The Relationship Between Spiritual Experience and Coercion

Episode 83: In this conversation with Shane Meyer-Holt we dive into the complicated world of understanding experiences of God. For some, particular kinds of experiences with God are central to their spirituality, to feelings of closeness with God, to a sense of meaning and purpose. And yet for others, the attempt to impose certain forms of experience have resulted in harm and even trauma. Some have never 'felt' what they've been told they're supposed to feel, have never sensed God in the way that those around them are apparently sensing God. Does this mean its all pretence, or am I simply being ignored by God?

For many, this just ends up as a very confusing jumble - we might have had meaningful experiences but no longer know what to make of them, or we may have had a mixture of positive and negative experiences and now we're left wondering if any of it was real at all. So this episode is the beginning of a series of conversations trying to unpick all of this and see if we can make some sense of it.