This week I sat on a panel on LGBTQ+ spirituality organized by the multicultural office and the social work department at the University of Arkansas.
First question out of the gate: Do you consider yourself more spiritual or religious?
As I sat and listened to responses, I realized this discussion, about spiritual vs. religious, is really part of the popular conversation. Panelists had very thoughtful things to say.
Meanwhile, I kept thinking to myself: I dont consider myself spiritualor religious. I dont really use those categories when I speak or write.
So then what am I if Im neither spiritual nor religious? Clearly Im not one of the nones or dones. Im a Lutheran pastor who blogs at the Progressive Christian channel on Patheos, after all. How can I be neither spiritual nor religious?
By the time it was my turn to speak, I decided to answer simply: I dont think of myself as spiritual or religious. I think of myself as someone trying to practice Christianity in the social gospel tradition.
Let me try to unpack that. So first, I do believe that faith is centered in life lived together. This is perhaps my one struggle with those who say they are spiritual but not religious. I totally believe them that they are. But I do think when people say that they are thinking of spirituality as a largely individual activity. Its something you are, not something done together.
So thesocial gospel emphasizes the social implications of the good news of Jesus. In the most religious way of talking about this, people would say we try to live like Jesus, practice social justice in theway of Jesus. This is why frequently social gospel Christianity gets involved in politics, or community organizing, or shareholder meetings. Because it is a faith that has direct social implications. Always.
And it is thegospel because gospel is whatever it was that Jesus (and the movement he started) was teaching and enacting in the coming kin-dom of God. Good news for the poor and oppressed. Liberation for those in bondage.
So you could say social gospel is both religious (in that it applies to institutions and structures) and spiritual (maintaining a spirited connection to the teachings of Jesus). But I wonder if perhaps it can be clarifying and freeing to consider dropping the terms religious and spiritual altogether in order to get beyond a false dichotomy between individualized spirituality and institutionalized religion.
Another way to talk about this kind of Christianity may be to call it Christian humanism. One of my favorite Lutheran theologians, N.F.S. Grundtvig, frequently emphasized in his writings that we are human first, then Christian.
Human first, then Christian.
I think this is perhaps one of the reasons many who are finding a more mature form of faith in their own lives feel a need to reject religion. Its because the religious community they experienced turned on them, betrayed them, lost its way somehow, and did so in the name of faith.
And typically that harm came because the community allowed its religious commitments, its doctrine or norms, to take precedence over the shared humanity of those in the community.
Once you harm or alienate someone in the name of faith, you are putting Christianity ahead of humanity.
And then Grundtvig will remind you, Human first, then Christian.
A commitment to Christian humanism is also a much more open faith than the closed faith of more doctrinally pure communities. If the human comes first, then there is space for the Christian to engage the Muslim, the Buddhist, the agnostic, in ways that celebrate the shared humanity between them, and then discover how their faith tradition enhances and strengthens their shared humanity.
Recently my own seminary alma mater published a study indicating that based on current projections, average weekly attendance in our denomination will drop from 899,000 in 2017 to just 15,811 in 2041.
No, there arent typos in those two numbers.
People have all kinds of theories on why faith in the United States is in decline, and how to reverse it. Large conservative groups typically say its because the liberal churches are becoming too much like the culture. Liberal churches say it is because the conservatives are harming people and then alienating them.
In a bigger view, a lot of people are coming to the conclusion that we simply live in a society where it is increasingly difficult to believe in God, and instead people are shifting their faith commitments to other things.
Were enchanted by capitalism, for example. Its the new religion AND the new spirituality all woven together.
I do not have a clear-eyed simple explanation for why the decline is happening. The decline probably has multiple causes, not the least of which are decreasing birth rates, a move towards individualism, and more.
But I do know that for my money, getting beyond the hand-wringing over decline and simply living the social gospel is my way forward.
Dont get me wrong. I very much love many of the ways religious community has functioned as a voluntary society in my life. I love corporate worship and potlucks and all of that.
But because the gospel has social implications, I tend to think discipleship is much less about getting everyone to sign back up for all the measures by which we measured religiosity in the 20th century, and instead start wondering, Who is going to city council meeting Tuesday night to advocate for better bussing? Where are all the voices of people of faith in the public square?
