Americans are expressing renewed interest in spiritual things. As Modernism has proved cold and unsatisfying, the present generation has begun looking for spiritual sustenance or emotional meaning elsewhere, though not necessarily through the channels of previous generations.
In a 1996 broadcast, Peter Jennings of America's ABC News articulated some ways Americans are conducting their spiritual search. His special report began by saying, "While 88 percent of Americans count them selves as Christian, membership in mainline or traditional Protestant churches has been declining since the 1960s. The Catholic Church is also struggling. And yet, here we are in the mid 1990s with Americans hungering for spiritual meaning. . . ."1
Americans are looking for something beyond mere formalism. They are seeking a religious experience that they can actually feel. They are longing for an encounter with God that is personally and emotionally satisfying. Now more than ever, American Jews, Protestants, Catholics, and non-Christians are shifting away from formalism to what I would term "public and private mysticism."
What does this mean for the church? What challenges does this new, more mystical approach to spirituality present? How can we ourselves avoid falling into the pitfalls inherent in this kind of worldview?
Experiencing the spiritual
Consistent with this burgeoning mysticism is the growing curiosity of Americans and others in Zen Buddhism a religion that has become popular with some among the American entertainment elite. At the same time, popular entertainers such as Tina Turner and Herbie Hancock chant Buddhist mantras. Terms such as Nirvana and koan are in common usage in Western cultures that were formerly foreign to such language, if seldom understood. "Then there are celebrities whose exact commitment to the faith is a guessing game. Oliver Stone publicly conscripts Tibetan 'wrathful deities' to fend off his detractors; Courtney Love is said to be a practitioner, while Harrison Ford simply supports Tibetan freedom (his former wife, Melissa Mathison, wrote Kundun's script). And in one of the more peculiar occurrences along the Hollywood-Lhasa axis, action-film star and all-around surly guy Steven Seagal was recognized by the head of the venerable Nyingma Tibetan lineage as the reincarnation of a fifteenth century lama."2
What draws people to Zen Buddhism is that its "meditation strikes some as a daily, direct experience of the sacred absent from Sundays-only religion."3 In other words, the "magnet" of Zen is its sense of "immediacy," or supposed personal contact with God. For this reason, New Age phenomena are also thriving. They emphasize immersion in experience and suspension of reason, such as seen in "channeling."
"What I offer people," said channeler Thomas Jacobson, "is the chance to temporarily suspend the debate over whether channeling is real and just immerse themselves in the experience"4 (emphasis supplied). Among Jews there's a growing interest in a popular form of the Kabbalah, a "received" mysticism based on the Zohar, the thirteenth-century mystical book set down in ancient Aramaic by the Spanish-Jewish writer Moses de Leon. "Kabbalism . . . prescribes prayers, meditative practices and, depending on whom you ask, magical practices and numerology."5
All these forms of mysticism have one thing in common: they emphasize experience and the bypassing of reason. In fact, this is Webster's very definition of mysticism: "The doctrine or belief that direct spiritual apprehension of truth or union with God may be obtained through contemplation or insight in ways inaccessible to the senses or reason."6
The Christian connection
Some Christian writers echo this broader definition of mysticism and suggest that such a direct and mystical connection with God might be a good thing. "There is no need to blanch at the word mysticism. It's a perfectly sound word that merely describes a way of knowing beyond your physical senses; thus it accurately describes the life of anyone who believes in God and a world of the unseen. It is not a belief system or a set of doctrines. When we talk or think about love, prayer, meditation, revelation, inspiration, perception, intuition, or imagination, we are working in the realm of the mystical."7
Many Christians are, indeed, looking for meaning in mystical experiences. They don't want to just know God, they want to experience Him. One of the new forms of Evangelical Christianity that Jennings highlighted was the Vineyard Fellowship, started by John Wimber, former musical arranger for the 1960s singing group The Righteous Brothers. Wimber started the fellowship, Jennings reported, because he hungered for the supernatural in Christianity.8 "I love Jesus. I love the stuff He did. I love the multiplying of the food and the healing of the sick, giving sight to the blind, spit ting in people's eyes. I love that stuff!"9 At the Vineyard, the publicly mystical is not only tolerated but encouraged. "There is no doubt that emotional therapy is central to the ministry."10
Another phenomenon among Christians that could fall into the category of the mystical because it claims to be a direct connection with God is the experience of ecstatic utterance, or "speaking in tongues."
