Experiential Christian goo...

Back in the 1920's, J. Gresham Machen diagnosed not only the intellectual and theological drift of his day but of the ensuing 90 years. He wrote,

The depreciation of the intellect, with the exaltation in the place of it of the feelings or of the will, is, we think, a basic fact in modern life, which is rapidly leading to a condition in which men neither know anything nor care anything about the doctrinal content of the Christian religion, and in which there is in general a lamentable intellectual decline. (What is Faith?, p.28)

The drift away from theology, i.e. the events of the redemptive-historical drama in the Bible and their meaning (doctrine), left a vacuum that has been gradually filled with other things. The main result has been the rise of both the relational and the experiential as pillars of modern Christianity.

The Aquarius age of the sixties surely ushered in the full-blown relational era. All you need is love, the Beatles sang. I remember as a young Christian in the 1970's hearing the oft prescribed formula for gospel acceptance by the world... they will know you're my disciples by your love for one another. It was no coincidence that Body-life became all the rage. In fact, a popular book came out at that time with that very title by Ray Stedman, who summed up his model for the church this way,

The church is a living organism. In the physical body, the hand moves when the brain says to. So too the members of Jesus’ spiritual body takes direction from Him as our Head. Jesus gives each member gifts and talents, making himself alive within his church. He equips his people to love one another, and to serve in unity his kingdom. This is Body Life.

Jesus gives each member gifts and talents, making himself alive within his church... The relational thus led to the experiential. Sharing one's "experience of Christ" with other Christians in more informal church settings became the cutting edge of body life. What was needed was not dead doctrines, but life supplied from the members of the body of Christ (grace given is now horizontal-relational). And of course this accelerated the already established trend of democratizing truth by elevating the greatest common denominator among believers, a person's subjective experience. Everyone had one! No longer was edification to flow directly from the objective truth of what Christ had accomplished in his death and resurrection for unworthy sinners (doctrine from above). Being built up in Christ now had to do with being touched by someone's testimony of an experience in their life, accompanied by the interpretation of the Holy Spirit's work in that moment. And of course, it was incumbent upon those listening to be appropriately and relationally supportive with "amens" and "praise the Lords." Interestingly, that's not too different from what one finds in any number of different support groups. The means of grace in Word and Sacrament by which sinner/saint is comforted and strengthened in faith was gradually replaced with the partaking of shared testimonies of one another's subjective experiences and mystical worship moments of the corporate sense of "God's Spirit."

Doctrine fell off the radar screen as an ancient and unnecessary appendage that was simply "dead-head knowledge." Faith no longer was fed by hearing and understanding the gospel truths. What one needed was Life which came through the Spirit, who was to be found in one's personal experience. Faith, no longer rooted in the theological objectivity of the gospel, was directed toward the elusive subjective. So, once again Machen's words in the twenties presciently prescribed that which was ahead,

But if theology be thus abandoned, or if rather (to ease the transition) it be made merely the symbolic expression of religious experience, what is to be put into its place?... Mysticism unquestionably is the natural result of the anti-intellectual tendency which now prevails; for mysticism is the consistent exaltation of experience at the expense of thought. (p.35)

A mark of today's evangelical church is the subjective, which has indeed become both the route to God and that which is deemed spiritually authentic. Speak of doctrine or objective biblical truth and eyes begin roll in boredom and pity. Share your experience of a God-moment and heaven has come to earth.