Curious Christian

I get a little tired sometimes of this dogma that Christians are only interested in dogma, not life transforming experience. So, here is a counter example from Orthodox priest, Father Steven Tsichlis.

Abandoning a successful career, Symeon became a monk and was eventually ordained a priest. As a spiritual father, hymn-writer and thinker, Symeon insisted that the meaning of dogma and the task of theology is to articulate and communicate these experiences of the Lord of Glory, to share the gifts which had been given to him with others. For him, experiencing the Crucified and Risen Lord is the content of the Church’s dogmatic formulations. Without this inner experience, dogma has no meaning and is little more than empty words without content. Conversely, a Christian who lacks an awareness of the great dogmas of Christianity easily becomes submerged in a sea of subjective experience, an experience without the objective “facts” of dogma upon which all truly Christian experience must be based. Thus, the dogmas of the Church are not a set of “alien” formulations which we must adhere to because some ecclesiastical authority is forcing us to do so; but rather, the documentation of the deepest and most profound human experiences which, transcending time and space, are handed over from generation to generation as a light in our darkness. And the church is not an institution arbitrarily forcing us to follow its rules, but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst for the Truth at its table.

We need to look beyond the false dogmas about dogma. Although some Christian leaders are notoriously dogmatic, it is equally true that others Christian leaders are notoriously experiential and loose on doctrine. On the whole however, Christian leaders have stressed balance, that we should love the Lord with heart and mind and body and soul.

But besides what others have to say, I can say from my own experience: I have encountered God, I have encountered Christ, and he changed my life. Don’t just take my word for it, experience the good news for yourself.