Pathways to God
An Exploration into Our Experience of God and How We Might Grow Closer to the Divine
Thomas Evans
Pathways to God
An Exploration into Our Experience of God and How We Might Grow Closer to the Divine
Copyright © 2020 Thomas Evans. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
All biblical quotes are drawn from the NRSV.
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This book is dedicated to all those people who made it possible:
Dr. Jack R. Gallagher, who gave so much of his time and expertise.
People from a dozen congregations and on the train, who gave of their time to participate in the focus groups by sharing generously their very intimate experience of God in their lives.
Members of my congregation who participated in the survey and who so generously gave me the time and resources to conduct this project.
My parents, Bob and Abigail, who reared me in the faith and taught me the glory of faith, the gift of the mind, and the connecting power of story.
Acknowledgments
Jack Ray Gallagher, EdD, MSc, Chief Scientist and Founder, Clarity Pharma Research, LLC., Spartanburg, SC, USA. Jack was an invaluable resource in the entire process of this project. He helped shape the idea and refine the methodology. Most importantly he provided his considerable expertise through his analysis of the data.
The Survey Analysis in Appendix B is entirely his work.
1
A Journey to Discover How We Can Grow Our Experience of God
Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.
St. Augustine of Hippo1
Augustine’s famous quote grew from an age of violence, power, and greed and his own personal pursuits of sex, gluttony, and the horror of the Coliseum. He increasingly finds this life unfulfilling, empty, and perverse and through Scripture discovers the true fulfillment of his quest: a life filled with the wonder and glory of God.
Throughout my twenty-five years as a minister, I have constantly battled with the feeling that church somehow falls well short of what it could be, that we have failed by and large to connect the majority of our people to the powerful presence of our Lord with Augustine—like enthusiasm. My tradition is Presbyterian, specifically the PCUSA.
Both my parents are Presbyterian ministers and since I was a boy, I have been a part of this denomination. I am filled with deep admiration and thanksgiving for how we approach Christianity, but also a profound frustration with our sometimes myopic perspectives that lead to a perverse pride in how we approach the faith.
My father is progressive, and my mother is conservative, and through my years I have learned to deeply appreciate both perspectives. I have found myself agreeing with the progressive social stances of the denomination while at the same time filled with the conservative’s longing for a denomination more deeply connected to prayer, Scripture, and surrender to God—in short, a denomination more in love with God and people than with procedures, politics, and polity.
I have come to the conclusion that the Presbyterian church, like many individuals and institutions, suffers perhaps most greatly from its strengths. We were born in an age of excess and abuse of power, and our inherent mistrust of emotional approaches and our focus on the intellect allowed us to shape a church that profoundly impacted history and helped us, along with the rest of the Reformation, to reshape not only the church but the world.
But these strengths, these tactics, have led us away from the most central aspect of the faith: the power and presence of God and a life wholly given over to our Lord Jesus. Without knowing it, we have replaced God with procedure and votes, thinking somehow majority rule automatically creates the will of God. We have forgotten how to be people of prayer and piety, and we have forgotten most of all the distinction between the power of the church through its people and the power of God.
We have forgotten that the only true possibility for change is God dwelling richly in the hearts of women and men. In the days of the Hebrew Scriptures we see time and again the failure of the external laws to forge Israel into the people God wanted them to be. We heard the call of the prophets for a time when God’s laws would be written not on stone, but on people’s hearts.
I have regularly attended and served Presbyterian churches in thirteen states, in places as diverse as rural Arkansas and the hive of Manhattan. I have found these churches filled with faithful people who love God and others and want their congregation to be as faithful and vibrant as the Lord would allow.
At the same time, I have sensed a defeatism present in the DNA of many congregations, and it stems I think from the realization that their friends and neighbors generally opt out of church, and even the ones that do attend do so less and less.
There are various theories as to why football stadiums and concert venues explode with people and the churches do not.
But the axiom under which I operate is nothing can possibly be more compelling than the power and presence of God! And if we can find a way authentic to our tradition to tap into this presence, then our attendance challenges would be a thing of the past. But that of course is not our goal.
As in the days of Augustine, we live in times of violence and greed. Today the level of mistrust of one another is like a toxin in the water supply—no one wants to dip their cup in fellowship with others for fear we will be poisoned. News outlets are reaping billions sowing these seeds of fear and mistrust, but the church has failed to raise its voice that there is another way. People in this country are feeling more and more soul-sick like Augustine, and we need to find a way to connect them to the source of all life.
However, our history has made us wary of manipulating people’s emotions simply to fill the pews and rightly so.
But as an executive presbyter, I saw the tragedy of not finding our way as a church as dozens of congregations closed their doors and the last members turned out the lights.
This tragedy is a result of our amnesia. We have forgotten how to convey the wonder of the majesty and mystery of God, and the churches became milquetoast and, dare we say, boring.
Other Christian traditions have always had unique ways to experience God. In December of 2018, I attended an Episcopalian service at the Princeton University chapel. It was Lessons and Carols and, before it was over, I felt like I had been ushered into the throne room of heaven.
I have listened to the readings, smelled the incense, and heard choirs and brass many times before. But on this day it came together in such a way that by the end when the procession walked out of the church, I watched them all the way down the aisle, wanting to see the crucifer until she walked out the door because something in that service touched my soul deeply, beyond intellect or reason and beyond human control and contrivance.
After this