Religious vs Spiritual
rhubarb
Shipmate
I'm interested in the frequent recent claim from many people in the community who are opposed to any practice of Christianity as it interferes with their lives, but who claim to be spiritual rather than religious. I'm not really sure what they mean by being spiritual. Are they just claiming the bits they like, or are they part of an alternative form of worship. They certainly seem to turn up at church for funerals and Christmas and some even want their babies baptised. I guess I'm just puzzled by what people mean by being spiritual.
Comments
I'm guessing they have a sense of the transcendant but find that what goes on in church leaves them cold rather than in any way putting them in touch with it.
But responding to quetzalcoatl, I obviously can't speak for you but I would say it is better to meditate and not go to church, than go to church and not meditate.
There are probably other options as well, making a spectrum.
I generally hear “not religious” as meaning not involved in or attracted to organized religion, not wanting to be part of a system that, theoretically at least, dictates what one is supposed to believe or how one is supposed to behave. At least, that’s how those I know personally who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” seem to use it—to mean they believe in the transcendent (and they definitely do), but reject an “external” compass and rely on their “internal” compass and personal exploration.
Being ‘religious’ is seen as either being over-pious or over-zealous, the latter being worse than the former as it often involves unwanted evangelisation, but neither being desirable.
Being ‘spiritual’ is more acceptable, it can range from being interested in the kind of things offered at ‘mind, body and spirit’ fairs eg scented candles, crystals, incense etc to feeling a sense of the numinous in the countryside or under the stars.
Or....
Religion implies striving to change and improve oneself even at the cost of discomfort. It also implies membership of a community with shared beliefs and expectations.
Being spiritual can be less demanding and more about feelings than behaviour.
Unfair?
Yes.
Thing is, many people, me included, can't make myself believe what a community tells me to believe. Just not wired that way.
I suppose some churches do make it seem as if it is all about 'believing' certain 'doctrines.' Others emphasise the numinous and the mystery of an inexpressible God. I wouldn't want to be part of a church which was doctrinally correct but lacked the latter.
Possible - but I wonder how many unchurched people would have any inkling that religion ‘implies striving to change and improve oneself even at the cost of discomfort’. Or that there is any connection between spirituality and religion.
If given a questionnaire and asked ‘what are the shared beliefs and expectations of Christians?’ I wonder how many non-Christians would be able to answer at all, let alone get somewhere near the same answers as you or I.
I wasn't thinking of doctrines, more of expectations that members of religions are on a quest for personal perfection, or at least improvement that might be uncomfortable. Something to do with being open to being challenged as opposed to nice comforting glowing feelings when you see a mountain or a kitten.
I sometimes think that Ecclesiantics is the most judgemental forum here.
Perhaps people are finding that organised religion offers no help whatsoever to improvement or any quest for perfection. Perhaps they find it's not challenging at all, or at least not challenging in beneficial ways.
People might possibly find your reducing of their spirituality to "nice feelings when they see a mountain or a kitten" as highly insulting.
I cannot understand why people seem to want to find negative motives in other people for not doing things their way. If you want to be challenged, how about challenging yourself to look for the positives in other people's spiritual lives rather than accusing them of just being shallow and unwilling to be challenged?
A well deserved slap down. However while my characterisation was extreme that is certainly the impression I have gained. Maybe you could put me right.
Communities fearful for their own survival are really not helpful or nourishing places to be. They bleed their members dry, and at some point, one bows out, especially if one is already something of an instinctive outsider. And especially if church has long felt at least as smothering as it is nurturing. I'm not sure where you sit on either spectrum, but I do think that churches have responsibilities to their members as well as vice versa. At the moment, all we seem to hear from the hieararchy is how responsible the people are for the church's survival.
Yes, you're right. And that's because it's the forum for the very same religiosity that turns off so many people and makes them seek spirituality without religiosity.
I don't identify as Spiritual but not Religious. I think you'd need to speak to some people who do.
The thing is, churches are their members. Somewhere and somehow, and probably for different reasons in different contexts and denominations, we have lost that idea.
IME the hierarchy make very little difference to the life of the church at congregational or parish level. A local pastor, minister or priest isn’t some kind of separate being from members of the congregation. The pastor, minister or priest is also simply a member of the church, but one who is called to fulfil particular responsibilities.
Fundamentally, the church is simply a gathering of people who feel that they have been invited by God into the life of his love. In theory, at least, they may have nothing else in common. somehow have that idea of the church as simply people who have been called into a living relationship with God has become ossified.
The demands of maintaining a building, managing an organisation, worrying about numbers, finance, et cetera, et cetera, and fulfilling particular expectations of how church should be seem to overwhelm that basic idea. And the idea of a living faith, worked out in mutual support, resulting in a desire to worship God corporately as well as on our own, and to share that discover with others seems to have been lost.
TBH the actual manifestation of ‘the Church’ in any given local setting may not do Christian faith any favours. This is nothing new. See The Screwtape Letters - the paragraph beginning, ‘One of our great allies at present is the Church itself’. Or come to that, see the New Testament epistles.
