I recently came across an essay by journalist Eric Weiner, the author of "Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine," in which he says, "We need a Steve Jobs of religion." In the piece, published last December in the New York Times, Weiner says we need "[s]omeone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious. Like Mr. Jobs's creations, this new way would be straightforward and unencumbered and absolutely intuitive. Most important, it would be highly interactive. I imagine a religious space that celebrates doubt, encourages experimentation and allows one to utter the word God without embarrassment."
It is an excellent idea, but my message to Eric Weiner is: We already have a "new way of being religious" and we don't need a Steve Jobs to invent it. It's been evolving for quite some time now. We don't need a genius innovator (especially a secretive and proprietary one) because we've already had many, and besides, one of the distinguishing features of the new way of being religious is that it's a grassroots phenomenon, without a founder, an institution or an anointed hierarchy. It has been rising up in the hearts and minds of individual seekers ever since the days of Ralph Waldo Emerson -- who deserves, if anyone does, to be called the Steve Jobs of American religion -- and it's been spreading like kudzu through the soul of America, nurtured by a distinguished parade of Hindu gurus, Buddhist monks, Yoga masters, Christian contemplatives, Jewish mystics, Sufi masters, homegrown philosophers, artists, psychologists, scientists, and on and on.
In a sense, Weiner acknowledges this in his essay. He identifies with the Nones, that diverse, loosely linked demographic that claims no religious affiliation and is, surveys tell us, the fastest-growing religious cohort in America. Only 7 percent of the Nones call themselves atheists. The rest, presumably, are what we call Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR). One could say that the "new way of being religious" is so new that it's not even called religious. In fact, long before the term SBNR was coined, the distinguished scholar of religion Frederic Spiegelberg used the phrase "religion of no religion" to describe the same essential phenomenon: individuals seeking direct spiritual experience outside the confines of conventional religion.
Citing social scientists, Weiner makes the mistake of attributing the rise of the Nones to the mixing of religion and politics in recent decades. The Nones, he says, "are reluctant to claim a religious affiliation because they don't want the political one that comes along with it." There is surely some truth to that, but it is highly doubtful that politics is the chief reason that seekers turn away from mainstream religion. The simple truth is, they look elsewhere when conventional religion does not satisfy their spiritual yearnings. This is an old story, but the advent of globalized communication has now made it possible for massive numbers of people to access authentic alternatives. Weiner says the Nones "drift spiritually and dabble in everything," a description that makes them sound spiritually promiscuous. But, in my experience, most SBNRs are not just dabbling, they are probing for teachings that make sense to them and produce tangible results in practice. If they don't commit to one religious label it's because they haven't found one that satisfies all their spiritual needs and they don't want to be bound to a lifetime contract when they might reap greater rewards through free agency.
Weiner's lament may really be about the Nones' lack of community and institutional structure, which, as a direct consequence, deprives them of a voice in the national conversation. I suspect this will change as new ways for independent seekers to come together take shape. The new forms of community will no doubt be less authoritarian, less dogmatic, less centralized and less hierarchical than traditional institutions, and they will evolve more from the ground up than the top down. The leadership is multiheaded and diverse -- more Mom and Pop entrepreneurship than Walmart-style dominance.
Our new way of being religious may seem chaotic, as most new things do, but it coheres around certain elements: individual choice over institutional decree; inner experience over creed; reason and evidence over faith and dogma; unity and pluralism over separation and tribalism. These trends reverse centuries of religious history, and they bode well for an authentically democratic spirituality -- if we continue to develop it with care, discernment and responsibility.
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There are two groups of people that do not want to look outside their established beliefs and I think this leads to those that want to be called spiritual seekers but not religious. Plus for them many religious beliefs don’t pass the simplest of logic tests.
One group is the atheists better defined as the scientific materialists. Science is their god idol of sorts. They completely miss the very definition of science, which is a discipline by using the scientific method to observe and the systemic study of phenomena for better understanding of these mysteries of the life, our world, and the universe.
“Science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge”. I.e. The word science comes from the Latin "scientia," meaning knowledge.
The second group is the religious and the more fundamental the religion the less they even think about other’s ideas on reality. Their motto is my way or the highway so to speak. Actually my way or Hades or worst might be a better description of their mode of being in the world.
