Posted on 05/05/2013 12:09:11 PM PDT by hiho hiho
Dear Spiritual But Not Religious Friends,
Are your ears burning? You’re causing quite a stir in my circles these days. Many of my colleagues claim you are the biggest challenge of the church today.
You probably didn’t know this was going on. You are Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR) and most of us talking about you all the time are Spiritual And Also Religious.
No offense, but the endless strategizing about you is getting a bit wearisome to me, so I wondered if we could have a frank conversation.
As I am sure you’ve noticed, the institutional church in America is in decline. All the studies show this is true. I myself like to think of it as “change” or “transformation,” but whatever you call it, our numbers are down and church as we’ve known it looks different these days. This makes all of us church professionals kind of nervous.
Because of your growing presence and influence, our instinctive response to these trends is to do everything we can to try to make you happy -- because if we can figure out how to do that, well, then we can get church back to the way it always was, right?
You may have noticed all the effort currently being expended to bring you into the fold. Some of us are apologizing profusely for the failings of the institutional church and its people. Others are packaging church in innovative and exciting ways (yet again), hoping to catch your attention.
I understand that being SBNR is the latest and coolest way to talk about spirituality these days. And a spiritual designation must be important, since you have to choose one on your Match.com profile. But when we talk about yours, I don’t even know what it means.
Maybe it means seeing God in sunsets and going to yoga class. What I really think is that identifying as SBNR is just a trendy way of saying you believe what you want and practice it whenever you feel like it with whomever you choose, or not. And that’s how you prefer it.
Many of you have told me you’re done with the church. What you see as an ineffectual and often destructive presence in the world has led you to wash your hands of the formal institution. You’re just not going to put up with it anymore. No societal norm says you have to.
You’ve seen the church do too much harm. Pastors are running around embezzling money and sleeping with the church secretary. Churches hate gays. Women cannot lead in the church. You must believe a certain way and not ask questions. People are so mean to each other at church. Have you seen those people from Westboro Baptist Church?
All of these things are true in some churches, and also in some of any other human institution or group. But all of the apologizing we’ve been doing on behalf of the church is exhausting to me.
You’re smart. You know as well as we do that there are many healthy, justice-minded, welcoming and mission-focused communities of faith. They may not be the norm, but they’re around. And you know how to use the Internet, so I don’t think finding a church that isn’t corrupt and exclusive is really the issue, is it?
The thing is, SBNR folks, you may know more about what we’re supposed to be doing than we do. I mean, church -- if it’s done right -- involves inconveniences like missing brunch with friends on Sunday morning, money that could be spent elsewhere given away, old people calling you by the wrong name and occasionally boring sermons.
Being transformed and transforming the world together takes commitment and hard work. It’s a messy engagement that sometimes hurts. It’s caring and sticking around, changing systems and continuously inviting a world in desperate need to witness communities of transformation and prophetic witness.
It’s a fair question to ask why you would add that kind of inconvenience to your life if you didn’t have to.
But I want to tell you that despite our collective panic attacks here on the Spiritual And Also Religious side of things, I am increasingly finding myself less and less interested in trying to find just the right song and dance to make you wake up one day and want to be part of a faith community.
It’s not you. It’s me. I just think that finding a way to be popular again may not be the most pressing work of the church these days.
I suggest to my angst-ridden colleagues that your blatant rejection of the church, rather than a challenge to us to scramble for new ideas and back peddle when churches screw up, is actually a glimpse of what the church of the future will be: less attractive, more alternative, kind of edgy, largely inconvenient and a little strange.
I hear you when you say the church is irrelevant. I get that you don’t care what we’re doing to catch your attention. If we’re smart, we’ll listen to what you’re saying to us and believe that you mean what you say. And then we’ll stop trying to package the institution to make it palatable and just get busy leading the church to faithfully do its work in the world.
I just wanted you to know that I’m not ignoring you. I’m just tired of talking about you constantly in every professional forum I encounter, and I’m exhausted by all the effort expended to manufacture some version of church that will entice you. So I think I’m going to stop.
I’m going to take you at your SBNR word and believe you when you say the church is irrelevant to you. And I’ll just keep on trusting that the message of Jesus will keep calling to us all, inviting whomever is up for the challenge to join right in. You are welcome anytime, occasionally boring sermons and all.
And even though I’m not talking about you incessantly anymore, I hope you’ll still invite me to brunch once in awhile. On Saturday.
Love,
Amy
I just recently listened to an 8 part series called Transitions (available for free download here):
http://www.lifestream.org/transitions
There can be a bondage to “religion” that this series is intended to help people break free of, and to “embrace an affectionate and life-changing relationship with the Father, through the work of the Son and in the power of the Spirit.”
I found it to be a very good series; very challenging to me, as someone who has a background in performance-based religion. I plan to go back through the entire series— as well as to listen to 3 additional .mp3 files that were added since I downloaded the initial 8 part series.
You wrote:
“... read the Bible and you will find he did not proclaim the creation of buildings and structure but of acceptance.”
I have read the Bible and you are mistaken - not to mention mischaracterizing what I said. I said nothing about buildings. Christ chose 12 men. He gave them authority. He taught them (and the disciples) things which He DELIBERATELY did not teach to others (Mark 4).
“I challenge you to show where in scripture he lays out the “Organization” of the current churches with the layers and all of the titles and such.”
I reject your challenge because I never claimed what you apparently wish I had. Over time all organizations add to their structure. It is inevitable. But the New Testament is pretty clear about the following: Jesus chose 12 men, He also sent out 72 men (disciples), the Church leadership chose to add deacons to their standing staff of Apostles and Priests (elders), Jesus taught His inner circle things He taught NO ONE ELSE, He entrusted them with special tasks and NO ONE ELSE, He gave them the great commission. That’s an organization.
