Posted on 10/05/2012 8:13:30 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
There was an intriguing forum this week in New York City provocatively titled “I’m So Spiritual.”
It was co-hosted by The New School, which trains up its students, it says, “to bring actual, positive change to the world,” and New York Salon, an organization composed of intellectuals, academics artists and public personalities, according to Wikipedia.
The forum featured four speakers: Courtney Bender, an associate religion professor at ColumbiaUniversity, Matthew Hutson, a Psychology Today science writer, Sally Quinn, editor of the Washington Post’s On Faith blog, and Alan Miller, New York Salon’s co-director.
Of the four speakers, Miller proved to be the most edifying. Echoing themes he explored in two recent essays, he noted the growing predilection of folk, particularly the younger population, to proclaim themselves “spiritual,” but not “religious.”
To his mind, that’s just so much new-agey hokum.
“Selecting a superficial mixture of ‘nice-feeling’ items from yoga to a slice of zen and a moment of Tao” is no substitute for an authentic faith life, Miller suggested.
The “Spiritual But Not Religious-ers,” as he mocks them, “have jettisoned the hard work, diligence and observation of organized religion for a me-me-me whatever kind of lifestyle.”
And Miller is not just talking about any and every organized religion, but Christianity, which, he notes, “has been interwoven and seminal in Western history and culture.”
He agrees with Harold Bloom, who authored a book on the King James Bible, who made the compelling case that, without the Christian Bible, “everything from the visual arts, to Bach to our canon of literature would not be possible”
What I find remarkable about Miller’s endorsement of Christianity – as opposed to the empty “spirituality” represented by yoga and zen and tao, not to mention astrology, feng shui and other unholy nonsense – is that New York Salon’s co-director, who also is a writer, filmmaker and director, is absolutely not a religious proselytizer.
Indeed, he says, “Being a secular admirer of the Enlightenment, I find it strange today that I should feel compelled to defend the increasingly bizarre and outlandish attacks on those who believe.”
Clearly, it seems to me, the Holy Spirit has opened Miller’s eyes to the truth – that it is impossible to be truly spiritual without being a member of the body of Christ.
For there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we may be saved.
Each day I carefully work my way through a series of elaborate rituals that serve no useful or edifying purpose.
Well said. I like to call out these “Evangelical humanist/atheist/agnostic/progressives as religious people, religious to their own agenda and doctrines ie. global warming, sexual debauchery, materialism, endorsement of abortion anytime, anywhere.
Exactly....Faith and Reason has always been understood as essential parts of the human being. Can’t eliminate either one-—would dehumanize us.
The Postmodernists (marx, etc) claimed you can separate faith from reason—and they forced it from our schools (Dewey) and universities long time ago to destroy faith in little children-—that is the faith in God-—now they are trained drones to have faith in government. Everyone has faith. Not possible to exist in the world without it. Just SOME theology is more perfect than others——Christianity has proven superior to all for civil, free, societies.
Spiritual not Religious means believing in the God that approves of everything you do.
Spiritual but not religious is just a pick-up line on match.com
>>now they are trained drones to have faith in government
This is why so many people are so miserable. Their “god” (government) has failed them, and the “spiritual, but not religious” person has nothing else to turn to. Even if they believe in a God who is everything to everyone but to whom they are not accountable in any way, they begin to see Him as cartoon character and not as an overwhelming and supernatural presence in their life. They’re left with nothing but a very finite live of emptiness. It has to be a horrible way to live once you realize how hollow you are inside.
Judge and condemn whatever you want, in your holy hate.
But if you try to burn me at the stake, or pass laws taking away Constitutional freedoms in the name of your religion, I’ll fight you to the death.
Now go back to your precious exaltedness and leave me alone.
This Christ follower is not trying to burn you (or anyone else) at the stake, nor pass laws taking away Constitutional freedoms in the name of my religion.
Indeed, the Constitution was written by men whose Christian faith I share.
You are clearly conservative enough in some parts of your life that you are led to spend so much time here at a pro-God, social conservative site, associating with people that are religious enough to reflect the values of early America.
Religion is a ceremonial worship of God. It is feasible to be both religious and spiritual through or in faith with Christ.
It is also possible by not being faithful through Christ, to exercise the same mechanics or rituals in religion and not be spiritual and not worshiping the same God.
Most ‘religious’ exercises allow temptation straying away from faith in Christ, or distractions, which also remove even believers out of fellowship.
There also are false spirits which tempt unbelievers into witnessing something mystical, who then think they are being spiritual when they are mystical, placing faith in deceiving spirits.
The only true walk with God the Father is by the Son. The Christian life is a spiritual life, through faith in Christ.
In the same way OT Priests would wash themselves in the Laver, believers today look at themselves and confess our sins daily before God through faith in Christ to make sure we walk in fellowship with Him by His standards.
Those mechanics are religious, but they also are a protocol to the spirit filled life.
It has been noted that Christianity walks a balance between Rationalism and Mysticism. Pure Rationalism leads towards legalism, failing to recognize grace and His very real presence. Mysticism leans to antinomianism and may allow deceiving spirits to entice us away from Christ.
The Christian walk is a spiritual life and He shows us through study of His Word, which God the Holy Spirit then continues a sanctifying work through our human spirit, slowly sanctifying our souls, so that as we continue in faith through Him, we might be in the right place, at the right time, to perform the right thing in a right way fulfilling His Plan for our lives.
Well said, sir.
I believe its your side trying to take away our constitutional freedoms, as usual. The hatred of the darkness for the light is well documented and the story is written in the blood of the saints on the alters of your self-righteousness. You always try to destroy that which convicts you.
I know there are a lot of snotty folks on FR, but they have a point: Being “spiritual” means a warm fuzzy.
If I want a “warm fuzzy”, I’ll take some crystal meth, thank you.
being spritual has nothing to do with responsibility, ethics, or helping anyone. It’s (to use a phrase of a good nun who runs an HIV clinic) “belly button gazing”.
Personally, I’ll take an ethical atheist anytime...
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