The Other Polarization (Essay)

The Other Polarization

Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopal priest, once stood before a large audience fully clothed in his clerical garb, collar and all, and announced, “I’m not the religious type.”  From time to time I hear people I know from my own church setting make similar assertions.  I myself am one of those I have heard speak thusly.  Not that I never was “religious.”  But during the evolution of my inner life over the seventy-nine years of my sojourn on this planet and my pilgrimage of soul, most of which I have probably completed, I find I have shed much if not all of the parochial garments with which I was vested in my youth.  I have not yet determined to what extent that shedding will make or has already made a significant difference in my contribution to God and society.  But I see more clearly than ever the subtle and sometimes troublesome contrast between religiosity and spirituality.  I strive to be spiritual more than ever; I no longer consider myself “the religious type.”

Not that a spiritual individual is unable to derive both tangible and intangible benefits from affiliation with an institution of religion and participation in its rituals and practices.  Many do.  What makes the distinction imperative for me is the need to understand the degree to which the form (religion) is mistaken for the content (spirituality).  Religion is human-made, an edifice sculpted out of theological and moral and ethical concepts and swaddled into the folds of tradition.  Spirituality on the contrary is not a product of human devising at all.  Spirituality is a sensitivity to life and the world, a cultivated capacity for profound emotion and imagination and embracing.  It derives not from the practice of prescribed behavior but from the opening of the mind and heart. 

Jesus converses with Nicodemus in the third chapter of John’s Gospel, a most devout and orthodox Pharisee, which is to say as religious an individual as anyone could possibly be.  In that classic exchange Jesus tries to communicate to him something about spirituality.  He says, “You hear the wind, but you do not know whence it comes or where it is going.  So is everyone who is born of the Spirit” – everyone who has had a spiritual birth, who has transcended those layers of tradition and become a seeker of universal divine truth.  I will venture to paraphrase even further: Spiritually alive people cannot be tied down any more than that wind.  We are unpredictable; we do not work from roadmaps or creeds or systematic theology.  We are caught in the wind of movement, growth, discovery and change.  We live comfortably with mystery and open-endedness.   

Why as a blogger for a divergent readership do I make a point of drawing this distinction?  It is because I am hearing a lot of religious voices making headlines today and rousing up large swaths of the populace over hot button issues, but I am not hearing as much spiritual talk as I would like.  It is not just our politicians and economists who are polarized but our professors of faith as well.  To quote Boyd further, “Real answers need to be found in dialogue and interaction and, yes, our shared human condition.  This means being open to one another instead of simply figuring how to maintain a prescribed position.”  There is a lot of defensive ideological positioning going on among the devout in our time but so few are speaking with fervor about openness and kinship of spirit.       

  

Religious people often think of themselves as preservers – of tradition, of established practice, of, yes, the forms to which they have wedded their lives.  Many years ago I took over the pastorate of a church that had just lost its building by fire.  Before it could rebuild, it became necessary to open up the cornerstone of the old structure that lay in ashes and ruin, one that dated from the turn of the twentieth century.  What came out of that cornerstone was most revealing to me.  A paper accounting the life of that congregation at that erstwhile period concerned itself almost totally with that building.  Dates were listed as to when pews were erected, stain glass windows installed, classrooms painted, an organ purchased, etc.  It spoke of “the church” as if that “church” were nothing but a vessel of wood and stone.  There was no mention of the quality of life among the people, the size of the enrollment in Sunday School, how much money was being devoted to causes, who was teaching and preaching, or even the size of the congregation.  The person or persons who composed that document to be left in that cornerstone were religious people to be sure – good people, respectable people, worshiping people, the faithful.  And thank God for them!  Where would Christianity be without the faithful in each flock!  But I wonder how spiritual they or the parishioners they represented were.  No reflection at all on matters of heart and soul could be read in the contents of that manuscript.  They apparently saw themselves essentially as preservers of a life style and an institution.  Preservers have their place, but they tend sometimes to go too far and fence in the Biblical teachings, as did the Pharisees.  Whereas spiritual people who transcend religiosity try to give the teachings room to breathe. 

The difference as I see it:

Religious people regard themselves as defenders of and advocates for a proscribed system of belief and practice.  Spiritual people have no theological ax to grind, but tolerate and welcome diversity. 

Religious people think of the Given Word as a restraint on human behavior and choice.  Spiritual people cherish the freedom of the human mind which the Given Word (however it is understood) impels them to question and explore. 

Religious people conceive of God in terms of a profile of itemized attributes.  Spiritual people consider God a mysterious but challenging presence within us and about us.

Religious people turn worshipful eyes outward and upward.  Spiritual people turn their examining eyes inward, taking seriously the Socratic maxim, “Know thyself,” searching for the truth about the universe within our common humanity.  

Religious people seek happiness and meaning from external venerated structures.  Spiritual people seek it from within, taking from the structures only that which aids them in self-understanding and understanding of and compassion for their fellow creatures. 

Religious people are ardent observers of formal worship.  Spiritual people are meditative seekers after elusive truth. 

Religious people welcome a certain degree of stricture and judgmental assessment.  Spiritual people try to forego judgment for the sake of gaining understanding and relationship.

Religious people are excited by the lyrics of hymns and anthems.

Spiritual people become ecstatic not just over these but over a vast assortment of inspirational music, recognizing no real distinction between so-called sacred and secular.  I personally find just as much spiritual nurture in Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony, Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” and Bill Whelan’s “Riverdance” as I do in “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” 

Religious people treat Scriptural text and so-called sacred writings as supreme and God given.  Spiritual people find edification and divine revelation in many great works of literature from many cultures, ancient and modern.  The novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” and its motion picture adaptation (recently reviewed on this blog) are treasures every bit as holy to me as the Four Gospels, the same to be said for Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha” and Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet.”

There are those still among us who would turn the Bible, a most indispensible and vital teaching resource, into a form of tyranny over the human mind and stifle progressive enlightenment.  I pray earnestly for more voices from the ranks of the religiously faithful in our time to be heard advocating for the obliteration of barriers, for tolerance, for making the world safe for diversity.  Less religiosity based upon literalistic interpretations of Scripture!  More spiritual sensitivity, which at the very least requires less rigidity!   

Spirituality has no form, any more so than does that wind to which Jesus likens those who truly seek to be Godly. 

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net