Christianity as
Heart-expression
Is different than
Christianity as
An organization.

Transactional religion is mind-based analysis built on human logic and reasoning. It tends to be cold, calculated, and contained. Analytical theology (the study of God and His revelation in the past–scholasticism) is transactional. (Our study, or sermon-hearing, is exchanged for the idea that we understand God.)

Transcendent faith is living, heart-felt interaction with the risen Jesus. It is passionate, life-changing, and ongoing. Direct, personal revelation from God is transcendent. It goes infinitely beyond mere human perception into experiencing God and being changed “from glory to glory.”

St. Thomas Acquinas was the leading proponent of scholasticism in the medieval period of church history and shaped much of Roman Catholic theology. He spent most of his life attempting to explain everything theologically in a massive book he called Summa Theologica. Towards the end of his life, Acquinas went on a retreat in a monastery. When he emerged, he said something like (the quotes vary): “All I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me.”

There’s a famine of Spirit-led, heart-healing, holiness-empowering Christianity in the land. Much that’s called Christianity has become self-focused, pleasure-seeking, and sin-excusing. Modern Christianity has an abundance of exalted experts at giving religious explanations but far too few exhilarating examples of discipleship. Transactional religion has replaced transcendent faith.

Revelation matters! Transcendence transcends transactional theology and makes it “like straw.” Open our eyes, Lord!