Are You "Religious But Not Spiritual?"

"Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem... But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. " John 4:21, 23

I have heard and read a great deal in the last fifteen years or so about a movement sweeping the nation: "Spiritual, But Not Religious." (Or SBNR, if you want to be "hip" to the terminology). I even read a report in the May 18 Christian Century about some of the first comprehensive research into this group, which shattered some of my stereotypes, and gave me the distinct impression of what I had already suspected: this phenomenon is here to stay.

The "SBNR's" are those in our society who feel no need to identify with a particular historic faith tradition in order to commune with the Divine: they pursue the experience without the expectations, Jesus without the Church, belief without doctrine, transcendence without all the meetings and paperwork.

And you know what? I don't blame them. Really. I mean, sometimes I want to. I often want to vent my frustration at what I perceive to be my own self-centered, non-commital, complacent generation of Americans, who seem perfectly content "waitin' on the world to change." But in this case, I honestly can't. In this one, isolated and very unique case, it is not all John Mayer's fault. :-)

Instead, it is the fault of too many people of faith (myself chief among them) who slip into a whole other trap: "religious, but not spiritual." Those of us who get off on the process of it all, of making things go; the joiners, the frequent volunteers, those of us who thrive on the modest martyrdom of being the "20% of church members who do 80% of the work", those of us who just can't bring ourselves to pray properly until the budget is balanced and the banners are hanging straight and the potluck is organized and the organ's in tune and the children's sermon is both theologically sound and developmentally appropriate and the windows are either open or closed, depending on current weather conditions (and it doesn't hurt if I personally have accomplished each of those things, to be sure they're done right). Those of us who risk hyperventilation from our exasperated sighs, yet show up early every Sunday morning. And hey, that's kind of what I do for a living, so please understand the log in my eye is clearly visible to me. A big worry for me is that there are too many of us in the Church more wrapped up in how much we love to hate the church, than how much we love Jesus. We are religious-but-not-spiritual. Let's get real: Who would want to get on this ride if it's making us committed Christians so sick to our stomachs?

But there's a twist: we religious-but-not-spiritual types are not limited to church members. In fact, I'd venture to say that many in this growing number of religiously unaffiliated are religious-but-not-spiritual, too, meaning they live captive to a law: it's just not the law of organized religion. Any of us who lives in a law-based reality--a reality populated by carrots and sticks, where only I make things go, where it all depends on my own actions, where the defining precept is "If I do X, then Y will happen", but we've lost sight of why we even want"Y" to happen--is what I would call "religious but not spiritual." It is so, so common. We value rules over relationships.

You may be religious-but-not-spiritual about your job. About parenting. About your marriage. About politics. Heck, even about your favorite baseball team. And yes, when we're not careful, those of us who claim the name of "Christian" can become religious-but-not-spiritual about worship, prayer, Bible study, theology and church work. Guilty. But that's not what Jesus wants.

What Jesus wants is much simpler, and yet, much tougher to get our heads around. He envisions a day when we'll worship "in spirit and truth." We will be with God because we want to be. We will be freed of feeling entrapped by the things we once loved, including our own ideas of what church "has to be." We will connect with God--and with others--not following any preordained set of rules, but rather in the way that best reflects our love for one another; whether that's in the Cathedral, in the cafe, or at Costco. That's the vision. And you (yes, YOU, dragging your feet to church for the fourth evening this week, and YOU, who decided to study music because you love it but are currently unable to look at your violin without getting an ulcer, and YOU, who are "living the dream" of making your target income at 30, but are never, ever home to enjoy it) you can not get there by your own action. Only God can make us truly "spiritual" beings in the way that will connect us with the Divine in all things. There's no set of rules we can follow to make it happen. It's not a trophy to be won. It's forgiveness and friendship through Christ: a gift of God. Here it is. Take it.

So here's the deal: it is time to stop shouting at the folks who don't want on the ride, and start asking why it's making us so green in the face. It's time to stop doing the stuff that makes us sick, and let God build a ride that we, the world around us, and most importantly, God, can enjoy together. We have got to stop treating spirituality and religion like mortal enemies, and allow the Spirit to birth a religion that will carry us on for another 2,000 years, and beyond. Let's confuse our surrounding world a bit, by inviting God to make us "spiritual AND religious." Now that could catch on.