You said “I also wonder how we could possibly have lost what the ancient Jews had in their mystical philosophies if the Spirit was supposed to have been guiding our churches all this time…”

I see the history of faith as that displayed through the stories about the remnant in the Old Testament. It seems this continues to be how God works in our world. When a particular geographic location of the church ceases to need God, the Spirit picks up and moves to another place where he is welcomed. He does not, of course, abandon the church outright, but the power and display of the Spirit is hidden from those who have, in effect, lost their faith. This seems to be what is happening as the West continues to become more secular, while the vitality of African and the Eastern churches appear to be growing.

So I would say the ancient Jews never had an “IT” or SPIRIT that was lost in a way that is different from us. The SPIRIT was always present. Sometimes it was in evidence throughout the entire Jewish culture, while at other times it was hidden in the remnant.

Now, does the SPIRIT guide our churches in a manner that leads to ever increasing light and glory? Not in the way you might hope for. He still seems to honor our freedom to choose to go our own way.

In my opinion, God takes an exceedingly impractical, drawn out, and non-pragmatic course toward establishing his Kingdom on earth. If I were him, I’d do it otherwise. But I have to assume there is wisdom in the way he is working these things out, and this calls for me to learn patience and involves seemingly never-ending lessons in humility. I have to admit, I get tired of it at times.

You also wrote, “The problem is, the more I try to figure this out, the less theology seems to be able to guide me, and the less sure I am of what belief is.”

Exactly! My experience of faith is fairly existential. I’ve had several crisis moments (Jonah in the belly of the whale sorts of things) where I’ve reached moments of total loss of faith, only to find Christ with me, holding me, and loving me in spite of my faithlessness. They were all cleansing experiences, for through them I was freed from false beliefs and attachments that had nothing to do with God at all. And more importantly, God was made more real to me than anything else, including myself. And another thing; abstract doctrines, such as grace, became real when I found that God was with me in the very moment that I had abandoned myself to hell. Doctrine gains solidity through the experience of faith. Prior to that, it’s all just intellectual b.s.

It’s quite marvelous, I find. Through death, comes life. It’s all backwards and upside down. I love it.

Perhaps you are approaching your own moment of existential crisis. I can’t say. But I’m for you.

MDS

I see you’ve added another response. What I’m adding here is an addition to what I wrote previously, so doesn’t address this.

I hope I do not appear to take your questions lightly. I honor the honesty of your questions, even if I think they are unanswerable in the way you ask them.

It may also seem to you that I am saying, after all is said and done, to simply quit thinking and believe. I am not.

Finally, what separates the faith of which I speak and every other kind of faith? Faith, by definition, is in the final analysis unprovable. What separates a faith that connects one to real reality and one that floats on nothing at all? I cannot answer such a question briefly, but I am convinced there is a difference, that it makes all the difference in the world, and that it is supported by rational analysis, experiential analysis, historical analysis, and on and on. But in the end, it remains faith, and all the analysis in the world will never add up to equal this faith. But what one does find is that all those other realities begin to have a luminosity to them that was not there prior to faith. And through these things faith is strengthened, re-established, and deepened. And when I awaken, I find myself more fully of earth and creation. And once more, faith and life, heaven and earth, cycle into one another.
The only final proof of the truth of this faith is the life I live. It will never be my clever, or not so clever arguments, but only the truth of my life. If I follow the Christ, His life will be manifest and Truth will be seen, healing will occur, and new life will spring up. Where TRUTH IS, THERE IS LIFE!”

MDS

The problem is, the more I try to figure this out, the less theology seems to be able to guide me, and the less sure I am of what belief is.

The Hebrews you brought up have innumerable cultural advantages over us that individuals could use to locate themselves in the practice of their faith: their theology was also their Law, for one thing. Their faith and ethnicity were coextensive and distinguishing, for another. Their racial story was as much a part of their philosophy as anything – our culture has replaced that with the ideology of objective reality instead. They faced all the same temptations and weaknesses, but the Hebrews weren’t faced with the all-pervading identity crisis that Christianity (and modern-day Judaism!) is today faced with.

I also wonder how we could possibly have lost what the ancient Jews had in their mystical philosophies if the Spirit was supposed to have been guiding our churches all this time…

My point is, in practice you can’t meaningfully uphold doctrine without appealing to personal experience, and as I’m trying to demonstrate, you can’t verify doctrine WITH experience either.

Not all insight is of the same quality. Nietzche’s life demonstrates this ironically: he did go insane, but lots and lots of people have found value in his insight anyways, having discarded one or another religious tradition in the process.

You can’t employ a simple logic to say that they’ve moved from a lesser understanding to a greater one – it has to bear fruit for them. There’s a big difference between insight that people clone themselves after and insight that pervades them.

I like the doctrine that Truth is a person, but I can’t help but notice that when people describe Truth, it sounds like they’re talking about different people.

As I mentioned before, I think we exegete the qualities of God that we like and want to worship, and try to strain a communal system of ethics from that. We end up with a huge system of compliments about God, and a watery broth of behavioral recommendations to go on. We try to fortify it with things like special revelation and insist to one another that this intellectual fasting is good for us, but I’m not convinced that participating in systems that work this way is really what it means to be Having Faith.

I think it’s just a convention of our times, and we’re so submerged in this set of meta-cogitations that weave religion and social life into sense and practice for us – that piety is either intentional and based in suppression or perhipheral and based in ‘Catching the Spirit” or somewhere in the argument between, for instance – that we don’t easily see how little this “faith” actually distinguishes us from the culture. We’re too caught up trying to find the rhythm in this gymnastic faith exercise to believe we can really get some meaning out of it. The appeal of faith as something you just shrug and accept is certainly attractive in an age where there is more abrasive intellectual crosstalk than at any other time in history, because it’s a way to bow out and cut your losses and live. A de-facto theology is still a theology, no matter how un-confident we are with it.

I left a word from my creedal statement. It should be, “We don’t know much, and neither do you.”

Instead of publishing, I’m starting a new denominational chain. It will quickly go global with $0.00 down franchising opportunities that balloon about the time the economy picks up again. I am calling this new denomination Mysterionism. The creed of the Mysterion will be “We don’t much, and neither do you!”

Wanna’ pick up a franchise?

Thank you for saying so clearly what my heart was wanting to express. And, for some sound reasoning behind it. You need to publish that…