Thomas Schmidt September 9, 2016 St.
Augustine Record
According to a Pew Research Report, 20 percent of
Americans describe themselves as religiously
unaffiliated.
The percentage is much higher for young people, up
to 72 percent of them are not religious.
The Buddhist magazine “Lion’s Roar” points out that
about one-third of this group identify as atheist, and the rest,
approximately 30 million people, maintain a spiritual belief and
practice even though they don’t attend church, mosque or
synagogue.
The article claims that “these are the famous
‘spiritual but not religious,’ philosophically the fastest-growing
demographic in the U.S. Generally, they’re educated, liberal and
open-minded, with a deep sense of connection to the Earth and a
belief that there’s more to life than what appears on the
surface.”
The term “spiritual but not religious” is something
that many see as a growing concern and others see as an opportunity
or an awakening. Regardless of one’s perspective, however, it is
important that we define our terms.
What does it mean to be religious? What is
spirituality?
The dictionary is always a good starting point for
definitions and mine tells us that religion is the belief and
worship of a God or other superhuman controlling power. An
alternate definition is a particular system of belief and
practices, which has supreme importance.
That same dictionary defines spirituality as
anything relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul or that
which is not material or physical. It also says spirituality
relates to religion or religious beliefs.
Clearly, the two are related, and for some they are
the same.
Others, however, clearly differentiate between the
two and the most significant difference seems centered on God.
Religions generally have clear definitions of their understanding
of God and naturally expect members to adopt that definition. It
would seem that those people who call themselves spiritual but not
religious do not accept this definition and may even reject the
idea of God completely.
What it all boils down to for me is that
spirituality is the striving toward greater community, greater
commitment, greater communication; a striving toward a communion
with all of creation.
Spirituality may include an understanding of God or
it may not. The African feminist theologian Mercy Amba Oduyoye
defines spirituality as simply, “the energy by which one lives and
which links one’s worldview to one’s style of life.”
I very much like this definition because it is both
open-ended, letting us define the nature of the energy that guides
us, while clearly stating that it is linked to how we live in this
world. What is important according to this definition, whether we
define ourselves as spiritual or religious, is that our beliefs
guide our actions and choices.
The question I pose to the reader is this, did the
great spiritual teachers of the past invoke us to be members of a
religious institution or did they teach us to live out their
teachings of love and compassion in the world? Do our choices and
actions determine our character, or our memberships?