Experience-driven Christianity - Take 3

There's no place like Rome, there's no place like Rome...

When I read this section in Reformation, my first thought was the latest evangelical fad of dabbling with Roman Catholic or Eastern mysticism. Maybe I'm wrong, but you can judge for yourself:

Where I differ from these gurus is in my analysis of the human condition and nature of salvation. If we were to agree with them in seeing human beings as always searching for God, as having an innate spirituality which leads them to yearn for deeper and more authentic spiritual experiences, then we would regard the current interest in alternative religions as a positive sign and see our own task as presenting to the spiritual consumer our own product, Christianity, as a more adequate means of fulfilling the so-called "felt needs" of individuals. If, however, in line with the biblical, historic Christianity, supremely that of the Reformers, we regard human beings as sinful and turned inwards towards self, then we see the hunger for alternative religions not as a sign of spiritual yearning but as yet one more example of humanity's infinite capacity to turn even its own innate knowledge that there is something higher than itself into an act of sheer moral and theological rebellion. Make no mistake; much of the trendy stuff coming from the postmodern evangelicals is built on a profoundly optimistic and thus deeply flawed understanding of human nature, and their proposed evangelistic methodologies are shaped by this flawed understanding.

Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow by Carl Trueman, Christian Focus Publications, 2011, pp. 85-86.