Getting In Touch with Feelings

In the colossal debate over Kirk versus Picard I side with the more cerebral diplomatic captain of the Next Generation Enterprise, but I will admit that, over the course arc of the series Jean-Luc Picard would have been more lost in the cosmos without his emotionless foil (Data) than James T. Kirk would have been without his (Spock).  Thanks to Vulcan longevity and Leonard Nimoy's willingness to participate, Data and Spock actually got to meet each other on the show, and as I recall they actually had a conversation (a highly analytical one at that) about the relative usefulness of "humanity," meaning emotions and intuition.  Vulcans aspire to put aside everything but logic.  Data, as an android, aspires to be "more human."  Their aspirations for their state of being seems to be moving in opposite directions, but they are crossing in the middle as it were.  The Vulcan feels plagued by unwanted emotions and attachments, the android feels he is always lacking something because he is unable to have them.  They both represent something of a heroic dream, which is a paradox of the human imagination: the desire to be purely creatures of fact and logic.
This is, of course, a rather new turn of the human psyche, certainly rooted in the values of the enlightenment and furthered by the advent of the "scientific" age.  We are not, nor will we ever be, creatures of pure logic, and honestly, I think our science fiction probably makes one of it's most salient points in showing us that it would be, in fact, rather undesirable.
To demonstrate that I am an ambidextrous sci-fi geek, I shall illustrate using The Force of the Star Wars universe.  Force users, both Jedi and Sith are always going on about feelings, "trust your feelings," "use your feelings," "reach out with your feelings," it's all kinds of mystical.  In the final analysis though, feelings are not found to be either infallible or unnecessary, they are in fact what you make of them: either a force for good or a path to the dark side.
I will admit, as a strongly determinate T on the Myers-Brigs Personality Type Indicator, I always liked the Spock/Data logic, and I will also tell you that my favorite Jedi is the Alec Guinness version of Obi Wan Kenobi, the old, controlled, disciplined Jedi Knight, who will slice off your arm, but do so without much of an emotional reaction. I have had to learn how to value my emotions.  I have had to wrestle with the reality that emotional responses are neither good or bad on their own, there is a place in the scheme of things even for fear, anger and hatred.  The negative emotions particularly need to be given their due, or else they become destructive (which was I think one of the rather glaring flaws in the training of Jedi, but that's for another day, I want to come back to Earth for now).
What spawned all of this in my brain was a theme I have run into several times over recent weeks, in politics both secular and in the church, in talk about gender identity, and with regard to interpretation of the Scripture (which is probably the thing that I want to get on about the most).  The theme I have stubbed my toe on several times is the old idea of "just feelings," and I'm not talking about feelings of justice, but as in "it's just a feeling."
I understand that feelings are not 100% reliable in any way.  I will admit that our emotional responses to things can be hopelessly convoluted and complicated.  Particularly with regard to something like gender or sexual orientation, oh yeah and probably also with regard to politics and religion.  I don't actually want to rehash or even dip a toe into trying to analyze the emotions tied to our most troubling arguments of the moment.  I want to make the point that emotions are neither something to be trusted entirely, nor are they a thing to be disregarded as wholly unreliable.  I will stay here and play in my own yard: interpretation of Scripture for instance, requires us to deal with human emotions.  We need to understand the motivations of the people in the stories, and the motivations of the writers of the stories, we need to understand the situation of the "original audience" and we need to understand the situation of the people we live with now.  This cannot be a purely intellectual exercise.  That is not following Christ's example.  Jesus got emotionally involved with people, he loved them, he got angry with them, he was frustrated by them, he was surprised (pleasantly) by their faith, I think it's safe to say he experienced the gamut of human emotion.
So why then, do I hear so many people denigrate an emotional response to Scripture as being "just a feeling?"  Why would you want to deal with it and live into it if it doesn't stir your blood?
I'm not advocating just going with whatever "feels" right, what I am rather disappointed with is the outright dismissal of how people understand the Living Word, by those who think it should be utterly black and white, cut and dry, dead and buried.
I know this doesn't work because it is what passes for orthodoxy in many traditions, and I am always running into the refugees it has created. I run into some really horrible theology in my line of work, and I am faced with the task of recovering a notion of God's grace.  The need for that comes back over and over, like waves on a shoreline.
There is, I think, a deep problem with the patterns the church has fallen into.  Maybe in the past, it was more necessary to throw loads of guilt at people. Maybe they didn't feel the weight of their own sin, maybe they needed more judgment, but nowadays I run into a lot more people who are carrying religious scars than is probably healthy.  Usually if they run into me here they are in the process of healing, if I meet them out there they may still be raw.  In the former case, I am careful not to poke my pastoral finger at them, in the latter case, I keep my entire pastoral hand in my pastoral pocket and may not even tell them what I do for a living, until I have established some sort of ground for them to trust that I'm not going to start tearing at that wound.
None of what I just said is logical, and I cannot give you a clinical blow by blow of how it works, or how I know, it's a feeling, an intuition, and I have come to realize, it's a crucial one for what I do and how I do it. It is part of the work of witnessing to Christ in the world.  So don't ever tell me it's "just" a feeling.