Reason or Experience

When we are dealing with spirituality and faith, we may struggle with the tension between an intellectual and experiential relationship with God.  On the one hand, we may emphasize reason and intellect to the exclusion of religious experience.  Doctrine, its pursuit and preservation, is all that really matters.  Because of the excesses in fundamentalist and non-denominational groups, we may become suspicious of the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit.  This results in a faith which is distant, lacking passion, and ineffective in our lives today.  On the other hand, we may withdraw from the contemplative dimension.  In this case, meditation and the “signs of the kingdom” (e.g. healing, miraculous gifts of the Spirit) are considered time bound to the New Testament era and maybe even to be feared.  In the process we lose the deep, mystical awareness of the presence of God in our lives.  Faith becomes a set of doctrines we give assent to and not a life transforming relationship.  In reality, we are called to give our whole selves – physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual – to the Lord and our relationship with Him.  It is by His promised Spirit that we live as the disciples of Jesus.