‘By Their Fruits You Will Know Them’

Abstract

Religious experience in the broad sense of any experience structured by religious concepts covers an enormously wide range from the sublime to the ridiculous and beyond that to the positively evil. We have seen some examples of the sublime. As an example of the ridiculous:

After I felt the call of God to trust Him for everything I was in the RAF as an aircraft mechanic. After a short time I was posted to the Far East and during the trouble we were required to keep up a fighter umbrella. This meant that I had to decide which aircraft to service first and which had to be left to the last. Imagine a line of fighters as one taxies to the far end and one to the other. We were short staffed in my trade. I trusted God to guide me to the right plane and in my mind came a quiet voice. I obeyed the code letters and raced to that aircraft. As I did, my heart was filled with joy to the brim. After the trouble was over I worked it out to 360 aircraft checked without the mistake of servicing the wrong one. I can write a small book on how God has guided me and also fill it with everyday happenings which I know come from our Maker, not the subconscious. (Maxwell and Tschudin 1990, 116)