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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31872 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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It helps to be raised with religion for religiosity, in the same way it helps being raised speaking Chinese to master Chinese. But I think what you’re describing is adults having religious experiences. The absolute felt certainty of God is something like a blessing, not a pre-requirement of a religion. You mention the revivals of the previous eras. Consider John Wesley, one of the most important 18th century Christians, who founded Methodism:

In one of my last [letters] I was saying that I do not feel the wrath of God abiding on me; nor can I believe it does. And yet (this is the mystery), I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed, in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore I am only an honest heathen…..And yet, to be so employed of God! And so hedged in that I can neither get forward nor backward! Surely there was never such an instance before, from the beginning of the world! If I ever have had that faith, it would not be so strange. But I never had any other evidence of the eternal or invisible world than I have now; and that is none at all, unless such as faintly shines from reason’s glimmering ray. I have no direct witness (I do not say, that I am a child of God, but) of anything invisible or eternal […] I want all the world to come to what I do not know”

I've been a believing Christian all my life, but it was only in the last year that I realized I loved God. It just came out one day while I was praying, "I love you God" and I was stunned that it was actually true. I had faith all my life that God loved me, but I didn't love Him. I just respected Him, and feared Him, and wanted to please Him. Not at all the same things. So your Wesley quote resonated with me greatly.

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