The mountains are breathtaking and memorable but they are more the exception than the rule. The Christian life is more like a quiet state highway on the plains interrupted by quiet small towns, a few stop lights, followed by more highway. It’s occasionally striking but mostly it’s ordinary and that’s fine. Ordinary is alright.

For most of my conscious life I have listened to other Americans complain about having to drive across Nebraska on I-80. As soon I tell non-Nebraskans than I am a Cornhusker they have two comments: 1. Your football team isn’t what it used to be; 2. I-80 is the most boring part of their drive across the country.  Ok, I-80 across Nebraska is a little plain, pun intended. The Eisenhower administration didn’t want exciting interstates. They were as much for winning the Cold War (and landing bombers, if it came to that) as they were about your trip to grandma’s house. 80 follows the Platte River and it is flat. People will often contrast their experience of the mountains, in contrast to the prairies. As a plainsman I appreciate the mountains (who doesn’t?) but I think the Christian life is more like Nebraska than it is like Colorado.

For many Christians the Christian life is the quest for intense, mountain-top emotional experiences. The assumption is that these sublime experiences are the norm and that those less exciting periods of life are abnormal, inferior, disappointing, and perhaps a sign of some spiritual failure. When people say, “we really worshipped today” what they are sometimes saying is, “We had an intense emotional experience during worship.” Since the First Great Awakening (18th century) and particularly since Charles Finney’s (1792–1875) practice of and Lectures on Revival North American Christians have come to expect the unexpected, an intense emotional experience in worship. That’s what many congregations seem to mean by “revival.” That’s why, in so many services, congregations sing carefully coordinated songs designed to produce a certain affect and effect. Christians sometimes become addicted to the experience of euphoria produced by such use of worship music. When people say, “God seems to have left me” what they may be saying is, “I’m not having the sort of intense experiences I expect a Christian to experience.”

We search for sublime religious experiences in other ways too. That is part of the allure of conferences. There’s nothing wrong with a good conference but a well-organized conference with outstanding speakers and highly skilled, practiced musicians and/or singers is, by definition, unusual. It’s not the norm.

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