It has been customary
since the seventeenth century to use the word ‘experimental’ to characterize a
certain kind of teaching and preaching. To those who support the use of the
word, experimental preaching is a good thing.
It is how preaching should be. Besides being exegetically well-founded
in Scripture, and its doctrine biblical, and set in the context of the whole
counsel of God, the experimental preacher should place it within the theology of the whole of
the Bible, and its manner and its applications should be ‘experimental’. A
preacher well-versed in the practice of making such applications came to be
known as a ‘experimental divine’.
This phrase, ‘an
experimental preacher’, has come to be thought quaint, and potentially
misleading. For – the thought is – what has scientific experimentation to do with the life of God in the soul of
man? It may even be suggested that the word ‘experimental’ must have changed
its meaning in the intervening years. It seems now to mean that an experimental
preacher is one who makes experiments in the pulpit, trying out various ideas
on his congregation.
It’s now becoming
usual to think that the word ‘experimental’ is an old-fashioned word for ‘experiential’,
and that such a preacher is making reference to ‘religious experience’, ‘contextualising’
it appropriately, making it relevant to the experiences of the people.
But experimental
preaching is neither of these things. It is not
a quaint and out of date reference to natural science, or ‘the science
of the mind’, nor has it to do with trying out ideas on the congregation to see
if some doctrine has relevance to young mothers or to grumpy old men. Nor with religious experience in some general
sense covering, say, the experience of revival, of levitations and glossolalia,
of out of the body experiences, or mysticism.
What is it then?
Experimental
preaching has to do with testing. A
scientist puts his theory to the test by devising experiments on the relevant
substances or events. He may as a result have his hypothesis confirmed,
modified and he may, sadly, have to abandon it. (It is not a good idea for a
scientist to develop bonds of affection with a theory. He must try to test his
theory to destruction. A certain
ruthlessness is implied. A scientist who looks only for confirmations of his
theory is not doing his job.)
Nevertheless
‘experimental’ suggests testing, and a preacher who follows the contours and
sensibilities of the New Testament must inevitably be an experimental preacher.
For the New Testament contains not only doctrines, delivered in various ways by
its writers, but also accounts of the impact that the doctrines have and are to
have (and sometimes, the impact they are not to have) on the inner life
(motives, feelings, self-understanding) and on the conduct of the hearers. The way that doctrine is ‘delivered’ in
Scripture includes some aspect of the Good News and then, in addition, some
story about the way it was received in this congregation or that. That’s one important difference between the
New Testament and Berkhof’s Systematic
Theology (for example) important though that book is as a masterly delineation
of doctrines. There is more to the New Testament than this, though not of
course less that this. With doctrine should come ‘use’ and ‘application’,
characteristic of Puritan preaching.
In his Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 R.T.
Kendall refers to English experimental theology (and explicitly not
‘experiential’) to refer to a strand of English Puritanism, and I think he was
correct to stick to the term, for the reasons given, and to link it explicitly with the testing of
the self by the word of God.(9) But whether ‘experimental predestinarianism’ forms a distinct
tradition, as he claims, a tradition distinct from that of ‘creedal predestinarianism’ is another
matter. (80) For one thing, experimental preaching covers more than the matter
of the establishing of personal assurance, embracing the whole life of the life
of faith. For another thing the Westminster
Confession of Faith (a ‘creed’, surely) does not simply provide a
compendium of doctrines as normative for Christian belief, such as the
so-called ‘Apostles’ Creed’, but goes
beyond this in including the normative religious and moral states that a
hearty belief in a doctrine calls for. Not only is doctrine normative in the
‘creedal’ sense, its normativeness extends to what Scripture holds is the proper impact
of belief on life.
So the Chapter on Providence includes these
sentiments
The
most wise, righteous and gracious God doth often-times leave for a season his
own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or
to discover to them the hidden strength of corruption, and deceitfulness of their
hearts, that they may be humbled; and to raise them to a more close and
constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more
watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and
holy ends. (V.V.)
Plenty of material
here for ‘experimental’ preaching and experimental religion. The Chapters of
the Confession almost without exception follow the ‘doctrine’ + ‘use and
application’ style characteristic of Puritan preaching, in which the uses were
not invented by the preacher, but taken from Scripture. Here’s the example from
the chapter on good works (XVI) discussing the relation between justification
and conduct.
Their
[believers’] ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly
from the Spirit of Christ. And that they may be enabled thereunto, besides the
graces that they have already received, there is required an actual influence
of the same Holy Spirit, to work in them to will and to do of his good
pleasure: yet are they not hereupon to grow negligent, as if they were not bound to perform any duty, unless upon a special
motion of the Spirit; but they ought to be diligent in stirring up the grace of
God that is in them. ((XVI.III)
So ‘experimental’
preaching means preaching that is testing, preaching that directs the believer
to self-examination and action, not preaching that is dry or academic in tone
or content. Nor preaching that is
‘experiential’ (in some generalized sense). Such preaching ought not to be some
exotic, occasional exercise, but rather part of the staple diet of the
Christian church, by which the wheat is separated from the chaff, and the
believer is established in the faith that works by love. ‘Experimental’, not
merely ‘experiential’. We should save
the term from the lumber-room, and give proper emphasis to it
