{"id":1010,"date":"2019-05-30T09:37:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T09:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2019-03-19T14:43:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T14:43:50","slug":"spiritual-or-religious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/2019\/05\/30\/spiritual-or-religious\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual or Religious?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week’s blog is by<\/em> Greg Paul, author of Resurrecting Religion<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0was\u00a0originally\u00a0posted\u00a0on\u00a0The\u00a0Disciple\u00a0Maker<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the travesties the church has committed in the past and the nonsense it still gets stuck in today, it\u2019s tempting to just chuck the whole notion of religion into the waste bin of failed concepts. Mighty tempting, indeed. Especially when we ourselves are also guilty of many of those inconsistencies.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millions upon millions of people are doing just that\u2014chucking religion. How often have you heard this one: \u201cI\u2019m spiritual but not religious\u201d? That\u2019s a relatively new concept. I\u2019m sure I never heard a statement like that during my high school years or anytime soon after, but it\u2019s becoming very common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion also has grown in recent years; indeed, about one-fifth of the public overall\u2014and a third of adults under age 30\u2014are religiously unaffiliated as of 2012. Fully a third of U.S. adults say they do not consider themselves a \u201creligious person.\u201d And two-thirds of Americans\u2014affiliated and unaffiliated alike\u2014say religion is losing its influence in Americans\u2019 lives.[<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Among younger people, the shift is even more stark. For eighteen- to twenty-nine- year-olds who grew up regularly attending church almost 60 percent have quit going. In other words,\u00a0we\u2019re not connecting what we say we believe to what happens in church.<\/strong>\u00a0Or we\u2019re chucking the beliefs entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, people cling to the idea of being spiritual, even if they\u2019re not interested in formal religion. I know atheists and agnostics who are deeply, genuinely interested in spirituality. I know Christians who feel that going to church is actually an impediment to their spiritual growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religion, as we understand it, is becoming less and less valid to us, but our hunger for real, deep, sustaining, and refreshing spirituality is as voracious as ever.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

People who profess a nonreligious spirituality might say that they encounter the spiritual when they encounter mystery, when they are struck emotionally by the beauty of a sunset or experience a moment that is, for reasons that remain obscure, transcendent. Wonder has a lot to do with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often, such people are particularly sensitive to the essential fraternity of humanity and the magnificence of the natural world. Fragility touches them. Creativity moves them. They tend to be curious and want to be open to possibilities that others might consider absurd or valueless. They believe that the universe is made of more than atoms and molecules, and that life of any sort is precious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While the sacraments of baptism and Communion may have no value to them, eating a square of chocolate (dark, probably\u2014antioxidants and all that) or paddling a canoe along the shore of a quiet lake would seem to them like much the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They don\u2019t want to be bound by rules that don\u2019t make sense to them and are set for them by someone else. They want to be free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To such folk, and such values, I utter a quiet \u201cAmen.\u201d Except, of course, that baptism andCommunion do have value to me. (Also, I prefer milk chocolate.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As attractive as such an unfettered spirituality is, it does present some problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spiritual Dichotomy<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d suggest that there\u2019s another side to what a lot of people really mean when they say, \u201cI\u2019m spiritual but not religious,\u201d or, even more so, \u201cMy spirituality is very private.\u201d<\/strong> I think what many people really mean is, \u201cI don\u2019t want you talking to me about it. I don\u2019t want people scrutinizing my faith, because if they do, I\u2019ll have to scrutinize it, too\u2014and I may discover that my spirituality isn\u2019t all that deep or coherent or integrated with the way I really live<\/em>. Furthermore, if I have to start actually declaring what I believe, I\u2019ll be held accountable by what I say\u2014I\u2019ll have to actually behave accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there\u2019s the rub. As much as we might like to at times, we can\u2019t divorce our inner, individual, spiritual lives from our outer, communal, material lives.