The Experience of Christ

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Igzy

The reason we need to emphasize experience is because we tend to settle for theory. We settle for God at a distance. Whether we use the term encounter, contact, actuality, reality, intimacy, God moment, experience or something else, the point is worth making. I don't see the value in downplaying it in a general fashion.

You are fighting a point that I did not make. I did not say there is no experience. But everything you have listed is something different from the others. Knowing may imply experience. But it may also imply knowing.

And two of your lines were related to "God," not specifically Christ. I don't want to get into a "Jesus is God but God is not necessarily Jesus" debate here, but we are referring to a generic statement that is/was too often used as an overlay, even a mask, on top of experiences.

It is all experience. But the truth of the experience is discrete, not generic or stew.

Complain about why you think I am bringing this up. If you don't want to discuss it, don't. My "experience" in the LCM was that "experience of Christ" was mostly "spiritual" stuff. It was stuff that happened in the meetings. It was stuff that happened in morning watch. And it was my experience because it was what almost everyone talked about when they used the word experience. But even then, so often it was phrased in such a way that the "what" of the experience was fairly hidden. It was too often something with an ethereal kind of implication. Something that they couldn't describe in real terms, therefore something out of reach.

I believe it was the morphing the potential for real experiences into something relatively undefined that allowed us to reject so many actual experiences as being "of Christ." It allowed some to scoff at going to old-folks homes as low, or not even on the chart. It allowed a leading brother to brag about turning away a homeless person from the church property because helping the needy was not the purpose of the church.

And experience is either something real and tangible, or it is not really experience.

You list several things and say that they imply experience. And some of them clearly do. And the others could. But they don't say it. We do. And we don't say "experience X" we say "experience Christ." It is something we learned in the LCM. It is part of our (past) culture. Why are we still anxious to use terms to elevate beyond what something actually is with describable importance and effect into something that we think is important and sounds high and lofty, and in the process lose what we actually gained.

We gain whatever we gain through the things we experience and learn. And our experiences are not all in church or our quiet time. In fact, probably the most important ones are during the day when we are not even engaged in any kind of "spiritual" activity. What I mean is that one of the most prominent signs of a Christian should be a changed life. The lame walk, the blind see, the angry become calm, the speeders slow down, and so on. If we are unable to arrive at any of these things without pointing to some recent "fill up" of the tank, then maybe our lives really haven't changed.

I know this is a tightrope to walk. We require the setting of the mind on the Spirit to walk according to the Spirit and fulfill the righteousness of the law. Yet if we are not out there walking, there is nothing happening. There is no actual change in life.

And maybe the real proof that we are actually operating "in Christ" is when we arrive at the destination and we really aren't angry at all those jerks on the road. And aren't having to repent for the past 10, 15, 20 or so minutes of driving. When our lives are actually changed rather than when we have to have something constantly reminding us to fight against our nature to live in the old way. Some might argue that it is then being done without Christ. I disagree. The only way that could be done is with Christ.

"For me to live is Christ," while not fully explained, could mean that the way I now live is Christ. It is as he would live. I do what he would do. My life has changed. How would you determine if this is true? Not by figuring out what kind of quiet time Paul had. Or whether he "prophesied" forcefully in the meeting. But by observing his life. Not by declaring that he had a lot of "experiences of Christ." If that is all he had was declarations that he had experienced Christ, then where is the example? How were we to follow the one who said to follow him as an example just as he was following?

Originally Posted by Igzy

Why you feel the need to make a big deal out of this word doesn't add up to me. The only thing I can figure is you don't like "experience" because the LCM used it. But that's not a good enough reason to mount opposition to something.

Pretty presumptuous. I am not taking on this subject because the LCM used it. I am taking it on because my experience (yes, experience) is that the term in question was a mask. It made real Christian experience into a foggy thing that seemed sometimes unachievable. And yes, in the LCM it was also the means for expunging a lot of the real experiences that we should be able to declare are "of Christ."

