The Tension Between The Religious And The Spiritual

In many Alcoholics Anonymous meetings I have attended there is a saying that pops up every once in a while: "Religion is for those who are desperately trying not to go to Hell; Spirituality is for those, like us, who have been to Hell and don’t want to go back." The group will nearly always laugh when that observation is invoked.

I’m also reminded of observations by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the esteemed Lutheran theologian, during his time in German concentration camps before he was eventually executed. He had been arrested as an influential community leader, along with other religious leaders: Jewish rabbis, Orthodox and Roman Catholic priests, and other Protestant ministers or teachers. All of these divergent leaders were put in a separate barracks in the camp – away from the others. It took that group only about 5 minutes until they were in a circle, holding hands, and reciting the Lord’s Prayer. All the great theological differences they espoused (and had warred over) had just melted into oblivion.

Most of us have some of the "religious" as well as the "spiritual" within us. As Bonhoeffer experienced, in the face of a crisis, we notice that the "religious" seems to melt away. Religion has to do with a system. Spirituality has to do with a knowing. Most spiritual people are also a little religious. However, people can be religious without being spiritual at all.

Generally, the pattern goes like this: something "spiritual" happens; it becomes accepted; eventually it is institutionalized – and I don’t mean some form of hospital. I mean it becomes structured, legalized, and all sorts of rules, order, and custom develop. After a while people tend to forget about the original "spiritual" event. They focus only on the outward ritual and custom. Soon the outward ritual and custom is all that’s known.

It seems to me the Bible tells the rather straightforward story of the constant tension between the religious and the spiritual. The religious aspect focused on mankind’s desire for an explicit, prescribed set of approved behaviors that people learned to believe God wants and blesses. The spiritual aspect remained focused on the inward knowing of God’s actual moral guidelines, which were always a little "fuzzy." These were extolled first by the prophets and later by Jesus.

Some examples of these fuzzy guidelines: The Prophet Micah: "What does Yahweh (God) require of you" To do justice, and to love righteousness, and to walk humbly with your God." (Mic 6:8) Jesus: "Love your neighbor as yourself." But who is my neighbor" Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The point" Your neighbor is anyone who is in need.

These "fuzzy" instructions provide guidance only, not cut-and-dried answers. They require individual judgment. Consequently, specific actions from these "fuzzy" directives must be determined each and every time an issue of helping someone in need, for example, comes up. There is no one behavior that is applicable to all people all the time.

On the other hand religious tenets purport themselves to be true all the time for everyone. This makes them easy to follow and administer. Want to honor God with your time and money" Tithe to your church. Want to ensure you are a Believer" Trust in the words of the Bible.

"The Bible tells you to accept Jesus who died for your sins."
"But I don’t think I’m that awful."
"You’re filled with original Sin and only Jesus can save you from that."
"How do you know that I’m in Sin""
"The Bible tells me so."

Unfortunately, the Bible’s real spiritual message has been overshadowed (and overwritten!) by those advocating religious systems. But the spiritual message is there once you begin to understand the biblical sources.

Jesus’ message, very much like the prophets whose message and purpose Jesus said he fulfilled, was one of transformation. Jesus never preached that he came to save people, but to transform them. He spoke mostly about the transforming presence of the kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven. He described this Kingdom in many different ways. He spoke in parables and in cynic-like one-liners. To paraphrase what he said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. You have ears, hear. You have eyes, see." He was describing an internal knowing of the Divine unconditional love that is present within us all. This internal knowing fills us with the knowledge that we are already divine spiritual beings – if we will but allow ourselves to be aware. As C.S. Lewis said, "We do not have a soul. We are a soul. We have a body."

From Luke 17:20-21: The Pharisees asked Him, ‘When will the Kingdom of God come" He [Jesus] said, "You cannot tell by observation when the kingdom of God comes. There will be no saying, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘there it is!’ for in fact the kingdom of God is within you (or, according to other translations – is among you; is within your grasp; or will be among you)."

From the Gospel of Thomas (GTh) 3a: Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in heaven,’ then the birds of heaven will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom of heaven is inside you and it is outside you; " From GTh 113: His [Jesus’] followers said to him, "When will the kingdom come"" "It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘Look, there it is.’ Rather, the father’s kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it."

We don’t like fuzzy guidelines or suggestions. We don’t like to be told that the answer is obvious, if we’ll just look around us. We want specifics. We want assurances – almost guarantees. We want teachers to tell us if we do A, B, and C we’ll get a gold star. We want to know specifically what God wants. We like the reassurance we get from sermons that do not focus on us and the fact that we may be selfish, fearful of change, non-trusting, judgmental, and mean spirited, but focus on issues like believing in the Bible or tithing or supporting evangelistic missions in Third World countries. We like sermons that focus on the evil occurring in the world "out there:" communists, or drug addicts, or sexual perverts, or abortionists, or whatever. We like explanations to be explicit, cut and dried, and predictable. We like to be told all we have to do is believe the Bible. We like sermons that reassure us we’re on the winning side.

