Religious and/or Spiritual?

There was a package in Newsweek at the end of August on Spirituality in America. One element is a poll that asks: “Where Do You Stand on Faith? Forget red and blue. On spiritual matters, the United States is still one nation, under God, according to a Newsweek/Beliefnet poll. How do your opinions stack up?” One of the most interesting results in the poll is that the majority of Americans (51% Web and 55% NEWSWEEK / Beliefnet ) consider themselves to be both religious and spiritual. That’s how I answered the question. (Assuming that one might define them as spiritual being the belief in or experience of the metaphysical and religion being the systematic expression of that experience and belief.)

Newsweek's conclusion, however, seems to be that spirituality is in, religion is out.

Mulling this over afterward, this analogy to physical hunger occurred to me: I can sate my hunger eating a sandwich in the car on the way to work or standing on a beach eating a burrito. In both cases, I enjoy and appreciate the food and it sates my hunger. But I wouldn’t want to eat like that all the time. I’d miss silverware, plates, napkins, table manners, conversation and conviviality, music and all the other ritual elements that make up a formal meal. I can satisfy hunger without them, but with them, the bare satisfaction of hunger becomes transformed into something deeper, more carefully realized (and likely better understood and so appreciated), and importantly, bound to community. Some people argue that religion is a superfluous layer that hinders our experience of spirituality. Perhaps sometimes it is. At its best, though, religion is more like a frame around our spirituality, drawing our attention back to it again and again and enhancing our view of it.

The Revealer has a harsh critique of the Newsweek package, "Spiritual, But Not Newsworthy."