Larry Hart, Curtal Friar
A Short Definition of Religion
I have been wondering, from some of the things I see via social media whether I am supposed to feel embarrassed that I am a religious person. Increasingly I see items meant to debunk the whole idea of “religion” and proclaiming the superiority of “spirituality. “I find them rather off-putting. If one reads them carefully, they are not so much criticisms of religion in general but of the Christian Faith in particular. Actually, in thinking about it, this has been pretty much true historically. When Karl Marx said, “religion is the opiate of the people,” he undoubtedly had the Judaic and Christian religions in mind. He said quite explicitly: “The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humility,” the struggle of humanity is, therefore, a struggle against religion.” Many of the posts I read which are dismissive of religion often would not even make sense if applied to say Buddhism or Taoism or any of the major religions. Besides this, I find they simply do not correspond to my own experience, or the experience of the deepest Christians I have met in my eighty-year journey of faith. For example, when Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the popular astrophysicist, says: “People turn to religion not to be informed, but to be massaged. It tells them what they want to hear, not what they need to know,” it is for me a complete disconnect. For one thing religion is not about acquiring information, it is about transformation. Tyson, as an atheist, polite though he is, simply does not understand the nature of either religion or spirituality. For another, I wonder if Tyson has ever read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) or what Jesus said about the cost of discipleship in Matthew 16:24-27. I would think what people really want to hear is that there are no rules. It is, for example, a rather nice “massage” when Neo says at the end of the Matrix, “There are no rules,” and flies up and away like Superman.
I understand religion in light of what that word means and has always meant in the ancient and simple Latin from which it comes; namely, all those practices, attitudes, and associations that bind, tie, or connect a person to that mysterious presence, to that transcendent reality the Christian calls God. A Hindu engaged in yajña (a sacrificial ritual) the Buddhist in jhāna/dhyāna (meditation), the Moslem on pilgrimage to Mecca, and the Christian reciting The Lord’s Prayer in church or sitting alone in silent contemplation are all performing religious practices meant to intimately connect them, as Saint Anselm put it in the eleventh century, to “that than which no greater can be conceived”––to that which is really beyond all concepts, ideas, thoughts, explanations, or imagination. The Eightfold Path of Buddhism, the Four Pillars of Islam, and the Two Great Precepts of Christianity are religious principles which, if followed, are meant to deepen and enrich spiritual awareness and bring illumination. If we find ourselves wanting to say, “No, these are spiritual rather than religious principles,” we will have only demonstrated how very difficult it is to tease the meaning of religion and spirituality apart. For example, love is most certainly a spiritual quality (a state of consciousness), but it is also an art, a discipline, a practice: “Love is as love does.”
The Missing Noun in Spirituality
Spirituality involves the recognition of a feeling, or sense, or a belief that there is something greater than ourselves, that there is something more to being human (to life) than sensory experience, and that the greater whole, the deeper and higher reality, of which we intuitively know we are a part is something that, although unfathomable, beyond naming and unutterably inexplicable, is best described by some such words as spirit, consciousness, mind, or soul. Huston Smith who died at the age of 97 in 2005 (a deeply spiritual person and imminent scholar), probably knew more about the major religions of the world, both academically and experientially, than any other person on earth. His book Religions of the World is still used widely in universities and seminaries, and his documentary series with Bill Moyers was highly acclaimed. He wrote in his book Why Religion Matters, published in 2001 that he did not much like the word “spirituality.”
It is a bad sign when spiritual, an adjective, gets turned into a noun, spirituality, for this has the dog chasing its own tail. Grammatically spirit is the noun in question, and spiritual its adjective. Spirituality is a neologism (a newly coined word) that has come into existence because spirit has no reference in science’s world and without grounding there, we are left unsure as to what the word denotes.
I suspect that it is the words very vagueness that has led to its growing usage. It is malleable enough to use it to refer to the depths without saying anything disagreeable about those depths, and to mean pretty much whatever one wants it to mean. Nevertheless, I think we are stuck with the word and so define it as I do above after a survey of its most prevalent definitions on the internet. However, I continue to stress the point that some caution needs to be observed in listening to celebrity authors and popular guides who are so cavalier in expressing a precise understanding of what spirituality is and is not.
