Recognition scenes

1. Christian apologists typically try to make the evidence of Christianity as explicit as possible. (Likewise, they try to make the objections to non-Christian rival as explicit as possible.)

That's a very useful exercise. Christians sometimes need backup arguments to sustain their faith during some crisis or ordeal. It may tide them over during dry seasons of faith. And it's important in witnessing to unbelievers.

But despite the necessity of that approach, it can neglect another dimension of Christian faith, and even be discouraging. Even cerebral Christians don't necessarily live there. Much of Christian faith operates at a more subtle and subliminal level. 

2. Let's begin with an illustration. Take two brothers, a year or two apart, who are separated when they are too young to remember each other. Maybe their mother had both of them out-of-wedlock by the same boyfriend, and she can't afford to raised them both, so she puts one up for adoption. They grow up not knowing about each other's existence. 

Let's say that providentially they wind up at the same junior high school. That's when they first encounter each other. Initially they are complete strangers to each other–or so it seems. But they like each other and begin to hang out. There's a certain affinity that draws them to each other. The more time they spend together, they stronger the sense of affinity. A built-in bond. 

It runs deeper than the natural rapport between close friends. They find they can anticipate each other's thoughts or what they are going to say next, as if they have overlapping minds. As though they're psychologically linked, like two branches of the same vine. They gradually discover each other. 

Finally it occurs to one of them to ask if they're related to each other. Awkward questions are asked at home which disclose the fact that they are indeed blood brothers. They're a part of each other, not just genetically, but psychologically. 

We could vary the illustration. Peter Hitchens describes the horrible maternity wards in Russia under Communism. I'm sure some babies were mixed up. Returned to the wrong parents.

So you might have brothers or sisters raised apart to bump into each other later in life. Only a DNA test would establish their biological affinity.

Sometimes families are separated by war. In this case they may be old enough to remember that they have a long-lost brother or sister out there, but no way to track them down. 

3. Another comparison might be watching a movie for the first time. Maybe you hate it, but then you see it again years later and this time around it speaks to you. The movie hasn't changed, you have. You find something in the movie that was always there, but you missed it the first time around because you weren't ready for it.

Or may be you see the movie, form your own opinion, then years later read a review which offers an interpretation that never occurred to you. An interpretation that makes a lot of sense. Again, the movie hasn't changed, but it's like you're watching a different movie. 

4. Now this intuitive sense of recognition operates at different levels in Christian experience. For instance, as Christians read the Bible, they find people and situations in the Bible that resonate with their own experience. 

5. By the same token, Christians can sense in instant affinity with fellow Christians. I don't mean just any churchgoer, but genuine believers. We give off the same vibe. We're on the same wavelength. 

It's like vampire and werewolf lore, where they look human on the outside, but they're not human, yet they have the ability to instantly discern members of their own kind, distinguishing them from humans. 

6. A young Christian convert may bone up on systematic theology, then use theology as a filter to interpret his experience, or movies, or the world around him. That's a good exercise.

But as he becomes more settled in the faith, that process may become more internalized. He doesn't have to consciously interpret things from a Christian perspective. It's become ingrained. Second nature. 

7. I think part of Christian sanctification is a realignment in our outlook where there's increasing recognition of God's reality. Where it becomes natural to perceive the world from a God's-eye perspective. We're now viewing it from the other side, because we're on the other side. Not just in a detached, doctrinal sense, but a kind of gestalt shift.