Mystic Risks...

The man who believes he has a hot-line to God is a dangerous person. But to whom is he dangerous? If he is a deluded psychotic with an obsession for holy conflict he could damage thousands of lives. If, on the other hand, he is genuinely hearing the God of truth and love, he will be dangerous only to the forces of evil and will be of value to those who desire honesty and righteousness. The church has traditionally preferred not to take chances in such matters and has treated all visionaries as 'high-risk'. The traditional control is to filter all revelation through established authority because playing safe avoids explosions. But explosions are necessary to mine the purest gold.

If you are a Christian who thinks for yourself, who meditates, and experiences the thrill of personal insights and revelations, you are likely at some time to have run into problems with church authority. Personal revelation is not considered safe, though in fact it is a normal experience for followers of the God who distinguishes himself from dumb idols (See Note 1) by communicating with those who put their trust in him. The driving force of our faith is the Holy Spirit, who was sent by the resurrected Christ to lead us into all truth. Real truths have to be seen, not learned, and seeing is a spiritual rather than an intellectual act. The promise of the Holy Spirit was not to officials of the church, but to you and your children and as many as the Lord calls (See Note 2). The Spirit is given to individual believers. The gospel is Christ in you, not just Christ among you.

The obvious objection to encouraging people to seek individual revelation is that each of us could go off at a tangent and upset the progress of spiritual growth of many others in the church. Obviously we can make mistakes, but history shows that the influence of people who took unexpected directions which were also wrong directions did not last long, and they were quickly forgotten.

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