There seems to be a sentiment in circles I run in that being spiritual but not religious is a particular way of life. Yes and no. Yes, in that being spiritual is a recognition of a reality outside of the material or physical world. No, in that more spiritual pursuits are quite general. There is often little guidance in the way of specific answers to specific questions that can deeply affect the life of the person. Questions like, “What is real?” Or, “What is the good life?” In order to facilitate true transformation, you need both. You need to recognize that the material world is not the only thing happening – AND that there are specific propositions about what life could be that are meant to frame our lives.
To be spiritual…
Let’s explore spirituality first. In Dallas Willard’s parts of the person, the center of a person is their spirit. Willard also defines “spirit” as unbodily personal power. These two ideas are key in beginning to contemplate propositions of the spiritual world. Every person has a spirit. It is central to their being. It is personal to them. It is the power that initiates action in particular directions. The shape of their spirit when taken as a whole might be considered the person’s character.
We might say of someone that their actions or reactions are characteristic of them or maybe someone else. I have some characteristics that remind folk of my father, for example. I have others that that remind folk of my mother.
To be spiritual is an aspect of being human. However, because the spiritual life is unseen, it can be hidden. Instead of seeing the spiritual landscape we are more easily confronted with the physical or material world. We attempt to frame problems and solutions with material things. A focus on the body or even the mind as the center of the person undermines our ability to engage in our formation in a fundamental manner. Disregarding our own spirit is something we do to our own detriment. In doing so we might find ourselves continually battling particular characteristics or desires (the shape of our spirit) without knowing how to change them, or believing that their change is even possible.
If we acknowledge that we do indeed have a spirit, separate from yet integrated with our minds and our bodies, then we can ask, “What is the best shape of my spirit?” Another way to ask this question is, “How might I live?”
This question sets a particular pursuit in motion. This is the greatest pursuit anyone can undertake – the seeking and discovery of reality and the possibility of life. This is what all the religions, propositions of faith, cultural norms, scientific discoveries, even governments, have all attempted solve.
If we undertake life as a problem to solve, we will find that it is a multivariable – complex – problem. For all our abilities to see and know, there remains quite a bit that is unobservable and unknowable. We don’t have enough time to know everything. Our field of view isn’t wide enough to see everything. The wisdom of the generations is required to help us. With wisdom that has stood the test of time we need not start from scratch with every generation. Rather we can build upon the experience of the generation before. But this only works if the wisdom we are passing on is specific.
To be Religious
Being religious is to subscribe to a set of specific propositions that define reality, the good life, the character of a good person, and ways and means to achieve that character and life. Being religious is to organize your life around these propositions for the sake of the experiencing them as your personal reality. It is sad that the term “religion” seems to have come to only refer to organized religion. That is religion that has a book (or record), institutions, and even some kind of public power associated with it.
There is plenty of disorganized religion that is ascribed to. In fact, the religion of Christianity began as a disorganized religion. One person, doing supernatural things, teaching clearly about how those things were more evident of reality than the normal organization of life, and empowering a small band to experience this reality, was how it all started. Jesus built his teaching on prior revelations of God and fulfilled those revelations. His death on the cross was proof of a life of love. His resurrection was proof that everything he had shared about his Father, his own position, and the Kingdom of Heaven was true. To follow Jesus was an invitation, not an imposition.
The current mix of disorganized religions look similar. There are individuals doing seemingly supernatural things – even if that supernatural thing is simply explaining what is happening in our world. They are teaching about how they are able to do the things they can do. Their propositions are built upon the mix of beliefs that the common culture has swam in.
Followers of such leaders – even followers that piece together their own religion of sorts – subscribe to a definition of good and evil. They have strong convictions about what is right or wrong. They have ways of organizing their life for the sake of experiencing the propositions of the belief system they are following. Be it a path toward enlightenment, or a particular social justice, they have all the attributes of religion without the book (prior record), institution, or public power being associated with them.
It should be noted that while religion catches much warranted blame for violence over human history. These disorganized religions also show expressions of violence when their belief system is contested.
Since much of what is disorganized religion today is nascent, there is less common language – although you may find pockets where shared language is being formed. There is less common vision – although pockets of common vision and a sense of intersectionality across these religions is part of what seems to be forming.
There is one key distinction between those who subscribe to a particular religious tradition and those who find themselves taking on aspects of the disorganized religions that fill the void. Those who ascribe themselves to a particular religion contend with the connection between their life and the propositions of the religion they are following. Those who do not subscribe to a particular religion seem to feel free from that kind of contention.
In reality there is no freedom from what we believe. Whether organized or disorganized, what we think about the world, our own pursuits, and the ways and means of achievement, deeply form the life we live. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be what we believe. We would have no willingness to act on them as if they were true, and so they would carry no power to affect our life. What we believe is integral to our life, so there is no escaping it.
Part of this integration is what we believe about the unseen aspects of life – the spiritual. If we acknowledge the existence of unbodily personal power, then we must contend with what shape this power takes. If we come to desire the change of the shape we currently have, we must contend with the propositions of transformation. If we contend with propositions, we must contend with the specificity of things. In the end it is the differences between the propositions that give them their shape rather than the similarities.
Spiritual but not Religious