The Pentecostal movement, with its phenomenal outburst of tongues, has swept over the Christian world.11 Called the "third force" in Christendom,12 it constitutes "a revolution comparable in importance" with the Protestant Reformation and the launching of the Apostolic church.13 Never has a movement taken over the churches to such a degree.14 But are there aspects to this mystical experience that are related to the practice of sacrificing objective reality for subjective experience?
The ready reception that modern tongues has received could well arise from the now common desire for "immediacy" with God. It too tends to bypass the intellect to gain a direct experience, an encounter with some thing mystical.
Concerns about seeking after the mystical
Those looking for such a mystical/emotional experience tend to accept a wide range of supernatural experiences as being of God (unless, of course, those experiences are clearly demonic). People in Christian meetings bark like dogs, or laugh until they fall on the ground.
After his prison term, Jim Bakker came to stark realizations about the type of religion he had been promoting. "One of the things I need to warn ... people [about is] that, if we fall in love with miracles if we fall in love with signs and wonders we are being prepared for the antichrist instead of Jesus Christ."
He then connected his statement with the prediction of false prophets working deceptive signs and wonders (Mark 13:22) and the prediction of the spirits of devils working miracles to deceive the whole world (Rev. 16:14). Bakker concluded by saying that instead of teaching people to seek after the miraculous, "We must lead people to love Jesus Christ."15
Jim Bakker is right. God would not have given us the scriptural warning if it were not possible for "even the elect" to be deceived (Mark 13:22). We must teach Christians to rely on Jesus Christ and His Word, not mere ly on their own experience.
Is this emphasis the fulfillment of God's promise?
However intriguing these new forms of religion may seem, the hon est seeker after truth must ask the question, "Should the Christian see mysticism as God's open door into a deeper experience with Him?" And with the concerns about eschatological deception, "Does modern mysticism answer to the unique experience that God's Word foretells as coming to His people just before He comes?"
The prophet Joel does describe a refreshing of the Spirit that will come before the end of all things: "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit" (Joel 2:28, 29, emphasis supplied).
God clearly wants a deeper experience for those who love Him, and dry formality without the power of the Spirit is useless, and worse. "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves. . . having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away" (2 Tim. 3:1, 2, 5, emphasis supplied).
The opposite of this "form of godliness" is exposed by Ellen White when she describes the revival of primitive godliness that is to be seen before the return of our Lord: "Notwithstanding the widespread declension of faith and piety, there are true followers of Christ in these churches. Before the final visitation of God's judgments upon the earth there will be among the people of the Lord such a revival of primitive godliness as has not been witnessed since apostolic times. The Spirit and power of God will be poured out upon His children"16 (emphasis supplied).
Will this revival sweep Adventist believers in line with other Christian faiths? "Many, both of ministers and people, will gladly accept those great truths which God has caused to be proclaimed at this time to prepare a people for the Lord's second coming. The enemy of souls desires to hinder this work; and before the time for such a movement shall come, he will endeavor to prevent it by introducing a counterfeit. In those churches which he can bring under his deceptive power he will make it appear that God's special blessing is poured out; there will be manifest what is thought to be great religious interest. Multitudes will exult that God is working marvelously for them, when the work is that of another spirit. Under a religious guise, Satan will seek to extend his influence over the Christian world"17 (emphasis supplied).
God is anticipating a people who have an intimate relationship with Him, but we are not to seek to know Him merely through our own subjective feelings. There is jeopardy in pursuing a relationship with God that depends primarily on experience without the objective guidelines and safeguards of Scripture applied in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Does the bypassing of reason for immediacy with God have a more sinister side to it? "Popular revivals are too often carried by appeals to the imagination, by exciting the emotions, by gratifying the love for what is new and startling. Converts thus gained have little desire to listen to Bible truth, little interest in the testimony of prophets and apostles. Unless a religious service has some thing of a sensational character, it has no attractions for them. A message which appeals to unimpassioned reason awakens no response. The plain warnings of God's word, relating directly to their eternal interests, are unheeded."18
Two practical safeguards
What about a Christian's own private devotional world? How is he or she to pursue an intimate relation ship with God without being confused by this hyper-experiential subterfuge?
