The number of people who identify themselves by the phrase "spiritual but not religious" is growing. In 1998, only 9 percent of American adults said they were spiritual but not religious. A 2009 Newsweek poll revealed that 30 percent of Americans refer to themselves as “spiritual, not religious.” According to a survey by Lifeway Research referenced in an October 2010 article in USA Today, 72% of millennials (18- to 29-year-olds) say they're "really more spiritual than religious.” The article says, “If the trends continue, the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships."
The antics of mainstream Christian religion in recent decades have not helped to attract people to the church. The clergy sex abuse scandal of the Roman Catholic Church has tainted all Christianity. The infighting and splitting of mainline Protestant denominations has turned off lots of people. I am a Baptist and we joke that we multiply by division. We can become so narrow minded that we split congregations and form new denominations over the smallest matters.
There is a story about a man who saw a guy on a bridge about to jump. He said, "Don't do it!" The jumper replied, "Life is not worth living! Nobody loves me." The man said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?" He said, "Yes." He said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." He said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." "Me, too! What type?" He said, "Baptist." He said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." He said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." He said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Lakes Region." He said, "Me, too!" Northern Conservative Baptist Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." The man frowned and replied, "Die, heretic!" And pushed him off the bridge.
All my pastoral career, I have heard people speak negatively about organized religion. I have a standard response when people tell me – as a customer recently told me in the North Sandwich store – that they don’t believe in organized religion. I say, “Then you will love our church. We are very disorganized.”
Seriously, I sympathize with those who are attracted to spirituality, but turned off by religion. There is a lot about organized religion that I don’t like, and I am a pastor. I am a professional leader of the so-called “institutional church!” But many people today are opting for less traditional forms of spirituality. George Barna, who heads the well-known and respected Barna Group that tracks religious trends, says that he sees the future of Christianity as dominated by small house churches and internet congregations. The traditional church, he says is obsolete.
The question I am asking this morning is “Do we need organized religion?” I am asking this question in the context of two phrases in the Apostles’ Creed that refer to the church: “I believe in … the holy catholic church, the communion of saints.” I have three answers to the question “Do we need organized religion?” No, Maybe, and Yes.
I. First, No. Do we really need organized religion to connect with God? Do we need buildings and paid clergy? This church could save a lot of money if it didn’t have to support two buildings and a salaried pastor! Why have boards and committees, bylaws and rules, creeds and commandments? Why put up with all the squabbles and conflicts that seem to be an inevitable part of church life? A lot of people don’t think they need all this. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, “I don’t need to go to church to worship God. I can worship God just as well in the woods by myself.” I also have heard that since being back in Sandwich!
I sympathize with the sentiments. I connect with God most powerfully through Nature. That is why I love NH so much. My most meaningful encounters with God have been in private prayer and meditation. My personal inner experience of God is the core of my spirituality. I have a mystical bent; contemplative prayer and meditation are an important part of my spiritual practice. People don’t feel like they need a religious organization to do that. Isn’t this personal spirituality enough? A lot of people feel that it is enough. Many people are perfectly satisfied with individual experience as the totality of their spirituality. No, they do not feel like they need organized religion.
II. The second answer to this question is “Maybe.” Maybe there is more to spirituality than just one’s individual spiritual experience. Maybe we need other people who are also involved in the spiritual quest. There is a need for spiritual community. Every religion on earth has recognized this fact. For Christians spiritual community is called church. For Buddhists it is Sangha. For Hindus it is ashram; for Muslims, mosque; for Jews, synagogue. There is a universal religious need for community. There has been research done on the relationship between religion and health - mental and physical health and longevity. It has been demonstrated that religious people are healthier and live longer. But it doesn’t seem to matter which religion they are, whether they are liberal or conservative. Recently the essential factor of that religion-health connection has been identified. It is community. People need people. Connecting with people regularly in a meaningful way is good for our emotional and physical health.
Furthermore I would say it is good for our spiritual health. We need other people to keep us accountable to God. We all have blind spots. We tend to justify our own behaviors. We need other people to bring us back to reality. I have a friend who was a psychotherapist; he recently changed careers and is now a life coach. This summer I ran into the son of an old friend at Mocha Rizing; he is also a life coach, and we were comparing our jobs. The concept of “life coach” is a new term, but it is an old profession. It is a spiritual adviser. It is like having a personal trainer for the soul, a therapist of the spirit.
The Apostle Paul tells the Thessalonians to “exhort one another and build each other up.” The Book of Hebrews says, “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.” The apostle James wrote: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” There is a lot of evidence – scientific and scriptural - that we need each other to grow spiritually. We are designed by God for community. Paul says in our Epistle Lesson “But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.””
