Are You Religious or Spiritual?

Recently, I saw an interesting news story on Fox News with a reporter asking people on the street whether they considered themselves to be religious or spiritual. Each of the people she asked indicated, some more readily than others, that they were one or the other. But then she pressed them further: "What makes you [religious or spiritual]?" Few could answer that question.

Then back in the studio with the other anchors, she explained her understanding of the difference. She dubbed "spiritual" as the more nondescript, personal, inner-relationship between an individual and a higher power. Then she said that religion, on the other hand, is the structured, humanly defined system of relating to God. To rephrase what she said, religion is both a system of orthodoxy (what we believe) and orthopraxy (what we practice).

So according to her paradigm of spirituality vs. religion, a person who believes in God but doesn't adhere to a faith system like Islam, Judaism, or Christianity would be spiritual. While a person who does actively participate in a faith system-- say, someone like me who is a "church-going Christian"-- is religious.

It's all an interesting concept, but I'm not sure I fully buy into it.

For one thing, I've always chafed at the current usage and inferences behind the word religion. Religion or religious, while it's used to name a faith system, is usually an outsider's word. In other words, it's used by people who don't adhere to a particular faith system to describe those who do. "She's a religious person, but I'm not." Or, "I don't really practice a religion." In this context, religion has a negative tinge to it. It's "the other person's thing", but not my own.

Religion is also used negatively to dub those humanly devised beliefs and practice which we find to be corrupt or no longer useful. For example, a Lokata Sioux pastor I know would often say, "You need to get rid of your religion and hold on to Jesus." He was trying to encourage people to let go of the human stuff we believe and do that doesn't coincide with the essence of Jesus.

Meanwhile, a good number of people would have no problem describing themselves as spiritual. Spirituality seems to have a purer connotation to it. It's personal and reflective. It's more relational and connective. It's not rules and system-bound, but free and expressive.

I don't know... I have a hard time fitting myself into either of these categories. I cringe at calling myself "religious" for all the rightfully negative inferences behind that word. But to simply call myself a spiritual person is too loosey-goosey. There's no accountability; I'm free to believe and do as I wish. I can't believe God would have no standard for who God wants me to be and what God wills for me to do.

As a Christian, I call myself neither a religious person or a spiritual person, but a disciple of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. As a disciple, I'm not bound to a system of beliefs and practices (religion) or to a personal inner-landscape of feelings and notions about God (spirituality), but to a person whose life I am emulating as my own.

At times, that means I'm both spiritual and religious, or perhaps neither.

The teachings of Jesus and my trust in him as Lord and Savior place me most comfortably in the religion of Christianity. I accept the theology and doctrine of orthodox Christian beliefs and practices. And I'm a United Methodist. But at times my life in Jesus calls me to question what might be a normative, commonly accepted notion or practice in Christianity or in Methodism.

My life in Jesus is a spiritual one, too. It's filled with prayer, meditation, and the deep contemplation of life's deepest mysteries and longings. But Jesus provides a definite compass and way of understanding both life and truth. I'm not left to my own, but am bound to the Way of Jesus Christ as his disciple.

Religious or spiritual? That's a tough question to answer as a disciple of Jesus Christ. It all depends on the Master's will at any given moment. It would be easy to be one or the other, but I don't believe Jesus would have it that way. I do not belong to a religion or to my own spiritual wanderings, but to Christ.

So my question is, which are you? Are you spiritual, religious, both, or none of the above? And how do you know? I'd love to see your thoughts on this!