Even if Christianity becomes a small voice in United States culture, if that voice both speaks and enacts the kin-dom of God in tangible ways in the world, then there would not have actually been a decline at all, just a shift.
Maybe the best thing for Christianity in this moment is for it to become neither religious nor spiritual.
Then the community that does exist will have learned to do the hard work of the gospel in the world rather than asking everybody outside the church to do the hard work of coming back into it.
Excerpt from:
Three Reasons I'm Neither Spiritual Nor Religious - Patheos
- "NBC Nightly News" - February 12th, 2015 [February 12th, 2015]
- Writer Rhiannon - February 12th, 2015 [February 12th, 2015]
- Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, prologue - February 12th, 2015 [February 12th, 2015]
- Posthumanism, Transhumanism, Antihumanism, Metahumanism ... - February 12th, 2015 [February 12th, 2015]
- Thoughts on Posthumanism | Larval Subjects . - February 12th, 2015 [February 12th, 2015]
- Transhumanism | Posthumanism | Future For All - February 12th, 2015 [February 12th, 2015]
- Posthuman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - February 12th, 2015 [February 12th, 2015]
- Posthumanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - February 12th, 2015 [February 12th, 2015]
- Posthumanism - February 15th, 2015 [February 15th, 2015]
- Predictions: Who should, will win at 87th Academy Awards - February 21st, 2015 [February 21st, 2015]
- Waking up and smelling the roasted coffee - February 26th, 2015 [February 26th, 2015]
- US-Bangladeshi blogger Avijit Roy killed - February 27th, 2015 [February 27th, 2015]
- Atheist blogger killed in Bangladesh - February 27th, 2015 [February 27th, 2015]
- Leonard Nimoy Showed Us What It Truly Means To Be Human - February 27th, 2015 [February 27th, 2015]
- U.S. blogger hacked to death - February 27th, 2015 [February 27th, 2015]
- The Joy of the Gospel Fills the Heart and Life - February 27th, 2015 [February 27th, 2015]
- WorldViews: Why an American blogger was hacked to death in Bangladesh - February 27th, 2015 [February 27th, 2015]
- Opinion: Roy died for speaking his mind - February 27th, 2015 [February 27th, 2015]
- Terrorists murder American blogger - February 28th, 2015 [February 28th, 2015]
- 'Nobody came to save him,' witness says - February 28th, 2015 [February 28th, 2015]
- American religion critic killed, wife wounded in Bangladesh - February 28th, 2015 [February 28th, 2015]
- U.S. writer hacked to death in Bangladesh - February 28th, 2015 [February 28th, 2015]
- 53 & Grateful - February 28th, 2015 [February 28th, 2015]
- 'Apocalyptic ideology' to blame? - February 28th, 2015 [February 28th, 2015]
- Killed blogger defied Bangladesh threats - March 2nd, 2015 [March 2nd, 2015]
- Avijit Roy received death threats prior to visit - March 2nd, 2015 [March 2nd, 2015]
- American writer hacked to death in Bangladesh - March 2nd, 2015 [March 2nd, 2015]
- Time to face facts over extremism - March 2nd, 2015 [March 2nd, 2015]
- feed - Video - March 5th, 2015 [March 5th, 2015]
- As it happened: Chat with Kalpana Sharma, Subhalakshmi Nandi - March 8th, 2015 [March 8th, 2015]
- In the Memory Ward - March 9th, 2015 [March 9th, 2015]
- U.S. blogger critical of Muslim extremists fatally stabbed in Bangladesh - March 9th, 2015 [March 9th, 2015]
- U.S. atheist blogger killed in stabbing attack in Bangladesh - March 9th, 2015 [March 9th, 2015]
- Tabling of hudud bill threatening to tear PR apart - March 16th, 2015 [March 16th, 2015]
- "The Winter Boy" by Sally Wiener Grotta Nominated for the Prestigious Locus Award - March 18th, 2015 [March 18th, 2015]
- REVIEW: The scars of war - Magazine - DAWN.COM - March 22nd, 2015 [March 22nd, 2015]
- Indonesians treated to Sufi, Punjabi folk music - March 25th, 2015 [March 25th, 2015]
- Blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh - Newspaper - DAWN.COM - March 31st, 2015 [March 31st, 2015]
- Louise Palanker: Why Are Boys Ignorant About Feminism, the Need to Text, Sister Fights - April 5th, 2015 [April 5th, 2015]
- Text of Narendra Modis address to UNESCO - April 11th, 2015 [April 11th, 2015]
- PM@UNESCO: Our world is a better place because of UN - April 11th, 2015 [April 11th, 2015]
- Walking for a cause - April 11th, 2015 [April 11th, 2015]
