{"id":219,"date":"2011-09-08T19:31:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T19:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/spiritual-but-not-religious-again\/"},"modified":"2011-09-08T19:31:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-08T19:31:00","slug":"spiritual-but-not-religious-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/spiritual-but-not-religious-again.html","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual But Not Religious, Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
I\u2019m coming in late on the most recent flare-up about the \u201cSpiritual But Not Religious,\u201d but some of you may not have seen it, and in any case I have a few things I want to discuss.<\/span><\/div>\n

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This episode began when this essay by Rev. Lillian Daniel<\/a> of the United Church of Christ was published in The Christian Century<\/i>, a long-running magazine for mainline Protestants.\u00a0 It\u2019s titled \u201cThe Limits of Self-Made Religion\u201d and it was inspired by someone who cornered Rev. Daniel and proceeded to explain why he is \u201cspiritual but not religious\u201d and why he no longer attends church \u2013 reasons Rev. Daniel finds weak and self-centered.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t read it yet I encourage you to do so \u2013 especially if you consider yourself spiritual but not religious.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The article began circulating widely last week and it generated a lot of responses.\u00a0 UU World<\/i><\/a> linked to this one by Rev. Tony Lorenzen<\/a> who says we should be spiritual AND religious, and to this one by Rev. Kit Ketcham<\/a> who says \u201cI\u2019m on both sides of this question\u201d and then justifies (I think) her fence-sitting.\u00a0 Rev. Victoria Weinstein (aka \u201cPeaceBang\u201d) had this blog post blasting the spiritual but not religious<\/a> and then this much calmer followup<\/a> where she encouraged ministers to be as passionate and committed about teaching spiritual depth as they are about leading social justice.<\/span><\/div>\n

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I\u2019ve had a couple of things to say about this in the past:\u00a0 this one where I complain<\/a> that \u201ccalling yourself spiritual but not religious is all too frequently an excuse for spiritual laziness\u201d and this one following Amy Martin\u2019s recent service<\/a> at Denton UU where she explained the Spiritual But Not Religious phenomenon more sypathetically and in more detail.<\/span><\/div>\n

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That\u2019s the background.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what I want to add to this conversation.<\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cSpiritual But Not Religious\u201d is a spectrum, not a monolith<\/span><\/b><\/span>.\u00a0 There are people who call themselves spiritual but not religious or \u201cnone of the above\u201d (to use Amy Martin\u2019s term) who are genuinely unsuited for the religion they know and who are actively searching for the right fit somewhere else.\u00a0 There are people who recognize they need to work on themselves for a while and who are diligently reading, studying, praying and meditating before joining or rejoining a community.\u00a0 I was there once, for about a year.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n

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Then there are people who use the term \u201cspiritual but not religious\u201d to justify their avoidance of the hard work of regular spiritual practice and the accountability of religious community.\u00a0 This is spiritual shallowness and laziness.\u00a0 If I\u2019m being perfectly honest, I\u2019ve been there too.\u00a0 And there are people at every point in between.\u00a0 When we talk about the spiritual but not religious we need to recognize we\u2019re speaking in high-level generalities.<\/span><\/div>\n

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This is no different from every religion in the world<\/span><\/b><\/span>.\u00a0 Every religious organization I\u2019ve ever been around has had people who took it seriously and people who showed up when they felt like it.\u00a0 There are Christians who study the Bible and there are Christians who pull verses out of context to support their prejudices.\u00a0 There are Pagans who honor their gods and goddesses and there are Pagans who look up a goddess in a book and greet her with a list of stuff they want.\u00a0 There are UUs who work for social justice and there are UUs who talk about the work that others do.\u00a0 As a group, the spiritual but not religious are no better and no worse than any other group.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Ministerial defensiveness is understandable but not helpful<\/span><\/b><\/span>.\u00a0 If you buttonhole a minister and dump on her with a bunch of shallow, self-centered ideas about spirituality, then you deserve all the snark you get.\u00a0 That\u2019s just rude.\u00a0 But when Rev. PeaceBang lists her qualifications and the sacrifices she\u2019s made to become a minister and then compares herself with a cardiologist, that invites the wounded and the cynical to assume she\u2019s saying \u201cI\u2019m the authority \u2013 obey me!\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying she should be warm and fuzzy when she\u2019s justifiably angry, but a professional needs to understand when an insult is personal and when it\u2019s not.\u00a0 Refute childish claims to spiritual superiority with mature questions and challenging facts \u2013 an approach Rev. PeaceBang herself recommends in her second blog entry.<\/span><\/div>\n