This is where the Apostles’ Creed comes in. It reads: “I believe in … the holy catholic church, the communion of saints.” When the Apostles’ Creed uses the phrase catholic church, it refers to the whole church, including all Christians. It has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic Church, which came long after the Apostles’ Creed was first written. Catholic with a small “c” just means universal, the whole church composed of Christians everywhere.
The church is not essentially an institution; it is community. At heart church is not about religious rituals and rules; it is about connecting to God. Rituals and religion can help us do that, but more important is people. In that study I referred to earlier about health and religion, those who attended church regularly but did not feel connected to other worshippers were no more healthy than the general population. It was those who felt a part of the community of faith that benefited from religion. We need other people. We cannot do it alone. No man is an island, as John Donne wrote: “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less…”
The apostle Paul said the same thing with different language. Paul uses the image of the Body of Christ to communicate this same idea that we are all connected to each other. We are part of the holy catholic church. For the church to be called “holy” doesn’t mean “holier than thou.” It means just the opposite. Holier than thou is hypocrisy, which is exactly what Jesus spoke against. We are imperfect folks who are trying to be better. We are trying to grow closer to God. We are trying to be more spiritually-minded. We are trying to be more godly in our behavior toward others. We are trying to be more loving. Left to ourselves we will not do that. That is why we gather together. We need each other.
I need you. Sure, I can commune with God in the mountains and on the lakes and feel spiritual. I can pray and meditate and think lofty thoughts. But more is needed. That is a very limited type of spirituality. I need you. I need you because I am prone to self-deception; I need you to keep me honest. I need church. Sure churches are imperfect; so are we. Churches are messy places; so are our lives. People get their feelings hurt and treat each other badly. Welcome to my extended family! That is what a spiritual family is. There is no perfect community; there is no perfect church. As the old saying goes, “If you ever find the perfect church don’t join it; you will ruin it.”
Churches are filled with sinners. And church’s sins are all the more obvious to people because we are trying to be more than sinners. We are trying to transcend our sinfulness. We are asking God to unite us with Him and each other and transform us into the image of Christ. Because we know we are supposed to be more than we are, sometimes Christians hide their sins and play the hypocrite. The Christian community ought to be a place where we can openly acknowledge our sins without fear of judgment. As the apostle James says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” So maybe we do need organized religion.
III. Yes, we do need the church. More than that. The church needs us. The question “Do we need organized religion?” is a self-centered question. It assumes that the church is there to serve us - as if we were the center of the universe. If it doesn’t serve us well, satisfy our needs, and meet our expectations, then we think can discard the church. Do you see how self-centered that is? When we say we don’t need the church we are revealing the fact that we need it more than we can imagine. We need it to get out of our own self-centered universe. To rewrite JFK’s famous inaugural challenge: “Ask not what your church can do for you; ask what you can do for your church.” But that is not a popular thing to say in this narcissistic culture we live in.
By “church” I do not just mean this little band of believers here in Sandwich. Church is much bigger and broader than that. To use the word “catholic” means we are part of something much bigger than the Federated Church of Sandwich. Through our connections with other churches in our denominations, and through our fellowship with churches of other denominations, we connect to the wider worldwide community of faith. That is also what missions is about. When our sisters and brothers on the other side of the world hurt, we have a responsibility to help because we are one body with them. When one part of the body hurts the whole body hurts. Church is the whole body throughout the world.
The Apostles’ Creed also speaks of “the communion of saints.” The “communion of saints” refers to the church throughout time. We are connected to the church of two thousand years ago. We are connected to those who are in heaven now. We are one body with them. Death can not break that communion. We are in communion with those who have died through Christ. The spiritual community called church transcends space and time, heaven and earth.
There is a wonderful image in Hebrews 12. Hebrews 11 names all the believers of centuries past. Then Hebrews 12 says: “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” This scripture pictures an arena where a race is being run by those on earth. All the saints (“saints” refers to ordinary believers, not religious superstars) are sitting in the bleachers watching. We who are on earth are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses in heaven. That is the communion of saints; that is the church. We are not alone, even when we sometimes feel like it.
Do we need organized religion? Organized religion has lots of problems. I think we could do with far less religion and more spirituality - far less institution and more community. But one thing for sure. We need church. We need community. We need each other to grow in Christ. I need church. The old joke says that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a car. But if a car doesn’t visit a garage (meaning an auto shop) regularly for maintenance, it doesn’t stay on the road for very long. The same for the Christian. And it doesn’t hurt if that garage – and that church - is well-organized.
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