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!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Getting Beyond our Churchianity
Have you ever picked up and read a book that radically redefined the way you look at things? It's like putting on a new pair of glasses or changing the light in your room from a 40 to a 75-W bulb.
That happened to me recently as I have been reading through Reggie McNeal's The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003). My bishop had this on his reading list several years ago, and I have to say, for a bishop of a mainline, traditional church, this is pretty radical reading! I commend Bishop Schol for passing it along... (Although, he may regret that he did!)
McNeal's central precept is that the church of North America is in serious trouble and is in danger of collapse in the next several decades unless it can identity six realities about itself, ask itself some tough questions and in so doing, redefine its identity, relationship with Jesus, and mission.
The first reality is the collapse of the current church culture. This culture represents a bygone era of the church's heyday in which the church found itself in the center of society. People came to it, it thrived, and served as a haven-like religious club in which people could find spiritual nurture and community.
However, as the culture of the world has changed over the last forty and fifty years, the church has done a poor job recognizing those changes and reaching out to the people who make up that change of culture. The church has stayed the same, doing what it's always done, maintaining the same churchy image, and expecting that if we can only "do church better" people will come to us. McNeal aptly points out that this is simply wrong, as evident in our shrinking church rolls, especially among people between the ages of 18 and 35.
Prime example: this past week, I was with some friends in a body piercing and tattoo parlor. The whole time I watched and listened to the people who worked there and who were visiting to get piercings and tattoos. I spent time talking to them, getting to know them in the time I had there. They're not the bad, hideous monsters that churchy people might imagine them to be. Alternative, yes. Living in some lifestyles that are potentially dangerous, yes. Spiritual and seeking, absolutely. Visiting our churches on Sunday morning for their answers: a resounding NO!
And yet, these folks are made in the image of God and are people for whom Jesus lovingly, faithfully died! And what are church people doing about it? We're sitting comfortably in our own little worlds, carrying on as we always have, hoping that maybe if we do some catchy things they might come to us. (Although, if we're honest, we'd have no idea what to do with them, if they even came!)
What's the answer? It's not in redeveloping our church culture and mission strategies. The answer, as McNeal points out, is to "...recapture the mission of the church" (12).
McNeal goes on to say, "The correct response, then, to the collapse of the church culture is not to try to become better at doing church. This only feeds the problem and hastens the church's decline through its disconnect from the larger culture. The need is not for a methodological fix. The need is for a missional fix. The appropriate response to the emerging world is a rebooting of the mission, a radical obedience to an ancient command [the Great Commission], a loss of self rather than self-preoccupation, concern about service and sacrifice rather than concern about style" (18).
The only way those guys in that tattoo and body piercing parlor can join me in being a disciple of Jesus Christ is if I can love them enough to go to them, be in their world, develop a relationship of trust with them, and show them (not just tell!) the freedom, love, peace, joy, and truth of being in Christ. They may never step foot in my church, but they can be the Church in a whole new way.
Of course that requires a whole lot of letting go-- letting go of my ego, my agendas, my attitudes, my expectations, and my needs. But isn't that what Jesus calls us to anyway? Doesn't Jesus call us to lay down our lives for others? Didn't Paul say, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20)? Didn't Jesus selflessly die on the cross so that we could live?
If we are going to be the Church, a church who doesn't practice churchianity but true discipleship, it's going to require that we move out beyond ourselves, give our lives over to the Lord, and join him where he is most powerfully at work-- in the world seeking his lost sheep.
That happened to me recently as I have been reading through Reggie McNeal's The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003). My bishop had this on his reading list several years ago, and I have to say, for a bishop of a mainline, traditional church, this is pretty radical reading! I commend Bishop Schol for passing it along... (Although, he may regret that he did!)
McNeal's central precept is that the church of North America is in serious trouble and is in danger of collapse in the next several decades unless it can identity six realities about itself, ask itself some tough questions and in so doing, redefine its identity, relationship with Jesus, and mission.
The first reality is the collapse of the current church culture. This culture represents a bygone era of the church's heyday in which the church found itself in the center of society. People came to it, it thrived, and served as a haven-like religious club in which people could find spiritual nurture and community.
However, as the culture of the world has changed over the last forty and fifty years, the church has done a poor job recognizing those changes and reaching out to the people who make up that change of culture. The church has stayed the same, doing what it's always done, maintaining the same churchy image, and expecting that if we can only "do church better" people will come to us. McNeal aptly points out that this is simply wrong, as evident in our shrinking church rolls, especially among people between the ages of 18 and 35.
Prime example: this past week, I was with some friends in a body piercing and tattoo parlor. The whole time I watched and listened to the people who worked there and who were visiting to get piercings and tattoos. I spent time talking to them, getting to know them in the time I had there. They're not the bad, hideous monsters that churchy people might imagine them to be. Alternative, yes. Living in some lifestyles that are potentially dangerous, yes. Spiritual and seeking, absolutely. Visiting our churches on Sunday morning for their answers: a resounding NO!
And yet, these folks are made in the image of God and are people for whom Jesus lovingly, faithfully died! And what are church people doing about it? We're sitting comfortably in our own little worlds, carrying on as we always have, hoping that maybe if we do some catchy things they might come to us. (Although, if we're honest, we'd have no idea what to do with them, if they even came!)
What's the answer? It's not in redeveloping our church culture and mission strategies. The answer, as McNeal points out, is to "...recapture the mission of the church" (12).
McNeal goes on to say, "The correct response, then, to the collapse of the church culture is not to try to become better at doing church. This only feeds the problem and hastens the church's decline through its disconnect from the larger culture. The need is not for a methodological fix. The need is for a missional fix. The appropriate response to the emerging world is a rebooting of the mission, a radical obedience to an ancient command [the Great Commission], a loss of self rather than self-preoccupation, concern about service and sacrifice rather than concern about style" (18).
The only way those guys in that tattoo and body piercing parlor can join me in being a disciple of Jesus Christ is if I can love them enough to go to them, be in their world, develop a relationship of trust with them, and show them (not just tell!) the freedom, love, peace, joy, and truth of being in Christ. They may never step foot in my church, but they can be the Church in a whole new way.
Of course that requires a whole lot of letting go-- letting go of my ego, my agendas, my attitudes, my expectations, and my needs. But isn't that what Jesus calls us to anyway? Doesn't Jesus call us to lay down our lives for others? Didn't Paul say, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20)? Didn't Jesus selflessly die on the cross so that we could live?
If we are going to be the Church, a church who doesn't practice churchianity but true discipleship, it's going to require that we move out beyond ourselves, give our lives over to the Lord, and join him where he is most powerfully at work-- in the world seeking his lost sheep.
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