{"id":3814,"date":"2013-02-22T19:52:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T19:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=3814"},"modified":"2018-07-19T19:52:22","modified_gmt":"2018-07-19T19:52:22","slug":"evangelicals-god-talk-and-hearing-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2013\/02\/evangelicals-god-talk-and-hearing-voices.html","title":{"rendered":"Evangelicals, God Talk and Hearing Voices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stanford anthropologist TM Luhrmann, whose latest book is <em>When God Talks Back<\/em>, has been studying evangelicals and their approach to prayer.\u00a0 Luhrmann\u00a0recently described in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2013\/02\/17\/we-talk-with-god-what-evangelical-christians-hear.html\">an article\u00a0for <em>The Daily Beast<\/em><\/a> how that field work experience in at least one sense signified a conversion: Luhrmann did not walk a way having become an evangelical- or a Christian, for that matter; but with a newfound understanding- maybe even appreciation for- what evangelicals really mean when they say God &#8220;talks&#8221; to them in the stuff of life.<\/p>\n<p>And, come to think of it, it must seem awfully odd for non-religious persons to hear expressions like &#8220;God told me to go talk to that stranger&#8221; or &#8220;God called me to work in Haiti.&#8221;\u00a0 I suspect that we evangelicals, many of us, know at least <em>sort of<\/em> what we mean when we say such things.\u00a0 Some inner conviction by the Holy Spirit, maybe.\u00a0 Or, an\u00a0unusual stirring of the heart strings.\u00a0 Maybe just a recurring thought in the vein of &#8220;whatever is true&#8230;noble&#8230;right&#8230;pure&#8230;lovely&#8221; (Philippians 4:8).\u00a0 Sometimes intuition itself.<\/p>\n<p>Usually when we say God &#8220;speaks&#8221; to us we do not mean that we are literally\u00a0&#8220;hearing voices.&#8221;\u00a0 (Those of us who do mean this, presumably need to talk to a psychotherapist in addition to God.)<\/p>\n<p>But Luhrmann&#8217;s studies and reflections beg the question: how do we describe what it means to hear God&#8217;s voice in our lives?\u00a0 When have we heard God speak to us? When did we think we heard God speak to us and it turned out we were wrong?\u00a0 How might we describe for a stranger what it means that God speaks to us and that we listen?\u00a0 Leave your insights below!<\/p>\n<p>[Special thanks to saint and sinner Paul Dover for introducing me to Luhrmann&#8217;s article.]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stanford anthropologist TM Luhrmann, whose latest book is When God Talks Back, has been studying evangelicals and their approach to prayer.\u00a0 Luhrmann\u00a0recently described in an article\u00a0for The Daily Beast how that field work experience in at least one sense signified a conversion: Luhrmann did not walk a way having become an evangelical- or a Christian,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,1001,738,233],"tags":[1581,1580,1582,613,1577,1578,1579],"class_list":["post-3814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelical","category-evangelicalism","category-evangelism-2","category-prayer","tag-hearing-gods-voice","tag-how-do-i-know-gods-voice","tag-listening-prayer","tag-prayer-2","tag-the-daily-beast","tag-tm-luhrmann","tag-when-god-talks-back"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - 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