In the Old Testament this tension between the religious and the spiritual – between the explicit and the fuzzy – bubbled to the surface early. In the Old Testament the religious system of the temple rituals and rites was founded on the patriarchal tribal concepts of Purification and Sacrifice. To these late Bronze Age nomadic peoples, whose patriarchs were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God was an independent, external Being who needed to be honored, revered, and placated lest He get angry and punish the tribal clans. As the covenant with God was being given its first shape under Moses during the Exodus, the populace continually wanted to create and worship idols. This was followed by the continuing struggle between the ever-organizing Old Testament priesthood and their spiritual opposite, the prophets. The priests talked about how temple rites and rituals must be kept to ensure God’s blessing. All of the major prophets railed against these ideas – that it was love, justice, and humility that God wanted, not obedience to elaborate ritual.

In the New Testament it took only about one hundred years for Jesus’ transformational, fuzzy message of the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Spirit) – which exists within you in the Eternal Now – to become more explicit. The Kingdom of Heaven began to be institutionalized by various Jesus groups as a newer form of Judaism and by Paul as a message that the Kingdom incorporated both Jews and non-Jews. Then the Jesus groups dissolved and Paul’s message of freedom was overcome with administrative issues of appropriate first-century behavior – his famous lists of do’s and don’ts.

As Paul tried to rationally justify his insight, he began moving from the Christ of faith to the Christ of theology. Later writers began picking up on Paul’s themes—not themes of transformation, freedom, and grace, but themes of orderliness, behavior, nifty lists of do’s and don’ts that supported the infant organizational structure of the early church—and continued to expand them, getting further and further away from Paul’s Gospel of Freedom. Later church fathers picked up on the Christ of theology and continued the construction of an elaborate, unified dogma.

Within only several hundred years, while the debates were continuing over what letters, gospels, and other writings were to be included in the Bible, the words of Jesus had morphed into the doctrines of Salvation, Christology, Trinity, Atonement, Incarnation, and Apostolic Succession. Lost in this process was the sense of freedom that had so transformed Paul. By the mid-third century the original fuzzy message of Jesus had been replaced once again with more explicit writings that supported the growing theology of the infant church.

Contemporary biblical literalists, e.g., fundamentalists and fervent evangelicals, are using the words of the Bible in much the same way as the Old Testament priesthood used the temple rites and rituals and early Church fathers used theology. If you listen closely, it is no longer faith in the transformational love of God (as expressed in the man Jesus) that matters and transforms lives. What matters is the belief in the very words of scripture that one must have faith in, must obey, and must follow. What the biblical literalists do not understand is that to use the Bible in this way would put them at odds with the very prophets they claim to cite, just as the blind use of rite and ritual put the Priestly Class at odds with these very same prophets.

What matters is the theology you espouse – a theology that was extrapolated over several hundred years immediately following Jesus’ crucifixion. That theology left behind the transformational message of Jesus. It is belief in the Bible, as well as the theology you espouse, that makes you a Christian. That is what will "save" you.

The Bible is a spiritual guide, not a religious instruction manual. It records men and women who struggled to put their spiritual experiences into words and images that made sense to them in their times and places. We need to understand that. It will help enable us to put our spiritual experiences in words that make sense to us in our time and place.

Righteousness and faith are not equivalent to some form of purity of belief about what’s in the Old or New Testaments. To believe something literally happened, just because it’s in the Bible, is not the mark of a true Christian. Biblical literalism does not equate to faithfulness. Rather, we are to open our eyes and begin to see the new Kingdom all around us—the events and miracles in our lives. Scripture will guide us.

How do we do this" The same way early Christians did it. Through eating together, serving each other, healing each other, sharing with each other in trust and honesty about the signs, wonders, and miracles that are occurring in our own lives right now. I believe the presence of this Spirit is exactly what transformed me as I attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in damp church basements.

This phenomenon of small, Spirit-filled groups is happening all over. It’s exciting! I have a wonderful friend from my seminary days that is doing magnificent work with his gift of healing. Gordon Williams believes it is his gift from the Holy Spirit. He is much more biblically literal than I, so he and I will disagree on many issues. However, his heart is wonderful and his life-changing work with the Spirit is generally occurring in small, home-based small groups. "These small groups are popping up all over the place. People are truly hungry for the Spirit and they cannot seem to find it in traditional congregations," he will explain. Gordon was forced to leave a mainline denomination because his sense of the Spirit is not easily tolerated nor absorbed by the procedural-based protocol of accepted church polity.

I recently heard from an old high school chum, asking about my book, who told me how there are more and more small groups who, outside of their congregations, are meeting in homes to pray and discuss the Bible in order to experience the Spirit. "Spirituality," he commented, "Seems to be missing in most major denominations. Some of us are realizing that it is sorely missed."

My wife and I are involved with a small group that calls itself Intenders of the Highest Good. Our membership is very diverse: Agnostic/Traditional Christian/New Thought Religion; straight/gay; male/female; young/old. We meet weekly and are focused on the power of Intention as directed by the Spirit of a Loving God (or Universal Spirit, of Life Force, or Higher Power, or whatever.) It works. It is powerful. It is wonderful. Miracles are occurring.

The wonder of the spiritual has always been at odds with the control of the religious. This tension between the fuzzy and the explicit is not new. It’s an old, old story.