Talking with the Spiritual But Not Religious

This one surfaces on a fairly regular basis, this saying.  I'll be talking with someone, and my identity as a pastor will come up, and they'll say, "You know, I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious."

I know what they mean by it, and I'm totally sympathetic.  What they mean is that they hate the institutional, political, power-centered character of most faith organizations.  They hate the carping, cutting, I'm-right-and-you're-wrongness of so much of faith discourse.

Here, perhaps I'm more innately nine-ish than some pastors who've been worn down by that statement.  I take a statement of spirituality as a positive thing, a sense of yearning that I share.  It's a great opening, and a place of commonality.

What I wonder, though, is what that means for the life of the SBNR person I'm talking to.

Let's get all definitional about this, why don't we?  What does it mean, if you are "spiritual?"  Let's pop out our handy-dandy online thesaurus, and crank through some of the many synonyms.  Some are cool.  "Sacred."  "Divine."  "Holy."

Others?  Well others are less so.  "Incorporeal." "Disembodied." "Unphysical." "Nonphysical." "Intangible."  Oh, and this troubling one: "Immaterial."

And then, given that "religious" has to do with religion, here's a clear definition of that term from dictionary.com:

Religion: A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional or ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

The difference between the two?  Both have to do with belief in the nature of things.  But one is enfleshed and enacted.  It makes demands on our lives.  It shapes our behaviors towards others.  The other is often not.

And that's the place where the the conversation between myself and the Spiritual One goes.

If you are a spiritual person, how does that spirituality shape and inform the way you live your life?  I do not ask it with snark.  I don't get all judgey.  We Jesus folk aren't supposed to do that, eh?  It's a simple thing, a worthwhile part of the conversation.

Here is a part of your identity, something meaningful, something vital, something important.  How are you living your spirituality out?

That's the question.  "How are you living your spirituality out?"

Then, I just listen.  Often, what I hear is a lament.  "I wish I had time to develop that in myself."  "I'm just so distracted."  "I'm just so angry and stressed at work."  "I feel like I've lost track of that part of me."

And there, there's space to talk.  Because a belief that is "immaterial" to your existence is a place of dissonance and frustration, and my job as a pastor is to walk with those souls as they find  more gracious and resonant pastures.

Other times, I hear how it has played out in healing a relationship or creating a healthy sense of self.  Other times, I hear how it drives someone to make a difference in their community.  Or how they make a point of taking time for disciplines of contemplation and meditation.

And I will smile, and tell them my own stories of similar things, and affirm them in their journey.

I do not mention, because it seems more than a little smug, that they are in point of fact "religious."

A rose by any other name, as they say.

The Woo

As part of my daily blog feedage, I make a point of reading a mix of like-thinking progressives and mystics, but also spend time perusing the thoughts of the godless and the Pharisee. One of the more intriguing recent posts I've read recently was, again, at the friendlyatheist.com. In it, an atheist was struggling with whether or not to attend a local Unitarian Universalist congregation as a way of providing community for his family. UUs, from my own personal experience, are radically inclusive and tolerant of difference. Inclusiveness and tolerance are, in fact, the governing ethos of that community. That, coupled with a desire for social justice, is pretty much the only thing that UUs require for entry into their herd of friendly, purring cats.

Most remarkably, nearly all of the atheists who responded to this issue were incredibly supportive. There was a strong consensus that Unitarian congregations were atheist/agnostic friendly, and a great place to go to encounter other freethinking and open folks...so long as you didn't have a huge chip on your shoulder about folks who believe in God/Jesus/Goddess/Vishnu/Allah/The Force/Thingummy.

That pattern of thought took things to an interesting place. Nearly all of the respondents identified the one element of a Unitarian community to beware of as "the woo." A congregation might be to "woo-ey." Or have too much "woo." The word "woo" tends to evoke in me an image of a man down on his knee with a rose in his teeth. He's outside the window of a Victorian home in a small town, while a barbershop quartet sings Sweet Adeline in the background. This is not what they mean by "woo."

Or at least, I don't think so. I haven't been to a UU worship recently, and with them, you never know.

Instead, the Woo appears to be used to describe spirituality in any of its forms. Prayer. Candles. Dreams. Visions. Meaning, those things that tend to make we Presbyterians uneasy. As the Frozen Chosen, we're quite comfortable with process and structure and polity. We're also at home engaging in exegetical analysis of texts, preferably while providing citations from our favorite subset of scholars and referencing the Greek and Hebrew in ways that Show Our Superior Intellect. We're fine talking about social issues, be they from a liberal or conservative bent. We're practical people. We get things done.

But when it comes to experiential faith, to articulating those moments of trembling ecstasy, well, we clam right up. As someone who can officially declare himself a cradle Presbyterian, I heard talk of personal spiritual experience exactly zero times from the pulpit growing up. Not once. It was not spoken of in Sunday School, at any level. It just wasn't.

It's too disorderly. Too irrational. Too emotional. It lacks clear foundation in Scripture and tradition and process. It makes us seem...ugh...Baptist.

And we can't have that.

For those coming out of traditions that are all weeping and shouting and testifying and Feats of Spiritual Strength and weeping some more, that might seem a blessed relief. But for those coming up in our corner of the reformed tradition, I think it might be helpful for church to be...every once in a while...a place where we talk about those dreams and moments of numinous intensity, where we can share and pray and wonder. If we Presbyterians find themselves as unable to do that as atheists, then perhaps we should ponder whether or not this might be a factor in our struggles to revitalize our fading fellowship.