“We must move from a belief-based spirituality to a practice-based spirituality, or little will change in religion, politics, and the world.” Richard Rohr

The above quote comes from Franciscan Priest, Richard Rohr in an article written in 2017 about the evolving movement toward experience based faith. What I am calling “Experiential Spirituality”. The concept does not originate with me. It’s the ancient practice that is at the core of the Christian encounter with God. In fact, it’s true of all the major religions of the world.

The religion of Jesus has as its cornerstone an experience of the divine becoming temporally experienced. We call it the incarnation.

Most of the significant writings of the last 2,000 years are by those who had an experience of faith. Teresa of Avila, Hildegaard of Bingen and St. Francis all encountered the sacred in a concrete specific manner. That experience shaped their lives and their faith. I doubt that these people would have been so significantly impacted if they had only read a few books and believed their way into the faith.

I’m not arguing for the elimination of an intellectual inquiry. The mind is a gift that keeps on giving, but it is not the only gift. Their is also the gift of a sacred experience. Carl Jung touched on this when John Freeman asked him in the 1959 BBC documentary, “Do you Believe in God"?” Jung’s response. “I know.” He could affirm to know God based on his own encounter.

One of the challenges of our time is that religion has shifted to a set of beliefs, by which we mean an intellectual ascent to a set of ideas. But how often are those ideas connected to ones spiritual encounter? Do we say we believe in Jesus or God or any other specific teaching based on an encounter or a teaching? Is the Apostle’s Creed anything for us that a set of ideas?

Religions and Spiritual teachings can often be divided into Orthodoxies and Orthopraxies. The first is a faith based on teachings, beliefs and doctrines, the latter is a faith based on practices. Islam is a religion of practice, though some strands of it slide into the orthodoxy camp.

What would a faith look like that rooted itself in people’s experience of the numinous? Perhaps this question is best answered by the increasing interest in rituals, communities and behaviors that emphasize such encounters. More on this subject as we go forward, but for now…ask yourself this question:

Where have I experienced God?