What If You Can Trust Your Heart?

Reclaiming intuition and emotions as a Christian source of wisdom.

Evangelicals have a complicated relationship with emotions. Attend a standard nondenominational church service, and you’ll likely find an outpouring of heartfelt worship. There, emotional expression is a sign of being alive with the presence of God. Small groups and Bible studies are confessional; participants are encouraged to share personal joys and struggles. Emotionally intense preachers and speakers are seen as “on fire” and uniquely gifted.

“Allegory of Charity,” Francisco de Zurburan, 1655, Museo del Prado

Testimonies often hinge on a heightened emotional moment; I’ve written about coming to Jesus at age 13 after a Geoff Moore and the Distance concert. (It is important to my worldview that we honor the spelling of “Geoff.”) After responding to an altar call, I knew I was a Christian because my heart felt “strangely warmed,” a phrase from John Wesley that, years later, I would recognize in my own experience, and in the stories of countless inheritors of Wesley’s pietist, revival…