This has been a topic of interest to me for a long time. A Catholic priest Father John Bartunek wrote a book Spiritual But Not Religious: The Search For Meaning In A Material World
which I read, but then I discovered a similar title by Robert C.Fuller, Lillian Daniel, Reid B.Locklin and one by Victor Parachin on “how to be...” this. It’s a big topic for young people who think old time religion is corny.
Plus The future of God by Deepak Chopra (in which he hopes God will stop being silent and meet people part way before so many young people turn away from Him that He will not be a factor in life sometime in the future. He had a debate against an author I admire named Dr. Robert Spitzer once.
Each generation seems to move farther away from the worship and rituals of devout people, thinking these are outdated and irrelevant. They are wrong. Studies show marriage breakups, health decline, drug dependency, criminal acrivity and mental health problems sometimes leading to actual suicide are prevalent in non-religious households versus “old-fashioned” ones of believers.
Tragic.
Yes, I’ve heard dozens of folks say that they are “spiritual” but not “religious.” When I asked them to explain the answer was usually along the lines of “I believe in something, just not the Christian faith and its God.
A friend and religious mentor of mine, who was a long time elder and lay preacher, said that he would asked them to define the concept of Christianity’s God and he said, I wouldn’t believe in that either. This was because their concept of God was so warped from what God is and what they though Jesus taught.