Religion vs. spirituality revisited

I’m working on this week’s sermon, which will focus on “new religious movements.” As I did some reading to prepare, I found an interesting passage in the book New Religions: A Guide: New Religious Movements, Sects, and Alternative Spiritualities, edited by Christopher Partridge (Oxford University Press, 2004), that has helped me to clarify the difference between religion and spirituality.

In his introductory essay, Partridge takes some time to distinguish between religious movements, sects, and alternative spiritualities — and I found his definition of the latter to be particularly helpful:

The term ‘alternative spirituality’ has been included because not all the articles in this volume discuss beliefs and practices that can be described as ‘religious’. Arguably, one of the more significant developments in particularly Western religious adherence is the emergence of private, non-institutional forms of belief and practice. The sacred persists, but increasingly it does so in non-traditional forms. There is, as the sociologist Grace Davie has argued, ‘believing without belonging’. More specifically, it can be argued that much of this believing without belonging should be defined as ‘spirituality’ rather than ‘religion’. There is in the West, for example, a move away from traditional forms of belief, which have developed within religious institutions, towards forms of belief that focus on the self, on nature, or simply on ‘life’. While there may be particular traditional teachings that are valued by the individual seeker, or particular groups to which the individual belongs, generally speaking there is a suspicion of traditional authorities, sacred texts, churches, and hierarchies of power. There is a move away from a ‘religion’ that focuses on things that are considered external to the self (God, the Bible, the church [and maybe Truth and Goodness?]) to ‘spirituality’ — that which focuses on ‘the self’ and is personal and interior….[pp. 16-17]

Reading this, it struck me that ‘believing without belonging’ is one of the major challenges faced by any institutionalized religious movement today. It also fits in with my observations:– many newcomers to the congregation I serve have little idea of how institutionalized religion works; they are sometimes suspicious of institutionalized religion; and they are often wary of committing themselves to a religious institution.

Christopher Partridge continues his definition of “alternative spiritualities” by saying this:

While the term ‘spirituality’ in this volume often has a particular reference to the ‘turn to the self’, it is also used of religious reflection that, strictly speaking, refers to more than this. For example, much contemporary feminist and eco-feminist spirituality cannot be considered as principally a ‘turn to the self’ and, indeed, is often developed within a particular religious tradition. Hence, when the term ‘spirituality’ is used of such developments it is used in a broader, less precise way, which merges with what might be understood as a ‘soft definition’ of religion. …[Some] Christian spiritualities discussed in this volume seek to overturn the distinction between the spiritual and the non-spiritual and understand spirituality to be a quest for full humanity that embraces the whole of the created order. Perhaps spirituality can be understood as a path that, while focusing on the self, seeks to extend to all life and certainly beyond the bounds of institutional religion. [p. 17]

While I’ve always felt a little queasy about “spirituality” as the term is usually used, I could definitely be an advocate of spirituality as a quest for a full humanity that gets individuals to embrace all humanity, all living beings, indeed all of life. At the same time, I’m all too aware of the pressures of mass culture that don’t allow us time or place to engage in spirituality — and that time/place is exactly what institutionalized religion (especially a local congregation) can provide.

Circle worship and extended families

Two new resources now up on my Web site:

We’re going to start an Extended Family Group here at First Unitarian in New Bedford, and I’ve put up forms, FAQ’s, and other material about this multigenerational group. I believe Extended Family Groups would be a great supplement to a small group ministries program. Link

In going through the hard drive of my old computer, I came across a description of an alternative worship service I was involved in at First Parish in Lexington (Mass.) five years ago. It was a weekly evening worship service, and it was so-called “circle worship.” Yes, Virginia, there is more to alternative worship than “Soulful Sundown” and youth worship. Link

Nothing to say

Some days there is nothing to say. I sat looking at the objects that had collected on the kitchen counter — sea shells, an electric fan we never put away after the summer, a wooden bowl containing odd keys and coins and pens, a butternut squash, another wooden bowl with garlic cloves, three sweet potatoes that are sprouting, a big jar of honey, Carol’s wallet, a scrap of paper, two small pumpkins that I am letting dry like gourds — thinking about nothing. Except I thought about how the late afternoon sun came through two windows, reflected off a white wall, and lit the butternut squash such that the shadows were light purple; and I thought about a book of photographs I had once seen showing every building on the Sunset Strip; and I thought about a book of photographs showing every object on the kitchen counter. The light faded, I had no camera, the idea died. It got dark, I turned on the lights. I still had nothing to say.

Spring watch…not

My stupid alter ego, Dan, seems to think that springtime is wonderful. He writes these little nature observations about birds and plants that show that springtime is coming. Pfeh. Mr. Crankypants does not like spring. Spring means happiness and hay fever. Mr. Crankypants agrees with the late great Dorothy Parker, who wrote:

Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants.

Enough said.

An Art

Art Buchwald, the inimitable newspaper columnist, is dying. A writer to the end, of course he writes a column about dying, which appeared in newspapers this week, on Tuesday, March 14….

Ordinarily, people don’t talk about death. Yet it’s very much a part of our lives. I’m in a hospice and seem to have a lot of time to talk about it. My friends and I discuss what death is and where we’re supposed to go after it happens.

People constantly ask me if there is an afterlife. It’s a good chance for me to philosophize. I tell them, “If I knew I would tell you.”

This does not mean that everyone knows more than I do on the subject, including priests (Christian and Hindu), rabbis and imams.

