1) I think the church group that I was referring to doesn't talk so much about "faith" as about correct knowledge. Sometime I should ask, "Are you saved by your knowledge or by God's actions?"
2) I'm intrigued by your use of the words 'personal experience' and 'personally experienced.' Are these quotes? I am wondering about this concept because I've heard different slants put on the reliability of personal experience. For example, if my faith rests too much on personal experience, then when I am in the valley, I can conclude that I have no faith. As a Lutheran I've been taught to remember my baptism, to realize that my faith and salvation don't rest in my feelings.
OTOH, those branches of American Christianity that put a strong emphasis on experiential faith, would see Lutherans as having a "head" religion rather than a "heart" religion [American, not Hebrew interpretation of the word 'heart.'] And perhaps, that is a weakness in the Lutheran expression of faith, ie because we aren't "experiencing" it as strongly, we don't act and react as strongly, at least traditionally.
I am a dyed-in-the-wool Lutheran, but I never learned about faith and expressing it and feeling it and experiencing it until I participated in Bible Study groups with people of other branches of Christianity. Or is it possible that this stuff was always there in the Lutheran church but just not talked about? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? If a traditonal Lutheran has faith experiences and feelings and has nobody to express them to, do they really exist?
So I've been wondering if and how this relates to "Lutheran Spirituality" which is the topic of WTM Carnival I: Lutheran Spirituality.
2) I'm intrigued by your use of the words 'personal experience' and 'personally experienced.' Are these quotes? I am wondering about this concept because I've heard different slants put on the reliability of personal experience. For example, if my faith rests too much on personal experience, then when I am in the valley, I can conclude that I have no faith. As a Lutheran I've been taught to remember my baptism, to realize that my faith and salvation don't rest in my feelings.
OTOH, those branches of American Christianity that put a strong emphasis on experiential faith, would see Lutherans as having a "head" religion rather than a "heart" religion [American, not Hebrew interpretation of the word 'heart.'] And perhaps, that is a weakness in the Lutheran expression of faith, ie because we aren't "experiencing" it as strongly, we don't act and react as strongly, at least traditionally.
I am a dyed-in-the-wool Lutheran, but I never learned about faith and expressing it and feeling it and experiencing it until I participated in Bible Study groups with people of other branches of Christianity. Or is it possible that this stuff was always there in the Lutheran church but just not talked about? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? If a traditonal Lutheran has faith experiences and feelings and has nobody to express them to, do they really exist?
So I've been wondering if and how this relates to "Lutheran Spirituality" which is the topic of WTM Carnival I: Lutheran Spirituality.
1. "Are you saved by your knowledge or by God's actions?"
ReplyDeleteLutherans say God's action! Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone!
you know this :)
2.I'm intrigued by your use of the words 'personal experience' and 'personally experienced.' Are these quotes? I am wondering about this concept because I've heard different slants put on the reliability of personal experience
This was a quote about Kierkegard and existentialism. Yes personal experience can be decieving but we should not rule it out. Luther had a personal experience when he read "the just shall live by faith" through the Word. We personally experience grace by the Word and Sacraments. God creates faith by these means alone but yes to depend on anything else is wrong.
s a Lutheran I've been taught to remember my baptism, to realize that my faith and salvation don't rest in my feelings.
Yes baptism is God's action and promise and that is where our faith must rest in Christ's promise alone.
If a traditonal Lutheran has faith experiences and feelings and has nobody to express them to, do they really exist?
yes they exist for you and others who have experienced grace but to others it may appear absurd or illogical.
Luther's Theology of the Cross is a prime example of this paradox.
If God did not come to us in some sort of personal experience, would there be any Christians (or Jews for that matter)? From Adam and Eve, down to the present day, has not God visited his people and spoken to them? Are all experiences and feelings equally valid? I would say, no. Are feelings the first place find God? I would say, no. Biblical love and biblical faith are not founded on feelings or experience but they can certainly involve feelings and occur through experiences. I don't think I am expressing myself too well here but lunch break is over so I will have to think about how to say it later. (see also comments below under your denominations post)
ReplyDeleteI've had the rather interesting experience of being both a "cradle" Lutheran who may have had fleeting experiential moments in her religious formation but never depended on them as a means of authenticating her Christianity, and then -- after a Christianity lapse in my 30's -- did have quite a profound religious experience. And I have to say now...the quality of my faith before, as a young person, wasn't qualitatively inferior to the quality of my faith now. I'm still the same person, still on the same bottom line as the rest of us; freed, forgiven, saved by grace, called into new life. If anything, I think the experiential times have been God's concession to me as being a "hard case" who needed special help.;-) I was talking to some born-again person who really wanted me to disavow my early Christian life as being somehow not as authentic as my Christian life now, and I wouldn't do it.
ReplyDeleteLutheranchik: I would agree with your last comment in that I also would not disavow my early Christian life as being less authentic in terms of God's love for me and his grace and mercy towards me. I was and am still a sinner (though in different areas perhaps)but his love and faithfulness toward me is unchanged. I would however view my attitude toward God and my desire to please and serve him is far different than before. I am much more aware of his love and faithfulness than before. I can also "hear" him much better than before. I am much more interested in what he has to say. I am more interested in being obedient to him than before. I am more willing to love him with greater abandon and to love my neighbor with his love than before as well.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the born again (which according to Jesus we must all be in order to be Christians) person you talked to was only seeing the "authentic" Christian life from the viewpoint of what man does for God and not from the viewpoint of what God has done for man. What do you think?
I found this on another blog and it makes sense to me.
ReplyDeletefrom http://www.myfourwalls.net/?p=640
i can’t remember who developed these stages of faith, but perhaps they are helpful. there is 1)inherited faith, the faith we get from our parents, our culture and environment, 2)questioning faith, a faith that challenges itself and 3)owned faith a faith that has doubted and questioned its origin and now developed into its own thing differentiated form the inherited faith.
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One of our former pastors always impressed me with his deep faith. It was deep enough that he wasn't bothered by questioning. And it was "wide" in the sense that he has lived as a missionary on another continent and traveled all over the world, so that his world view was wide, and his view of the scriptures was way beyond an narrow view through an American window.
I always had the sense that he had lived through a lot of questioning and unfortunate experiences and come out the other side with a stronger faith.