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This controversy is helping us to correct the popular definition of \u201creligion.\u201d<\/span><\/b><\/span>\u00a0 Our society has shifted the wonderful concept of religious liberty from the idea that you\u2019re free to join whatever religious community seems right to the idea that religion is strictly a personal matter.\u00a0 But religion isn\u2019t something you do on your own.\u00a0 The earliest religions were all about the tribe<\/a> \u2013 how to obtain the blessings of the gods and ancestors so the tribe would prosper.\u00a0 The Abrahamic religions have a mixture of individual and communal emphasis:\u00a0 the Ten Commandments are about personal behavior, while most of the prophets are about building a just society.\u00a0 That\u2019s a gross oversimplification, but it illustrates how religion has a strong group element.<\/span><\/div>\n

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When the SBNR say they\u2019re \u201cnot religious\u201d they\u2019re literally correct.\u00a0 They\u2019re not religious because their spirituality (such as it is) is focused entirely inward.\u00a0 If this controversy helps people to understand that religion is about a lot more than what you believe, that it\u2019s about building and supporting a community, then that\u2019s a good thing.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
So, how should we respond?<\/span><\/b><\/span>\u00a0 Unlike some religious and\/or spiritual movements (say, Christian dominionists<\/a> or Islamic militants), the spiritual but not religious don\u2019t present a danger to the rest of us.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have to convert them or correct their errors.\u00a0 We just need to be the best religious people building the best religious communities we can.\u00a0 Sooner or later the seekers will turn into finders and some of them will find us.\u00a0 If we\u2019re healthy and thriving some of them will stick around.\u00a0 Some will realize their shallow childish spirituality isn\u2019t satisfying and sustaining and will start looking for something deeper.\u00a0 They should find us living that depth.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
Good religion is hard work.\u00a0 At the individual level it requires dedicated practice.\u00a0 At the group level it requires cooperation, compromise, and a commitment to a long term vision of something bigger and better than yourself.\u00a0 Religion is a human institution, and as such it is subject to all the failures of human endeavors.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
But when it\u2019s done right, that work will build a religious, and yes, a spiritual base that will support us in tough times, celebrate with us in good times, and most importantly, provide a means for the transformation of our souls and of our world.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

And that\u2019s something no mere \u201cspirituality\u201d can provide.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m coming in late on the most recent flare-up about the \u201cSpiritual But Not Religious,\u201d but some of you may not have seen it, and in any case I have a few things I want to discuss. This episode began when this essay by Rev. Lillian Daniel of the United Church of Christ was published […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSpiritual But Not Religious, Again<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019m coming in late on the most recent flare-up about the \u201cSpiritual But Not Religious,\u201d but some of you may not have seen it, and in any case I have a few\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/spiritual-but-not-religious-again.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spiritual But Not Religious, Again\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m coming in late on the most recent flare-up about the \u201cSpiritual But Not Religious,\u201d but some of you may not have seen it, and in any case I have a few\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/spiritual-but-not-religious-again.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-08T19:31:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/spiritual-but-not-religious-again.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/spiritual-but-not-religious-again.html\",\"name\":\"Spiritual But Not Religious, Again\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-09-08T19:31:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-09-08T19:31:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\"},\"description\":\"I\u2019m coming in late on the most recent flare-up about the \u201cSpiritual But Not Religious,\u201d but some of you may not have seen it, and in any case I have a few\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/spiritual-but-not-religious-again.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/spiritual-but-not-religious-again.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/spiritual-but-not-religious-again.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Spiritual But Not Religious, Again\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"description\":\"Musings of a Druid, Pagan, and Unitarian Universalist.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Beckett\"},\"description\":\"I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. 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