I haven’t made up my mind which one of these groups has the answer, but the nice thing about a hospice is we can talk about death openly. Most people are afraid that if they even mention it, they will bring bad karma on themselves….

He writes about dying with honesty and without sentiment. So maybe it isn’t art, but with his trademark wry humor, it’s worth reading the rest of this piece by Art. [Link]

Another Friday night

I made it up to Cambridge at about 7, picked up Carol at the sub-let, and we went out to eat at Whole Foods in north Cambridge. You can get a decent meal there that’s cheaper than going to a restaurant, and with much better people-watching.

I opened up a tray of cheap sushi. Carol stole a piece of my avocado roll, then started on her chicken soup. Two young women, both blondish, apparently sisters stood at a cash register nearby: both smiled readily but both had a firm set to their mouths that I felt indicated strong wills.

Look, said Carol, that woman has mesh bags. Three youngish people shopping together, all with pale skin, milling about as their groceries got rung up; they had mostly vegetables and bulk food. I said, I used to use mesh bags all the time, but then I had two break on me and I stopped trusting them. Carol said, They have canvas bags too — look, that one has a beautiful design (drawing of a moon and plants, labeled “People’s Coop, Ann Arbor”).

Carol went to get another cup of coffee. A middle-aged man walked by, thick lenses in his glasses, medium brown skin, friendly expression, half-smiling half-bemused; I characterized him in my mind as a software engineer, though I had no good reason for doing so.

A slight woman wearing a Muslim head scarf and an employee apron kept walking past us, apparently a manager overseeing the cash registers. She was short but there was no sense of her being small.

Carol got up to ask one woman where she had bought her boots. The answer: Filene’s, five or six years ago. Carol sat down and said, I should have asked her what brand they were.

The food was long gone. Carol downed the last of her coffee. We got up and left. Another cheap date for Friday night.

Why do you visit liberal religious Web sites?

At this year’s General Assembly, the annual gathering of Unitarian Universalists in the United states, I’ll be leading a workshop on creating great Web site content. Here’s the description that will appear in the program book:

You don’t need a huge budget or technical wizardry to create a great church website. What you need is great content. Learn how to create rich content to attract guests and to help existing UUs deepen their faith. From case studies and presentation get practical, immediately useful ideas and techniques. Keywords for GA program index: website, electronic technology.

Now I’m looking for some input from people who read religious Web sites, and also from people who create liberal religious Web sites.

On the one hand, I’d love to hear from readers….

  • What kind of content do you like to see on a liberal religious Web site?
  • What kind of content keeps you coming back to read a Web site, week after week?
  • What kind of content would make you tell a friend about a religious Web site?

On the other hand, I’d also love to hear from religious bloggers and people who maintain liberal religious Web sites….

  • What kind of content gives you the most hits on your Web site or blog?
  • How much time do you spend each week creating content for your blog or Web site?
  • What strategies do you use to organize your content so visitors will have easy access to it?
  • And of course, if you have a magic formula for great Web content, let me know!

If you are moved to do so, spread the word — I’d love to get input from people other than the people who read this blog. You can leave a comment below, or if you’d prefer you can send an email message.

Sunrise

Winter is when the memories seem to rise up unbidden, and winter is coming to an end. Even though I tend to stay up late, I keep getting awakened by the light of sunrise, now about 5:30 a.m. Springtime is overtaking memory.

But somehow, a memory of a sunrise slipped into consciousness just now….

One June, when we were living over by White Pond in Concord. Carol was away on one of her trips to Mexico; I was sleeping alone; I came wide awake before dawn. Say four o’clock. Couldn’t get to sleep, didn’t want to. Put the canoe on the car and drove down to the river.

Untied the canoe as the sky was just starting to turn light, paddled down river to Fairhaven Bay. I drifted into the bay as the sky started to turn from black to blue. Mist rising over the bay. I tried a few casts in the shallow, upstream end of the bay; nothing. In the downstream end of the bay, there’s a deeper hole, and there I hooked a big bass on light tackle and with barbless hooks; after maybe quarter of an hour I brought him to the boat, wet my hand, and held him while I released the hook then let him swim away to keep breeding. I turned around to see that the sun had just hit the top of the rising mist, about twenty feet above the river; an Osprey circled overhead in the sun, a far more efficient catcher of fish than a single human could ever be; a Great Blue Heron stalked smaller fish along the shore. I drifted in silence for a while. The sun crept up over the horizon: gold light in the mist; but as I paddled into the mist, it only appeared white.

The mist was gone by the time I reached the boat landing.

…a memory that doesn’t translate into words very well. A memory that dissipated as I tried to write it down. Something about a gut-level, direct knowledge of my place in the ecosystem, in the universe — but that’s putting it badly. It’s gone now.

Spring watch

The past few days, I’ve been awakened against my will at 5:30 in the morning, in spite of having stayed up late the night before, by the dawn light creeping past the window shades. The sky turns light at an ever earlier hour; the rate of change increasing day by day, up until the spring equinox a week away.

It rained this morning, briefly. I walked home for lunch: the rain had released the smell of spring from the earth, it had washed the pavement clean, I couldn’t help but inhale deeply and fill my lungs with that scent.

At sunset this evening, a walk down to the waterfront. My mind was busy with work, but slanting light pushed even that away for a minute or two: blue sky and fast-moving dark clouds and bright sun: spring sky.