It is important first to anchor all meditation in the revealed Word of God. The Bible says, "O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day" (Ps. 119:97, emphasis supplied). Here is a primary purpose for the Word of God. God knows that our human tendency is to gravitate toward things that will destroy us. He wants us to hide His Word in our hearts (Ps. 119:11) as the foundation of all Christian meditation.
What place does the imagination play, if any, in Christian meditation? Sanctified imagination is ours to apply in ah unambiguous way, one described in profoundly practical terms: "It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones. As we thus dwell upon His great sacrifice for us, our confidence in Him will be more constant, our love will be quickened, and we shall be more deeply imbued with His spirit. If we would be saved at last, we must learn the lesson of penitence and humiliation at the foot of the cross."19
We need to hold our experience accountable to the Bible: "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5).20
Shall we search for truth or shall we look for experience? If experience is what we are looking for, it is experience we will have, though it may not be the kind that is built on truth. In seeking truth we will find truth and the authentic experience that goes with thoroughly encountering it.
1 Peter Jenmngs on "Peter Jennings Reporting: In the Name of God," (aired March 16, 1996, on ABC}.
2 David Van Biema, reported by Jeanne McDoweli/Los Angeles and Richard N. Ostlmg/New York, "Religron: Buddhism In America' An Ancient Religion Grows Ever Stronger Roots in a New World, Wrth the Help of the Movies, Pop Culture, and the Politics of Repressed Tibet," TIME (October 13, 1997), 72.
3 Ibid
4 "Vorces From Beyond: The Channelers," People, January 26, 1987, 30.
5 Mary A. Jacobs, "Beyond Torah- Once Taboo, Kabbalah is Gaming in Popularity," The Dallas Morning News (September 13, 1997), 1G.
6 The New l-exicon Webster's Dictionary of the English Language (New York: Lexicon Publication, Inc., 1988), 660.
7 Bill Loveless, "God Does Talk Back," Adventist Review (special issue on the devotional life, 1998), 31.
8 Jennings, "Peter Jennings Reporting: In the Name of God."
9 John Wimber in interview with Peter Jennings, ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 "One of the distinctive charismatic characteristics is glossalalia the gift of speaking in tongues Certainly it is the single most controversial aspect in the Pentecostal sweep of the Christian community." Speaking in Tongues, Let's Talk About It, ed. Watson E. Mills (Waco, Texas: Word, 1973), 13. cf. Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism, ed. Russell P. Spittler (Grand Rapids, Mich.. Baker, 1976), 205, where Clark H. Pinnock says, "For I recognize it as a sweep. I recognize it as an upsurge of the Spirit."
12 Perhaps called "third force" first by Henry P. Van Dusen, president of Princeton Theological Seminary in his article "Third Force in Christendom," Life, June 9, 1958, 113-124. Van Dusen's "third force includes, in addition to the various types of Pentecostals: the Churches of Christ, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Nazarenes, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian and Missionary Alliance." See Frederick D. Bruner, A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmaris, 1970), 29, footnote 25. But subsequently the literature seems to narrow the term to Pentecostalism. Thus "Pentecostalism has now become a move ment of world-wide importance, reckoned as 'a third force in Christendom' (alongside Catholicism and Protestantism) by not a tew leading churchmen." James D. G. Dunn, "Baptism in the Holy Spirit, A Re-examination of the New Testament Teaching on the Gift of the Spirit in Relation to Pentecostalism Today," Studies in Biblical Theology, Second Series, number 15 (SCM, 1970), 2. cf. Cyril G. Williams, Tongues of the Spirit, A Study of Pentecostal Glossolalia and Related Phenomena (Cardiff:University of Wales, 1981), 46, cf. Gordon F. After, The Third force (Ontario, Canada: The College press, npd).
13 Henry P. Van Dusen, quoted in Watson E. Mills, Speaking in Tongues: A Guide to Research in Glossolalia (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), 340.
14 Norman Gulley, "The Charismatic Movement," syllabus Christ Is Coming Soon (Coliegedale, Tenn.: photocopy), 109, 110.
15 Jim Bakker in interview with Kenneth Strand, editor of Charisma magazine (aired September 23, 1998, on Christian television).
16 Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Hagerstown, Md.-Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1911), 464.
17 Ibid.
18 Ellen G. White, Revival and Beyond (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1972), 9.
19 Ellen G White, The Desire of Ages (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1940), 83
20 "Imaginations" can be reasonings.
