A number of years ago I remember a comment made on the RE-YourLife discussion board by Bobby C in response to the movie, The Passion of the Christ. He made the observation that the deep emotional response that the came with watching the movie was as much a result of the extreme violence as it was the power of the story itself. To defend his point, he referenced the effect that watching a horror can have on the body.
So, why do I bring this up? I had a similar experience last night.
Anita was given tickets to the Rockies and Yankees game for Christmas. So last night Anita and I sat out in left field of Coors Field looking at the backs of Derek Jeter and A-Rod. Even as a non-baseball guy I can say that it was a great game and it was exciting to see the perpetually disappointing and rebuilding Rockies knock off the historic Yankees 3-1.
After the victory, the home crowd was ecstatic and the crowd around us chanted, "Let's go Rockies!" as we made our way out of the park. The joy of being on the side of the winning team even had me excited about the now two games over 500 Rockies and, had I not gone to the game with a Yankees fan, I very well could have joined in the taunting or just stepped to the side and basked in the glow of victory. It was a truly inspirational moment.
Then I thought, "That's interesting, the adrenaline rush and the general joy of this frenzy feels exactly the same as a powerful 'worship experience'." Maybe it's a really uplifting song or the emotion in a gifted singers voice or the need to respond to a particularly powerful message. What's more, I've met and talked with many worship band leaders who will work the flow of a service specifically for the purpose of generating this kind of emotional response.
The problem, beyond emotional manipulation in the name of Jesus, is that many people I've talked to over the years mistake this emotional feeling to be genuine faith and assume that, as long as the feeling is there, faith is there. However, when the feeling is gone, they assume that God has abandoned them. In the end they essentially become addicted to that feeling and pursue it like a drug, hopping from church to church whenever they don't "feel the Spirit" anymore. In the end, many of them are no different than an alcoholic or drug addict ... they've just got church language to talk about their idol.
In the end, it breaks my heart because I see people God loves suffering because they've been pointed towards something less than what God has in store for them. I pray that preachers, worship leaders, and fellow Christians would learn to point people not to a feeling, an intellectual ascent, or some other internal source, but to Jesus and his work and promises for them.
Good post Joe...which you were expecting me to say, right? :)
Seriously, though, this bring up an issue that I think we too often forget. Linda read me the intro to Nehemiah from The Message the other day, and it talks about how too often we separate the sacred from the secular...all the while denying the fact that everything is God's...there is no such thing as sacred and secular.
So, I think the conclusion you come to is very biblical. The emotion at a baseball game is the exact same emotion we experience in worship. Many Christians would balk at this, and try to over spiritualize their emotions by claiming that their Worship experience is much more spiritual than a baseball game could be. I would argue that this claim is nothing but ego...these are the same emotion and that emotion is created by God.
I kinda took your post in a different direction here, but to me it was a powerful example of us being spiritual and emotional at all times...be it at a baseball game or in worship.
I don't see why an emotional connection is a bad thing, past relying on said connection as a litmus test for faith. I know many people who have true faith while still getting their emotional cup filled.
I'll agree that people should not rely on it. But I'll disagree that it's the same emotion that one gets from watching their favorite sports team win an important game. That emotion is more thrilling, more towards the adrenaline end of the spectrum. I'd liken the feeling you get from a moving worship service to a moving but also very calming musical work, like a great symphony. Worship can be euphoric, but when is a calming sense of euphoria dangerous? Hypothermia, maybe. But worship isn't hypothermia (at least it shouldn't be!), and it's not a baseball game. I think God likes for us to feel peaceful and emotionally moved, if not only for a couple of hours on Sunday morning (or whenever you worship). That's why God gave us things like music, and that's why I like that idea so much. Think about it... J.S. Bach used to write "Solo Deo Gloria" on all of his musical works. That means "Soley to the Glory of God" in Latin and when you look at worship and praise biblically, it fits right in with God's plan. Why would there be more than 100 Psalms and why would David dance for joy if a good feeling wasn't something that God had in store for us?
In other words, emotion is good as long as we don't let it consume us. If it wasn't, why would we have it in the first place?
You're right that emotion isn't bad which is why I said that believing the emotion to be faith is the problem.
I should point out that the services I was referring to didn't have anything by Bach as a part of them ... they were very much designed to generate the same euphoria that you'd have at a baseball game or other sporting event.
Yeah, those are the problem because they make the service about us. Worship is about the big guy upstairs, and any emotional euphoria we get as a result is just a happy by-product!