Poor Theology - The Touchy Feelies

I've had a few discussions with people about theology and whether particular things are good or bad.

One point that seems to come up depressingly frequently is a question about whether I think their heart is in the right place. It seems to be a classic avoidance mechanism because it challenges the questioner to either condemn the person for deliberately misguiding people, or back away from their questioning. But there's a third option that seems to get overlooked.

Someone can be very passionate in what they believe, their heart can be 100% true to their beliefs and they can have the best of intentions and still be wrong. Jesus said "no-one comes to the Father except through me", so if he was right then Vishnu is not the way to God regardless of how passionately Hindus may believe; Krishna cannot save however fervently the men in orange suits pray to him, and so on.

I've seen one particular web site describe how a prophecy can be tested by whether reading or hearing it gives a burning sensation in the chest. Apparently if it does then that's all the proof you need that the prophecy is sound and came from God. Which is curious, because for me personally that kind of sensation often seems to serve as an early warning that something isn't right (I don't reject something purely based on such a feeling but it does prompt me to test more carefully).

So what do we do when faced with two people who disagree on whether something is sound - one says it feels right and the other says it feels wrong? Well, the obvious thing to do is to go back to the objective truth of Scripture. That means one of them might have to accept they were wrong, but unless we are willing to take things to test them against the eternal truth of Scripture we might as well be a buyer and seller at a market stall arguing over whether the bag of sugar really weighs a pound or not - the buyer insisting it's light and the seller insisting it's correct - but unwilling to put it on a scale to settle the matter.

Sadly good intentions only go so far and can still be very damaging. To quote an unnamed wise saying I read many years ago, "think how well-intentioned the monkey is as he lifts a fish from the river, to save it from a watery grave"

bill1231 said:

I agree with this to a point but I would not dismiss feelings arbitrarily. Feelings about a situation make me look more closely as as you say it can be a warning. A burning in the chest without scripture means nothing, it is only scripture that allows us to judge

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I'm not saying we should dismiss feelings arbitrarily. My point (which I thought was clear given what I said about my own sensations) was that if we go with nothing more than feelings we're going to be led astray before long.

If we use a feeling as a first-cut indication of whether something is likely to be good or bad that's one thing. If we use them as a sole arbiter we run into all sorts of problems. When a web site that purports to offer prophetic insights teaches that all we need to test a prophecy is this mysterious "inner witness" test there's a problem. When someone introduces a teaching into the church that directly contradicts Scripture but justifies it with "I watched the video and didn't get any checks in my spirit" (I have seen this exact thing happen), there's a problem.

It's not all that far removed from the people who use helpful sounding advice like "search your heart" as if that would provide an answer to anything. It might indicate that our hearts are in the right place but does precisely nothing to show whether what we are doing is actually Scripturally correct or not. All it does is confirm to the monkey lifting the fish that he's got the right intentions.

bill1231 said:

Yet God many times leads us first by those very feelings, I agree that it has to be more than feeling but for many that is all they have to go on as most do not hear from God or see into the spiritual realm which is why so many can be misled. It is a matter of hearing God and most dont take the time to spend alone with God to hear

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You don't need to "see into the spiritual realm" to avoid being misled. Too many people "see into the spiritual realm" without testing what they see against Scripture and end up misled as a result.

If all people have is feelings then what they have is a mixture of treasure and trash, with no way of knowing which is which. That's not a good place to be.

bill1231 said:

If one does not see into the spiritual then they are subject to being misled

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If one sees into the spiritual without a firm grounding in Scripture they are probably more subject to being misled, no?

bill1231 said:

Yes, must line up with scripture although I dont think very many develop that sight without being in the Word

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The trouble is there are folks out there who claim to be hugely prophetic but what they spout appears to be little more than a tidal wave of drivel. I can only assume they claim to see into the spiritual but without a firm grounding in Scripture. Some of them say things that only take a cursory glance through Scripture to question, yet they claim all sorts of grandiose spiritual experiences. It's hard to believe that God sent an angel to dictate a word-for-word message that involved plucking verses from Scripture and totally ignoring the context.

onlyme said:

It begs the question, Why should I pay more attention to someone's religious imagination than to what the Word actually states clearly?

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There is that. Another question is why certain web sites continue to publish the words of so-called "prophets" when so little of what they say seems to have any relevance to either Scripture or life.

onlyme said:

It's more about self-expression than Scripture exposition, I fear.

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I often wonder just what it's about. Sadly I know people who lap this stuff up, although if I didn't personally know people who seem to hang on every word of it I'd wonder if anyone really took it seriously.