Spiritual But Not Religious

We've all heard it before. Maybe we've said it about ourselves: "I'm spiritual, but not religious." Turns out there's good reason for that.

As it recently said in Time Magazine, "According to the latest Pew report, almost 1 in 5 Americans identify themselves as 'spiritual but not religious.' In other words, they have some feeling, some intuition of something greater, but feel allergic to institutions." People who regularly attend church often tend to scoff at this term. They can see it simply as an excuse to not get out of bed on Sunday morning—or go to a coffee shop instead of worship. (Of which I am convinced they are secretly jealous.) But this moniker Spiritual But Not Religious, sometimes called SBNR for short, is not just an excuse, and its not just limited to people beyond the church. Many of us in church describe ourselves this way. And I count myself among them. I think of myself as much more spiritual than religious, and yet I'm a professional church leader. To many, it would appear I'm as religious as it gets. So what gives? Maybe its a little more complicated than spiritual=my inner life and religion=institutional church. Part of the challenge is figuring out what others mean—and what we mean—when we use the terms "spiritual" and "religious." Where does one end and the other begin? What are the benefits and pitfalls of each? What are we saying about ourselves when we say we are SBNR?