Having just been to a Christian Mystical School I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the place of pleasure in Christianity and life in general. When I first started following Christ I heard about the pleasures of loving God and how the joy of the Christian life was superior to all the world had to offer. I was sharing that with a friend who replied that he had heard that as well, but the trouble was he had never known anyone who that was true for. I had to agree.
The trouble is how does one mesh what the Bible says about the pleasures of Christianity with the mundane lives and church services that are the typical experience. How does Christian life compare to the pleasures of sex, alcohol, and drugs? Of course, there is the cop out that if you do those things long enough it will mess up your life and that is probably true, but I still think that’s a cop out. The question for me is at any given moment what is the most pleasurable experience I can have? The reason this is important is that most of us naturally rebel against the mundane. If life is boring than we want to add some spice to it, particularly if you are a teenager. So how does a teenage boy consistently resist looking at a one in a million girl naked online or having sex or drinking? The answer is a superior pleasure, but where is that to be found.
Now we come back to the title of this post, I think I have the answer – ecstatic Christianity. By ecstatic I mean Christianity that is marked by intense encounters with the Holy Spirit that often lead to physical manifestations, trances, and the like. When the Holy Spirit comes on you in a tangible way you may feel intense joy, pleasure, weeping, or any number of emotions. The one emotion you will not feel is boredom. When you experience the Holy Spirit you feel not only pleasure but there is the added dimension of the eternal that adds a whole nother layer.
What I am not talking about here is an intellectual excitement in Christian doctrine. I’ve heard many people take these pleasure verses this way. I can only speak for myself, but I’ve never had an intellectual thought so euphoric that it can be compared to a heroin trip or even sex and I don’t think we should limit Christianity to the intellect.
If you are a Christian thinking all this stuff is weird than I would remind you that Christianity is weird from a human standpoint. Christians believe that God lives inside us. That’s pretty out there if you stop and think about it. We believe that Jonah lived inside a fish for a while, Elijah called fire down from heaven on people, God picked Ezekiel up by the hair and took him places. Freaky stuff. You wouldn’t put naked Isaiah in charge of your children’s Sunday school ministry. Why not just accept that Christianity can be a little freaky sometimes and have fun with it? Plus it turns out that when the Holy Spirit comes on you you become a better person and more fruitful.
4 Comments
“Christians believe that God lives inside us. That’s pretty out there if you stop and think about it.”
Um – not really. Once you accept the idea that there’s any kind of deity, the view that he exists in us (either in us alone or in everything, including us) is actually the reasonable, normal viewpoint. The idea of a distinct, separate, personal God, that actually ‘exists’ in space in some way, but is distinct from all of the objects in the material world, is the weird one. And that’s the view Christians actually hold. Your ‘weird’ view is a mystical or pantheistic view that Christianity actually doesn’t go in for, strictly speaking (it’s why Tolstoy’s interpretation of Jesus’ teachings is heretical).
That’s interesting. I’ve never heard anyone say that before. What I was basing “God living inside us” are passages like Romans 8:9 “…you are in the Spirit since the Spirit of God dwells in us.” Or you could look at v 11 or where Paul talks about Christian’s bodies being a temple of the Holy Spirit. Christians believe that the Holy Spirit is God so that’s why Christians say that God live in us.
Pantheism believes that everything is God. I don’t know how you got that view from what I wrote. That is the opposite of believing a personal God lives inside Christians since pantheists don’t believe in a personal God.
‘So how does a teenage boy consistently resist looking at a one in a million girl naked online or having sex or drinking? The answer is a superior pleasure, but where is that to be found.’
Um, No. Finding ‘superior pleasure’ is not resisting sin at all. How does one resist? By denying oneself, exerting self-control over the sinful nature by the power of the Holy Spirit, and leaving sin behind. This is the only orthodox Christian response to sin.
Ecstatic Christianity is heresy, plain and simple. The quest for superior pleasure is the spiral of depravity, not ‘ecstasy’ (although depravity might seem like ‘ecstasy’ to depraved people).
I’ve seen ecstatic ‘Christianity’ and there’s nothing particularly different about it from secular rave parties; the only difference being that the ‘high’ is achieved not through drugs or sex but through direct mystical, demonic experience, like a voodoo ceremony dressed up in Christian clothing.
‘Jesus came to make you feel good’ is the slogan of the ecstatics; only Jesus didn’t say any such thing at all (and don’t quote John 10:10 at me, you can’t create a whole new theology based on the misinterpretation of one verse; neither can you use a metaphorical interpretation of Song of Songs, that is false too). Jesus preached self-denial, self-sacrifice and humble, honest living before God. Some have used this to advocate ascetism, which also leads to mystic experience, only Jesus didn’t preach that either.
I could go on, but I doubt you will listen.
Since when did Christianity become something to ‘entertain’ us? Or has MTV destroyed any sense of reason? Jesus saved us from destruction, not boredom! Good grief, if this is what the faith has become, then count me out.In this life, following Jesus is about embracing suffering, not having mystical, spiritual orgies.
You are making a lot of assumptions that I didn’t actually say. You don’t know me from Adam so saying things like “I doubt you will listen” isn’t terribly Christian of you and also is not a good way to make yourself heard.
The idea of the superior pleasures of Christianity comes from Jonathan Edwards, CS Lewis and John Piper. If you want to call them heretics that is between you and God. What I’m suggesting is that the joy of Christianity that they and the Bible talks about should be real. Of course, there is still self denial, taking up you cross, and persecution, but there needs to be joy even in those things. Hebrews says that Jesus was anointed with joy more than his companions. I’m suggesting the joy spoken of here and other places (superior pleasures) comes from the Holy Spirit and the Biblical phenomenon that sometimes accompany it. I certainly do not embrace things like “spiritual orgies” nor did I imply that I did anymore than saying I’m Protestant mean that I embrace some of the out there things that some Protestants think.