For years I've heard the
claim, "Oh, I'm spiritual, but not religious". A variation is "Jesus is
all about a relationship, not a religion".
I have one friend who claims, "I'm religious, but not spiritual".
Might I suggest, both positions have it mistaken. And those who make the claims are often not living according to them.
The best way to picture it is to think of religion as the body, spirituality as the soul.
Religion without spirituality is a dead body. It's just a concern for the rules and the formalism. It's the Catholic who goes to Mass on Sunday, and by Monday he's cheating somebody in a business deal, or he's sleeping with the neighbor's wife, etc. But on Saturday, he's the first in the confession line. Perpetual confess without repentance. (This is not, of course, a criticism of those who struggle daily and fail in their struggle; rather, this is directed at those who don't struggle) Or religion without spirituality is the Fundamentalist who spend their waking hours telling the Catholic that, because he's Catholic, he's going to hell; no ifs ands or buts, the Catholic is going to hell. Or the Fundamentalist who will damn somebody to hell for dancing, but turn around and gossip about the pastor's wife.
Spirituality without religion is life without form. Or, rather, it takes the form of whatever empty form that comes across. It's the Catholic nun who teaches the Enneagram. It's the fundamentalist who says, "As long as you're saved, that's what's important to me" Or it's Matthew Fox, a former Catholic priest, a former Dominican Friar who some years back began teaching a form of pantheism which he called "Creation Theology" (and who has since been excommunicated).
Before I was Catholic, I was Pentecostal, and I was largely unfamiliar with traditional western liturgy, although I knew many of the elements, having sung them from my old Methodist hymnal, or read them in the old Methodist Book of Worship. And it was ultimately the structure that I sensed there that help to draw me to the Catholic Church. But the Pentecostal Church I attended all those years ago? After 20 years, the order of service is still pretty much the same. That is their religious structure - and there's not a thing wrong with that structure.
And the friend who's "religious but not spiritual"? He's both. His spirituality is expressed within the structure of his religion.
Religion must have spirituality in order to live.
Spirituality must have religion in order to be something more than a private pipe-dream.
I have one friend who claims, "I'm religious, but not spiritual".
Might I suggest, both positions have it mistaken. And those who make the claims are often not living according to them.
The best way to picture it is to think of religion as the body, spirituality as the soul.
Religion without spirituality is a dead body. It's just a concern for the rules and the formalism. It's the Catholic who goes to Mass on Sunday, and by Monday he's cheating somebody in a business deal, or he's sleeping with the neighbor's wife, etc. But on Saturday, he's the first in the confession line. Perpetual confess without repentance. (This is not, of course, a criticism of those who struggle daily and fail in their struggle; rather, this is directed at those who don't struggle) Or religion without spirituality is the Fundamentalist who spend their waking hours telling the Catholic that, because he's Catholic, he's going to hell; no ifs ands or buts, the Catholic is going to hell. Or the Fundamentalist who will damn somebody to hell for dancing, but turn around and gossip about the pastor's wife.
Spirituality without religion is life without form. Or, rather, it takes the form of whatever empty form that comes across. It's the Catholic nun who teaches the Enneagram. It's the fundamentalist who says, "As long as you're saved, that's what's important to me" Or it's Matthew Fox, a former Catholic priest, a former Dominican Friar who some years back began teaching a form of pantheism which he called "Creation Theology" (and who has since been excommunicated).
Before I was Catholic, I was Pentecostal, and I was largely unfamiliar with traditional western liturgy, although I knew many of the elements, having sung them from my old Methodist hymnal, or read them in the old Methodist Book of Worship. And it was ultimately the structure that I sensed there that help to draw me to the Catholic Church. But the Pentecostal Church I attended all those years ago? After 20 years, the order of service is still pretty much the same. That is their religious structure - and there's not a thing wrong with that structure.
And the friend who's "religious but not spiritual"? He's both. His spirituality is expressed within the structure of his religion.
Religion must have spirituality in order to live.
Spirituality must have religion in order to be something more than a private pipe-dream.