I certainly recognise your second paragraph and agree with it. For me the church IS its members and a church that doesn't cherish them should be calling itself something other than "church." Personally I sit as an agnostic RC, appreciating some things hating other things about the church. However as a musician I have a role and an outlet for my music, and it is where my friends are to be found. I have been actively involved with the l;iturgy for over 50 years - thats where my real interest lies. Its about taking the rough with the smooth for me.
All the rest are our poor attempts to understand what these words mean.
We're called not to judge others, but we should exercise discernment surely. There is a world of difference between someone (like KarlLB possibly) who finds little or no spirituality in traditional religion, but finds it in other places, and someone who goes all gooey over pictures of kittens. You can of course be both; you can also be someone who struggles with traditional religion but puts up with it for the sake of what it conveys; or someone who enjoys tat and ceremonial or music or good preaching for their own sake but is led though them to something deeper.
No judgmentalism of individuals is implied. Either way. Football (and most sport) leaves me totally cold and unmoved but I understand that many people feel about it like others feel about religion. I suspect though that true football fans can be very sniffy about those who only watch the World Cup.
Well quite. Which is why it's not a completely meaningless statement.
Most of the people I know are atheists. When my eldest announced he was one I had really nothing to counter the thought processes that led him there.
It is sometimes hard to believe that the dwindling minority of believers are actually the ones who are right. I generally have more in common with atheists than believers in terms of how my mind works. That's why I wouldn't personally adopt the "spiritual not religious" label - I don't have any sense of the numinous or the transcendent, but I want there to be more to reality than the mundane, which is why for me giving up on church would be giving up on the search.
But I am not everyone.
To be charitable, I think the criticism was at a spirituality that was *just* going gooey at kittens.
But at this point I want to call foul and complain about moving goalposts. Because in times gone past when I've complained I have no sense of the Divine I've been told that our emotional response to things like sunsets, Bach or Rembrandt* *is* a spiritual experience and is connection with God.
We cannot have it both ways. Either emotional responses are at least potentially spiritual encounters, in which case we cannot use them to criticise the SnotR, or they are not, and we cannot use them as examples of or evidence of connection with God.
Like them but can't manage a whole one.
Me too. I love cats and kittens. But I don't think they are gods, even if they themselves might.
Nor does anyone else who doesn’t have fur and whiskers. The question is whether an emotional response to beauty is an experience of the Divine, to which the answer seems to be yes if you also go to church and not if you identify as spiritual but not religious.
I wonder how many people? For some, is it a question of saying to a community "please give me something concrete" and then saying "I didn't want that concrete I wanted another concrete that suits me better?"
I'd like to explore the motives/inclinations of saying " I can't make myself believe ..." when you may be able to make yourself do other things. If there's a difference, what causes it?
On a broader point on the OP, isn't everyone "spiritual" in the sense that they have a view on the world, albeit with themselves at the centre? Faith extends the focus to include God and others in the worldview and embeds values which form/impact behaviour.
My motive for saying that I cannot make myself believe something is that... it's true. I know from 50+ years of being me.
Of course. But I was reacting to a definition of church that included "It also implies membership of a community with shared beliefs and expectations."
In a specifically religious community these ideals will not have come just from the individuals making up the community but the authorities of the community as well as many members of the community will believe that the ideals of the community are of divine origin. For Christians these will be the ideals put forward by Jesus Christ. The main teachings of Christianity are summed up in the Apostles' and the Nicene Creed.If you claim to be a Christian,not just a follower of the teachings of Christ,then there are certain beliefs which you simply have to accept.
The problem is that we ,imperfect human beings, can never decide whether we can accept them or not. It should not,however,stop religious communities from attempting to explain what their beliefs are.
There can’t be an assumption that people who attend church share in the beliefs of the Nicene creed - the apostles creed is more likely but still not a given.
It took me a long time and some years of study and thought before I could say everything in the Nicene creed, and I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it.
It is OK for those dipping toes in the water of a religion not to believe everything it says. We all need help and encouragement, not condemnation for failing to conform to a man-made norm.
Only for those dipping their toes?
I really don't see the value of religion as tick box of propositions to assent to.
I find this:
If you claim to be a Christian,not just a follower of the teachings of Christ
a false dichotomy. Jesus said to follow him. I don't recall much in the way of statements to believe.
The propositions are very much "might be true". We can't know.
I agree, we can’t know, but we can come to believe in the truth of some if not all of the statements.
Dipping toes in is a start. Full immersion can happen, but it takes time and effort. Most of us are probably paddling.
To follow Jesus, we surely must believe some of what is said in the Bible about him.
Of course one cannot assume that all those who attend church will share in the beliefs proposed in the Nicene Creed but it doesn't mean that the Church should not proclaim those beliefs and ask for those who wish to share in the life of the Church to share these beliefs.
What is the purpose of being a member of the Church if we don't wish even to try to share those beliefs ?
I think your comment misses the point. If you have an experience of the Divine but don't call it that (ie you identify as spiritual but not religious) does it matter? That's a bit like saying 'I felt much better after taking that tablet' without knowing it was called Paracetamol or whatever?
If 'mission' is about making everyone speak the same language, we will be disappointed. If it's about helping them to have the same experiences (or different experiences of the same phenomenon) we can all be missionaries as long as we are humble about it.