Types of Religious Experience and their criticisms

Starter:Debate:

‘Conversion experiences are just another form of teenage rebellion.’

Conversion experience• A change from nothingness or from one religion to another.

• May suddenly change, or go through many stages

• Emergence into a new life, with new beliefs

• Experiences that have nothing leading up to them.

• Voluntary change

• EG. Saul on the road to Damascus, when he was going to persecute Christians and he had a revelation, *God spoke to him and said: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”. And from them on, he became Paul; a Christian.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN4tqrCgWwc

What are the criticisms for conversion experiences?

St Paul may have had epilepsy

• We all experience transformations in terms of our life priorities but the changes are usually gradual. ‘Crisis’ type events can cause rapid transformation.

• Edwin Starbuck (1866-1947) studied conversion and found parallels between them and the normal process of finding our identities in adolescence as most experiences occur between the ages of 15 and 24. He noted that non-religious adolescents also go through similar anxieties and depression before finding ‘happy relief’ and a sense of identity.

• Psychologists John Lofland and Rodney Stark conducted a study of conversion in 1965 and noted the pattern which can be seen in all kinds of conversions. There is an element of ‘passivity’ to conversion experiences as believers often speak of something or someone acting upon them.

• To simply reduce the experience to a psychological phenomena fails to fully address the question of the cause of the experience.

William James on conversionsJames believed the truth could be found in the results and because conversion often results in dramatic changes in character and lifestyle, this counts as empirical evidence in favour of spiritual claims - remember that he puts a great deal of emphasis on the end result of the experienceHe argued that sudden conversion is very real to the recipient which God has causedHe contended that those having a sudden conversion felt it to be a miracle rather than a natural processEven when James saw conversion as being a natural process, he maintained that it was inspired by the Divine

Are conversions another form of delusion?

Enter Richard Dawkins:

– Note down what he says with regards to blind faith

– Think of how a Theist might respond to what he is saying

– Don’t watch the whole clip. Stop at around 4.23 (After he mentions blind faith)

Corporate religious experience

Pie Jesu• Pie Jesu, Requiem

• Pie Jesu forms part of the sung Mass at a funeral in a Catholic church. Mass is the service where the death of Christ is remembered through the taking of bread and wine.

Pie Jesu, (×4)Qui tollis peccata mundi,Dona eis requiem. (×2)

Holy Jesus,Who takes away the sins of the world,Give them rest.

Agnus Dei, (×4)Qui tollis peccata mundi,Dona eis requiem, (×2)Sempiternam (×2)Requiem.

Lamb of God,Who takes away the sins of the world,Give them rest,EverlastingRest.

‘Jesus, Remember Me’ - Taizé

• Taize community

• The Taizé community was established by Catholic monks, but now welcomes thousands of people every year from across the Christian church. It is based in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy, France.

Describe ‘Jesus, Remember Me’

• Simple

• Reverent

• Repetitive

• Biblical

• Meditative

• What might a believer gain from singing this piece of music with others?

• What qualities of God are emphasised?

Hillsong – ‘Mighty to save’

• Hillsong Church, Sydney, Australia

• Hillsong is a Pentecostal megachurch originating in Sydney, Australia. The church believes that in order to live a fruitful Christian life a person should seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit enables the use of spiritual gifts, which include speaking in tongues.

Describe Hillsong, ‘Mighty to save’

• Contemporary

• Upbeat

• Passionate

• Awe inspiring (why?)

What might a believer gain from singing this piece of music?

What qualities of God are emphasised?

‘Dance again’

• Pentecostal churches are associated with signs and wonders, including healings. These often take place during worship.

• Dance again

• Story behind Dance again

Glossolalia (speaking in tongues)• Glossolalia, often understood among Protestant Christians as speaking in tongues,

is the fluid vocalizing of speech-like syllables that lack any readily comprehended meaning, in some cases as part of religious practice.

• There are some Christians, especially within the Pentecostal movement, who believe there is a supernatural explanation for glossolalia similar to that described in the New Testament. They believe that the chief purpose of the gift of speaking in tongues is to manifest the Holy Spirit being poured out upon them just as on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), which was prophesied by Joel.

