In the following 21 minute video, Diana Butler Bass was interviewed about her new book (2012), Christianity After Religion. She described a cultural movement in America that has yielded a new experience-based faith. This new faith is replacing the old biblical-based faith that relied on doctrine.
Bass stated that religion usually undergoes change with cultural and political movements, and looked back to the 17th century enlightenment movement to support her rationale.
She described these new changes in “faith” to be a focus on having an experience; noting that in the 1960s, only 22% of believers had known a mystical experience in worship; but in 2009, 50% reported having had mystical experiences.
She supposed that the chief cause in the increase of this new experienced-based faith was that people have shifted from relying on doctrine in their worship of God, to relying on experience as a truer way to worship Him. (This new focus could also be called “feeling-based,” as a huge part of mystical experience is the feelings that accompany it.)
She stated that this new reliance upon experience in the worship of God can be seen in Christian Liberalism (her own belief system); and Pentecostalism.
To support her book thesis, she stated that the new reliance on experience in the above two religions is occurring in conjunction with a similar kind of social and political movement.
(It seemed as though she was referencing “progressivism.” Thus, to go with progressive beliefs in politics and the American culture, religion must also morph to keep pace.)
I have to say that the emergent church, for example, which is liberal in that it does not rely on biblical doctrine but makes its own way to God, exemplifies this new experience-based faith. It has incorporated eastern religion and meditation to aid in the experience of God.
Rob Bell openly calls his followers to eastern methods (see, categories, Yoga / Meditation, for a post on the false gospels of Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, et. al).
Pentecostals also seek a spiritual experience that is based in eastern religions, particularly Hinduism — yogic meditation; although they seem to do so unknowingly (See, categories; Yoga / Meditation post of 2018, each video address this matter.)
(The religious movement within Catholicism that seeks to model the desert fathers, is doing the same as the emergent church; the desert fathers used eastern ways to worship God.)
What did Diana Butler Bass not articulate as she described her book and this new experience-based faith?
She did not say that it is founded in a return to the mysticism of ancient paganism (Dr. Peter Jones’ book, The Other Worldview, identifies her as a proponent of this revival of paganism).
She did not say that this experience-based faith is based on the mystical experiences of Hindu meditation, yoga meditation.
You might ask, what is wrong with that?
Yoga meditation is inseparably linked to Hinduism which is pantheistic, that is, it believes that each person has a spark of divinity inside himself that must be realized so that a person might merge with God (see definitions below video: pantheism and panentheism).
Christianity’s God is outside of His creation. One cannot simultaneously believe in both of these two, mutually exclusive, ways of worship.
What is called for herein?
That you examine the basis of your own faith.
God’s word calls for believers to walk in the old paths wherein the basis of their faith is His word; that is, biblical doctrine. The following verses emphatically indicate such:
2Pe 1:17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,”
2Pe 1:18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.
2Pe 1:19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,
2Pe 1:20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.
2Pe 1:21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
(Doesn’t 2 Peter 1:19 indicate that God’s word trumps all experience, even Peter’s experience of Christ’s transfiguration and His Father’s words spoken from the cloud?)
Keep Peter’s words in mind as you listen to the following video about the new experience-based faith.
From Wikipedia:
- In panentheism, God is viewed as the soul of the universe, the universal spirit present everywhere, which at the same time “transcends” all things created.
- While pantheism asserts that “all is God”, panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe. Some versions of panentheism suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifestation of God. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God,[2] like in the Kabbalah concept of tzimtzum. Also much Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism.[3][4] The basic tradition however, on which Krause’s concept was built, seems to have been Neoplatonic philosophy and its successors in Western philosophy and Orthodox theology.
Summary:
Experience-based and feeling-based religions are man-made religions.
God did not exhort believers to seek experiences and / or feelings; He exhorted them to renew their minds via abiding in His means of grace (the only channels through which His grace is dispensed to believers).
Correct worshipful emotions derive from understanding of truth, doctrine; not, vice-versa.
If one seeks something else in his worship of God, then he has added to God’s word, or subtracted from it. He has changed God’s emphasis in His counsel.
The biblical gospel has been under attack by Hell since Genesis; during the past 200 years, several new gospels have been introduced by Satan via members of the church; for more information on those perversions (which are believed by most to be the true gospel) see, Categories: Gospel Message posts; particularly, posts on the modern gospel.
STUDY RECOMMENDATIONS:
***The scripture text above, from 2 Peter, also emphasizes that scripture has one meaning, a believer cannot have an opinion about what a Bible text means, he must dig for God’s intended meaning. This is a very common problem amid the biblically illiterate “evangelical” movement of our time. People do not take time to study the Bible, refer to commentaries…but apply their own reason to the text. That kind of Bible study leads to serious error.
***For posts on worship, doctrine…,see, Categories: Discernment; and Doctrine.
***Dr. Peter Jones book: The Other Worldview: exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat
***The series on Paganism in this blog: it uses videos to show many of the topics that Dr. Jones writes about in his book. These things are happening all around us in this present culture; they are not easy to connect without some help, such as is found in Dr. Jones’ book.