Spiritual or Religious

My sermon from last week

Reading
Spirituality is a tricky word, quite fashionable, and often wrongly - in my opinion - contrasted and set against religion. To many people religion has become a dirty word, associated with what they imagine to be oppressive, conservative and dead or dying institutions whereas "spirituality" is often equated with a highly individualistic "pick-n-mix" attitude to the full treasury of global religious philosophy and practice. My definition of spirituality is this; "spirituality is an individual's hunger for truth and her willingness to step forward in faith". This personal quest can be informed by a variety of things but principally by (1) the individual's conscience, (2) our response to the natural world and (3) the wisdom traditions or revelation.
Celtic Spirituality: A Unitarian and Druidic Perspective
Address to the Scottish Unitarian Association
by Alistair Bate
http://www.druidry.org/obod/druid-path/unitarian.html


Sermon: Do you consider yourself religious, or spiritual?
Have you ever heard someone say, like Monica Lewinsky did in her interview with Barbara Walters, "I’m not really religious, I consider myself spiritual"? I’ve heard it, and read it, any number of times. In one case I remember well, it reflected distaste for orthodox, traditional religion as it was practiced in St. John’s. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church there had not dealt with individuals—both Christian Brothers at an orphanage, and priests in the parish-- perpetuating sexual abuse on children in any kind of decent way, so common response to "religion" became tainted. Many people wanted nothing to do with any kind of organized religion, no matter what stripe. Mainline churches across Canada and North America are losing members faster than they can cope with.

Yet, look at the religion & spirituality section at the book store. It’s huge, and getting bigger. Chapters doesn’t try to sell books that languish on their shelves. Spirituality seems to be a hot topic—out of church.

What’s going on?

I remember attending my first CUC conference, in 1984. One of the workshops I attended was on spirituality. It left me bewildered. I didn’t have any better idea of what spirituality was after than before. The workshop leader had us walk around outdoors—this was in Banff, at the Banff Springs Hotel, looking for items from nature that spoke to us. We would have broken the law if we picked anything, Banff being a National Park, so we picked up, but didn’t pick. I don’t actually remember what she had us do with these tokens. Perhaps we said something about why they spoke to us. I had no idea why I picked up whatever I did. It didn’t make sense to me.

This was 1984, when spirituality was a concept re-emerging in the Unitarian world. That world was a very heavily humanist one then; any kind of mystical or Christian or theist service, or even mention in a service, would, in many parts of North America, have been hard to find. But, as UU scholar David Robinson wrote, "Unitarian Universalists, like many other [North] Americans, are looking for a greater sense of spirituality in their lives (and churches). In Robinson's words, this spirituality is a "feeling or hunger for a deeper inner life and a more profound experience of the world that we share. We're haunted by the spectre of our own superficiality, the uneasy feeling that life is sliding by and leaving no deep mark on us, that we're being cheated of some version of real experience that would add marrow to the dry bones of our daily routine. We've found ways of dealing with this hunger, of masking it, but we've found it has a curious persistence."

Upon reading my topic for today in the newsletter, John Slattery kindly and immediately, provided me with a talking paper he had prepared for a Philosopher’s Cafe he ran a while back. It is exactly on our topic today. He very helpfully begins with some definitions of the terms "religious" and "spiritual." He told me that although they read like dictionary definitions, they are his own take on the difference, reflecting a certain consensus he hears around him. Let’s examine John’s definitions.

Religious is that which pertains to:

the beliefs, principles and value systems to which members of a church, synagogue, mosque or temple officially subscribe as a condition or sign of membership, or
2. the prayers, music and other elements of ritual that typically characterize a worship service; in a broader sense, the liturgy of a denomination or sect, or
3. the organizational structure of a congregation – its leadership, its service and committee structures, etc.; in a larger sense, the organizational structure of the denomination as a whole, or
4. authority - divinely inspired and revealed through sacred texts as interpreted by religious leaders, or
5. the people who believe such tenets, and follow such ritual and authority.
These definitions certainly follow what I consider to be "religious." Following a set of values and beliefs is perhaps a primary definition. I think those values would usually assumed to be a given, perhaps even divinely inspired and revealed. Unitarianism is an exception here. Our set of values as in the Principles and Purposes—found on the page prior to the hymn #1, was written by a very broad consensus building process, then word smithed and voted on by delegates at the UUA’s General Assembly. The Canadian Unitarian Council, now the only denominational body to which we belong, is in the process of re-examining these. How would we Canadians articulate our values? We don’t even attempt to state our beliefs, as we know that, as individuals, we are over much of the map theologically!

Thinking about our ritual now, what we do on Sunday morning... Should you have the opportunity of attending other Unitarian churches, you’ll find that mostly, we all use the Protestant hymn sandwich. Songs or hymns surround the sermon, with meditation or prayer in there somewhere. The content of the hymns and the sermon, or homily, or address does differ from the traditional Protestant Christian ritual. Rather than one particular divinely revealed authority, like the Christian Scriptures, or the Tanakh, or the Koran, we have access to the whole library as inspiration. Whether we consider any text divinely inspired is an individual decision. Because we have no one text considered THE authority, preachers in the Unitarian tradition refer to texts, plural, and to reasonableness. I have to persuade you that my idea is one worth considering; no one assumes that my authority is such that just because I say so, you must think this way, or do that way.