The Apostle Paul does use a word in his writing than can be translated as “the spiritual person,” so in the thought of the New Testament spiritual, or spirituality, does have a noun (a reference point) in which it is grounded––”Spirit.” The Greek term Paul uses is pneumatikos. He uses it to mean someone in whom the Spirit of God lives and illuminates with the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom of the cross––a comprehension of the full implications of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. The spiritual person according to Paul’s use of the term in the Corinthian correspondence is one who is empowered by the Spirit (uppercase S) to live the universal law of love, and whose life produces the good fruit of Galatians 5. In the New Testament “Spirit” is, then, the noun lacking in the popular literature of the twenty-first century where the tendency is to dumb-down virtually everything touched by American culture.
Distortions
Religion and spirituality should both be about transformation, about becoming more human, more alive, and more expressive of what the ancient Greek philosophers thought of as the good, the true, and the beautiful. Unfortunately, both religion and spirituality may be distorted––become nothing more than a fragile shell concealing a rotten inside and hiding a bad odor. The psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck said in his book People of the Lie that most of the truly evil people in this world are not in prisons and jails, they are in political office, church leadership, and corporate board rooms. They are people of the lie because while evil they want to look good. They are what the New Testament calls hypocrites–– literally actors wearing masks. In the Greek plays one actor might play several parts, and for each part wore a different mask. The design of the mask revealed the character being played. When Jesus accuses the Pharisees of being hypocrites, he is not attacking religion. Jesus, the historical person immersed in the same sort of everyday life we all are, was himself religious. He attended synagogue, observed the Jewish holy days, studied Torah, helped the poor, encouraged observance of the Ten Commandments, and worshipped in the temple. The problem as Jesus saw it is not that the Pharisees were religious but that they were merely playing at religion like actors on a stage. Because rather than being real their religion is a pretense it is worthless (see James 1:26-27). Jesus was never critical of religion, but he was highly critical of religious (or spiritual) pretense, and of its misuse to hurt the poor and the vulnerable.
Response to Seven Contrasts of Religion and Spirituality
Some where I saw a list of contrasting religion and spirituality––a list of seven characteristics distinguishing religion from spirituality––a rather strange thing to do for anyone who really believes everything is ultimately one. Be that as it may, I repeat each contrast here with a brief response:
1) Religion worships God. Spirituality encourages oneness within God.
This assertion, like each of those that will follow, is a gross over generalization, and if the author were honest meant to apply specifically to the Christian faith rather than to religion as a whole, or even to the five major religions of the world. As an over generalization, and whether applied to Christianity specifically or one of the other major wisdom traditions, it is simply not correct. There is a difference, for example, in how Christians and Hindus speak of this “oneness,” but both religions certainly do speak of it as a possible and desirable reality. Christianity encourages both sacred reverence (the worship) and love of God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and a union of love, an intimate communion, a natural organic oneness like that of a grape vine and its branches (See: Acts 17:28; Ephesians 4:6; Galatians 2:20; John 15: 6, 9; 17:20-23; Matthew 22; 37; Deuteronomy 6:5; Jeremiah 9:24; 1 Corinthians 1:31 ). As the above statement stands it shows little understanding or appreciation for worship. For one thing, religion does not worship God. It is the religious person and not the religion that does the worshipping. Actually, worship is more of an attitude or state of consciousness before it is something one does. More precisely we could say it is a combination of two attitudes or two states––a condition of profound awe and complete trust. Worship is a key philosophical and theological concept. It means to value, to attribute worth to, or to revere. A crucial question for each of us, whether we call it a spiritual, religious, or psychological question, is: “What do we value more than anything else? What matters to us more than anything else? ” To put it another way, “What matters to you, what concerns you, so much you want to become immersed in it, to be one with it? What do you not only praise, but find completely and ultimately praiseworthy?” Biblically the word “worship” means to bend toward as in a bow. So, the question is what do we bend our heart, mind, body, and soul toward? Does that sound like a trivial thing to you? Paul Tillich, a theologian and philosopher of considerable consequence, urged seeing the question as one of Ultimate Concern. Whatever is our Ultimate Concern, Tillich argued, whether money, sex, power, status, success, the nation, a political ideology, or Yahweh will determine absolutely everything else about us.
2) Religion says God is outside you. Spirituality says God is within you.
