Tony, I think the call for more emotional evangelicalism is often based on a flawed understanding of how emotions, rational thinking and faith in the Lord are related.  The mistake comes when people seek to sheer emotions off rational thinking.

For example, if I confess what I believe based on the Bible’s teaching then I am using ‘head knowledge’.  But that is not enough; I should also express emotionally my love for God or how I feel about his love for me as a separate activity.  But is this right?  I don’t think so!

Surely emotional responses and facts go together.  I remember recently in church a man being overcome with emotion as prayed a congregational prayer of confession.  He did this as he confessed the fact of his sinfulness and the extraordinary mercy of God. The facts he was confessing led to his emotional response. I have known others (me included) to become emotional when teaching the truths of the Bible from time to time. 

The problem comes, though, when we are told we must express certain emotions to be authentic in our response to God, especially when I am encouraged to feel in a certain way uninformed by the wonderful truths of the Bible.  Emotion based on nothing, or a wrong understanding of God is hardly authentic!

Interesting post.

Personally, I don’t think evangelicals have a problem with *experiencing* emotions; we have a problem with expressing them openly.

Our meetings are relatively emotionless. Our conversations are guarded and often fail to express the depths of what we’re feeling.

I think this perpetuates via an expectation that we should seem to be stable, well-adjusted, “normal” Christian people. Too many times, this is just a pretense we make at the expense of sharing in each others lives as we should.

Of course I agree that the whole “victorious Christian life” emotional rubbish is exactly that. But I wonder if we’re a bunch of recluses too.

Thanks for this Tony, and brilliant timing - I’ve just written a blog entry on a very similar topic (influenced somewhat by Tim Keller: http://audienceofone.org.uk/2009/06/true-belief/) and your article has got me thinking again. I look forward to part two, as I think the distinction between emotions and affections is not one I’ve made for simplicity’s sake, but could well be crucial.

Thanks for the comments all.

Craig, what you’re asking for is very reasonable! It’s only what I think we would all want when we’re feeling low or spiritually dry; that is, to be encouraged and supported and gently restored by our brothers; to have the reality of our feelings acknowledged while being graciously pointed to the gospel as the remedy.

I wonder though whether a bit of closer definition would also help. That is, some of the feelings I have really don’t matter very much; they are product of my circumstances, disposition, body chemistry, particular stimuli, etc. They may not be indicative of my spiritual state at all. But other feelings may be linked to my affections, to what I love or loathe—but more that in part 2.

Michael, you’ve mentioned this idea before somewhere, and it’s intriguing—that we suspect our emotions, but fail to direct the same suspicion at our rationality. Very pomo of course, but not less insightful for being that. Or should I say no less Calvinist, because one of the differences between Catholic and Reformed anthropology is ‘total depravity’—that sin extends to all parts of our personality, including the mind.

I suppose the difficulty is that it is only by rationality (in the sense of thought and argument) that we would be able to express such an idea, assess it, and agree or disagree. And I assume that the MTC School of Theology about ‘feelings’ would also be an exercise in rational thought (in this sense), not a feel-fest.  So would it be true to say that ‘feelings’ are a different sort of thing than ‘thoughts’, and that therefore the categories of ‘truth’ and ‘suspicion’ don’t apply in the same way to each?  (Looking forward very much to 2011!)

Luke, seems like you’re making quite a similar point to Craig—not a wish for wild emotivism, but a degree of honesty or transparency in expressing what we’re feeling. I think the criteria here is love. We don’t have a license for dumping emotions on others just because we’re feeling them, especially if those emotional outbursts would be sinful, damaging or unhelpful for the other person! Our world highly values the Authentic Expression of Me as a good in itself; the Spirit-filled person values self-control for the sake of others as the good life. And there are plenty of occasions in which honestly sharing how we’re feeling is enormously helpful for other people (e.g. because they discover that they are not alone in their feelings).

But you’re dead right—when it becomes a veneer of niceness and stability as a way of protecting our reputation as ‘together’ people, we’re fooling ourselves as much as others.

TP

I think TP’s question: “So what is the call for a more emotional Evangelicalism really asking for?” is a good one. And it is important not respond too cynically.

I think part of the answer has to do with assurance - or at least, a subjective assurance to accompany the objective assurance I can point to in the cross. I remember a pastoral interaction with a young minister’s kid who said (with tears) ‘look, I know all the right answers, and I even believe them, but my heart is cold towards God’...

What should I have said?

Hi all,

I think that Michael’s point is very important. For arguing, preaching, communicating and talking to your neighbour across the back fence.

Here’s an excellent little article on the nature of argument as the Greeks taught it 2000(ish) years ago. Good argument involves 3 things: logos, ethos and pathos. I won’t give it all away, but you can read the article here.

http://www.figarospeech.com/teach-a-kid-to-argue/

@Michael: evidently I misunderstood you spectacularly! I apologise.

I’m glad this conversation is taking place - thanks for kicking it off (or at least kicking it along!) Tony.

I wonder if the discussion could be sharpened up by a bit more clarity on the various meanings that your word ‘expect’ (as in ‘you’d expect the godly Christian to feel a very wide range of things’) can have.

For example, there is the complicated mixture of emotions that the Bible in its sober realism teaches me to ‘expect’ that I will experience as a frail and sinful person in a stale and weary world.

And then there is the old-fashioned sense of ‘expect’ as something we do with the eyes of faith (as in ‘Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum’). 

The two senses are not unrelated, of course.  It is because God knows my vulnerability to a kind of chronic, low-level middle-aged grumpiness that he commands me (over and over again!) in his word to ‘rejoice in the Lord’.  And it is because God knows how easily I settle back into a complacent, self-satisfied smugness that he commands me to ‘weep with those who weep’ and so on.

We should not expect too much of the flesh.  But neither should we expect too little of the Spirit to give those things (including joy and zeal and so on) that he commands.  I suspect that quite often, in my emotional life, I am guilty of the latter problem.

Yes, I do think emotional expression can become a ‘work’: there are churches where certain emotions are manufactured and others where emotions are discouraged.  But there’s also a class issue for Skips: lower-class men are less emotional than middle-class men, while lower-class women are more emotional than middle-class women (I perceive).  Note that this will affect church life and our homogeneous units!