I am spiritual but not religious.
I recently heard on Speaking of Faith and interview with Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso. Sasso articulates the distinctions between spirituality and religion in a beautiful way, and while I point you to check out the Speaking of Faith website and podcast to hear it, I will attempt to succinctly recreate her point.
The story goes that Moses went up on the mountain and received the 10 commandments. When he came down from the mountain his face had a brightness that was too bright to look at. Something happened on that mountain, something beyond Moses. Something bigger than one person. It was the literal ‘mountain top’ experience many people talk about in their own lives.
What Moses experienced on that mountain was a Spiritual experience. It transcended words and actions and was impossible to replicate to another. While the experience was a Spiritual one, the 10 commandments were the container of that experience. The 10 commandments (not the literal rules, but the material expression) is the way in which the raw Spiritual experience was expressed to others.
(This is in a sense what she articulated. Below are my musings on this theme.)
Moses could have easily had the Spiritual experience and came off the mountain with his face aglow and not told a soul about it. He could have cherished that moment for his whole life like Golem cherished the Ring in Lord of the Rings. But, just as Golem did, to hold on to that experience, Moses would have become focused only on that to the point of going insane or entirely self focused to death. Rather, Moses shared the experience with others by way of the container, the 10 commandments.
Could this the danger of being spiritual but not religious? We become so focused on our own spirituality, not sharing with others our lives/experiences/insights/thoughts, that we turn inward and atrophy?
American’s hold heaven for all and "none" religions
This article can speak for itself so I will not labor the points laid out.
This is directly connected to the discussions of the book I just finished reading, Entertainment Theology”. This book talks about how the “religion” of the post modern is “spiritual”. The article talks of people just want good wholesome people, it matters very little to their religious tradition.
We in religious traditions need to understand this shift from “religious” to “spiritual” in order to even begin to understand how we in religious traditions can make a difference in the lives of people. When I get a chance I will post some of the great comments and quotes out of the book which Reverend Nancy Allen gave to me to read a couple of weeks ago.
Belief-O-Matic Results
I take this little quiz about every year or so just to see how I am shifting and changing. It is just 20 questions long and very basic, but I have found it helpful to keep me mindful that perhaps I see Christianity differently than most Christians I encounter in Texas and this could be at the heart of the tension I encounter. Here are the top 10 faith traditions which I match up with (the percentage is supposedly how closely I am to that tradition).
Taken 12/31/08
1. Liberal Quakers (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (91%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (90%)
4. Neo-Pagan (86%)
5. Mahayana Buddhism (81%)
6. Orthodox Quaker (77%)
7. Secular Humanism (74%)
8. New Age (72%)
9. Theravada Buddhism (72%)
10. Taoism (65%)
Taken 12/1/07
1. Mahayana Buddhism (100%)
2. Neo-Pagan (98%)
3. Liberal Quakers (93%)
4. Unitarian Universalism (91%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (86%)
6. Taoism (84%)
7. New Age (81%)
8. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (80%)
9. Orthodox Quaker (73%)
10. Hinduism (70%)
Where my mind is today…
“Christian nonviolence is not a strategy to rid the world of violence, but rather the way Christians must live in a world of violence. In short Christians are not nonviolent because we believe our nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, but rather because faithful followers of Christ in a world of war cannot imagine being anything else than nonviolent.”
-Stanley Hauerwas interpreting Yoder’s pacifism
“Jesus did not bring a new idea : rather in him an old idea ceased being an idea at all and became a living reality.”
-John Knox
“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
-Susan B. Anthony
“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is .”
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“There is enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed.”
-Gandhi
“If we have more than we need while someone else has less, then we are thieves.”
– Shane Claiborne
If the attitude we have toward water as a power source is the same as we have toward oil as a power source, then we will be in the same energy crisis in the future.
- paraphrased comments of Joan Chittister
“What you believe follows only after what you do.”
- Scott-Martin Kosofsky, a book designer and editor, decided to revise the “Book of Customs,”
Thin Religion – From Croatian American theologian Miroslav Volf
Thin religion is not laking in zeal. It is religiosity reduced to a formula, and this can render the passion behind it very dangerous.
“It’s religiosity reduced to a single symbolic gesture. And once you reduced religion to that…you can then project everything that you want onto that. So you believe in one God who is one, who is powerful and who is also for you. And suddenly you’ve got this immense servant to do all the dirty work that you need done and for yourself to feel good as that has happened. [Thin religion] isn’t textured. It doesn’t have depth. It doesn’t have relief. It doesn’t rely on the long history of that religion with all the varieties of reflections that have gone on in the religion. It doesn’t even rely on a full understanding of the sacred writings of the scripture.”
-Taken from Krista Tippett’s book, Speaking of Faith.
