Are you an SBNR?
by Daniel O’Rourke • Cassadaga, NY

Are you Spiritual But Not Religious – an SBNR? Many would describe themselves that way. Spirituality is fashionable today and religion unfashionable. Part of the problem is that the word “religion” carries tons of dogmatic, authoritarian baggage, but whatever the reasons, the relationship of religion and spirituality is symbiotic and convoluted.

Let’s first look at religion, at its pernicious influences (they are real) and its constructive contributions in our search for purpose and meaning and for God – no matter how we understand the Holy.

The word comes from the Latin religare to tie something – as a boat to the shore. The word came to mean linking oneself to the gods or to God. As the word evolved, however, it also came to mean that people, because of common beliefs, linked themselves to one another.

Mahatma Ghandi believed that all the world religions are only “more or less true” because religions are man-made. And since human beings are imperfect, religions too are imperfect. Some would go further and say religions are evil.

Father James Martin, the author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything – A Spirituality for Real Life, whose thinking I’m greatly indebted to in this column, admits that many would say, “Religion is the most despicable of social evils, responsible for all the wars and conflicts around the world.” There are many examples: the Inquisition and the persecution of heretics, the genocide of the Jews. Catholics and Protestants killing each other in Ireland; Orthodox Christians killing Muslims in Serbia; Sunni and Shiites killing each other in Iraq.

No wonder Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher would proclaim, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it out of religious conviction.”

Despite such negatives, however, the case for religion is strong.

Martin argues against the widespread mentality that “being ‘religious’ means abiding by arcane rules and hidebound dogmas and being the tool of an oppressive institution that doesn’t allow you to think for yourself.” Such an idea, he observes, “Would have surprised many thinking believers, like St. Thomas Aquinas, Moses Maimonides, Dorothy Day and Reinhold Niebuhr.”

Martin points to other critics of religion who call it, “…narrow-minded and prejudicial … stifling the growth of the human spirit. Which would have surprised St. Francis of Assisi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, St. Teresa of Ávila, Rumi (the Sufi poet), and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Religion’s influence is both positive and negative. Religion is not always black or always white; it can be either – or it can be shades of gray.

The witness of religious leaders against society’s injustices has been significant. Pope Leo XIII in his landmark encyclical “Rerum Novarum” encouraged and blessed the rights of labor to unionize. In our own country, it was the Quakers who fought for the abolition of slavery, the Unitarians for a woman’s right to vote, and the Black Baptist Churches that lead the way in the civil rights movement.

Religion has its positives as well as its negatives, but so does spirituality. Being spiritual implies that, freed from the rigidity of dogma, you can be yourself before God. But Martin warns, “there’s a problem. While ‘spiritual’ is obviously healthy, ‘not religious’ may be another way of saying that faith is something [merely] between you and God.” A vital faith entails more than that. It also has a communitarian aspect and requires spirituality and religion to constantly interact.

Religion offers spirituality three broadening dimensions: correction, community and contemplation. When we think we have all the answers, “the wisdom of our religious traditions provides us with a corrective.” When the religious corrective is lacking, horrible things can happen. The Jihadists in modern Islam have developed a spirituality. It’s a perverted one, but they are absolutely convinced they are doing Allah’s will. We need more Imams and Muslim leaders to preach the needed corrective.

An additional dimension religion offers spirituality is a faith community. Such a community can provide encouragement in life’s struggles and trials. It both helps us to be better people and supports us in our efforts to make our world a better place.

The third thing religion adds is worship, with the regular opportunity for quiet, prayer and contemplation. We can meditate alone, of course, but doing it with others is supportive, helpful and habit forming.

Another weakness of spirituality is that it sometimes focuses on the self without a “sense of responsibility for the community. Certain ‘New Age’ movements find their goal not in God” or the betterment of society but in self-improvement. Nothing wrong with self-improvement, but it can devolve into selfishness. When spirituality tempts us to believe we are the center of the universe, religion reminds us of the values that transcend our narrow lives and points us to the wider needs of the human community.

“By the same token, religious institutions themselves need to be called to account.” Spirituality gives courage and motive to the prophets who see the failures and corruption of institutional religion. Religions, convinced they are doing God’s will, often get things terribly wrong. Think of the 17th Century Salem witch trials, or today of the Muslim terrorists and the Church’s sexual abuse scandals. Prophets from within and outside these communities, empowered by their spirituality, are speaking out against these crimes.

Martin holds that: “Religion without spirituality becomes a dry list of dogmatic statements divorced from the life of the spirit. This is what Jesus condemned in his ringing polemic against the Pharisees. ‘Woe to you, teachers of the law … you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside but inside full of dead men’s bones’” (Matthew 23:27). Jesus was a spiritual and deeply religious Jew, but even allowing for Hebrew hyperbole, his words were a powerful condemnation of institutional religion.

We should be spiritual AND religious. Both spirituality and religion nourish our souls. Being SBNR is not wisdom. Most of us need correction, regular worship and a supportive community.

Daniel O’Rourke is retired from the Administration at State University of New York at Fredonia. His newspaper column appears in the Observer, Dunkirk, NY, on the second and fourth Thursday each month. A grandfather, Dan is a married Catholic priest. He has published a book of his previous columns, The Spirit at Your Back. To read about the book or send comments on this column visit his website www.danielcorourke.com.