“The Evangelical church has one high sacrament: emotion.”
Levi Nunnink, “Evangelical Catholic. Episcopalian in Ecclesiology, Lutheran in everything else,” has offered great insight about evangelicals in “The Evangelical Sacrament.” He offers as an example the preaching of Paul Washer. It saddens me that a Catholic-Episcopalian-Lutheran would have such better insight than Evangelicals.
I repost about half of the article below, with apologies to Mr. Nunnink, and you can read the rest here.
“When Washer is confronted with this girl who is terrified of God’s judgement, he commands her to ‘cry out to God until he saves you.’ Later the girl (after a lot of crying out) is saved. This is evidenced by her ‘glowing’.”
In this sermon Paul Washer recounts an interesting story which occurs from 4:00 minutes to about the 7:00 minute mark.
I have some observations:
There is a lot of “crying out†going on. The father, the girl, Paul Washer all cry out at various points. The story does not include a hungry dog but if it did I imagine the dog would be “crying out†for Kibbles ‘n Bits. I’m not trying to be glib but I do feel some of these Southern Baptist preachers are a bit heavy on the theatrics. I’ve seen a number of sermons by Paul Washer and he constantly sounds like he’s about to cry. I wonder if he buys peanut butter in the same tremulous voice?
Second, and this is far less snarky, I’m starting to realize that while Evangelicals have a very low view of baptism and the Eucharist, they do have a unspoken high sacramental theology connected to emotions.
Washer’s sermon is a prime example: when Washer is confronted with this girl who is terrified of God’s judgement, he commands her to “cry out to God until he saves youâ€. Later the girl (after a lot of crying out) is saved. This is evidenced by her “glowingâ€. The actual salvation event is described as her gaining a firm impression that she was now saved. She goes from doubting her salvation to certainty.
But how was this certainty communicated to her? I imagine that where once she felt agitation and anxiety, she now felt peace and serenity. Perhaps the doubts that once seemed so real to her now appeared unconvincing. Maybe she felt a deep sense of happiness. Whatever the case, the grace of God had been communicated to her through a radical change in emotional state. When this emotional shift occurred Washer now confidently identifies her as saved. The sacrament was the emotional shift.
