religious but not spiritual

[hermionesviolin]

My best friend and I were talking on Saturday about last Wednesday's controversial UCC "devotional." [Edit for those who don't follow me on facebook (where I have commented in various threads, including one of my own) {edit2: or who missed my earlier complaint}: I have basically all of anger at this piece. /warning]

She mentioned that people have commented, "Nobody would say they were 'religious but not spiritual,'" to which she was like, "Uh..."

I said, "I am totally 'religious but not spiritual.'" I don't "experience" in worship. I have a strong commitment to Christianity, and I make a commitment to attend communal services (though I don't tend to think of this latter one as a conscious choice, such a creature of habit am I), but my commitment has always been and continues to be a primarily intellectual one.

My best friend commented that she has committed to a set of practices, including communal worship, which frequently do not result in spiritual experience, so the "spiritual but not religious" person might come across as saying, "Hey, I have spiritual experiences all the time, all by myself," which might be experienced negatively by someone for whom spiritual experiences are rare.

Whereas my reaction is more like, "Oh, that's nice for you that you so easily have these experiences which I don't have any strong desire to have" (there's an asexuality analogy here somewhere).

Comments

[marginaliana]

A random thought: me being a spiritual but not religious person, it seems to me that the things you value about your religious experience are the things that are most difficult for me to value and/or wish to experience. So I think I get the asexuality analogy, but from the opposite side.

My best friend commented that she has committed to a set of practices, including communal worship, which frequently do not result in spiritual experience, so the "spiritual but not religious" person might come across as saying, "Hey, I have spiritual experiences all the time, all by myself," which might be experienced negatively by someone for whom spiritual experiences are rare.

This makes me wonder - what is it that you and the BF get from this set of practices, if it's not a spiritual experience? What's valuable to you about what you do, religiously? I would be very curious to hear your answer about that, if you felt like answering. I think I have ideas about what religious practice can give someone (and how I, personally, can better get those things elsewhere), but maybe you're getting something else that I'm not thinking of.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

For my best friend, one of the functions of her religious practice (tho not the only one, or even necessarily the primary one) is to make spiritual experience more likely -- she doesn't always have spiritual experience at church, but she's more likely to at church than anywhere else.

For me, spiritual experiences aren't something I particularly seek. What I want out of communal religious stuff is:
* exposure to and engagement with Scripture
* music
* community
* prayer (wow, I realized I left this off the email I sent about this topic last night)

... And I have a phonecall to make, so won't elaborate on that list atm.