"Emotionalism" is valid

One of the criticisms I have heard of a number of Christian movements - from Charismatics/Pentecostals to my own Cursillo movement - is that it relies too heavily on "emotionalism."

Well I for one am an advocate of emotionalism when it comes to faith, especially Christian faith. What was Thomas the skeptic's reaction when Jesus finally took on Thomas' forensic skepticism - his demand that he see not just Jesus, but one with all the right wounds? He fell to his knees and said, "My Lord and my God!" As Christians, we are called to be emotional. St. John tells us that "God is love." Jesus tells us to "Love one another, as I have loved you." He tells us that the woman washing His feet with her tears is the more loving, because she is the most forgiven (and obviously also the most repentent!)

If you can't feel, and don't even want to, why would you involve yourself in a faith like Christianity?

Don't get me wrong - it is a faith with an excellent tradition of scholastic theology, great thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, St. Augustine... but each of these men also felt, and felt deeply. Listening to Augustine's heartbreaking account of his mother's passing is unbearable to read.

We are called to love - even St. Paul, whom the legalists tend to scandalously appeal to, tells us that the highest virtue is Love, in 1 Corinthians 13.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

So be emotional. Feel. Love. Hurt. God gave us feelings and empathy for a reason - not to wither on the vine. But to take root in the spirit. It is why bards sing, and lovers mope, why cantors sing, and why daughters elope.

Love another, truly and fully, and you are doing His word - Love one another as I have loved you. Let the would-be Scribes and Pharisees keep their coldness. They'll need it in the very warm place where such things lead.