We respectable evangelicals aren't comfortable with pentecostals and their "goosebumps Christianity". Sometimes is seems like they get so caught up in their transcendental experience of the Holy Spirit that they forget to be normal, decent human beings. They can seem strung-out on the Spirit, unstable, disorganized, unorthodox.
As my generation of evangelicals lashes back against the eastern mysticism of our post-modern peers, we try to take God out of the realms of mystery, and seat Him firmly in our midst. Reacting against dualism, we attempt to incorporate God into the mundane, the secular. Our prayer life loses all formality, our churches becomes spiritualized coffee shops (rather than grand cathedrals), and Eugene Peterson writes... The Message.
God's incarnation in our lives is our favorite new doctrine. And to a degree, this is GOOD! Loose the shackles of legalism and religiocracy! Find a God who is REAL, who is RELEVANT, who dwells among us. In college, I loved to meditate on the earthiness of God. I wrote a song that said:
All the liturgies in flight could not lose altitude
to find where You hang out: among the dirt, the grass, the roots.
Yet I was missing something. God is also bigger than me, higher than me, and still chalk-full of mystery. And these days, when I experience God, I think it's funny that I get goose bumps every time. He is the needy, crying, pooping baby in the manger. But He is also the burning bush, the one enthroned above the wheel full of eyes, the just, the merciful, the profound. Our experience of Him must profoundly encompass both images.
Isaiah 58:15 says, "I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly place of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." Yes, God is both lofty and low, ethereal and earthy, mystery and manifestation. So I propose that if you never get goosebumps as a Christian, something may be amiss. Let's work for a fuller picture. Let's be equally dedicated to both extremes.
You are absolutely right. I got goosebumps reading this.
ReplyDeleteI also get goosebumps thinking about how he existed before the beginning, the creation of the cosmos, and the veins in leaves. God's care is just astounding, isn't it?