Religious Experience in the Christian Life

by Pat Collins

ISBN: 9781528992923

Published: 2023-09-15

Carl Jung once wrote, "No matter what the world thinks about religious experience, the one who has it possesses a great treasure." Although fewer people than ever go to church, research indicates that perhaps as many as 66% of the population in secularized English-speaking countries are having significant religious experiences. This book explores the causes, nature, and effects of such experiences whether theistic or non-theistic, while indicating how those which are theistic can animate Christian spirituality, theology, piety, and churchgoing, while improving the psychosomatic health of those who enjoy them. This well-informed, wide-ranging study is a fascinating apologia which advocates the importance, beauty, and life-transforming power of a vital but often neglected dimension of human existence. It also sounds a cautionary note by pointing out that the orthodoxy of religious experience must be measured against the parameters of traditional Christian teaching in the belief that...