This is copied from the January 1973 edition of the "Christian Courier" published by the East Main Street Church of Christ in Stockton, California. No author is listed but they credit this to "The Banner of Truth." The article is almost 40 years old yet its message is timeless.
Free and easy, experience-centered religion is clearly the vogue of the day. It makes little moral or spiritual demands upon the people, being conveniently adapted to their down-to-earth plane of living. It requires but a modicum of the authentic knowledge of God and of heavenly things, yet it effectively serves to pacify the inherent religious instinct of the masses. At the same time it provides abundant opportunity for social intercourse in an atmosphere of congeniality and good will. In a word, it is custom made for an age which wants a god of its own devising.
Apparently stemming from the current mania for self-expression and general opinion polls, the meetings of such groups are characterized by rehearsals of the experiences of the attendants. These experiences range all the way from an account of how God ministered to a stubbed toe to the weightier matters, such as His claimed intervention in a recent romantic difficulty. As is usual with such gatherings, little of the bona fide revelation of God is presented. Even less is heard of a determination on the part of the attendants to seek grace for the mortification of the flesh-the denial of ungodliness, worldly ways and lusts-and for constant watchfulness for the coming of Christ. This, despite the fact that the religious enthusiasts are encompassed by the evil world, in which the cup of iniquity is fast filling up, and in which world and its ways they themselves are all too much involved.
There is, of course, a place in true religion for the recounting of the genuine acts of God in the lives of His people and the offering to Him of heartfelt thanksgiving and praise for them. When, however, the assembly is built upon the testimonies and opinions of people who are without personal rooting and grounding in the holy Scriptures-which alone authentically reveal God-there is digression from spiritual propriety. To major on personal experiences and inferences from them in the worship of God is to fall into the danger of becoming idolaters. When the impressions of God come from within the individual, except the inward concepts be founded solidly upon biblical truth, we have good reason to suspect them. The jeopardy is that people will endeavor to put God into their experiences, rather than put themselves into God through Christ the Savior. Experience-centered religion thus poses the danger of self-worship, rather than devotion to the true God. It also tends to build and sustain faith on contemporary experience, rather than on God's word. Hence, when experience wanes or is not had, faith diminishes or fails.
The inherent defect of the experience emphasis in religion manifests itself in another, and even more incriminating way. This way is that of the almost invariable aversion to anything approaching a thorough devotion to and knowledge of the Scriptures. In our experience of more than two score years, we have had the occasion to observe many persons who were fully committed to the testimonial type of religion. They were always ready with some report-credible or otherwise-of what God was said to have done for them, or someone else. Almost without exception, though we have found that such persons were at best, only mildly interested in hearing from God's authentic word what He has done and what He has to say for Himself and His eternal purposes in Christ. The contemporary enthusiasts were too busy heralding their own versions of God to devote much time to those of His duly accredited spokesmen. It seems that, in the established tradition of Babylon, but little of the divine word was required to sustain them in their manner of life.
In condemnation of this attitude is the clear word of the Master: "He that is of God heareth God's words; ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God" (John 8:47; cf. verse 43; I John 4:6). It is fully possible that by the tradition of experience-centered religion we can make the divine word of "none effect" as did the Jews of the first century by their traditions (Matthew 15:6). Let us beware of that danger and zealously eschew it. We delight on occasion, in a hearty rehearsal of what is deemed to be God's interposition in contemporary life. As a steady diet, however, we would rather as Paul would say, hear five words of edification or comfort ministered from the written word, than ten thousand based on what the speaker thought was God's working in his life (I Corinthians 14:18-19). After all, it must be remembered that when even the risen Lord would proclaim Himself, He did so from the Scriptures (Luke 24:47,32,44-45) as did also the apostles after Him.
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