Feeling and Faith--Religious Emotions in German History
2014; Oxford University Press; Volume: 32; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/gerhis/ghu063
ISSN1477-089X
AutoresPascal Eitler, Bettina Hitzer, M. Scheer,
Tópico(s)Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
ResumoI remember when Your light came in . . . I felt like I could walk on water then . . . But I have learned that feelings come and go, And we all know emotions ebb and flow . . . So when I don’t feel You moving, That doesn’t mean that You have disappeared. And when I don’t feel You with me, oh God, That doesn’t mean You’re not here. So I keep on believing, yeah, Cause faith is not a feeling. Josh Wilson ‘Faith is not a feeling’—with this refrain from an album released in April 2013, Josh Wilson, a young Christian pop singer from Texas, attests to the fact that, though he initially experienced the presence of God as such, faith cannot be reduced to emotion. This point of view stands in stark contrast to the message that TV viewers, newspaper readers and internet surfers are confronted with every day: here religious belief is all about feelings; feelings seem to be intimately tied to faith. In the media, all sorts of images support this idea: so-called hate preachers urging holy war; tears flowing on St Peter’s Square when the name of the new Pope is announced; the uproar over cartoons perceived as offensive to religious feelings; believers meeting in stadiums and other public spaces to sing and pray and be ‘deeply moved’ together. All the while, theologians and church leaders warn against an excess of emotions in religion, against all that ‘esoteric and folkloric stuff’, reminding us that faith must also stand up to the light of reason. 1 This dichotomy would indicate that the relationship between faith and feeling is not as clear as it might seem, and that it is always contested.
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