A continuing conversation about SBNR...

Earlier this week my clergy support group met for our monthly gathering - a community of practices as we call it - and during our dinner conversation we decided not to read Lilian Daniel's new book When Spiritual But Not Religious Is Not Enough.  We decided instead to go with Richard Rohr's Falling Upward.  Truth be told, I like the foundational essay that probably landed Ms. Daniel a book contract. (check it out @ http://www.ucc.org/ feed-your-spirit/daily-devotional/spiritual-but-not-religious.html)  She kicks things off like this:

On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is "spiritual but not religious." Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo. Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and . . . did I mention the beach at sunset yet?

Like people who go to church don't see God in the sunset! Like we are these monastic little hermits who never leave the church building. How lucky we are to have these geniuses inform us that God is in nature. As if we don’t hear that in the psalms, the creation stories and throughout our deep tradition. Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.

Recently I said much the same thing at the close of our Lenten/Eastertide experiment in Centering Prayer.  Referencing Ralph Heintzman book, Rediscovering Reverence (which we used as a companion to our practice of centering prayer) I noted that I LOVE art museums - and concert halls of all types - but my aesthetic experiences are not personally or socially transformative.  They are private - wonderful, to be sure - but they begin and end with me.  And I am not the center of the universe.  Heintzman writes:

All of us have spiritual needs, but (some) try to meet them from non-religious sources, especially nature and art.  This is one of our many inheritances from the Romantic movement of the nineteenth century, which highlighted nature and art as sources that could provide an antidote to the dehumanizing rationalism of the Enlightenment. Valuable as they are, however, it is at least open to question whether they can ever be enough, by themselves, without something more to give them (shape) and meaning.

Seeking spirituality outside a religious frame of reference is certainly worthwhile, as far as it goes. The problem is it may not go far enough... Non-religious spiritualities often miss the essence of spirituality, which is spiritual habits - spiritual disciplines - spiritual behavior and action in the world.  And in fact that's exactly why people prefer the non-religious kinds of spirituality.  Because they are easier.  They make fewer real demands. They don't make you change your routines, or your habits, or yourself.  They don't require a turning of the heart, an inner transformation as Thomas Aquinas called faith.

In a word, religious life is too hard, too demanding - intellectually and practically - and it is way too inconvenient.  Love my neighbor - or my enemy - as myself?  Share my time and resources with the poor on a regular basis?  I'd rather go to the museum... or yoga class... or the movies... or just sleep in, for God's sake!  Now, sometimes when I get on such a roll, I tell myself, "Shut f*** up, you old geezer!  You've been there and done all that before so let somebody else have some fun, too."  And, there is some wisdom and grace to keeping my mouth shut, so these days I mostly try claim this option.  But in a conversation with clergy colleagues, it just isn't the season for silence (well, ok, that's not entirely true either, but...)

So, I'm with Lilian as far as her opening essay goes.  But others who have read more of the book said, "Lilian is just too snarky as the book unfolds... and her analysis doesn't go anywhere helpful."  And so began a 30 minute conversation about what is really going on with the whole SBNR critique.  It was lively, informed and curiously generational.  That is, I found myself in the role of the old guy wondering about how privatized spiritualities teach the habits and practices of reverence while my post-denominational colleagues argued that SBNRs DO share spiritual practices that are as healing and transformative as those of the church.  I kept asking, "what is the evidence?"

Like another old guy, Huston Smith, I just don't see it. In his book, Religion Matters (2000) that grew out of a debate with New Age leaders, Smith suggests that the older distinction between religion and religious institutions might be a more helpful distinction than the current spiritual but not religious polarity:

I am concerned about the relationship between “spirituality” and “religion” and the way those terms are being used because it’s become increasingly common for spirituality to indirectly denigrate religion. People used to make a distinction between religion and religious institutions, and that is a valid distinction. But then spirituality came along, and everything spiritual was good and everything to do with religion was bad. Religion became equated with dogmatism and moralism. Of course, there are institutional problems with religions. There’s not a single institution that doesn’t have a dark side. Would you dispense with learning because of the institutional problems of universities? I was born a Methodist and have immersed my life in Christianity, not only conceptually but experientially, as deeply as I could. Christian institutions have committed all kinds of sins. You can’t tag any sins onto spirituality because it’s not an object, it’s an internal virtue, an internal state. So religion has gotten tarred, and within the academy, where I’ve spent my life, it gets very roughly handled.

He also notes that the blessings of the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movements, the fight against hunger and many other sustained acts of justice and compassion have been born of the organized, disciplined and faithful commitments of religion.  Religion, in other words, seeks ways to turn our words and experiences into deeds that look like the image of God, something personal aesthetic experiences cannot accomplish.

Ok, I am aware that I was raised and trained in the ebbing hours of denominationalism. And that I have cast my lot with so-called organized religion (although sometimes I smile because often there is precious little that is organized among us!)  I also know that having spent time trying to nourish my soul in private meant that I was my own confessor - and that's a slippery slope.  My gut is linked, however, to the SBNR challenge to much that currently passes as religion.  The current Alban Institute magazine, Congregations, includes a helpful summary of SBNR truths:

+ First, SBNRs are skeptical of abstract theologies and doctrine - me, too. 

+ Second, SBNRs are post-modern and challenge all institutional truth with a hermeneutic of suspicion.  Given the failure of so many institutions, this is wise, yes?

+ Third, this group want to experience what is true rather than be told what to believe.  They are kinesthetic learners in the best mystical tradition.

+ Fourth, SBNRs are highly aware of hypocrisy - especially moralizing - with good reason.

+ And fifth, they see most religions as broken and often mean-spirited when they ache for acceptance and compassion.

Each and all of these concerns are valid and insightful post-modern challenges to our overly linear and abstract modernist spiritual traditions.  I know - and try to apply - these critiques to my work in my current faith community.  And, each of these institutional concerns have equal validity for all of us on a personal level, too - SBNRs included - because we ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God - all of us without exception.

As our dinner conversation came to a close, I recalled out loud an email I received last year from the counselors at a local GLBTQ support group for teens.  They asked if I might come by the group and talk about bullying - especially religious bullying.  I did but found that mostly I needed to listen to the young people as they told me their experiences of religious hatred, violence and rejection. I found that all I could do for a time was weep...

In time, I offered up a few alternative readings of the scriptures that are often used to beat up "queer" kids  and  also shared that there are other people of faith who try to make compassion and forgiveness the core of our lives. Towards the end of our time together I said that the best way to see whether I was full of shit was not to take my words at face value, but rather to come and see what our community was like for themselves.  A few months ago, this group invited me back to join in a film they were making - a resource to share with other GLBTQ teens in the Berkshires - another small step for trust.  A few folk came to our Good Friday "Disorientation" meditation and then our Holocaust Memorial worship, too.  Little by little, our words are being tested and a growing connection is taking form.

I mentioned this to my colleagues saying, "You know, sometimes this very imperfect thing we call church makes a difference in the lives of those who have been wounded.  It gives them courage to know that there are institutional allies committed to love.  That's one of the reasons why I stay grounded in the church rather than embrace the easier, laissez-faire approach of SBNRs."  What say ye all?