This is a mini-series on the growing number of individuals
who identify as “spiritual but not religious” (SBNRs). On Monday, I tried to
stress that SBNRs come from different backgrounds and can’t be lumped together
as a homogeneous group. Then, on Tuesday, I tried to distinguish between
spirituality and religion, suggesting that religion usually contains a
component of spirituality and that being SBNR is about holding on to the
practice without the framework and rules. Today, I’d like to take that last
point—the rules of religion—a little further and discuss one group that I feel
is driving people away from the church: RBNSs.
What is an RBNS? Do you remember that scene in The Princess Bride in which Wesley
remarked to Princess Buttercup, “ROUSs? I don’t believe they exist,” right
before the rodent of unusual size jumped out and attacked him? If not, you can
watch the beginning of the clip below.
Alas, RBNSs aren’t mythical beasts of the Fire Swamp. They
live in your church and my church. They are the religious but not spiritual people
that suck the joy out of institutional religion. Remember, spirituality is the
practice of our faith. It’s how religion becomes real. It’s the exercise of the
tenets to which we ascribe. Do you believe that God loves the world without
reservation? Then you should love the world in the same way. If you don’t—if you
spend your religious life insulated from the world, certain that those on the
outside aren’t recipients of the same undeserved love that you have received—then
you’re an RBNS. If you care more about the rules of the faith than the practice
of the faith, you’re an RBNS. And, if you’re an RBNS, it’s time to cut bait or
fish—to get busy living or get busy dying—so that the church can live out its
calling as the bride of Christ.
Recently on Facebook, a quote from Stephen Corbert has been
posted and reposted. It’s a perfect example of what happens when spirituality is
taken out of religion.
Who are the RBNSs? They are preachers who spend more time “getting
it right” than living out their faith. They are the parishioners who show up on
Sunday morning not to be transformed by the experience of corporate worship but
to take their appointed place in the congregation of the who’s who in the
community. They are the lay leaders and vestries who worry about whether the local
newspaper will discover that a yoga group has been meeting downstairs after
hours. They are the angry people who call demanding that the labyrinth (a.k.a. “portal
to hell”) be removed from the church grounds and an exorcism be completed in
the place where it once laid. They are the ones who hold the posters and picket
signs silently screaming their cause at anyone who drives by. In other words,
they are the people who give religion a bad name. They are the ones who drive the
well-intentioned faithful who hate controversy away from the church. And they
are the ones who make sure that no new seekers will darken the door.
But how do we become RBNSs? We stop praying every day. We
stop reading the bible every day. We stop letting God surprise us with new
insights into what his will for the world really is. We start lambasting things
that are new simply because they are new. We start judging things based on
whether they are familiar to us and to our tradition. We start worshipping the
God of our political, social, and cultural persuasion instead of searching for
the unknowable, unchangeable God of all time and space.
In our cultural landscape, the RBNSs have the microphones
and the attention of the media. The television cameras don’t spotlight the
quiet faithfulness of most Christians because daily prayer and daily study aren’t
exciting. Instead, the people who give religion a voice are the rigid
hardliners, whose faith isn’t a daily discipline but a voter guide. The same is
true in other religious traditions. When the world thinks of Islam, what do
they picture? When the world thinks of Mormonism, what comes to mind? All over
the world, the RBNSs are squeezing the love and joy out of religion, and it’s
time to put that love and joy back in.
Spirituality is our greatest asset. We need to put the
spiritual back in religious. We need to show the world that being a person of religious
faith isn’t all that different from being an SBNR. Tomorrow, I’ll finish the
series with a look at how the church should reach out to SBNRs.
Great piece. The Evil One is so good at diverting our attention from the spiritual to the religious we never recognize nuance of his strategy.
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