Sunday Reflection: Spiritual but not Religious in (yet another) Age of Certainty and Violence

Several people recently forwarded to me a short reflection by Lillian Daniel, who like Neil Alan Willard and Scott Davis is a minister who studied at Yale Divinity School (which is also where Jeanne Bishop lived when she was at Yale Law School-- I have always wondered if they were all in the dining hall or something at the same time).

Rev. Daniel's reflection, titled Spiritual but Not Religious? Please Stop Boring Me, takes on a prevalent viewpoint in our society:

On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is "spiritual but not religious." Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo.

Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and . . . did I mention the beach at sunset yet?
....

Thank you for sharing, spiritual but not religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community? Because when this flight gets choppy, that's who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.

The sad thing is, I suspect she didn't say any of this to Sunset Lover on the plane. Not that I blame her for that-- I do the same thing, just nod blandly when people start speaking about the God Who Affirms Everything They Already Believe (whether it is within or without a church). God is greater than any of us, which means no part of us is ever close to his perfection-- we don't even know how humble we are.

The smug assurance of Sunset Guy is not much different than the smug assurance we all have in greater or lesser amounts-- our satisfaction that God loves what we do anyways, be it to love our wealth, to let others tackle injustice, to define our faith by those we cut out of it, or to hate the infidel so much that we kill thousands as they arrive for work. Group-think and certainty born of that special kind of intellectual laziness is the cruelest combination.

I don't except myself from this smug assurance. When I listen to God's voice, it is not only loving but challenging, and it is only sometimes that I rise to that challenge. God does not affirm all that I do, even as he loves who I am.

There. Now I have out-crankied Lillian Daniel.

You know, about those sunsets... the most beautiful sunsets I have seen are around Los Angeles. Part of the magic there, actually, is the air pollution, which refracts and diffuses the light where the desert meets the ocean. We made those sunsets, in a perverse kind of way. But I digress.

I have to acknowledge that I am much more like Sunset Guy than Jesus or Peter. I want God to like me the way I already am, not to push me or challenge me. I give myself easy outs, rationalize my comfort and reluctance to forgive, and ignore the hard questions when I can.

Perhaps Sunset Guy and I can have another commonality, a good one-- we can look at that LA sunset and see both God's creation and the air pollution. If we feel an urge to fix that scar, because God requires nothing less, community has begun.