The Voice of God

Evangelicalism began in the 17th century, and the Evangelical Faith movement came to America during the 18th and 19th century, attracting members from the social upheaval of the 1960s and growing rapidly in the 1970s. The term evangelical has it roots in the Greek word for "gospel" or "good news"; from eu (good) and angelion (message). In this sense, to be evangelical means to be a believer of the Gospel, that is, the message of Christ. People were choosing between many different faiths and ways to believe, and the various church's were trying to offer a faith practice that encouraged people to develop a closer relationship with a loving God. An interesting research project was triggered by a comment from a woman who told a Stanford professor to "go have coffee with God". The professor was at first confused, and then amazed that this woman talked about God as her best friend, which led to the question "How does God become real to people". So for the next several years, the professor immersed herself in the activities of Evangelical Christians; joining a church, attending Sunday services, weekly prayer meetings, lectures, conferences, and retreats.

 

What she discovered was that Evangelicals seek a close, personal relationship with God. He is a God of unconditional love and kindness, and they believe that with some training they can recognize God's presence, even His voice, in their minds. When they pray, they are talking directly to God in their minds, not reciting Scripture or a suggested prayer. They invite congregants to "pretend" that God is present and make believe that he is talking back like their very best buddy. They don't think that God is imaginary, but they do believe that when congregants use their imaginations in prayer, they can experience God more intimately. What she concluded was that their beliefs and their experience may seem pretty startling to onlookers, but they are not crazy. What has developed over time are techniques that involve attending to an imaginative experience and treating that imaginary experience as significant, meaningful, and worthy; basically it's paying more attention to your inner thoughts.

Luckily all Catholics, including those with an Evangelical focus, don't have to pretend that God is present, and we would also agree that a close personal relationship with God is imperative. Other research has confirmed that people who report that they feel God's love directly feel less lonely and less stressed. During the professors study she asked a prayer group to listen to scripture readings, which were followed by questions about the passages that encouraged the participants to use their imagination to take part in what was happening in the Scripture readings. A separate Bible study group listened to lectures about scripture that weren't followed by questions. Her research found that after 30 days of listening to scripture for 30 minutes each day, the prayer group had more vivid imaginations and were more likely to say that they experienced God more as a person. Each of us should be reading scripture and practicing prayer to sharpen our mental imagery, so that like those from the research study we can say we experience God as our best friend.