This assertion depends, again, on which religion we are talking about. For the Hindu everything is Brahman, so there is, so to speak, no outside or inside of you; in fact, there is really no you––just Brahman. And Buddha who claimed to be enlightened really had nothing to say about God. As far as Christianity is concerned: “There is. . . one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6 NASB). “It is no longer I who live,” wrote Paul, “but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20 NASB). There are undoubtedly religions which believe God is external––out there somewhere, but Christianity is most certainly not one of them. In the Judeo-Christian tradition God is here, there, and everywhere. Arguments against Christianity, such as this one, are frequently based on the remedial teachings of Christianity whose larger implications have not been understood. The fact is, given the dynamic nature of moral and faith development few will ever reach the higher stages of understanding. I am not so arrogant as to think I am one of them. If you are interested in reading more in this regard, I would suggest Mary Wilcox’s Developmental Journey or Stages of Faith by James Fowler. In his epistles the Apostle Paul refers a number of times to the Christian religion as a great mystery. A mystery as used by Paul is a secret that is, paradoxically both open and hidden. It is open to those who have been “initiated” into it and who, in the words of the great French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, “live in the aura of its meaning.” To the uninitiated and to those living outside its meaning it is hidden–obscured. The writer of the Book of Hebrews, therefore, urges Christian believers to keep moving forward in their faith development like this: “Leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.” Since the early years of Christianity there have been “teachers” peddling some self-manufactured religion (calling it wisdom or spirituality) who have wanted to make believers in the Messiah think they were missing out, that they need something more and better–– something that the self-promoting teacher claims to have. The above assertion contrasting religion and spirituality seems to belong to this genre. However, don’t let them frighten you, and don’t worry about where you fall on someone’s arbitrary scale of spirituality. Christianity is “a condition of complete simplicity” (T.S. Eliot) and Christian perfection is not found in the ability to discuss religious theories or in some static state from which no further progress is possible, but whether you are making continual progress in learning to love as God loves. Many of the deepest men and women I have met across the years would have found talk such as this uninteresting and nonsensical, but faith, hope, and love were realities they lived every day.
3) Religion separates people who have different beliefs. Spirituality unites people regardless of their beliefs.
We live in a culture in which large numbers of people, especially among the college educated, would like to think there are no rules, no definitions, no boundaries. But that is simply not reality. In fact, I know of no one who lives as if there are really no difference, or as if they are united with everyone regardless of belief. Psychologists are confident that emotionally healthy people have appropriate psychological and emotional boundaries––a good understanding of where they end as individuals and where other people begin, good boundaries like body cells are semipermeable keeping the bad out and letting the good in. Contrary to Robert Frost’s “Mending Walls” all boundaries are not foolish. If you believe, for instance, violence can be a solution to political problems there is indeed a bright line drawn between us. Ghandi insisted that there was a dividing line between those who saw nonviolence as a mere technique and those who saw it as a universal spiritual principle of both Christianity and the Hindu religion––love and ahimsa. If you think it fine to deny workers a sustainable wage, the poor health care, a hungry child a free meal, or a black person the right to vote, there is a line between us, and I am not embarrassed by that fact. My Christian religion teaches me to recognize such lines for some purposes, but to ignore them if you need my help and to never use differences as an excuse for mistreating or diminishing anyone in any way. “Be wise as serpents,” said Jesus, “and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Making value judgements is an integral part of being human––and of being spiritual, religious, or wise. If you see no difference between Mother Terresa and Jeffrey Dahmer that’s a problem. I would suggest watching the film Dead Man Walking. The character of Sister Helen Prejean will help you understand the Christian way.
4) Religion teaches people to be afraid of hell. Spirituality teaches people to create heaven on earth.
Again, the concept of hell is not found in every religion. Instead of worrying about hell the people of some religions worry about being reincarnated as a mosquito or maybe a dung beetle––worry about a never-ending cycle of birth, suffering, and death. The Christian religion teaches the hope of heaven––that there is an end to the cycle of suffering and death, the confidence that there is a placeless place, a state of being if you will, where all the love we have ever experienced in this life, where all the goodness we have experienced or extended, where all that is best and noblest about us in this life will not come to nothing, but rather come to its full fruition. It teaches that nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever separate us from the love and presence of God. Thus, empowered by hope and gratitude it also teaches that we should work to see that “God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). No group, no institution, no human organization, no non-religious person in history has done more for the hungry, for the universal education of children, medical care, or the alleviation of poverty in the world than Christians. I suspect, though I have not researched this, that much of the objection to hell, which is a symbolic or figurative way of saying that we each will ultimately be accountable for what we have done with the gift of our life, has to do with the human tendency to want to escape the consequences of our own bad acts, the wish as the old saying goes, “To have our cake and eat it too”––to be both free to choose, and to choose the results of our choosing. (See: Matthew 6:10; John 9:1-5; Romans 8: 37-39; Revelation 14:13). I would think that if one were going to attempt to “create heaven on earth” it might be helpful to know just what this religious concept of “heaven” really means. However, when you have found a place where human beings have managed to create “heaven on earth” please let me know. I would like to buy a bus ticket for a day trip (See: C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce).
