Religion vs. Spiritualism

Listening to the radio this morning on the way to work, I encountered an interesting question. A correspondent on NPR was interviewing a young musician about the songs he was writing and recounted the frequent references to forgiveness, crucifixion and redemption and asked why that was the case. He explained that he grew up in the Catholic Church and he still attends although not as much as he probably should. Never-the-less, the ideas figure prominently in his thinking because of their superior ability to explain his life and those of the people he observed. The interviewer then followed up by asking, “Do you ever wonder if you might just get too spiritual and go off the deep end like Cat Stephens?” Without missing a beat he replied, “Oh I don’t know that I’m very spiritual at all, I would say that I am religious. If I’m endanger of anything it’s that I will eat too many chicken wings in the years to come.” It was clear from the tone of the conversation that the interviewer assumed that there was something phony about the notion of religion and the singer assumed the same of spiritualism. I found this interesting because it has occurred to me that evangelicals are sometimes, almost infamous for saying things like “Jesus wasn’t religious.” He wasn’t? Really?

If I’m not mistaken he was the one who stayed in the Temple at the age of 12 to dialogue with the teachers of his religion when his parents had already gotten a days journey toward Nazareth. When asked by his parents what exactly he thought he was doing he replied, “Don't you know that I must be about My Father's business?" Luke 2:49. I find that an odd answer indeed coming from so irreligious a person as Jesus is purported to be by some. After all he was talking to the religious teachers in the center of all religious worship for his people at that time. Further his reference to “Father” was in reference to God who was the object of all of that worship. Personally, I have a very hard time extricating the notion of religion from that episode. But more to the point, I have a hard time seeing how it can be seen as anything less than a ringing endorsement of the notion of a true, unified, singular religion. In his life his own brothers didn’t believe in him [John 7:5] but that changed apparently after his resurrection. His younger brother James wrote many years later, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world,” [James 1:27].

The difficulty in denying religion and affirming spiritualism is realized in the likelihood of retaining the prerogative to approach God on our terms and their-by sanctifying our behavior come what may. That having been said, there is another danger. That is loving religion rather than God. From the Spiritual perspective this must appear the greater danger. Jesus was frequently rebuffed in his ministry of love, obedience, and redemption by people who clearly loved their religion more than either God or their fellow man.

On one occasion where traditional religious observance became a pretext for just such a criticism Jesus replied,” Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” [Matt 15:3] Both sides of this discussion have valid points to make. In favor of peace I would advocate balance. Truth is a location not a direction and when we find it I suspect we will find ourselves both agreeing and disagreeing with a great number of people we never quite thought that we would.