STEVE: What makes one a Christian is having a vital
*personal* relationship with the living Christ (see
tagline).


ED: Many evangelical Christians boast that they have a
“personal relationship” with Jesus. What makes it so
“personal?” Well, they say, we have the words
attributed to Jesus in the four Gospels. But there are
so few of them, a couple thousand. You could fit all
of Jesus’s words into a small 16-page booklet. And
they are subject to interpretation.

Well, they say, there are “answered prayers.” But
again, that is a matter of interpretation, because no
matter what happens, an evangelical Christian
interprets it as “Jesus’s will,” even when bad things
happen to good people and good things happen to bad
people.

Whenever I have a “personal relationship” with someone
it does not consist of a few thousand words spoken two
thousand years ago, recorded accurately (or
inaccurately) by someone else, and which require
interpretation from third parties for me to “truly”
understand them (especially when the third parties
disagree concerning the meaning and intent of those
words).

Neither should a “personal relationship” depend on me
having to interpret the results of every prayer
uttered. And the range of interpretations covers every
conceivable outcome: “strongly positively answered,”
“weakly positively answered,” “strongly negatively
answered,” “weakly negatively answered,” or even, “try
again later when you have more faith.”

Best, Ed

My sig line for this topic...
The Personal Savior.
"I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." If
you are an Evangelical Christian you can remember
saying these words probably more times than you can
count. If on the other hand you are not "Born Again,"
you may have heard this phrase from an Evangelical
inviting you to establish such a relationship with
Christ. You may have had to ask just what the
Evangelical Christian meant -- how is it possible to
have a "personal relationship" with an individual of
the past? Even if Jesus actually rose from the dead
and is alive today, how can one "relate" to him as to
another flesh-and-blood person? I first heard this
question broached in a fascinating work by Richard
Coleman (Issues of Theological Warfare: Evangelicals
and Liberals). Even as a convinced Evangelical of
several years' standing, I could not help but admit
this was a good question. Yet I have seldom either
heard or read a discussion of it. In this chapter I
want to explore what Evangelicals seem to mean, and to
think they mean, when they claim to have a "personal
relationship with Jesus Christ." Hopefully such an
analysis can serve to clarify the use of Evangelical
religious language on a major subject.

When asked what his "personal relationship"
terminology refers to, an Evangelical will often press
for an almost literal application. If Jesus is alive
today, why should one not be able to know him
personally? Much Evangelical rhetoric suggests literal
interaction between individuals. A beloved hymn
describes how "he walks with me, and he talks with me,
and he tells me I am his own," etc. A common
evangelistic slogan defines Christianity as "not a
religion; it's a relationship." A couple of problems
immediately become apparent, at least to an outsider.

Everyday relationships between individuals depend upon
conversational interaction available by sense
impression. Conversations may be carried on at long
distances and with time intervals (say, by letter or
telephone), but there must be such interaction. Is
Jesus available in this way? Obviously not. When a
Born Again Christian claims that "I speak to him in
prayer; he speaks to me through the words of the
Bible," this is really metaphorical and does not
satisfy the requirement.

A second difficulty is the individualized, concrete
picture of Jesus implied in such a claim to have a
personal relationship with him. If the risen Jesus is
still another individual analogous to ourselves (and
this is dubious on the basis of New Testament texts
such as 1 Corinthians 15:45), we find ourselves asking
absurd questions like, has Jesus gotten older and
wiser in the two thousand years since the Incarnation.
Or, how does he listen to all those prayers at the
same time?

Richard Coleman at least sees the first problem here.
A personal relationship with Jesus is different
insofar as we will never have the opportunity to know
him in his earthly existence. The relationship must
therefore be formed on what we can learn about Jesus
secondhand rather than by a firsthand experience; but
this is no different from forming a personal
relationship with somebody by correspondence. [1]
Though Coleman does sense the difficulty, his solution
is wholly inadequate. As we have suggested,
correspondence is in fact firsthand experience of
another in that he is communicating specifically and
intentionally with you. Coleman's suggestion would
also imply the possibility of "personal relationships"
with Julius Caesar by reading the Gallic Wars, or with
Abraham Lincoln by reading Sandburg's biography of
him. My point is not that Coleman has not said
anything significant. It is merely to point out that
he has failed to justify the use of "personal
relationship" language for the kind of religious
experience he means to describe, i.e., an "encounter"
with the Jesus of the gospels.

