"It is quite an illegitimate use of all this to see 'experience' as a separate source of authority to be played off against scripture itself, though this move is now frequent, almost routine, in many theological circles ('Scripture says... tradition says... reason says... but experience says... and so that's what we go with").... (pg 101)To speak of 'experience' as an authority, then, is to admit that the word 'authority' itself is being dismantled.... If 'experience' is itself a source of authroity, we can no longer be addressed by a word which comes from beyond ourselves. At this point, theology and Christn living cease to be rooted in God himself, and are rooted instead in our own selves; in other words, they become a form of idolatry in which we exchange the truth about God for a human-made lie...." (pg 101, 103).
"We could put it like this. 'Experience' is what grows by itself in the garden. 'Authority' is what happens whne the gardener wants to affirm the goodness of the genuine flowers and vegetables by uprooting the weeds in order to let beauty and fruitfulness triumph over chaos, thorns and thistles. An over-authoritarian church, paying no attention to experience, solves the problem by paving the garden with concrete. An over-experiential church solves the (real or imagined) problem of concrete (rigid and 'judgmental' forms of faith) by letting anything and everything grow unchecked, sometimes labeling concrete as 'law' and so celebrating any and every weed as 'grace.'" (pg 104)
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