“Christ came to free all of us from the intermediaries, not to reinforce that which had been part of the Judaic culture before he came.”
Sorry, but you are mistaken again. Jesus did not come to free us from an intermediary. He came to BECOME the intermediary. And His Church is so closely tied to Him in that work that she is called His bride. He gave her authority to do only what God could make happen (John 20:19-23). And remember Luke 10:16.
I believe - but I find I can no longer trust organizations ... or sadly most people. I will tend my own and pray to the Lord for guidance. I will research and read the Holy Word of the Bible.
My salvation is through Christ and my relationship to God, not a building or congregation... I only hope that I can lead my family to the same.
I don’t disparage the churches of the land, but I pray for all humanity. God has told me what I need to do. I strive for the same.
Comedian Daniel Tosh said it best, “When girls tell me they’re spiritual, but not religious, I like to tell them that I’m not honest, but you’re interesting.”
I consider myself both religious and spritual. I also consider myself a Christian who has a personal relationship with the Lord.
I have not gone to “church” in years. That does not mean that I don’t pray everyday. I do, sometimes multiple times. (It is a 25 minute ride to town; great time for prayer.) That also does not mean that I don’t donate money to worthy causes. I do. All my donations (except, of course, to FR :) go to local organizations, many of them religious in nature.
I have given up on finding a suitable church. Every church I’ve tried seems to be haunted by back-biting cliques, entrepreneurial megalomaniac pastors set on becoming the next Rick Warren and, like the government, a never ending, increasing need for my money.
No thank you. I prefer to keep it simple.
BUMP to CoadToad, number 13 above and nothingnew, number five above.
Years of watching various organized “religions” promote, accept or ignore a variety of sins while one of their main objectives is maximizing donations has influenced my opinion of churches.
I believe a person who strives to live a moral life, helps others and has deep beliefs and a relationship with the Lord is just fine, church or no church.
rationalization - the second greatest human drive.
bflr
The only danger being heresy.
FMCDH(BITS)
I wanted to post a picture of a couple of people who fall into the SAR (spiritual _and_ religious) category, but due to copyright concerns, I will provide a link to their pictures, below, instead...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/files/2013/04/10_110_20_103.jpg
Not all the “spiritual and religious” worship God.
I'm not an athiest and I consider myself somewhat spiritual. However, with all the shenanigans going on in the major religions such as Baptists and Catholics, every time I think about joining a church and checking out a Sunday sermon, there's a red flag that jumps up in front of me and warns me about getting involved with a possible cult........
And do I need to get into all the Christian infighting around here? The Mormon bashing? The Catholic bashing? The Baptist bashing? The Methodist bashing? The Protestant bashing? Evangelical bashing?
And lets not forget the constant ridicule of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
So which church or cult do you belong to oh holy one and what gives you the divine right to define who is truly spiritual or not?
I've sat beside hypocrites like you in the various churches I've visited and you don't impress me one bit.......
My point exactly!
“SAR types have a hard time understanding and respecting SBNRs, whose numbers continue to rise apace.”
Yes, and the snarky attitude of this column doesn’t help any, either.
Uh Oh!
Most churches claim the Bible is error free, there are no contradictions and has the answer for all situations. They portray Darwin as a demon possessed moron and evolution as anti-Christ pseudo-science. Maybe all aliens are demons but maybe not. Churches can’t understand basic science yet they claim to understand every fine point about God and Heaven. In the 1950’s as a boy, I knew those churches would fade away as kids grew up and realized their theology and science were about as backward as it was 500 years ago and I said so. Now they are also likely to be affiliated with the NWO, rock music and liberalism and as far from Jesus and saving souls as Hollywood. Churches always make me feel like a heretic. I hope Jesus considers me a friend and follower who’s trying to live like He said and keep a clean heart. “My” church is other Christian friends.
This really isn’t as complicated as Amy seems to be making it out to be. SBNR people are simply people who have been convinced by the secular press and the world around them that there are other things in life that are more important than God. It’s probably inaccurate to say that they don’t believe in God, as most probably do. They have simply become convinced that even if there is a hell, only those that society defines as truly evil (HItler, Osama Bin Ladin, etc) end up going there. So why should they give up all of the fun and niceties of this world for no good reason?
Now this wasn’t always how it was. There was once a day when the bishops of the Catholic Church preached that there was such a thing as mortal sin, and that all who died with that sin on their soul were cast into hell for a very long time––like forever. But once they became “modernized” after Vatican II, they rarely spoke of even the existence of sin, heaven or hell. Their message isn’t much different than that of the democrats and Obama––redistribute wealth, amnesty for illegals, worship the gods of global warming, and so forth. The rest of the religions (all of which are false) follow the suit played by the Catholic bishops, but just move further and faster to the left.
The more interesting question might be just why are these bishops and the rest of the religious crowd even concerned. Oh sure, they can say they are worried about their souls and all that, but anyone who has bothered to look at what these bishops have been doing over the past 50 years would have serious doubts about that answer. There was a day when the mission of the Church was the “salvation of the souls of mankind”. What it is today is unclear, but one thing it is not is that. Perhaps Cardinal Dolan could ask his friends as the NYT to define it for him some day.
But the real tragedy in all this is that the souls of a great many of those SBNR’s (as well as many SAR) will be lost to hells fire for eternity. We certainly can and should pray for each and every one of them, for as they were being led astray by the media and the satanic pleasures of this world, the bishops stood idly by as silent as lambs. Sadly, the Catholic bishops have long abandoned their flock. Indeed, it could almost be said that in many cases they have virtually led them astray. But a day will come when these bishops will answer to God Almighty for what they’ve done. There will be an accounting and what a mighty accounting it will be.
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