• Among those Christian churches who do espouse the practice of glossolalia to one degree or another, there is no uniform agreement as to its workings. For example, some are adamant that it is indeed a gift of the Holy Spirit, while others minimize its importance, saying Paul taught that the gift of “speaking in tongues” wasn’t nearly as important as the other gifts of the Holy Spirit (see1 Corinthians 13). Also, there are those wishing to avoid dividing the church on such issues by not speaking of it at all or dismissing it as a simple psychological experience. Then there are those who regard glossolalia as a deception of Satan himself.

Corporate religious experiencesOne of the most intriguing phenomena in religious experiences is a corporate religious experience that happens simultaneously to a number of people.

For example, the Toronto Blessing in 1994, when large numbers of believers reported being affected by the Holy Spirit. Some of the subsequent phenomena in these meetings including uncontrollable weeping, laughing, rolling on the floor and animal noises. Supporters of the blessing took these events as a sign of a ‘new move’ of God.

However sceptics suggested that the explanation was more likely to be mass hysteria.

Corporate experiences may seem more impressive as there are a number of people having the experience. All other experiences are private and impossible to verify. Ultimately such experiences should be judged on what effects are produced. Are the experiences life changing in a positive way?

Critics of corporate experiences such as the Toronto Blessing examine sacred texts such as the Bible and question whether the experiences fit in with what is revealed of God’s nature elsewhere.

Corporate religious experiences

“Individual religious experience means individual religious fantasy; corporate religious experience means corporate religious fantasy.”

Research Task: Using the worksheet note down the characteristics and impacts.

Visions and VoicesVisionsA vision experience can happen when a person is awake or in a dream

St Teresa of Avila having ‘inner visions’ of Christ i.e. intellectual visions which are seen with the mind as opposed

to the eyes. She described how she could not discern the ‘form’ of the vision but she was aware Jesus was there

The Prophet Muhammad receiving the Qur’an from the Angel Jibrail was a vision experience

Imaginative visions are those who occur in dreams such as when Joseph, while engaged to Mary, had a dream

telling him not to be afraid of marrying Mary, even though she was pregnant and he was not the father

VoicesHearing God’s voice or, in Prophet Muhammad’s case, the angel

The voices carry authority and have a profound affect

Hearing in this sense means more than an audible voice but also the communication of knowledge and is often

one aspect of the religious experience – it could also be a mystical experience

It does not have to be a literal, audible voice, it could be, as some Christians refer to it as the ‘still small voice’ of

the Holy Spirit which speaks in the mind of the believer

St Bernadette both saw and heard the Virgin Mary at Lourdes and could describe what she had been wearing and

recorded the words that had been spoken to her

A biblical example is at Jesus’ baptism when God says that Jesus is His son – “you are my Son, the Beloved; with you I

am well pleased” (Mk 1:11)

St Teresa offered two tests to determine whether these experiences were genuine:

does it fit in with Christian teachings?

does the experience leave the individual feeling at peace?

She suggested that if the experience did not have these effects it was a sign that the experience was not from god

but from the devil i.e. if someone claims that God is telling them to kill someone then this is not from God

because murder goes against Christian teaching

Objections to Visions and Voices

• Some thinkers have observed that experiences such as visions

and voices are often linked to physical factors such as fasting.

Could putting the body into a weakened state lead to a person

having an auditory or visual experience they believe to be a

genuine religious experience?

• Some observers have raised the issue of how we might prove

that an experience is from God i.e. some schizophrenics hear

voices telling them to kill people, which they believe are

genuine messages from God.

• However, many Christians would say that a genuine message

from God would not go against the teachings of ‘Do not

murder’, therefore any visions or voices must fit with Christian teaching.

Mystical Experiences• Mystical experiences are experiences where the

recipient feels a sense of ‘union’ with the Divine.

• Mysticism involves the spiritual recognition of truths beyond normal understanding.

whirling dervish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EQtaQYpzTwCan it be considered to be a self induced dizziness?