Spiritual But Not Religious

Is it possible to be spiritual but not religious? The answer depends based on how you define the terms “Spiritual” and “Religious” doesn’t it? 

For the purpose of this article, we will use the following simple definitions:

• Religious: A worldview based on a clearly defined code (e.g. The Bible)
• Spiritual: Emotional feeling. Some presence of a warm fuzzy sensation in the heart. 

(Do you have an alternative definition you would like to suggest? Leave your definition of spiritual and/or religious in the comment box below).

Let’s walk through a few chunks of articles on the idea of being “Spiritual but not Religious”, which we will now refer to as SBNR for short. Barna writes:

“But even though more and more Americans are abandoning the institutional church and its defined boundary markers of religious identity, many still believe in God and practice faith outside its walls”. 

How are these individuals practicing faith? Do they believe in God but not in the Bible? A reasonable assumption would be that these people don’t believe the Bible came from God or that perhaps the Bible is not a book of mandatory laws that should be followed. Because even a cursory reading of the Bible lets an individual know that there are behavioral regulations and religious requirements for a Christian.

For example, the religious individual must bridle his tongue (James 1:26) and he must “visit orphans and widows and keep himself unspotted from the world (James 1:27). 

 So we have groups of individuals who believe they can find God somewhere outside of His church, which just so happens to be composed of the people. Barna Continues: 

“This group still actively practices their faith, albeit in less traditional ways. They maintain an active prayer life (83%, compared to 83% of practicing Christians), but only read scripture half as much as the average practicing Christian (26% compared to 56%). In addition, they are much less likely to read a book on spiritual topics (9% compared to 36% of practicing Christians), and never attend groups or retreats (compared to 24% of practicing Christians). This all points to a broader abandonment of authoritative sources of religious identity, leading to much more informal and personally-driven faith practices. They are certainly still finding and experiencing God, but they are more likely to do so in nature (32% compared to 24% of practicing Christians), and through practices like meditation (20% compared to 18%), yoga (10% compared to 7%) and silence and solitude (both 15%). “

This portion of the article serves to reinforce the idea that the SBNR group does not actively read the Bible. This could be due to a lack of belief in the Scriptures as God-given or for some other reason. One possibility is that while reading the scriptures, an individual must come to the conclusion that God requires Action from him, and that is undesirable to the SBNR individual.

The SBNR man wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it.

He wants freedom from the Law of God at the most basic level. He wants to feel “spiritual emotions” but avoid taking any spiritual action. Continuing:

“we also know from past research that Christians who do not attend church say it’s primarily not out of wounding, but because they can find God elsewhere or that church is not personally relevant to them.” – Source of past three excerpts. 

Barna.com

Here we begin to find the heart of the SBNR individual.

“Church is not personally relevant to them”. This one line shows a misunderstanding that people have about assembling at the church – religion has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God. It does not matter if church is “personally relevant” to me or not because it was never about me to begin with.

This self-centric idea about the nature of religion is the source of the emotionalistic, SBNR mindset. That quote from Barna shows that individuals do not truly care about God, but are more interested in themselves, or believe that God is within them already. If they want to use their freedom to be more interested in themselves than God then that is up to them, but they should not conflate emotionalism and ego-centrism with spirituality. 

“As we’ll see below, though, the “spiritual but not religious” hold much looser ideas about God, spiritual practices and religion”. 

SBNR individuals want to avoid discipline and difficult obedience in favor of emotionalism. 

“But to be spiritual but not religious is to possess a deeply personal and private spirituality.” – Source of past two excerpts.

This “private spirituality” has nothing to do with anyone other than the self. It is devoid of God. That is what people have chosen to do with their freedom.

Amy Hollywood writing for Harvard Divinity School outlines the position of the SBNR individual and their basic idea about religion well:

“To be religious is to bow to the authority of another, to believe in doctrines determined for one in advance, to read ancient texts only as they are handed down through existing interpretative traditions, and blindly to perform formalized rituals. For the spiritual, religion is inert, arid, and dead; the practitioner of religion, whether consciously or not, is at best without feeling, at worst insincere.” –

Harvard Divinity School

The only individuals who think that Christians have blind faith are the ones who have not taken any considerable amount of time to understand Christianity. It requires more faith to believe in atheism and evolution than to believe in a God. 

The question of sincerity in religion is actually legitimate. It is understandable why the SBNR individuals think that formal religion is full of hypocrites, because that is the only thing that gets headlines. You never hear about good deeds Christians do, you only hear the negative or the evil. A Catholic priest molesting a boy gets headline national news, and everyone lumps all religion into one pile and blames it universally (Spartan holds the view that Catholicism is separate from Biblical Christianity). When a church donates thousands of dollars to foreign countries, no one blinks an eye. Is it any wonder why people hold negative views of religion as a whole? 

To think religion is just a bunch of blind rituals , again, is an idea built on a misunderstanding of religion and/or of lumping all religions into one pile.

