Spiritual, but not Religious Enough

                                    Matthew 9:14-17; Galatians 1:6-12

I can’t take all the credit for the title of this message this morning. The idea for the title (but not the sermon) came from a new book that just came out in January 2013 entitled, “When "Spiritual but Not Religious" Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church.” It was written by Lillian Daniel, a United Church of Christ pastor in the Chicago area and an editor at large for Christian Century Magazine. She tackles the well-known phenomenon of increasing numbers of people in recent decades who describe themselves as “spiritual, but not religious.” These are folks who have some religious beliefs and spiritual practice but who do not affiliate with any religious group.  This topic also happens to be a Summer Sermon Suggestion from someone in the congregation. I want to tackle this subject by looking at four different categories of people.

1. First is Neither Spiritual nor Religious. This is the fastest growing segment of people in America today. There have been a number of surveys and studies done that show that more and more people are choosing no religion at all – and not only no organized religion, but no personal spirituality. According to analysis of newly released survey data by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Duke University, Religious affiliation in the United States is at its lowest point since it began to be tracked in the 1930s. Last year, one in five Americans claimed they had no religious preference, more than double the number reported in 1990.” (Americans and religion increasingly parting ways, new survey shows” By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations - March 12, 2013)

Atheism is on the rise. According to a 2012 Gallup poll, religiosity is on the decline and atheism is on the rise not only in the US. The poll, called “The Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism,” was conducted by WIN-Gallup International and is based on interviews with 50,000 people from 57 countries and five continents. Participants were asked the question, “Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person, or a convinced atheist?” It found that the number of Americans who say they are “religious” dropped from 73 percent in 2005 (the last time the poll was conducted) to 60 percent. At the same time, the number of Americans who say they are atheists rose, from 1 percent to 5 percent. (Poll shows atheism on the rise in the U.S. By Kimberly Winston, Religion News Service, Published: August 13, 2012)

This is the new reality in the religious landscape of the United States. Northern New England is leading the way. New England is the most nonreligious part of the country. At the Annual Meeting of the American Baptist Churches of Vermont and New Hampshire that I attended two weeks ago, Dale Edwards, our Regional Executive Minister, repeatedly referred to Vermont and New Hampshire as the two most unchristian states in the nation. Our region is in the forefront of this movement away from both religion and spirituality.

2. The second group I want to mention is the popular Spiritual but not Religious group. This approach has been popular for a long time. This group has not given up on spiritual matters, but has given up on so-called organized religion.

The older members of this group were brought up in the church. The younger age group may or may not have been brought up in the church. If they have a church background, then somewhere along the way – usually about adolescence or maybe a bit later –high school or college – they stopped attending services. They just weren’t interested anymore. They list a number of reasons why they became disillusioned with the church and stopped attending and may have stopped identifying themselves as Christians.  They didn’t like something that some religious leader, person or group said or did. They say they have transcended that traditional understanding of God. They may still believe in God or at least some vague divine spirit or energy. They may meditate, even pray, maybe in the past even read through the whole Bible.

But church is not for them any longer. They have spiritually outgrown it. Religion is a cultural and spiritual backwater to them. They point to the Crusades of 1000 years ago or the pedophile priest scandal of today or televangelists or Islamic terrorists as typical products of religion. Basically they have come to believe that religion is bad for people and society and is responsible for much of the bad that happens in the world. They think church is all about making people feel guilty, shameful, sinful and bad about themselves. They see religion as socially and emotionally oppressive and abusive; it is all about rules and hypocrisy and money. On the other hand they see themselves as spiritual, emphasizing love and truth, tolerance, diversity, welcoming, and accepting. They are very spiritual, and definitely not religious.

3. The third group is the Religious but not Spiritual group. This is the people that the Spiritual but not Religious group love to criticize. I admit that there is some religion in the world that is harmful. Fundamentalist forms of Islam, Judaism, Christianity, as well as Hinduism and Buddhism and any religions can be harmful. Legalism is alive and well. You read the stories of the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist groups. 60 Minutes had a story on young Jews coming out of strict forms of Hasidic Judaism. The stories they tell of life in that strict religious community do not sound very healthy. There are hate groups within Christianity. Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas is a well-known example. Even Buddhism, which is nonviolence by doctrine, has its share of child abuse by monks and increasing violence against other religions in Buddhist countries like Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Hinduism is known for its radicalism and violence against other faiths and prejudice against the untouchables even today.  There is a lot of religion that is not what I would call spiritual.

There are religious but not spiritual people in mainline Protestant and evangelical churches. Religious people going through the motions of dogma, ritual and rules because that is what they have always done. There are people who practice religion but have no living experience of God or Christ. There are certainly churches that teach a theology of legalism, guilt and shame. In Jesus’ day, he reserved his harshest criticism for such folks, who in that day were the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees where the high-church ritualistic religious folks of the day – the priesthood who ran the temple with all its ceremonies, robes and incense. The Pharisees were a lay movement who controlled the synagogues. They were into a strict moralism, but they had turned it into a religion of rules. There are still Pharisees and Sadducees around today in Christianity.