With both groups evidence is rejected before any investigation if it disagrees with their cherished hold on to at all costs beliefs. This is why I use the term the paradigm effect often because they (i.e. we) can reject before investigation at a sub conscious level. The real rationale for rejection most often never even makes it to the conscious mind.
"evidence is rejected"
Why do you talk about science when you seem to have no interest in understanding the enterprise?
"beliefs don’t pass the simplest of logic tests." This must be a projection of yours.
He cites http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2108027,00.html , and I found the Pew survey it discusses at http://religions.pewforum.org/reports?section=a4#
The survey says 16.1% of Americans are "Unaffiliated", comprising:
1.6% of Americans are atheist (10% of Unaffiliated total)
2.4% agnostic (15%)
6.3% secular unaffiliated (39%)
5.8% religious unaffiliated (36%)
Mr. Goldberg writes, "Only 7 percent of the Nones call themselves atheists. The rest, presumably, are what we call Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR)."
1) 10% of the Nones self-identify as atheists.
2) Why exclude atheists from SBNR? What definition of "spiritual" excludes atheists but includes agnostics and secular unaffiliated (people who said religion is not important in their lives)?
3) 36% of Nones are "unaffiliated but religious". They can't be SBNR.
So where Mr. Goldberg concludes 93% of Nones must be SBNR, I think that number is, max, 61%, counting atheists, agnostics, and secularists.
So I agree there's a rapidly-growing demographic who don't want to join a religion, are spiritual, favor individual choice, eschew creeds, and prefer reason and evidence. We're called "atheists and agnostics". And we come not to reincarnate religion, but to bury it.
72% of Millennials 'more spiritual than religious' http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-04-27-1Amillfaith27_ST_N.htm
You can find more stats on the SBNR community here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_But_Not_Religious
At SBNR.org we believe a reasonable number is that 25% of Americans are SBNR which includes 'spiritual atheists and agnostics.'
There seems to be a natural evolution of spiritual identity wherein a person modifies a religious moniker so as to create a psychological bridge from the domain in which they were raised to the perspective in which they now exist. Terms like 'progressive christian' or 'evolutionary christian' are often used in this manner. These SBNR people do not identify with the term 'atheist' or 'agnostic' because they have a strong sense of something greater than themselves where as 'atheist' is often consider a denial of anything other than the material world, and 'agnostic' undecided.
There is no need to 'bury' religion. It might be more useful to consider religion a form of spiritual technology and then to acknowledge that most of the world's major traditions are simply old technology.
Steve Frazee
Founder, SBNR.org
The journey/s is the expression/s of the Absolute.
Nothing is wasted but judging by appearances makes it appear so.
The physical is mere phenomena, temporal and transient but real, for that which comes from the Real is itself real.
Those that state that life is an illusion fail to understand the involution and evolution of consciousness process.
The illusion is believing one can be separate from infinite. Impossible to be separate from infinite unless we redefine infinite.
But I have an aversion to religious dogma and find my spiritual home in the Unitarian Universalist Church. I'm surprised the author didn't mention the Unitarians, the denomination of total inclusivity.
What exactly is "it" that has been evolving for some time? Since you say it has been evolving for some time what allows you to know or be confident that it is going in the right direction since you seem to be validating this "it" in your statements.
I mean the New Atheism movement has voices like Harris, Hitchens, Dennett and Dawkins but the SBNR community doesn't.
Will it progress to this level?
It's the Christian thing to do: send non-believers to Hell.
Anyone who disagrees with me is obviously going to Hell so I don't have to pay attention to anyone who disagrees.
Reference to Poe's Law goes here.
There is no way without a process,
How do you know that?
I think you're being sarcastic. But whether or not you are, I can discuss the element of truth in your position.
Why do you say "religious experience" (fostered by ceremonies and buildings" is different from "spirituality"? I think they're the same.
What feeling do you get from an elaborate church service that I don't get from looking into the vastness of the night sky or learning about quantum physical phenomena or evolutionary biology? Awe? Joy? Peace? Humility? Hope? Yeah, I get all those too. My props are the universe and the tools humans have invented to study it. I'm not religious, but I'm as spiritual as the next guy.
Well written article. worth the read. thanks huff post.