- Thomas Jeffersons torturous afterlife: How Ronald Reagan and the Tea Party try to steal his legacy - April 13th, 2015 [April 13th, 2015]
- Heidegger, Martin - May 16th, 2015 [May 16th, 2015]
- Lhyperhumanisme contre le posthumanisme : article - Revue ... - December 8th, 2016 [December 8th, 2016]
- Posthumanismus Wikipedia - December 8th, 2016 [December 8th, 2016]
- Home : Rice University Department of English - January 20th, 2017 [January 20th, 2017]
- Trump's Wall Will Fail in the Era of Post-Humanism - Inverse - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- The Fairly Traded Coffee Party - Patheos (blog) - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- James Ibori inspired David Cameron's comment of Nigeria being 'fantastically corrupt' CACOL - Daily Post Nigeria - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Oscar-Nominated Shorts: Unsung but Worth Your Time - New York Times - February 8th, 2017 [February 8th, 2017]
- Thinging the Real: On Bill Brown's Other Things - lareviewofbooks - February 8th, 2017 [February 8th, 2017]
- The Sanders-Cruz Debate Humane Health Care Or Free Market Fundamentalism? - Huffington Post - February 9th, 2017 [February 9th, 2017]
- The Tate dives into the art of David Hockney - The Economist (blog) - February 14th, 2017 [February 14th, 2017]
- Japanese manga artist Jiro passes away - The Kathmandu Post - February 15th, 2017 [February 15th, 2017]
- Announcing My New Book - Patheos (blog) - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Calls for contributions to books and special issues of ... - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- Open letter to Shehla Rashid, from former AMU Students Union leader - DailyO - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- Interview with Scott Blair - Conatus News - February 22nd, 2017 [February 22nd, 2017]
- Freedom & Islam 'not compatible,' says far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders - RT - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- Humans in Dark Times - New York Times - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- American society headed toward a breaking point - Jerusalem Post Israel News - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- Talk utilizes postmodern approaches to explore images of the medieval body - NIU Today - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- Sophia Al Maria: EVERYTHING MUST GO at The Third Line - Arte Fuse - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- 'Moonlight,' 'La La Land' and What an Epic Oscars Fail Really Says - New York Times - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- Manifestly Haraway - Brooklyn Rail - March 2nd, 2017 [March 2nd, 2017]
- Can Universities Save the Enlightenment from Populism? - Huffington Post - March 2nd, 2017 [March 2nd, 2017]
- Lecturer for Cindy Wool seminar supports 'slow medicine' - Jewish Post - March 3rd, 2017 [March 3rd, 2017]
- Post-Truth Trump And Why Humanism Is The Answer To Anti-Facts - Huffington Post - March 3rd, 2017 [March 3rd, 2017]
- Acknowledgment is Not Enough: Coming to Terms With Lovecraft's Horrors - lareviewofbooks - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
- Making Humanism Happen in Nigeria: A labour of Love - Conatus News - March 6th, 2017 [March 6th, 2017]
- The Newfound Lionization Of George W. Bush Shows How Far We've Fallen - Huffington Post - March 7th, 2017 [March 7th, 2017]
- Grapevine: Shimon Peres Day in the Big Apple - Jerusalem Post Israel News - March 8th, 2017 [March 8th, 2017]
- The Victim Of Populism Is Democracy - Huffington Post - March 8th, 2017 [March 8th, 2017]
- In a robot showdown, humanity may happily surrender - Washington Post - March 10th, 2017 [March 10th, 2017]
- Noted secularist Zuckerman to speak here Monday - Ashland Daily Tidings - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- 'Can we all get along?' Apparently not - Miami Herald (blog) - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Book World: In a robot showdown, humanity may happily surrender - Prince George Citizen - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- What if the problem is simply liberals and conservatives just don't like each other? - Fort Worth Star Telegram - March 12th, 2017 [March 12th, 2017]
- Godless flocks grow, attract like-minded - NWAOnline - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]