Dr Chuck Pearson

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August 28, 2005

The "personal relationship" motif in contemporary Christianity

As a general rule, when Mark Noll writes something, I read it. He's the guy who wrote the text The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, which was my primary motivation to engage in scholarship as a Christian and to commit to the academic life. His articles are generally insightful and show a heart that is dedicated to serving Christ in his thinking.

So, when the Christianity Today weblog pointed me towards an article of Noll's from the Wall Street Journal's op/ed page that questioned one of the dominant themes of American Christianity, asking if believers need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I was taken a bit aback, and I don't think I've recovered yet. Especially from this paragraph:

So it is, as well, in a modern America marked by the increasing demands of work, strain between the generations, political acrimony, international uncertainty and peripatetic lifestyles. Into such a culture a Christian message stressing the possibility of an enduring--and often less demanding--personal relationship with the loving Creator of the universe sounds very appealing. But does such an adaptation retain enough of historic Christianity's other dimension? Or does dinner with a perfect stranger fit a little too conveniently into our lives?

"Historic Christianity's other dimension" involves a God of extreme holiness, one that makes an impeccable demand of holiness and responsibility on our part. And I don't think that's an unfair level of expectation to place on us (so long as we remember the meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection, and we meet those expectations not out of adherence to a law, but out of gratitude for the sacrifice of the cross).

But de-emphasizing the personal relationship? I mean, on the one hand, I see the benefit. That's always been a part of my struggle to get my hands around Christianity - everybody else around me has always seemed closer to God than I am, and the more rational of an adult I have become, the less I've felt strong conviction about God speaking to me as much as I have spoken to God. I can't be the only person who feels this way. If there is a stronger sense in which I am supposed to "be still and know that he is God" instead of expecting to hear something back from Him, then that wouldn't just be easier to take, it might be easier for others of my ilk to take as well.

Still, that's been so ingrained in my path through evangelical Christendom - and in the lives of most of us in the American churches - that I don't know how you de-emphasize that, even if we're really supposed to. That's part of what appeals to us when we first hear about the faith. Yeah, it's easy to imagine a God that is in charge of the whole universe, has steered it towards His ends, has set Justice and Mercy themselves into motion. But what really breaks the brain is the idea that this very same God is interested in each one of us as individual people - and the reason for the sacrifice of the cross was that concern for us as individual people.

Noll's concern came out of a book that completely de-emphasized other aspects of the Christian life to focus on that personal relationship. I've not had occassion to read that book, so I can't speak to the issue directly - but is the existence of such a line of a thinking a good thing for Christianity overall?

Posted by Chuck at August 28, 2005 03:27 PM

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Comments

Posted by: celestia at August 28, 2005 05:35 PM

Posted by: Catie at August 29, 2005 11:28 PM