Moving to the final source before we observe what is really going on in the hearts of many people who are spiritual but not religious, Peter Baksa, a writer for HuffPost makes some interesting statements to which we will respond with respect:

“The core of most all religions are built on a spiritual foundation, but remember that Man invented religions and so it is subject to his flaws.  If a religion says that it’s alright to beat up a woman for a trivial reason or that you must wear a silly clown hat every other Tuesday, does that make it spiritual? Or even moral? No, of course not. So where, then, does being religious part company with being spiritual?” –

HuffPost, (an obviously solid, logical and bipartisan news site as proven by the articles on the right side-bar).

This portion of the article sets up a straw man that does not exist. Any individual could respond to any belief with the same “logic”, including the belief in science. If science says that dwarves are popping out of holes in the ground in a Lord of the Rings fashion and then proceeds to provide no proof or examples, that does not make the statement scientific. Anyone can make a straw man, and it will be just as logical. 

And Peter, the religion of beating up women for trivial reasons is called “Islam”. 

• The author makes the bold assumption that man invented religion. 

For Christians, God designed religion and the church and had outlines for it before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). While it is true that there are many made up religions that certainly deserve to be scrutinized, all religion does not fall into that category. 

Baksa continues:

“Religions attempt to gain access to a higher power in the hope of improving your life’s condition. This usually means sending out your prayers to the deity of your choice, hope that you’re heard, then have the firm belief that something will happen. Spirituality involves the attempt to focus your mind to gain access to the higher power within yourself in the hope of improving your life’s condition.”

This is an overly simplistic reduction of religion. My main disagreement is the projection of the author’s definition of religion on all religious people (Peter’s definition of religion is three paragraphs down). 

“That deity that everyone’s always trying to pray to in order to make their lives better? It is, and always has been within yourself.  It’s just that most people do not have the confidence in themselves to believe that they can access such a power, that they can channel their own solutions (and most do not understand enough of quantum mechanics to realize it is possible)”.

How do you know the “deity is within”?

The problem with the vast majority of these SBNR articles and the previous statement from the HuffPost is that the writers are projecting their own definitions of spirituality and religion onto other individuals. Unless terms are defined, there can be no discussion. Peter does well by giving us his selected definition of the term “religious”:

“Religion ‘is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols which relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.’”

These are all quite “heady” definitions and discussions of spirituality and religion, but I think the essence of what it is to be a SBNR individual is much simpler. It is an issue of mindset and of the heart and it will be addressed here.

What Spiritual but Not Religious Really Means – In The Depths of the Human Mind

Beyond any of the definitions of what it is to be spiritual or religious lies a particular attitude. This attitude is restless and does not want to obey or be disciplined. It wants freedom, yet does not know there is freedom in discipline, and freedom in the Truth (John 8:32). It wants the benefits God has to offer without any of the sacrifices He requires. This is the same attitude that wants abs in “3 minutes per day” on an ab coaster. It is the same attitude that wants sex without the commitment of marriage. SBNR wants Christ without the Cross (Matthew 16:24).

SBNR wants the benefits of Christainity without the constraints.

The SBNR individual likes what spirituality/faith/Christianity has to offer, but dislikes the restrictions placed on the Christian lifestyle. Just like the athlete gives up certain foods or activities that might be enjoyable in order to reach a level of high performance, so also the Christian must give up extremely enjoyable pleasures of the world (Hebrews 11:25) in order to receive the benefits of Christianity. 

The SBNR individual wants emotion without obedience.

This individual wants to feel warm and fuzzy inside, but doesn’t want to give up any freedoms. He wants to do exactly what he wants and when he wants without reprisal in this world or the next. This individual wants all the benefit without any of the responsibility.

The SBNR individual wants Christ but does not want the cross.

SBNR individuals can “love” Christ but not do what he says. However, if a person does not obey the commands of Christ then He does not love Christ (John 15:21). A man cannot love (obey, take action towards) Christ and be SBNR.

The SBNR individual wants heaven with the Sacrifice

He wants to sneak into the gates of heaven at the end of life by “being a good person” (Not possible – Romans 3:10-12). The SBNR individual “feels in his little heart” that God will let him into heaven. He wants to go to heaven but he doesn’t want to give up anything in order to get there. He wants to have sex, drink alcohol to the point of drunkenness and mindlessly use profanity and still call himself “spiritual”. 

SBNR is another form of feminism in religion. Feminists want all the alleged benefits that come with being a man without any of the negatives or responsibilities associated with manliness (which are heavy, as one writer discovered). 

Being spiritual but not religious is not the way of the Spartan Christian. With this Article we formally distance ourselves from that ideology. SBNR is a passive mindset while Spartan Christianity is a hordcore mindet.

Thank you for reading. Leave your comments below. 

Sources

Are You ‘Spiritual’ but Not Religious? – HuffPost.com

Meet the “Spiritual but Not Religious” – Barna.com

Meet Those Who “Love Jesus but Not the Church” – Barna.com