Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Intuitive Christianity

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Matt Stone

2009-01-17

Over the years I have become increasingly aware of how my personality type shapes my experience of Christ and Christianity. Like many missional Christians I am an intuitive, in my case an intuitive thinker, or to be more specific an INTP.

This translates into a preference for exploring connections, patterns and future possibilities. A preference for experimentation and creativity. A preference for mystical experience.

In reading scripture I am inspired by the symbols, the stories, the cryptic sayings; by the iconoclasm and insight of Jesus; by the interconnections I find between different parts of scripture; by the narrative sweep from beginning to end. I am inspired by the hopes, the dreams, the visions. I am not so inspired by established expressions of Christianity.
In recognizing this as a personality issue more than a cultural issue I recognize that my style of Christianity is not for everyone in my culture. In calling for more contextualized expression of Christianity I realize I must leave room for the sensors, for the concrete thinkers. They are part of the emerging culture too.

What is important is not that we all get our own way, but that we all respect and honour human diversity.

It is God given.

I seek to follow Christ more intuitively, more in tune with who I am, but not at the expense of others.

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6 responses to “Intuitive Christianity”

mary

2009-01-17

RE ‘I seek to follow Christ more intuitively, more in tune with who I am, but not at the expense of others.’
That bit jumped out at me… Sometimes we have no option but to reality check some Christians…
God knows they loved dishing it to me when i became a Christian…
(ie)
Dress this way, be like us and the one that really messed with my brain -i was told that if i painted pictures of nudes it displeased God hahaha In retrospect it was all a madness.
I was deemed different from them so they felt unsure of me so projected their version of God onto me.
BUT your post made me think about how i can be as putridly arrogant as those people of the past… In the fight to remain true and authentic sometimes i find myself as objectable as the very individuals i am revolted by…
One can become overtly sensitized and abrasive and blunt. I know i have a lot of those moments.
For me understanding God i see and understand in picture form and symbolism, music and so on and dont respond well to formal church settings.
They overwhelm and frighten me in their conformity to a set standard usually of a big white blue eyed jesus mentality with some cultural tokenism tossed in – o yeah we is all one family number. Part of me wishes i would just meld in with the crowd and shut down on me.
I guess some people love the conformity and stuff… makes em feel safe. It has never made me feel safe – has always made me feel hideously alone. But it dont make me superior to them… it just is. In the end you stop fighting it all and just walk away… You always have God with you 24/7 so it’s OK

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Matt Stone

2009-01-17

Ive experienced the anger, the frustration, the alienation that comes from being pressured to conform to the standards of well intentioned but deeply insensitive “sensor” Christians.
My wife, who is not the intuitive type, helped me to work through some of these issues, at least in the sense that our marriage provided a context for it. It was something we definitely had to work through. We both had to learn to appreciate the differences in each other.
It is important that we don’t become as objectionable as those we object to, its important that we model a better way, a more reciprocal way. I have found that relational transformation is possible, though lots of forgiveness is required along the way.

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guy m williams

2009-01-17

“In reading scripture I am inspired by the symbols, the stories, the cryptic sayings; by the iconoclasm and insight of Jesus; by the interconnections I find between different parts of scripture; by the narrative sweep from beginning to end. I am inspired by the hopes, the dreams, the visions.”
Yes! Good, helpful post for me as an INTJ; especially the piece above.

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Matt Stone

2009-01-18

Glad it was helpful. I think we intuitives need space to talk about this stuff. Because we account for only thirty percent of the population we’ll always be a minority, that doesn’t mean our voice doesn’t count.

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Steve Hayes

2009-01-18

Matt,
I’m also INTP, but maybe the same thing applies here as in multiethnic churches.
One can evangelise in such a way as to appeal to particular personality types, but all are needed in the church, and all have gifts that can work together, and the church needs all those gifts, because some can see things that others miss.

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Matt Stone

2009-01-18

Yes, actually I have been thinking of how repression of personality types within a community could feed the collective shadow (ref: Jungian psychology)

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