include prayer, scripture reading, meditation, fasting, and corporate worship.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 In prayer, we bring our requests to God and we seek and wait for His wisdom.\u00a0 Scripture reading is the practice of reading the text of the Bible in order to hear what God wishes to say to each\u00a0 of us personally through the text (in some churches this is called lectio divina<\/em>).\u00a0 When we mediate, we focus intentionally on a particular portion of scripture or a scriptural thought or image.\u00a0 Fasting involves voluntarily forgoing something we desire for a defined period of time.\u00a0 Prayer, meditation, and fasting are intertwined because they are often practiced together.\u00a0 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\u2019s Supper or Eucharist, with an orientation towards exalting God for who He is and remembering what He has done for us.<\/p>\n

When we participate in these practices, we learn about God through experience.\u00a0 Often, this sort of knowledge cannot adequately be expressed in rational logic or even in words.\u00a0 A person who has lived with God for many years often possesses insights that escape quantification.\u00a0 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<\/em> the music in a way that transcends technical study.\u00a0 Good theology is thinking about God that has been lived and experienced.<\/p>\n


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[1]<\/a> This is not a full list of all the \u201csacraments\u201d in every Christian tradition, but these two sacraments are common to all Christian traditions and are recognized by all Christians to be central.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/a> Similarly, these are not the only devotional practices in every tradition, but they are common to all traditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m working on an adult curriculum titled “The Beauty of the Christian Faith.”\u00a0 It explores the basic elements of Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed.\u00a0 I’ll be posting excerpts as they’re done.\u00a0 Here’s the fifth part of the introduction.\u00a0 Prior posts can be accessed through the Beauty of the Christian Faith Page. Introduction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beauty-of-the-christian-faith","category-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-zK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}