The Difference Between a Faith Journey Narrative and a Testimony

First Thursday of Easter

The title of this blog poses a question. What's the difference between a Faith Journey Narrative and a Testimony. A quick and somewhat cynical answer is that the former is Methodist; the latter, Baptist. Here's a better answer. A testimony usually relates a single life-changing event whereby a person of little, no, or lost faith is led to faith in Christ. Usually the person testifying was at a very low point in his or her life, when the life-changing event happened. The life changing-event is often called, being Born Again. The paradigm for all such testimonies is the story of the Prodigal Son.

A faith journey narrative does not center on one event but is an accumulation of many events over many years. Both the language and the thought are different from testimony. Terms like "being born again," "accepting Christ as your personal savior," or "getting saved" don't compute very well to faith journeyers. Faith journeyers are more comfortable with terms like "spiritual formation,"and "spiritual growth." As you might expect, I am definitely a faith journey person. 

One question faith journey people seldom ask is why the use of the word "journey." A journey has a beginning and ending and a lot of different experiences in between. A journey is more about experiences than about thoughts and ideas, although, to be sure, one can have an intellectual journey. 

The word journey is a critical metaphor in Christian thought and Western thought. Abraham and Sarah made their journey from Ur of the Chaldees (present day Iraq) to the promised land, the land of Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey. Odysseus made his journey through around the Mediterranean through many obstacles to find his way home to Ithaca in Greece. Such a long journey we call after the name of the poem, an Odyssey.  

The mode of writing for a spiritual journey is narrative. Another kind of writing about a person's faith would be a systematic theology or a philosophical treatise. For this kind of writing faith becomes a set of beliefs or doctrines. For this kind of writing faith is about who God is. For the faith journeyer faith is about what God does. As I have said to you many times, I am a Biblical scholar, not a theologian.

My spiritual journey has been longer than most. That's in good part because I have been alive for a long 75 years. It's also because faith has been a more central part of my life than it has for most people. I don't mean to say that in any kind of morally or spiritually superior way. It's just that I have two different careers, both based on my faith. Faith is what I study. Faith is what I preach and teach.

In tomorrow's post, I'll write a bit about faith building in my early years.

Yesterday's question was what play and author was alluded to in the title of yesterday's blog, "The Importance of Being Christian." Three people answered the question. None got it completely right. There is still time for more entries (using the internet is cheating).

Faithfully,
Christian