The Experience of the Transcendent and the Revelation of God: Relevance for Evangelism

Abstract

In recent years, scholars have started to think and articulate about evangelism both as practice and academic discipline from the biblical, theological, and philosophical ground. The goal of this article is to join the conversation by attempting to bridge the theological, philosophical, and practical horizons. The specific focus of the essay is to explore how one can understand and cultivate the religious experiences of non-Christians (although Christians also do encounter transcendent experiences and such encounter could be groomed) for evangelistic endeavor—an enterprise of leading unbelievers to embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ. The argument of this essay is that peoples’ transcendent experiences, being a subset of divine revelation, must be (re)interpreted through the lens of Scriptural revelation and materialized as a rapport to connect with the real transcendent being.