Misunderstanding Mysticism

Buddha statue in Japan

What comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘mystic’?

For me: Eastern religions, occult, Buddhist monk in an ‘ommm’ pose

What about the word ‘mysticism’?

For me: abstract, too open to misinterpretation, lacking truth

Sadly, these associations reveal that I’ve grown up with a misunderstanding of the concept of mysticism, especially as it applies to Christianity.

“Mystic Christianity? Aren’t you getting into some weird stuff now?” you may be saying.

As far as I have gathered, a full Christian experience has three parts: theological, mystical, and practical. These three things involve the intellect, the personality, and the actions, respectively. If any of them are isolated and taken by themselves as the Christian experience, the follower is seriously missing out. A purely theological, or intellectual, experience of Christianity consists of learning the history and doctrines of Christian teaching. This is the sort of experience a non-Christian professor of world religions would have. The mystical experience consists of personal interactions with God, especially through prayer, and such an experience isolated from the other two doesn’t last long, as a personal encounter with God requires knowledge of doctrine (because as fallen creatures, we need to have some objective measure of truth to discern by, as our sin natures prevent us from accurate perceptions using our own understanding) and practice (because if one does not act on what the Holy Spirit convicts him of, he is ignoring God and therefore won’t be coming to a deeper understanding of who God is). Finally, a merely practical experience of Christianity becomes blind legalism on its own without personal conviction to guide it nor knowledge of Scriptures to measure what is truly right.

As this post is about mysticism, I will reiterate what I mentioned above as the definition of mysticism: a personal interaction with God. Paul Tillich, in A History of Christian Thought, cautions us: “Do not make the mistake of identifying this type of mysticism with the absolute or abstract mysticism in which the individual disappears in the abyss of the divine.”

What kind of mystical experiences are legitimate in Christianity? Let’s look to examples in Scripture. The simplest and most concrete of these is prayer. There are many examples as well as instructions for prayer in the Holy Bible, the most famous being the Lord’s Prayer. I could ramble on about what prayer is and isn’t, but I think most of you have some notion that it concerns direct communication with God, so I will save those ramblings for a different post.

Another mystical experience, common to pretty much every Christian (and every non-Christian who obeys their conscience – see Romans 2:14-15), is that of conviction. It’s that feeling of when you know you’ve done something wrong and need to make it right – and when you ought to do something right to serve God. Such convictions can be misdirected by our accusing Enemy, though, which is why we must check it against the light of Scripture. Philippians 4:8 is a good measuring rod.

Another type of mystical phenomenon is called speaking in tongues. There seem to be two different types shown in Scripture. The first is speaking in known earthly languages, as we see at Pentecost in Acts 2. The purpose of this sort is to expedite the spread of the Gospel to people groups who speak a different language. The other is discussed in 1 Corinthians 14 and seems to be a sort of prayer language that pours out of the human spirit, not understood by the human mind but by God. I highly encourage you to read the chapter and study it for yourself; it’s fascinating stuff.

There is an interesting phenomenon that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 12. Speaking in the third person, he describes “a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven.” There is much vagueness as to the nature of this vision; we find that this is intentional. “Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know – God knows. And I know that this man – whether in the body or part from the body I do not know, but God knows – was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.” From what I understand, a person who has such experiences is not to tell anyone else; such a revelation is not for the edification of the church, but for the edification of the individual believer and thus we are not to receive such knowledge secondhand.

Now then, what is one to do with all of these modern ideas found in different denominations? “I go to a Baptist church; we’d never do some of that crazy stuff.” “What are you talking about? That’s like, normal, at my Pentecostal church.” To address the validity of such viewpoints would take a whole ‘nother blog post, and frankly I’m not interested in that topic right now. My goal was to help clarify what a mystical experience in Christianity is, and if you come away thinking, “Huh, I never thought of prayer as a mystical experience,” then I have achieved my goal. If you proceed to experience a more vibrant prayer life and thus walk more closely with Christ because of your new perspective, then to God be the glory!