I was reading an article about the OWS movement. It explained how Liberal Protesters are untrusting of traditional Christians. They are wary of what they think will be conservatives. A group of progressive Christians shared that they wanted others to know about their faith. One Episcopal deacon stated that he believed that we need to support these protesters, regardless of faith, because of their spirit. He went on to say if he had a nickel for everyone who has told him that they are "spiritual, not religious" he could have retired. He seemed to think it was a good thing.
I preached on this subject once. Jesus confronted a demoniac in the synagogue. The man was under the control of an evil spirit. He was, spiritual but not religious. He did not keep, inwardly or outwardly, the dictates of the faith. His life was led by a spirit. That is the problem.
The spirit realm is not pure and holy. It is populated by good and evil. Some would argue that the evil in our material world is a direct result of interaction with the evil spirits. There is nothing new about people rejecting religious faith. Even in times when we were "very religious" there has always been a tendency for people to pay lip service to their beliefs. The divorce of spirituality and religion is narcisism. It is one more way that selfish Americans have it their own way. It is one more means of self deception. Being 'spiritual' frees people from the drudgery of living in community, loving people (especially obnoxious others) and being accountable to an authority which doesn't always agree with us. The hard work of being holy is replaced with love of nature and beauty (or whatever else the person opts to define "spiritual").
The movement of "spiritual not religious" is draining the churches of resources and manpower. Perhaps this is deserved. Perhaps God's judgment is manifest in this. Perhaps it is the result of the abuses of power and the failure to make disciples in earlier times. What it isn't is renewal. It is not better. It will not last. Because once unprepared people become spiritual, they are tasty treats for dark spirits. And unfortunately the price of that error is steep.
When people tell me they are spiritual but not religious, a part of me wants to ask them if they lump all spirits together and all religions together. They usually have not even thought it through that far. But I don't ask that. If anything, I ask them to clarify what they mean by it, and they usually say that they are not going to church anywhere but are trying to live according to the spiritual truths they were taught in church. If I get the chance to know them for very long, I usually find that outside the support of church, they find it pretty hard to retain the spiritual values. Or they get very confused about which spiritual values matter and which ones don't.
ReplyDeleteBut it does sound so good to people at first, both noble and revolutionary at the same time. At least on the surface.
And we live in a sound bite world. The surface is where people live much of the time.