Essentializing Experience

New words and phrases are always helpful. Most of us grapple with communicating thought and wish we had better way of saying things. Finding new words or phrases is like finding a precious gem, or perhaps, less dramatic, a morsel of savory meat at the bottom of a bowl of soup.

While attending a missiological consultation a few weeks back, a woman asked the speaker at the conclusion of his presentation how the subject matter related to women (it didn’t make any difference what the subject was, the same woman asked the same question to everyone who spoke). In the course of his response he acknowledged that, being a man, he certainly couldn’t address the subject as it relates to her experience.

“However,” he continued, “I reject the idea that my thoughts are not valid just because I view this situation differently. Essentializing experiences is, on the whole, not helpful.”

Essentializing experience. Great phrase. Don’t know if it’s a word (as my spellchecker can’t find it), but a great thought nevertheless. What does it mean?

When a person makes his or her experience THE experience for everyone to emulate they are essentializing. Essentializing experience is the kissing-cousin of reductionism, i.e. everything can be reduced to a biological, psychological, gender-specific or theological explanation. All religions practice both essentialism and reductionism. I can either prove it through the holy writings or I believe it because I have had an experience.

As a follower of Jesus Christ I can give both a theological as well as an experiential argument for my faith. And, while my experience is important and helpful in dialogue, essentializing my faith neither proves anything nor should be the basis for argument. I may argue that I experienced peace and forgiveness the day I accepted Christ as my Savior and became a decided follower of Him, but my experience does not mean that others must have the same feeling for their faith to be legitimate.

It’s the essentializing of experience that has caused much grief in the church. I’m quite content, though often skeptical, to know that others have experienced healing, talked with Jesus face-to-face, spoke in an unknown tongue or sense a warm feeling of His presence when they pray. However, when others insist that everyone must have that same feeling to be truly born-again, filled with the Spirit or be sanctified, the experience becomes a barrier and a point of contention for those who have not been so blessed with that same experience. Must one shed tears of remorse to be a true repentant? Must one take baptism immediately after embracing Christ to show they are true believer? Personal experience should not be taught as a universal principle.

Is experience therefore unimportant? Of course it’s important, to the believer, and can be used in the course of discussion, but its apologetic value is limited. The Apostle Paul talked about his experience on the road to Damascus (the Lord appearing and speaking to him – Acts 9:1-9), but Paul does not teach that a person must hear from heaven to be a follower and does not suggest that every missionary call must include a blinding light. When Paul recounted his Damascus road experience, non-believers merely dismissed him as being mad.

Space doesn’t allow for the discussion that experience itself is, not only a bad position for argument, it can also be dangerous. False doctrine is born more often through a combination of poor hermeneutics coupled with essentializing experience.

Essentializing experience. Great phrase. Embrace your experience, make sure that it has proper biblical support, but don’t make it an essential doctrine for others.