5) Religion is based on fear and restriction. Spirituality is based on love and freedom.
The Christian religion is based on the belief, according to 1 John 4:7-8, that God is love. This is not the same as saying love is God, but God is love just as God is light, and truth, and justice. If God is love then we were created by love for, love, and when we die, we go into love. Jesus taught, quoting from the Old Testament as he did so, that the two great commandments of the Judaic religion were to love God with all of one’s heart, and to love others as oneself. When this love works as intended within us it dispels fear (1 John 4:18). That is what the Christian religion teaches if it is at all faithful to the teaching of Christ and the Apostles. As for other wisdom traditions and religions I don’t know of, say any Buddhist or Taoist teachers, who would consider those religions to be based on anything other than love as compassion, peace and harmony. This obviously does not mean there are not charlatans and false teachers, phony pastors, deranged priests, evil monks, and ignorant clergy in every religion who play on the fears of people, but their teaching is a contradiction to the religion they espouse. I have purposely not included modern and postmodern self-help gurus and self-proclaimed psycho-spiritual babble masters in the above since they belong in another category altogether. I am not altogether certain as to what is meant by “restriction” in the above contrast. I do know that every major religious tradition, that every wisdom tradition, sees self-restraint, self-discipline, attentiveness, and willingness as essential to spiritual progress. All the greater religions leave us free to choose our own way but point out that we are not free “to choose the results of our choosing.” Those who truly understand God’s commands know that they free us from our own compulsive, self-destructive ways. There is a prayer in the Book of Common Prayer that catches the paradox perfectly. It says, “To serve you O’ God, is perfect freedom.”
6) Religion feels like being a single drop in the ocean. Spirituality feels like being the entire ocean in a single drop.
I have listened to many accounts of spiritual, or mystical experiences, and have read a lot of research on religious or spiritual experiences but have never come across this description before. I would be interested in knowing whether it comes from the writers own personal experience or just his or her own surmising. I find it strange that anyone truly knowledgeable in mystic or spiritual matters, or who speaks so authoritatively on the subject, would engage in this kind of judgement or value comparisons of “spiritual” experiences. I certainly wouldn’t suggest seeking them out as a spiritual director. That aside, this assertion is something of a reversal of the belief in the Eastern religions which imagines the aim of the spiritual life as being like a single drop of water falling into and merging with the ocean of cosmic consciousness. But here, in good narcissistic American fashion, it is hard not to think of oneself as the whole ocean. As previously noted, “spirituality” is actually a new word that has entered the English vocabulary, and as far as I know, there is no accepted standard definition as to exactly what it means. Neither has there been, as far as I know, any time-tested research into “spirituality” as an experience. There has been a great deal of research on “religious” experience and “mystical” experience. These experiences have sometimes been described as an “oceanic feeling.” I suspect the above insertion, however, differs from the “oceanic feeling” in that it intends to slip in the New Age notion (which is actually a very ancient one) that we are the ocean––God. If you are interested in a thoughtful discussion of religious or spiritual experience, I would suggest reading William James’s classic Varieties of Religious Experience, Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism, William Johnston’s Silent Music, or even my own From the Stone Age to Thomas Merton: A Brief History of Contemplative Prayer. For now, I will simply say this: If your goal is spiritual progress don’t get anxious about the presence or absence of experiences, don’t worry about their height or depth, just remain faithful to the spiritual disciplines to which you feel drawn. What matters more than any experience is what you do with it. If your real interest is just in having experiences (a most unspiritual attitude) I have no suggestions. Maybe try LSD, or smoke a joint, or a couple of shots of Bourbon, which may or may not facilitate a nice experience––although eventually those sorts of artificial aids are likely to throw your whole life into reverse while you’re doing about ninety down the highway.
