Wow! This Huffington Post editorial from a couple years ago by Lillian Daniel pretty well hits the whole “spiritual but not religious” thing in the mouth. Hard not to relate to her exasperation:
Thank you for sharing, spiritual-but-not-religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community? Because when this flight gets choppy, that’s who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.
According to a 2013 Gallup survey, as many as 1 in 3 Americans identifies as “spiritual but not religious,” and in 2010 a USA Today survey claimed that more than 70% of Generation Y identify as “more spiritual than religious.” So the question becomes, why? Why are so many Americans clinging to spirituality but divorcing it from organized religion? Is this a legitimate outgrowth of American self-determinism, or is it simply postmodern navel gazing?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRujuE-GIY4?rel=0]
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6 responses to “Spiritual but Not Religious (and Constantly Navel-Gazing)…”
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This is SO good. I just think this way of being “spiritual” is nothing more than taking the easiest path possible… an old phrase “trying to get something for nothing” seems appropriate to me. The irony is that most who want this kind of non-religion think they have a clue. I liken them to people who call themselves football players because they toss the ball round in their back yard on occasion. No team, no practices, no games… yeah you are a football player alright.
Because religion ruins faith. That’s why younger generations are identifying with being spiritual and not religious. They see the wars religion causes. They see the hate religion brings. Being spiritually in touch with God doesn’t need a religion. No matter what language it’s said in, no matter what book it comes from, He is the same. So instead of fighting over land, and history of thousands of years ago. Just be in touch with the spirit of God and stop worrying about all the stupid things that ruin faith.
Your skill in piercing through the accretion disc of superstition to ultimate reality is astounding. So Jesus = Allah = Zeus. Brilliant.
People, like me, say they are spiritual not religious so we don’t have to define god for you. The second I start doing that, is the second any kind of cooperation between spiritual people breaks down.
The fact you even reference god externally means we’ll never agree on anything, so why push people to start discussion spirituality with you when they are quite happy being spiritual and not forming into a religion or legion if you want another variation of it. They are quite happy left to themselves, as I was before I saw you calling me out on it, I don’t start telling you how to behave or what to think, so kindly don’t do the same for me either.
Imprisoned in a skull-sized kingdom where others can’t define god, only the myopic consumer individual’s taste can.
I’ve noticed how undeniable this is. I have a working belief that the most spiritual people are the same who are adamant atheists. It’s no coincidence that my atheist friends online will post pics mocking Jesus, and the next will be some “profound” quote from Donny Epstein. Every other post will be spiritual, intermingled with irrelevant pop culture happenings. The problem is that it undermines the trinity. To me they fit in with all the other false ways to try to connect with the Father such as oneness pentecostals, buddism, and even mystical eastern orthodoxy, because they all try to connect to God apophatically which ignores word and sacrament as the connection. This is probably where they channel their focus— either being a militant atheist or the next quantum physicist trying to “ascend”.