Let me dwell a moment upon the real religious value in
Coleman's argument. His idea is very similar to that
of nineteenth century theologian Wilhelm Herrmann, one
of Karl Barth's mentors. Herrmann contended that
Christians experience that power and love of God only
in the New Testament's portrayal of the "inner life"
of Jesus. As we are transfixed by the pictures of the
personality there revealed, we are flooded by the
grace of God. According to Herrmann, "the communion of
the Christian with God" is mediated by our loving
apprehension of the portrait of Jesus in the gospels.
However, Herrmann vigorously denies that this devotion
is tantamount to a "personal relationship with...
Christ" [2] which pietists claimed to have. This
latter, he says, is an illusion. The apprehension of a
portrait of someone's "inner life" is not a
relationship with that person himself. Coleman's
argument really amounts to Herrmann's view that the
New Testament picture of Jesus is essential to
Christian devotion. This would certainly be a valid
point worth making, but since there is no
"interpersonal give-and-take, "personal relationship"
language is not appropriate, as Coleman tries to
argue.

What else might an Evangelical refer to as a "personal
relationship with Christ?" A second option might be
that he knows Christ as a spiritual being with whom he
is in psychic communication. Several UFO cultists and
New Age channelers have claimed that Jesus literally
communicates with them via internally "heard" voices.
But Born Again Christians do not seem to want to make
Jesus into a disembodied "spirit guide" or "space
brother". An analogous phenomenon that is accepted
among them concerns occasional visions of Jesus. These
are granted to certain individuals, usually
Pentecostals. In these appearances, Jesus actually
speaks to the individual, giving a particular
direction or word of comfort. Again, we may gladly
recognize the spiritual value of such occurrences, but
this kind of thing is not likely to be what
Evangelicals refer to with their "personal
relationship" language. They themselves recognize such
expereiences to be rather extraordinary, different
from that "relationship" enjoyed daily by all
believers.

Perhaps the Evangelical means that he experiences the
reassuring presence of a divine providence in his
life. This is obviously true; there is no question but
that Evangelicals expereience this. But again we have
to ask if "personal relationship" terminology is
appropriate for this. One may pray to such a divine
presence, and one may even interpret general feelings
of comfort and reassurance as a response to one's
prayers. But is this really the kind of give-and-take
interaction between individuals implied in a "personal
relationship"? Along the same lines, it must be asked
why such a spiritual presence is to be characerized as
"Jesus Christ"? Do not all religious people of
whatever persuasion claim to experience such a divine
presence guiding and comforting them? Obviously in
principle there cannot be much continuity between the
historical figure we know as "Jesus Christ" on the one
hand, and such a rather amorphous benevolent
"presence" on the other. One may reply, "Yes, but it
is through faith in Jesus Christ that I experience
this 'benevolent presence.'" Once again we have an
altogether valid, and valuable, point here. But it
could more accurately be communicated with a phrase
like "I know God through Jesus Christ." This phrase,
unlike the phrase, "I have a personal relationship
with Christ," has a solid exegetical foundation in the
New Testament. And like the latter, the former is
already a venerable part of Evangelical vocabulary.

A final inadequate meaning of the Evangelical claim we
are discussing amounts to what I call the "figment of
faith." I do not think I am in error when I suggest
that many Born Again Christians, in effect, mentally
imagine a picture of Jesus listening to them. They
pray to this imagined figure and even think themselves
to receive some kind of answer or guidance from it.
This phenomenon is perhaps most analogous to that of a
child's "imaginary playmate" with whom he pretends to
frolic when there are no flesh-and-blood playmates
about. [3] I suggest this based upon my own
observation during twelve years in the Evangelical
movement, but I also find other writers referring to
it. Herrmann comments:

