Experiencing God

It's pretty clear, I think, that Christian faith needs to be tied to experience if it's going to have any staying power in people's lives. The main way that ordinary people counteract the contemporary scientist argument that it's irrational to believe in God because there is no evidence for God's existence is by saying, "Oh yes there is. My experience is all the evidence I really need." And while scientific elitists like Dawkins and Dennett "believe" they have rendered such convictions superfluous, untold millions would beg to differ.

So it was interesting the response I got when I asked my 200 survey respondents about experiencing God.

This was one of the few questions in my survey where there were significant gender differences. While 42% of women "definitely" or "probably" have had a God-experience, the same is true for only 30% of men; while 29% of men said "definitely not" and only 15% of women. Hmmm.

"Would you say that you have had a personal spiritual experience that you would call 'an experience of God'?"

I was surprised that only 15% said, "Yes, definitely." A further 24% said, "Yes, I think so." So that's about four in ten who are pretty sure God has paid a personal visit.

31% said "I've had experiences but not sure if they were experiences of God." 19% said no way: "I've never had an experience of God." And 10% sat on the fence and said, "Not sure."

I'd want to probe this a little more to find out what's going through people's heads when they hear the term "experience of God." Are they thinking of lights and voices and angels? Or are their experiences of God incorporated into their daily lives? Either way, though, I have to say I thought that more people would claim to have experienced God. To me, it says something about the state of mainline spirituality -- or lack thereof.

Now, here's something for those of us who are deeply involved in the church to chew on. The next question was:

How closely would you say these experiences are connected to the church?

A measly 2% said "Very closely. Church is where I experience God the most." A further 35% said "Closely. I experience God both inside and outside the church." But that's still less than 40% who see a close link between God experiences and church.

39% said, "Not very closely. If I experience God, it's more likely outside the church." Ouch. Only 1% said, "Not at all. The church actually interferes with my spirituality." And 19% say they've never had such an experience.

One of Reg Bibby's arguments is that affiliates say they want a fairly clearly defined range of things from the church. They want help with family, they want support for their relationships, and they want the church to guide them in their spirituality. My affiliates are saying that if there's a connection between their experiences of God and the church, it's a pretty tenuous one.

In part, that's because what people mean by "spirituality" or "experience of God" could be light years away from what the church, even in its most liberal forms, would want to endorse. But still, we've clearly got our work cut out for us -- both in terms of guiding people to seek the God who is seeking them, and in helping them make sense out of such encounters.