Spirituality And Religion - Enemies Or Friends?

Some view religion and spirituality as two unrelated matters. Others view religion and spirituality as opposing each other. A third perspective is that the purpose of organised religion is to give birth to healthy spirituality, and that positive, authentic spirituality is best supported by institutional religion.

Spirituality growing – Religion declining

Venture into most good bookshops in the West and one will find shelf after shelf on spirituality (self help, “New Age”, body and soul,…). Eclectic collections often based on simplified, Westernised dipping into some Eastern religious beliefs, and so on. Not a lot of Christian material. Possibly a Bible – but little else to indicate that people might turn to institutional Christianity for spirituality.

Post-modernism is the current trend away from acceptance of objective truth, the denial of an overarching “story” to the universe and to our lives. Post-modernism can encourage and validate eclectic spiritualities where one picks and chooses what appeals subjectively. There is no ongoing commitment and one can move easily from one belief to another.

All this at a time when, excepting denominations with a strong stress on the certainties they proclaim, numerically religion is declining in the West.

Spirituality good – Religion bad or indifferent

In contrast, spirituality is increasingly popular. Many do not perceive any connection between spirituality and organised religion. Others have a stronger position. For them religion is about external rituals, not internal spirituality. For them, religion crushes spirituality. Religious people are often portrayed as hypocritical, and the history of organised religion is littered with violence. Religion is seen as dangerous.

Spirituality without the scaffolding of religion, however, can become purely subjective, focused on me and my experience rather than leading to the transcendence hoped for. There is no real community support, especially in times of spiritual crisis, as there is no community with a shared perspective. No consistent tradition to draw from. Nor anything driving outwards to consistent moral action and justice.

“I am spiritual but not religious”

At its best, to pick up the image in the previous paragraph, religion is scaffolding. The scaffolding is community (yes, with all its problems – but all its positives as well), agreed texts, rites, and traditions. This healthy use of organised religion as scaffolding realises the limitations of the scaffolding and that the purpose is the quality of the building. The building, which the scaffolding supports the construction of, is spirituality. When one goes through difficult times, dry periods in spirituality, doubts, then the scaffolding, religion, is there to support one through.

The challenge is for religion generally, and for Christianity particularly – as the primary religion of the West – to rediscover its treasure-trove of spiritual riches and to work intentionally at making these assets more readily available and accessible. So that the works of Meister Eckhart, John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, and the Cloud of Unknowing take up significant shelf space alongside those books by the Dalai Lama in the bookshops we visit.

Bosco Peters runs a website which provides spirituality information that attempts to bring the riches of ancient Western traditions and disciplines to our contemporary context.