Whether consciously or unconsciously received, experience affects the way evangelicals interpret texts that deal with . . .

• God the Father
• God the Son
• God the Holy Spirit
• sign gifts
• demons
• divorce and remarriage
• assurance of salvation
• social injustice
• apocalyptic and prophetic texts

. . . to name just a few.

The experience of personal physical suffering and the physical suffering of loved ones can also reshape our perceptions of God. One’s theological views may change in the heat of crisis, or in the accumulation of experiences in the mundane procession of life. Both for good and for ill, experience colors our perspective and adds definition to our understanding of God and His written word.

Robert McAfee Brown has maintained that experience grounds and places an interpreter within a particular viewing location in life. Regarding one’s perspective of reality, he concludes that:

• What we see is not necessarily what is there.
• What we see depends on where we are standing.
• When others tell us what they see, we need to know where they are standing as well as where we are standing.
• No matter how much anybody sees, nobody sees it all.
• What we see is always subject to correction (Brown, Theology in A New Key, 60).

While Brown’s statements invite critique at several points, it can be agreed that perspective, the interpreter’s “viewing location,” is affected by prior life experiences. Acknowledging this does not mean buying into a whimsical interpretive relativism. However, it does lead us to the irrefutable fact that evangelicals “stand” at different places of surveillance in their reading of Scripture.

One author puts this way, “Theological work properly reflects a life-long involvement on the part of the theologian in the experience and language of the Christian community. A continuity of experience links the horizon of past Christian communities and the texts they produced to the interpreter in the present. As the theologian is molded by the Christian community and its uses of language, he or she is introduced into a chain of experience which extends back to the scriptural beginnings of the [Jesus] tradition” (Omnen, “Preunderstanding,” 248-49).

Experience, then, is not necessarily an adversary to sound doctrine. Rather, sound doctrine provides a framework that corrects, supports, gives meaning to the experiences of individual Christians. As McGrath keenly notes, “It is the sheer elusiveness of human experience, its obstinate refusal to be imprisoned within a verbal matrix, which underlies the need for … doctrine” (McGrath, Genesis of Doctrine, 66-72).

In this same connection, Frame’s reminder is helpful:

“… there is … experience by which we grow in Christian maturity—the experience of living the Christian life, meeting challenges, succeeding, failing, praying, finding answers to prayers, persevering when answers aren’t given, struggling against sin, and enduring hardship for Christ’s sake. In many situations we live out those experiences described in Scripture; we experience what the Lord Jesus and His great saints experienced. Experience in this sense is important in showing us the meaning of Scripture” (Frame, Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 334-35).

While acknowledging that experience serves a role in informing our theological theology, there is an ongoing need for prudent accountability in this matter. Experience must always play a subordinate role to Scripture. Scripture must inform one’s personal experiences. Experiences must be subject to the scrutiny of other mature believers (Gal. 2:2, 6, 10; 1 Thess. 5:19-22; Luke 10:16; John 13:20; 1 John 4:1, 6). Not to heed this will run the risk of all sorts of self-deception. As a general rule problems arise: (1) when those in leadership stifle believers’ experiences; and (2) when believers with experiences cast aside the spiritual discretion of those in leadership

Individual subjectivity will always require the discretion of collective objectivity, a mature, humble objectivity that is biblically-informed and animated by the Holy Spirit. Collective objectivity of the Christian community tests, in all ways possible, one’s subjective impressions, so that the community as a whole may arrive at a true and reliable interpretation of reality.

Let’s hear your comments on this proposal . . .

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Illustration by Johannah Bluedorn Stanford

In a blog post  titled “When Biography Shapes Theology,” Gregory Alan Thornbury notes how life experiences have a significant impact upon one’s theology.  He compares the lives of Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard.   Both endured tragic losses in their lives, but Nietzsche turned away from God and Kierkegaard turned closer to God.

Unless you grew up in a Charismatic or Pentecostal church, many of us within the evangelical tradition were cautioned to steer clear of “experiences.”  In reaction to the experiential excesses of neo-paganism, the 1960s drug culture, varieties of theological liberalism, and perhaps because of rigorously rational outlooks, some evangelicals have been quite suspicious of experience. Experience can lead to an unrestrained subjectivism and a self-focused relativism. To be sure, some boundaries are necessary whenever experience is appealed to as an informing source of theology.

Emotional extremes aside, experience remains an active force in shaping one’s theology. This is a truism that goes without saying, but evangelicals need to be reminded of this from time to time. By “experience” we are referring to those conscious perceptions of reality that we have accrued over time. As our lived experiences get deeply embedded in our thinking they serve as filters in our perceptions of God and the Bible.

Church history bears ample testimony to the role of experience in the lives of key leaders, particularly those held in high esteem by the evangelical community. As examples, we think of . . .

• The “voice” Augustine heard in Ambrose’s garden in Milan
• Luther’s pre-conversion pilgrimage to Rome and his consequent struggle over the meaning of Romans 1:17
• Jonathan Edwards’ acknowledgement of the role of the “affections” in conversion and spirituality in America’s first Great Awakening
• Wesley’s belief that tradition, reason, and experience serve a subordinate, yet supportive role in theology
• Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ appeal to pastoral experience in the writing of his book Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure

In each instance these leaders took their subjective apprehensions of reality and attempted to align them with Scripture. Other instances from well-known and lesser-known Christians could be mentioned. One in particular is worth noting. Wilbur Pickering,  a Wycliffe Bible translator, recalls his experience on the mission field in Brazil:

“I went to the Amazon jungle in 1963 in order to begin our ministry among the Apurina people (along the Purus River in the state of Amazonas, Brazil). So far as I know I was the first one to challenge Satan’s dominion over this people, a total domination over the centuries. My basic purpose in being there was to see if I could remove that people from Satan’s house and take them into Jesus’ house, if I could transfer them from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. But unfortunately, in spite of a Master of Theology degree and having read the Bible through several times, I was not aware of these truths. I got clobbered! I got it without mercy, until I had enough. Satan wiped the floor with me. He didn’t think my idea was the least bit funny, and I didn’t know how to defend myself–actually I didn’t really understand what was happening. . . . I was skeptical about the activity of demons. Oh yes, I knew that demons and Satan exist, because the Bible is clear and emphatic on that score, but I knew very little about how they operate and virtually nothing about the use of our weapons, whether for defense or offense. My theological background, both formal and informal, was strictly ‘traditional’–casting out demons and things of that sort was ‘pentecostal.’ My professors transmitted the idea that a servant of Christ was untouchable or exempt from demonic attack; that sort of thing wouldn’t be a problem for us” (Pickering, “Spiritual Warfare,” 3).

Faced with years of what he perceived and believed to be demonic phenomena, Pickering had to corroborate his experience with Scripture. Exorcism and other defensive measures against the spirit world became a significant part of his belief system. Pickering’s story is not unique among seasoned missionaries.

Interestingly, some evangelicals are skeptical of experiences such as Pickering’s, because they themselves, ironically enough, have not experienced such things! In the second part of this two-part post we will consider the character of biblically-consistent experiences.

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