And I also believe that the substitution of unspecific but high-sounding terms is an excellent way to lead people where they might not otherwise want to go. Not just for the LCM, but for others. Turning this vague thing into something solid will help more people. And I cannot see how it will hurt anyone. Are you for that? Or are you happy to live in a world of vague terminology rather than true experience?

Originally Posted by Igzy

I used to read conservative magazines . . . He sounded like a jerk.

Both of these guys got so caught up in their brilliant ideas that they failed (1) to apply common sense and (2) to look around and see if anyone else was reacting positively to them in any way, shape or form.

I will readily agree with you about a lot of the guys writing and broadcasting the conservative stuff. They mostly sound like jerks. There are occasions of brilliance, but it is not often.

But as poorly as they do it, and whether you like their ideas or not, their goal is not to have everyone stand and cheer. It is to suggest something that they think is being missed. I don't want to be among them in the way that they are.

But there is something about suggesting that someone is just an @$$ and should shut up because you don't care about what they say. That is really not much better than many of those conservative writers and broadcasters who would love to never hear the voice of (fill in the name of your favorite liberal voice) again.

But just because you, one of the more brilliant on this forum, are not responding positively is not evidence that I should just let it go. Virtually all of us, including the brilliant among us, have groused about what has been said in some thread on some issue and then later could be heard drumming the same thing. Why? Because people who were unpopular simply shut up and went away? No. Because despite our initial disagreement, we took the time to actually look into what they were saying. Maybe not in a concerted manner. But over time we saw something we had not seen before. And it changed our thinking. And without a change in thinking, we are not going to change in any other way.

I want more than your knee-jerk reaction to the idea. That is how we got here in the first place. If you don't want to actually engage in the discussion, then don't.

[Cal]

I understand your point, OBW. And I appreciate your patience with me. I just disagree with your conclusion, that's all. I think it's the wrong reaction.

That is, I disagree that it is talking about experiencing Christ (rather than talking about experiencing righteousness, grace, faithfulness, or whatever) that leads to the trouble. What led to the trouble in the LCM was saying we should experience Christ in oneness, devotion to the Lord's Recovery, faithfulness to the ministry, building the church (actually questionable things), while concertedly de-emphasizing other things that we should have experienced Christ in (e.g. freedom to follow our consciences, liberty, etc.)

The problem in the LCM wasn't in focusing on experiencing Christ. It was in the warped results we were taught that experiencing Christ would produce. Many LCMers (Jane, Ohio and many others) experience of Christ led them to have a problem in their consciences about how things were going there, and they were slapped down for it. So it wasn't the experience of Christ that hurt them.

If you generally experience Christ, yet leave the door open for him to lead you in any specific way he wants to (from the Word and other Christians), I think it is hard to go wrong. There is nothing wrong with saying I want to experience Jesus, because you never know quite what you are going to get at any moment. You have to be on your toes. You might be trying to experience the Lord as being quite grave and the Lord might be saying he wants you to be a little lighthearted. As long as it doesn't violate the Word, who are we to argue?

It's my belief that we would have had few problems if we would have done the same things we did (meeting and practicing more or less the same) while leaving the door wide open for the Lord to lead us directly from the Word, rather than from Witness Lee. Because the Lord would have been able to correct us.

There was a reason the Lord so filled the LCM in the early days. It was because he was prepared to use us and bless us. We started out on a pretty good track. We had a (nominal anyway) belief in ultimate authority of the Word and respect for the leading that could come from any member of the Body. But Witness Lee and his cronies hijacked all of that and short-circuited it.

So I just disagree with you that talking generally about experiencing Christ is not good. You put forth a theory that it is, but you haven't really proved the connection between generalizing experience and error. I guess if you stop reading the Word and receiving fellowship and just focus on "experience" there could be issues. But as long as you have them both to balance your experience I think you'll be okay. What happened in the LCM is we actually left the Word and fellowship. We flocked to Witness Lee and his advice and turned our back on 99% of the fellowship of the Body of Christ. No wonder our "experience" got warped.

I think most people can generalize talking about experiencing Christ without falling off the deep end. There is always going to be exceptions to the rule. But as I said, the exception proves the rule.

That's just my opinion.