I'm Spiritual but Not Religious

Nicola. This is an interesting article in drawing out the movement away from religion to spirituality, however I think the conclusions are very simplistic. "I'm spiritual but not religious." BJ Gallagher, a Huffington Post blogger who writes about spirituality, says she's SBNR because organized religion Definition. SBNR is commonly used to describe the demographic also known as unchurched, none of the above, more spiritual than religious, spiritually eclectic St. Francis of Assisi was wont to pray for nights on end, ldquo Who are you, God, and who am I rdquo He was unable to find satisfying answers to these questions in the (...) We should see the “spiritual but not religious” as an opportunity, not a problem. These are people who are seeking the truth, and we have a Christian duty to help them find it. Reason may be the thing that will lead them back home to the Church. There is a reason for everything we do in the Church: a reason for each part of the liturgy, a reason for every vestment the priest wears, a reason behind every Catholic social teaching. We cannot present these things as simple facts, take them or leave them. We need real apologetics, a religious education that reaches out to the world and says this is why. To the “spiritual but not religious” we can say this: Your instincts are right. There is more to know. God is happy that you’re seeking him. God desperately wants you to find him. In fact, he wants it so much that he’s been seeking you all this time. We need a starting point to be able to think about spiritual things. So what do we really know about God? We know that there is a God. This is a knowledge that we religious Catholic Christians share with most of the “spiritual but not religious” people: they also know that there is a God, though they won’t take a position on what kind of God they know. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that we can know by observation and reason not only that there is a God, but that there is a personal God (see No. 35). St. Paul told us the same thing centuries before: “For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made” (Rom 1:19-20). We know this knowledge is possible because we’ve seen it happen: all over the world, philosophers have come to that same conclusion. When we follow things back to their first cause, we must acknowledge that there is a God. This knowledge is not enough, but it’s a good start. It’s important to recognize the role of revelation in knowing God, but it’s important also to recognize that reason, without revelation, can know that there is a God. It’s so important that the Catechism puts knowledge of God by reason first, before even mentioning revelation. And it’s especially important if you think you’re “spiritual but not religious.” If you think for yourself and reason carefully, you will know that there is a God. Your “spiritual” instincts are right. But reason alone will not tell us the whole truth about our relationship with God — who God is and what God’s plan for us is. For that we need revelation, and for revelation we need faith. Christopher BaileyThe Catholic Answer

Posted by Hodie J