But not nearly as many as people outside the church think. I have been part of organized religion and institutional church as a leader for 39 years.  I have served mainline Protestant churches and evangelical churches. My experience with religious folks is that the vast majority of church people are sincere spiritually minded people who are seeking God or who have found a fulfilling faith in God. There will always be some religionists in churches - dogmatic people and legalistic people. Churches have their share of hypocrites, but no more than the society at large and I think actually far fewer. We have folks who put their politics above God. But I see that much more in the Democratic and Republican parties than in the Christian church. There are judgmental people in the churches, but to be honest I have heard much more judgmental attitude by people outside the churches being directed toward the churches than I have heard coming from the other direction. But there are certainly people who are religious but not spiritual.

4. Fourth is the Spiritual and Religious Group. In my opinion, this is the healthiest of the four options.  I think it is unhealthy to be religious but not spiritual, and just as unhealthy to be spiritual but not religious. What is needed is a healthy balance – that Goldilocks zone – not too hot, not too cold … just right! A balance of spirituality and religion. That is what Jesus was talking about in this illustration of the wine and the wineskins. On this occasion the disciples of John the Baptist questioned Jesus about why he did not follow the spiritual practice of fasting like the Pharisees (and also they themselves) did. Jesus responds saying, “16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

Jesus is saying that his teaching was something new. It was like new wine, and could not be put in the old wineskins – the structure – of the religion of his day. But he said it did need wineskins. Jesus didn’t say he wanted the wine without the wineskins. He didn’t say, “I believe in wine, but I don’t believe in wineskins. Just drink it without any container at all – no wineskins or wine jars or wine cups.” How silly would that be! Wine needs wineskins. Jesus said his spirituality needed new wineskins for his new wine. Spirituality is the wine. Religion is the wineskin. You can’t have wine without wineskins. On the other hand wineskins without wine are just dry empty shells. You will die of thirst. There is a need for both. We need structure. Let me give you some examples of what I mean.

One is ethics. My observation of the Spiritual but Not Religious movement is that it tends to be weak on ethics and morals. It has shunned moral commandments as legalistic and judgmental, but in so doing it is very vague on any clear sense of right and wrong. It has become very subjective and individualistic. The Ten Commandments have become the Ten Suggestions or Ten Nonbinding Recommendations. Out of fear of eliciting guilt or shame, the Spirituality movement has discarded any mention of sin. Sin has become a dirty word.  Nothing is right or wrong; it is just helpful or unhelpful. Out of fear of appearing judgmental, people have rejected the whole idea of any moral judgment or accountability. I know there is danger of religion of becoming legalistic and moralistic. But there is also the other danger of being amoral and immoral. In the Letter to the Galatians the apostle Paul tried to steer a course between rigid legalism on one hand and moral lawlessness on the other. Spirituality without the moral structure of a religious set of ethics drifts into immorality masquerading as spiritual liberty.

Another value of religion is community. The SBNR have no clearly defined spiritual community to which they are accountable. I am not saying there is no community at all. There may have friends who share values, and one might bump into some of the same people at conferences or meetings. But there is no ongoing commitment to one another like we find in a church – at least as we should find in a church. Church today has largely sold out to culture and is not the strong community it should be. But at its best church forces us to be accountable to God and to each other. It forces us to deal with people. It forces us to forgive each other. Without spiritual community if you don’t get along with someone you just avoid them. But if we are committed to spiritual community as part of a church, we can’t avoid them. We see them every week at least. That is the way God designed it. Church is designed to grind the rough edges off our lives, and that can be uncomfortable. Church is meant to be both comfortable and uncomfortable. It is comfortable because we share our lives with each other on a deep spiritual level. It can be uncomfortable because sharing our lives means that our sins are exposed. We realize that those around us are sinners and we are sinners. We need to be challenged to forsake our sin and we need to be forgiven when we sin. We don’t have that anywhere else but in healthy church or a good healthy family.

Another value of religion is Scripture and Religious Tradition. These keep us grounded. The Spiritual but not religious movement picks from the spiritual buffet table that is American religious life. At a buffet we chose this food we like and pass by that food we don’t like. When we sit down our plate is full of only the things that make us happy, leaving all that other stuff on the buffet. That is the way the Spirituality movement is in America. We choose this teaching or that practice from this religion or that religion. You ever see a kid at a buffet table? They do not choose the healthiest foods. Neither do we. Religion forces us to eat our vegetables. Having Holy Scripture forces us to deal with ideas that we would otherwise reject. It forces us to wrestle with doctrines that might otherwise reject without a thought. Just because we don’t like some Christian doctrine doesn’t mean it isn’t true! That is why Paul says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”  Having a canon of Holy Scripture forces us to deal with things in our life that we would like to ignore. Scripture – if we read it and meditate upon it - keep us honest and holy. Religious tradition does this also, but in a less authoritative sense. Tradition is changing; scripture is not.

A lot of the SBNR reject whole portions and teachings of Christianity because they do not fit in with personal likes and dislikes. Our personal preferences in spiritual matters become our ultimate authority. That is a recipe for spiritual disaster. Often times we don’t like what is best for us. Jesus never promised us an easy road. That is the whole reason we cannot reject scripture or treat it lightly.

In conclusion we need to be both spiritual and religious. We need the living water and holy flame of the Holy Spirit or our religion becomes dead. We need the structure and guidance of religion or our spirituality is directionless and a shallow self-indulgence. The spiritual need to be religious, and the religious need to be spiritual. Then we will be spiritual and religious enough.