7) Religion is based on other’s experience. Spirituality is based on your own experience. I can no longer restrain myself. For each of these contrasts I have wanted to ask the impertinent question: “How do you know that? Have you conducted original research that has been peer reviewed and is now generally accepted? How many hours have you listened to the stories people have to tell of their personal spiritual journey? What did you learn by listening? Did you just snatch what you claim out of the air? Did you hear it somewhere and thought it sounded good? What have you experienced yourself? Have you ever been in spiritual direction? Are you aware of evidence the rest of us are not privy to? If so, how did you come by it? Where can the rest of us examine it for ourselves?” Such questions, of course, cut both ways. If you go to larry’s inklings on Buzzsprout you can find about eight episodes of twenty minutes each, beginning with Episode 1, explaining my understanding of how we know what we know––or think we know. Okay! I am over my fit. Now, in regard to this seventh contrast. There is nothing we have that we have not been given. Everything we know, or think we know, has been either directly or indirectly mediated through others. So, a little humility may be in order when we start to think about what our religion or our spirituality is based on. There is nothing wrong about having learned from parents, teachers, pastors, and others. I would never have learned to read if it were not for my mother. Through books I have been mentored by many great Christian saints and mystics, and by wise Rabbis like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Nahum Sarna. I first learned how to do pastoral care from a pastor who sometimes visited in our home when I was a young boy and always left us with a sense of the peace and presence of God––something for which I will be grateful until the day I die. I also learned from my mother that integrity matters more than survival. Some things we need, of course, to unlearn, and hopefully there will be others along the way who show us how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Furthermore, it is sheer hubris not to consider the possibility that our interpretation of our own experiences may not be terribly askew. The real question for the Christian is whether they have come to experience a belief firsthand or whether it has remained second hand. When Jesus is on trial, Pilate asks Jesus if he is indeed King of the Jews. Jesus responds by asking in turn, “Is that your own idea, or did others talk to you about me” (John 18:33-34). When Job encounters God in the whirlwind Job responds to God in awe: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You.” What I believe is based on personal experience, but not personal experience alone. My faith is based on a number of things considered together: reason, the Biblical witness, the study of ancient and modern thinkers, and their experience (the whole experience of the Judeo-Christian tradition, of people I know personally, trust, and respect, and my own as well), on scientific insights, and on a kind of knowing that comes only from an honest attempt to live into the meaning of my faith. In the end what matters more than the any experience itself or how you describe it––as being like a drop in the ocean or like being the ocean itself––is what you do with the experience. If someone suggests to you that one positive experience is not as good, or as spiritual as another my advice to you is run away really fast.
Concluding Observations on Religion & Spirituality
I cannot remember when I did not know, at least as an idea, something of the immensity and mystery of God. I was taught that God was inexplicable and undefinable, a reality greater than anything I could possibly imagine; in fact, that it was both futile and wrong to form mental images of God. To this day I have no mental picture of God in my mind––nothing. But God’s presence is as real to me as I am to myself. I remember one day when I was quite young, I went with my mother and stepfather to visit his parents, Elmer and Vera Emerson. They lived in a large old Victorian cottage. The adults, half a dozen of them, were all talking in the living room while a cousin and I played on the floor. My step-grandmother, Vera, was a devout Methodist whom my mother called an angel. At that time, Vera was suffering from breast cancer and was often in excruciating pain. The amazing thing was that she could go into her bedroom and pray, and when she came out, she would be free of the pain––at least for a while. I am not certain, but I think this must be what the adults were talking about when one of them said: “Well God is everywhere, even in this very room.” My cousin and I heard that and got really silly with it. We were running around the room flailing the air with our arms, laughing and shouting, “Where are you God? I can’t see you! I can’t feel you!” My mother stopped us and said gently but firmly something like this, “No, you know you can’t see God with your eyes or feel God. with your hands. But you also know God is just as real as you are and is always everywhere. If you can remember that, if you can always remember God is with you and loves you no matter where you are, and no matter how bad things are, or how scary things may be, you will feel better. So you should always be respectful of God.” In that instant I had an experience I would describe in adult language as an experience of the immensity, of the infinity, of God, the transcendence of God coupled with a simultaneous sense of God’s immanence, of the closeness of God, of God’s near intimacy. It was a determinative moment in my life. Being open to God, paying attention, through prayer, contemplation, worship, reading and meditating on the sacred page, taking personal inventory (examen of consciousness and of conscience), and service is my religion––or is it my spirituality? Where all that takes my consciousness, my awareness, my understanding, my soul, my spirit my heart or whatever you want to call it, the love and gratitude it stirs to life and growth in me is, in contemporary terms, my spirituality, or is it my religion? For me there is no substantive difference. When I think of the Spirit speaking to me and to every woman and man of faith through the Sacred Scriptures, I cannot distinguish between religion and spirituality. I can say for certain, that historically the only real measure of whether one is genuinely religious or spiritual is a changed life (James 1:27; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16). I suspect that God is less interested in the fine vocabulary distinctions we might make in trying to establish our superiority than the character wrought in us by the patient workings of the Spirit.