This leads us to a third characteristic of so much popular evangelicalism-the determinative role of experience. This appeal to experience over the Word takes different forms. If a particular Bible teacher has great crowds flocking to hear him, then surely this is a sign that the Lord is endorsing his message. It amounts to the fact that great crowds are seen, ipso facto, as the blessing and endorsement of the Lord. The basis of this is a legalistic premise-the Lord only blesses us when we are right.
Minority is inferiority while majority is superiority in so much evangelical thinking.
When we speak of experience over the gospel, we are asserting that the message of the Bible is subordinated to the message of man. And when we speak of experience over the Word, we are saying that the meaning of the Bible is subordinated to the meaning which man imposes on the Word. This focuses, we believe, the fundamental drift of the current religious scene. But such Biblical elements are within a fundamentally wrong frame-work. We are all, because of our sinfulness, saddled with error.