I was most startled once during my chaplaincy internship in the hospital. I was chatting with a man in the cardiac intensive care ward. His wife was unhappy in her job. I think I wondered aloud about the possibility of her finding a different one. His response indicated that he heard that as a directive; one that must be followed. He’d only just met me! how did he know I had good advice? Because of my position as chaplain, that’s how! I was unnerved. I’m not accustomed to my word being taken so seriously and literally.

Our value system is an ethical one; the Principles are not only about us, but about how to live in the world with justice and compassion. Part of religion is to pay attention to ethics.
We certainly have a religious organization. Some folks among us carefully distinguish us as an association, rather than a denomination. It’s true, each congregation is its own registered society; we are not only one organization. I’m not sure that matters in this conversation.
Let’s turn to John’s definitions of spirituality. He says

Spiritual is that which pertains to:
the experience of being inwardly and directly connected to something "other" and typically "larger" than oneself. This something Other may be called ‘God’, ‘the life force’, or ‘the universe’, etc., or
a sense of deep inner peace and harmony that makes no reference to anything outside of the self; a sense of ‘self-less-ness’, or
the ways in which a person establishes such connections or inner peace (prayer, meditation, communing with nature, etc.), or
authority – individual experience often reinforced by others in his or her group and by printed works from a variety of sources, or
the people who seek these experiences of connectedness, peace and harmony,
We are back to our first reading. Bate said his definition of spirituality is "an individual's hunger for truth and her willingness to step forward in faith."
Spirituality seems to be the individual’s quest for meaning in their life. Their definition, and their search for it.

An Oxford University Press article on this same subject, Religious or Spiritual" reminds us that prior to the 20th century, the terms were synonyms. Author Robert Fuller reports that 19% of Americans define themselves as "spiritual but not religious." The survey he refers to found that the "spiritual, but not religious" group was
less likely to evaluate religiousness positively, less likely to engage in traditional forms of worship such as church attendance and prayer, less likely to engage in group experiences related to spiritual growth, more likely to be agnostic, more likely to characterize religiousness and spirituality as different and non-overlapping concepts, more likely to hold nontraditional beliefs, and more likely to have had mystical experiences
(http://www.beliefnet.com/story/109/story_10958_1.html )

It seems to me that you can be both spiritual and religious. I believe that we as Unitarians are religious, even if some other religionists might disagree. We don’t have a creed for instance, that declares our set of common beliefs. We do not declare a belief in God, even if we know that many of us do believe. Yes, we do have our own way of being religious. Searching for the right words to articulate your particular beliefs, indeed, discerning your beliefs, is an ongoing process for many of us, a spiritual discipline. We do have a unifying set of values, articulated for us, yet open to change and individual interpretation.

We certainly have a set of prayers and readings and hymns that we usually sing. The hymn book is a unifying document; it represents that which we commonly say and sing. Of course, we also sing other songs, and say other words not printed there.

It’s in that authority item that we perhaps differ most from more traditional religion. Few of us grant anyone or anything divine authority, even if we would grant that a minister or the Hebrew or Christian Scriptures would be worthy of paying attention to, again with our faculties of reason well engaged.

Another BeliefNet article on this question was a dialog of letters between noted religion author Huston Smith and a listener of his lectures. He stated: "The heart of religion is not altered states but altered traits of character." His listener Elizabeth Lesser responded to him ‘This simple line has been a touchstone for me, helping me to gauge my own spiritual progress. I know that religions aim to help people do more than just follow rules. I know that they offer proven technologies for "altered traits of character." But I am afraid that many of the flock are merely following the rules out of habit or fear, and therefore their characters have not really been altered; they and their societies may have the veneer of righteousness, but scratch the surface and you will quickly find unresolved feelings, anxieties, and prejudices that have always kept humanity from growing up and waking up."

"On the other hand, Ms Lesser continues, a spirituality that does not find its grounding in religious discipline often suffers from shallowness, narcissism, and loneliness. I value that criticism and for that reason have included religious tradition in my spiritual brew. Adding up all the twists and turns of my spiritual path, I conclude that it is not just religion that taught me how to walk with love and light through my life. Religion, mythology, psychology, science, bodywork, and the rough and tumble of everyday life--each has taught me about living an ethical, mystical, and magical life."
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/109/story_10961_1.html.

I’d say that what we Unitarians aim for is to be both spiritual and religious in their more contemporary meanings. Hopefully, we as a church organization provide some of the motivation and information for your individual spiritual journeys. And I dare say, of our common journey as a community.

We have historical spiritual movements within us. Transcendentalism as promoted by Unitarians Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and others, mostly Unitarians, was a spirituality movement within the rational Christian Unitarianism of the mid 1800’s. We’ve done this before.

And so, since the early 1980’s when I first found Unitarianism, the pendulum has swung again. Just in the past month, God has been mentioned in the small groups where I’ve been asking "what sustains you when you’re having problems? What’s at your core?" The idea of God has been discussed, as has prayer. I see a more inclusive and open Unitarianism than the association I first encountered 20 years ago. Where humanists and theists can discuss their views without even subtly putting down the other, but respectfully listen to each other and appreciate that other paths work for other people. I believe that Unitarianism is further along its spiritual path now that we are able to do this. Yes, we are both spiritual and religious, no matter which definition you use.