Religion, Church, or Spirituality: Take your pick!

Many confuse attending church with being a member of a religion and either or both of these with a life attentive to spirituality. Each of these is not necessarily connected to the other. Think about how we invite others to share in each and how we identify membership or participation in each.

We invite others to attend church with us and while some accept, the response is often descriptive, "I was raised a [church name]", usually meaning I might be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the church you are inviting me to attend.  Churches have traditions, styles of worship, doctrines, ways of interpreting scripture, social overtones, and many features of approved behavior, some required. And a subject of much confusion is the word used to move from one church to another. People often say, "When I was in college, I converted from being a Lutheran and became a Methodist". This is an illustration of a misunderstanding. In most cases we only use the word conversion if we are changing religions, not denominations, such as "I converted to Christianity after being raised Shinto by my parents".

Religions, on the other hand, ascribe to the teachings of an historical tradition with identifiable leaders and sacred texts from which we derive our beliefs. Some are closely related to one another, as with Judaism, Muslim, and Christianity all of whom trace their roots to Abraham. While others, such as Jainism, Buddhism, and Shinto, share little in common except a base in some form of spirituality and traditions.

Spirituality, as differentiated from these two, is the human attempt to discover, experience, and communicate about an ultimate reality usually quite separated from the material world. A practice of spirituality may require exercises, disciplines, and other behaviors which are believed to prepare us for and stimulate the possibility of an awareness of the non-physical origins and foundations for life as we know it. Philosophers and other writers have explored many facets of spirituality under almost as many names.

One reason for clarifying the distinctions among these terms is to identify the overlapping as well as the conflicts that ofter occur among them all. For example, a church may, from time to time, get so full of it's own doctrine and traditions that if, like many people, can forget it's own origin, and the principles professed at the beginning. We have many 'organized' religions (an oxymoron at best) wreak havoc, destruction, and unspeakable acts all in the name of 'conversion' or 'discipline'. While not as heavy handed or obvious today, from time to time a church can remain as irrational and destructive as they were in the dark ages. For example, see the article linked here.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/opinion/27kristof.html?adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1296306467-UvTlAtTlJLlcr+VCy6Lyhg


More on this topic later. - Illigitum Non Carborundum