It is of course not difficult for an imaginative
person so to conjure up the Person opf Christ before
himself that the picture shall take a kind of sensuous
distinctness.... Someone thinks he sees Jesus Himself,
and consequently begins to commune with Him. But what
such a person communes with in this fashion is not
Christ Himself, but a picture that the man's own
imagination has put together. [4]

C. S. Lewis describes a similar state of affairs in
The Screwtape Letters. "Screwtape" describes a
Christian at prayer:

If you examine the object to which he is attending,
you will find that it is a composite object containing
many... ingredients. There will be [e.g.] images
derived from pictures of [Christ] as He appeared
during... the Incarnation.... I have known cases where
what the [person] called his "God" was actually
located... inside his own head.... [Such a Christian
will be] praying to it-- to the thing that he has
made, not to the Person who has made him. [5]
I do not want to deny the religious value of even such
a devotional "figment of faith" if one is able to
avoid making an idol of it as Herrmann and Lewis warn
against. A la Paul Tillich, such an imaginary figure
might truly function as a transparent "symbol" through
which the worshipper encounters the Holy itself. But
once such a figment is recognized for what it is, a
better alternative might be sought.

Do I have any such alternatives to offer? Let me
suggest two. The first is suggested by the insightful
analysis of theologian Don Cupitt. [6] The reader has
probably heard the familiar distinction made by
Evangelicals between "knowing" and (merely) "knowing
about." The idea is that the impersonal, abstract, and
secondhand knowledge about someone is vastly inferior
to personal knowledge of that individual. This is no
doubt true in the realm of knowable individuals like
ourselves. But we have just seen how difficult it is
to place a "relationship" with Christ in this realm.
Cupitt suggests that a slightly different distinction
be drawn. There is a personal kind of "knowing about"
that is superior to an impersonal kind of "knowing
about." For instance, one may know about love
theoretically, say from movies or psychology books,
but it is quite a different thing to know about love
from being in love yourself. Note however that even in
the latter case one is not "acquainted" with "love" as
if it were a "Thou" in its own right. One "knows love"
in that he knows about it from experience.

In the same way one could meaningfully claim that he
"knows Jesus Christ" without claiming personal
acquaintance with him. One could "know" him in that
one truly discerns and grows in the presence of his
Spirit as encountered in his Word or his Body, the
Church. The difference is obvious between this, and a
trivial "knowing about" Christ in that one merely
knows, e.g., that he lived two thousand years ago.

Though Cupitt's redefinition salvages the term
"knowing Christ," it does not deal directly with our
phrase "having a personal relationship with Christ."
Here our second alternative can help. I want to call
attention to what I believe was the original
connotation of this phrase. Keep in mind the
revivalistic context of its origin. Revivalists felt
that the churches were full of "nominal Christians" to
whom commitment to Christ was a rather abstract
proposition. It was a mere religious inheritence from
one's culture. "Faith" in Christ was impersonal and
cold. In this context, revivalists pressed home
questions like "You may intellectually believe Christ
is the Savior, but do you take him as your personal
Savior?" Was one's relationship to Christ merely one
of social convention, or was it a personal
relationship? In short, the issue was not whether you
related to Christ as an individual person, but whether
you took your commitment to Christ as a matter of
personal (i.e., existential) concern. The "personal"
is focused on my side of the relationship, not
Christ's.

I am not ignoring the fact that this element is still
very much present in Evangelical rhetoric. In fact, I
am happy to be able to recognize this. I merely
suggest that greater clarity would result if "personal
relationship" language could be restricted to meaning
"personal commitment." The phrase itself need not be
discarded, as long as in using it Evangelicals are
careful to avoid the conceptually confusing dead ends
reviewed earlier. The cause of evangelism could not
but be helped.

Before concluding this chapter I would like to examine
a little more closely what is supposed to be going on
in a pietist or devotional "relationship with Christ."
Just how is a relationship with Christ a life-changing
thing? I am going to take a brief dip into into the
area of Evangelical spirituality, specifically, the
"deeper life." Incidentally, in view of my earlier
observations, I think it will be interesting to note
just how little the following devotional dynamics seem
to depend on one's being able to relate to Jesus
Christ as an individual person. Though, e.g., Miles J.
Stanford calls it an "intimate fellowship"[7] I
suggest that the devotional process about to be
described is pretty much a solo performance even as
described in its own terms.

