SEPTEMBER — AT LAST!

No reason for most people to be aware (my book, Discovering God, is not out yet), but I do claim to know something about religious and near-death experiences.

I first met God through experience when I was 14 and have studied such encounters ever since.

I have had, throughout my life, a good deal of what William James called “business with God.”

No, I don’t know why.

I do know that these experiences are part of my call to ministry.

They help shape the message I proclaim in Jesus’ name. For the God I know through experience is the God I know in Christ.

And here is what I am always trying to tell you:

God is not silent.

God is accessible.

God is knowable.

Einstein said that “we know all that we know through experience.”

Note the “all.”

This includes God.

Everything in the Bible which is right about God is a product of experience.

Those first disciples experienced God through Jesus. Paul tells us he received the whole of the gospel he preached directly from an experience of the Risen Christ.

God is knowable.

Theology is not a matter of guesswork. It is not just opinion. It can be as accurate as math.

This is how we can know Jesus is right about God.

The God we meet in experience is the God we know through Christ—a God of unconditional love.

And this is how we know the author of the book of Revelation is wrong.

The vengeful God of Revelation does not exist.

How do I know?

Jesus—and experience– tell me so.