I have observed that the desire for experience manifests itself in many different ways. In some circles, there is a lot of hooting and hollering (in the vernacular, hootin’ and hollerin’), shouts of ‘Amen!’, emotion laden sermons that tell sob-stories to invoke an emotional response, and so on.
There is another kind of push for emotionalism that finds expression in terms like these, “intensely”, “intentional”, “relentless”, “passionate”, “saturated.”
What drives this desire for experience? I am not advocating that we become as expressionless as Heimie the robot on the old Get Smart series (my all-time favorite which seriously dates me…), but why do we see such a desire for emotion in religion? Has it always been this way?
If we look back in history, we see the rise of charismatism since the 1970s, the Pentecostal movement in the 60 years preceding that, the camp-meeting/revivalist emphasis (especially rural) in the 19th century, and the Pietist movement before that. I wonder if what we are seeing today is an increase in the desire for experience or if it is the norm. I wonder if it is the product of popular culture: music, movies, television, video games, etc. or if it is simply the natural expression of most humans (stick-in-the-muds like me as exceptions).
I wonder if it is good or bad. I kinda think bad, but, then, maybe that’s just me.
Comments