According to many devotional writers and speakers
(e.g., Andrew Murry, Abide in Christ), the secret of
the "victorious Christian life" is "abiding in Christ"
(cf. John, chapter 15). The idea is that no one can
live the Christian life except Christ himself. But
since Christ is supposed to dwell in Christians, the
believer can "let go, and let God." i.e., let him
produce spirituality through the believer. As Watchman
Nee says, God "has given only one gift to meet all our
needs: his Son Christ Jesus. As I look to him to live
out his life in me, he will be humble and patient and
loving and everything else I need-- in my stead."[8]
Stanford says it in a slightly different way, giving
us an important clue about the how of it: "It is now a
matter of walking by faith and receiving,
appropriating, from the everlasting source within."
[9] "Appropriating" says it all. The idea is that in
his crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus Christ has won
a "once-for-all" victory over sin. By personally
"appropriating" that redemption, a person becomes a
regenerate, justified child of God. As such he has
access to "the unsearchable riches of Christ," a sort
of ethical and spiritual treasure-trove, imagined in
almost pictorial terms as being stored in "the
heavenlies." This last is an archetypal realm where in
Platonic fashion the ideal spiritual realities,
including Christ himself, dwell. This picture
accurately reflects the double-tiered apocalyptic
worldview of the New Testament, as described by New
Testament scholar Johannes Weiss:

...there existed a twofold world, and thus also a
twofold occurence of events. The world of history is
only the lower floor of the world's structure. The
world of angels and spirits is erected above that....
Moreover, what happens on earth has its exact parallel
in heaven. All history is only the consequence,
effect, or parallel copy of heavenly events.... But
while those realities have transpired in the realm
between heaven and earth, they must now be fought out
on earth. [10] Thus, upstairs "in the heavenlies" God
already sees Christians as perfect; on the earthly,
lower plane, believers must "catch up" by
appropriating these "riches of Christ," a divine
potentiality for spiritual growth. This is the
distinction between "positional" and "experiential
truth" mentioned briefly in Chapter 3. It is this
heavenly "positional truth" which is "appropriated" as
you become experientially what you already are "in
Christ". Here, too, I suggest that this picture is
pretty accurate to the Pauline strand of New Testament
thought. Bultmann agrees that according to Paul, "The
way the believer becomes what he already is
consists... in the constant appropriation of grace by
faith."[11]

In his "quiet time" of devotional Bible reading,
meditation, and prayer, the Evangelical thinks deeply
about all this. He may concentrate steadily on a
particular virtue, say patience, and reflect on how
"in Christ" it is his for the asking. He may "strive
for the victory" or "rest in the victory," depending
on the preferred idiom. And after a while, presumably,
his life begins to manifest more patience.
Psychologically speaking, how should we understand the
process?

We find a surprising parallel to this kind of
"devotional victory" in a shamanistic litany analyzed
by anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss in his essay
"The Effectiveness of Symbols."[12] The incantation is
used to facilitate troublesome births. Without ever
touching or medicating the afflcited woman, the shaman
summons all sorts of potent spirit-entities to battle
the woman's illness (also personified as a spirit).
The woman hears what is in effect a blow-by-blow
account of the mythological contest. At the end of the
ritual, the shaman announces the the afflicting spirit
has been vanquished. The woman, relieved at last,
gives birth! How did it work? Levi-Strauss suggests
that while the woman's worldview and culture allow her
no understanding of the actual medical-psychosomatic
causes of her illness, the mythical beings of the
incantation give her, as it were, a handle on her
condition. Once she is given a personalized,
objectified schema to interpret the otherwise
mystifying condition, she is psychologically able to
deal with it effectively.

