In Theory: 'Spiritual but not religious'

Can you be both "religious" and "spiritual"? Of course! In the Sunday morning service at Unity, we sing the Lord's Prayer and follow with a brief time of meditation before the lesson.

However you choose to define your practice of personal growth and spiritual enlightenment, know that Divine Love and Wisdom are your constant companions upon the path that leads to the One and that all paths (whether described as spiritual or as religious) have good in them.

REV. JERI LINN

I generally avoid CNN when looking for objective truth, regarding spiritual matters in particular. But I must say that John Blake's June 4 article was refreshing, candid and helpful. As I engage in spiritual conversations with the good people of Montrose, everyone, it seems, calls themselves — spiritual but not religious. I humbly confess I find this label increasingly irritating. That is why I am delighted this timely question has been posed.

As I understand it, the word "spiritual" has somehow come to be associated with a private realm of thought and experience, while the word "religious" has come to be connected with the public realm of membership in religious institutions, participation in formal rituals and adherence to official denominational doctrines.

I have only enough space to be uncharacteristically blunt. The spiritual but not religious folks I know are at least three things:

First, if those in the spiritual but not religious crowd are anything, they are alone. They have to be. The minute they unite with other like-minded irreligious people, they've created a church or perhaps an "un-church" and, hence, a new religion. A lone ranger approach to God is doomed from the start. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, the very first word he taught them was plural, our. "Our Father who art in heaven." Spirituality is something we do together. One of my favorite things about the Christian journey is that it forces me to walk with others. I am richer for it.

Second, how does a spiritual but not religious person measure his own spiritual progress? By what measure could this person ever be called successful or devout? The only measure is self. Most of us abhor self-righteous people. Self-righteousness has its own unmistakable scent. Jesus was blistering in his attack on the self-righteous of his day. God opposes the proud but exalts the humble.