<\/strong> When we try, or actually do separate what we say we believe from how we live day to day, we do violence to both ourselves and our society. We dichotomize our own souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Those four out of five Christians identified by Barna as admitting that they aren\u2019t really deeply committed to their faith are living with a destructive dissonance at the very heart of their lives. By distancing themselves from whatever they find demanding or contradictory about the tenets of their religion, they are also cutting themselves off from not only the benefits of it but also, in some measure, from their sense of identity as the people of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s understandable, but it\u2019s tragic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of gap can lead to us succumbing, usually in simple ways, to the blandishments of the culture around us. When our actions don\u2019t line up with our beliefs, we begin to feel shame about those inconsistencies, and that starts a destructive cycle. We isolate ourselves more from the people around us for whom the church thing seems to work\u2014and it does seem to work for some, doesn\u2019t it?\u2014and then we feel guilty about that, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All those well-ordered lives and those shiny faces, brightly turned toward the pastor on Sunday morning. It must work for them; it just doesn\u2019t work for me, is how our thinking goes, and that means there must be something wrong with me. I don\u2019t trust enough, read Scripture enough, pray enough . . . the Bible study group is boring, and even when the preacher is lights-out good, I can\u2019t remember what he said three days later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seriously, how many times have you listened to a sermon that significantly changed your life?<\/strong> Once? Twice? Never?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen, I preach a lot\u2014at Sanctuary, other churches, and conferences. Let me tell you a secret: It\u2019s not working very well for most of the shiny-faced folk either. As a visiting speaker\u2014a stranger\u2014I routinely have people tell me something that they feel they can\u2019t share with anyone in the church. Those bright eyes and big smiles are often hiding the same kind of disappointment and resignation that you and I so often feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s clear, if you read through the Barna material, that the majority of Christians are pretty dissatisfied with their spiritual lives. Maybe they avoid deep commitment simply because it\u2019s inconvenient and less entertaining than movies or March Madness. Or because of that desire to be free from the expectations of others. Or they\u2019ve tried the Bible studies and small groups, and they didn\u2019t work. But maybe it\u2019s because what they are being asked to commit themselves to doesn\u2019t ring true or isn\u2019t challenging or fulfilling enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what conventional church provides us: some instruction in what the Bible says and how that should affect our lives; some cool and entertaining stuff for the kiddies, so they don\u2019t go looking for trouble; some rituals that either comfort us or ratify some of life\u2019s big events; a handful of people who will pray for us, if things are going so badly that we become desperate enough to submit the bare facts for publication in the church bulletin; a group of people who remind us that we are not alone in believing this wild story about God becoming a man, and so on; the occasional opportunity to do something good (but simple, not too demanding) for people elsewhere who are struggling; a little inspiration once in a while, if we\u2019re lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our guts, we know that this is not all the church is supposed to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Excerpted from Resurrecting Religion<\/a> by\u00a0Greg Paul\ufeff<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s lots of bad religion out there. But the answer isn\u2019t no<\/em> religion, it\u2019s true<\/em> religion: living out\u2014publicly and communally\u2014what we say we believe privately and individually. True religion puts flesh on the bones of faith. Resurrecting Religion<\/em> offers an inspiring, stretching vision for finding our way back to the good news of our faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when most people practice their faith in the extremes\u2014either extremely publicly, with a legalistic, combative tone that creates division, or extremely privately, to the point that our faith becomes functionally irrelevant\u2014award-winning author Greg Paul offers a vision for religion that is good for us and good for the world.\n\n<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s blog is by Greg Paul, author of Resurrecting Religion\u00a0and\u00a0was\u00a0originally\u00a0posted\u00a0on\u00a0The\u00a0Disciple\u00a0Maker. Given the travesties the church has committed in the past and the nonsense it still gets stuck in today, it\u2019s tempting to just chuck the whole notion of religion into the waste bin of failed concepts. Mighty tempting, indeed. Especially when we ourselves are also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[7],"tags":[107,258,259],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1020,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}