I think that functionally speaking, pretty much the
same process is at work in the struggles of the
Evangelical pietist. From experience he knows only
defeat in his attempts to be more virtuous (in our
example, to be patient). How can he hope to control
his unpredictable emotions? "For that which I do, I
understand not" (Romans 7:15). The belief in Christ as
a champion over sins, presiding over a supramundane
"treasury of merit" provides an interpretive schema
with which finally to "get the victory." The pietist
envisions Christ on the cross defeating the sin, e.g.,
of impatience. By "appropriating" this victory for
himself, the pietist at last has a handle on his
condition. "He's shared with me / His victory / He won
in days of old" (Keith Green). The cosmic drama
enacted thus in his imagination functions pretty much
the same way as the shaman's litany of spirit-warfare.
Eventually, patiences evidences itself.

All this begins to answer the question of how
Evangelicals can say things like "I experience the
power of Christ's cross." Short of experiencing the
stigmata, what can this mean? Wouldn't the Evangelical
pietist in our example only be able to say that he has
experienced patience? But his devotional meditation on
the riches of Christ has led him so closely to
associate "patience" with "the cross," that
experiencing the first seems to him tantamount to
having experienced the second. While he yearned
repeatedly for patience he was vividly picturing the
crucified Christ and his "spiritual riches." As the
first "sank in," so did the second. Watchman Nee
illustrates this process when he discusses "the facts
of the Cross." He says that "Faith can 'substantiate'
them and make them real in our experience."[13] In the
same way, of course, experience is taken to be proof
of various religious belief-systems in the context of
which it occurs.

I suppose that the above analysis does not really
reflect on the ultimate truth of the positional
truth-appropriation schema, except that the analysis
indicates that it is all explainable without recourse
to divine intervention. That is, I think that most
Evangelicals believe that "sanctification" results
from the supernatural infusion of the Holy Spirit,
whereas I have suggested that the process is quite
explainable in natural terms. But perhaps it would not
be a bad thing merely to posit that God uses
"secondary causes" in the sanctification process. We
find a similar situation in Bill Gothard's teaching
about scriptural meditation. Citing Joshua 1:8 ("This
book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but
thou shalt meditate therein day and night... for...
then thou shalt have good success."), Gothard promotes
meditation on the Bible practically as a good luck
charm. God wants people to meditate on his word and
rewards them if they do. This seems to be the only
connection between the action and the result. But
later in the seminar Gothard seems to feel uneasy with
this and supplies quite a different link, an intrinsic
one, between the two: the reason meditation brings
success is that biblical principles contain
down-to-earth common sense about how to succeed in
life, and the more one familiarizes himself with these
principles the more astute and successful he will
become. Suddenly there is no need for special divine
intervention in human fortunes. Yet Gothard and his
fans seem satisfied with this. And perhaps they should
be! I only use this example to illustrate how
"spiritual growth in Christ" need not presuppose a
framework of supernatural power as pietist rhetoric
often suggests.

Now that I have reached the end of this section on
Born Again Christian experience, let me suggest how it
might prepare the reader for what is to follow. Back
in the introductory section, "Testimony Time," I
proposed that Evangelical apologetics and theology
(the subjects of the next two sections) seemed to
function as bodyguards for pietism. If my analyses
have been at all cogent, the reader may not be sure
that the much-vaunted Evangelical pietism can really
bear the weight of the claims made for it. Can this
really be the only answer for modern man's existential
dilemmas? Is it so compellingly superior to other ways
of understanding and coping with life? I think these
questions might make the reader willing to take a
second look at the apologetics and theology predicated
on this piety.

Now, I am quite aware that the truth question is not
so easily answered. Even if the experiential results
were not satisfying, Evangelical doctrine might still
be true. (In fact something like this is surely
envisioned in exhortations to bear one's cross for
Christ.) However, I suspect that in fact many
Evangelicals do not separate the truth question from
the pragmatic one. Though theoretically they might
hold their doctrinal views on their own merits, my
guess is that they were first pietists, and only
became interested in apologetics and theology as means
of propagating and defending that pietism. The egg
came before the chicken. And if the preceding chapters
have made such a reader a bit less unwilling or afraid
to rethink his religious experience, may I invite him
to feel free to rethink his apologetics and theology
as well. [from Beyond Born Again, by Robert M. Price]

__________________________________________________
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