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During a revival at a Freewill Baptist congregation in North Carolina, I was quite surprised when a man came down the aisle. This, I was told, otherwise calm worshipper, apparently surprised about everyone there, including his pastor. He acted out of character. We heard a litany of shouting. He ran the aisle, toward the altar, crying, yelling, rejoicing, obviously in ecstasy. He moved into a pew. He reached out his arms, while his pastor and he held in mutual embrace, smiling and hugging. Being a Baptist, I had never seen such emoting by a worshipper in a Baptist congregation. However, I had experienced it in contexts of Pentecostal worship.
Later, in my college years, I was invited to meet with a group of my Baptist peers. They had been meeting in a little room of the campus chapel to pray. We gathered together and started praying over each other, out loud, even really loud. We could easily have been heard well beyond the chapel. Later, I discovered one of the professors did hear us and was somewhat concerned about such a display. For we prayed, we laughed, we shouted, and I, a normally introverted, quiet worshipper, experienced an abandon of affection, too.
Emotion is often an aspect of our whole experience that we are cut off from. We may pride ourselves in being reasonable and proper. Likewise, often we may be afraid that if we experience our emotions fully, then, we may lose control. So, much of religion is a religion of the head, as well as much preaching is sermons from the brain.
Last Sunday, just prior to the beginning of our Sunday Worship, I walked over in front of my choir, with my back to the others present. The choir looked rather sullen. I placed a big smile on my face. They got the message: Act like you are glad to be here. They smiled and laughed, in return, and I laughed with them.
Our word “emotion” derives from the French émouvoir, “to stir up, agitate.” The French arose from the Latin emovere, meaning “to move out.” Related to this is the religious implication of “enthusiasm,” deriving from the Greek “to be in god, God,” entheos. Therefore, religious affections concern a loss of self-control, a moving out of one’s typical affective responses, a being inspired by the Wonderful Presence, deeply, as a stirring of the heart from the Heart of Love.
The Wesleyan tradition, following John and Charles Wesley, have, as them, stressed a religion of the heart. John Wesley (18th Century) wrote, “How much more sensible must you be of this if you do not rest on the surface, but inquire into the bottom of religion, the religion of the heart?” (The Works of John Wesley).
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Likewise, some reports of early Methodist meetings refer to “Shouting Methodists.” John Wesley noted particular emotions appropriate at each stage of the spiritual development, and at the end of sermons sought to elicit affective responses in agreement with the content of the message. Likewise, the hymns of Methodism, as seen among those of Charles Wesley (18th Century), John’s brother, evidence this religion of the heart.
The religion of the heart is rooted in the Christian Scripture. A cursory look at the Psalms will reveal a full spectrum of emotions, and this is one reason the Psalms have been central to Christian worship and prayer since the early Church. Generally, we find a clear emotive content in passages of a lyrical or poetic genre, which includes much of the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Scripture, though such is obscured in translations that have the verse in prose, as does the King James Version.
Certainly, being a person of the heart and enjoying a religion of the heart does not imply we will all worship, in private and communally, manifesting the same expression of emotion. For example, it is beautiful to see one person smiling, swaying, and looking upward, with hands lifted, and another sitting beside with eyes closed and meditating deeply on the beauty of the Moment.
However, we cannot be whole persons while cut off from the heart, and we cannot worship wholly only from the head. Likewise, emotion itself apart from reason has and does lead to extremes.
The intent of worship, then, is to stir us up and to lead us out of our normal consciousness. Worship invites a being breathed in, or inspiration, by the Spirit. In worship we might experience a sensation of affective union with Christ and, as well, others whom we worship with, including those who are in our presence from the Other Side. Therefore, when we worship, we worship with what the Church has called the Communion of Saints.
Spiritual Exercises
1. Do you recall times when you experienced a freedom to express emotions in worship that were atypical of your usual expressions? What do you sense opened you to experience that freedom?
2. Is there an emotion that you would like to express more in worship, personal or communal? How might you better prepare yourself to have such an experience?
3. Close your eyes, turn your face downward, fold your hands together in a gesture of prayer, touching the tip of you middle fingers to you chin, and remain in silence for a time? Open your eyes, look toward the sky, with hands stretched out and palms open, and smile into the heavens? Did you sense any difference in emotion from one practice to the next? How might different gestures help evoke different emotions in worship?
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