Religious Because I'm Spiritual

"I'm spiritual, but not religious."

It seems to me that those who make this statement do not understand the relationship between religion and spirituality. They do not understand the role that religion plays in spirituality.

In a nut shell, healthy religion serves spirituality. We do religious things - religious practices and habits - in order to nurture and develop a healthy spirituality.

I acknowledge that religion can, and often does, get sick. It not only fails to nurture healthy spirituality, it becomes destructive to both the individual and the community. Such expressions of religion are to be rejected for what they are: religious abuse. But the misuse of religious practices does not invalidate their intended purpose: to nurture healthy spirituality. The misuse is to be rejected, not the religious practices.

Without religious practices, what does spirituality look like? What nurtures it? What shapes it? What helps it develop? What helps it become healthy and mature?

Apart from the discipline of religious practices - such as Bible study, prayer, keeping a journal, Christian community, giving, loving another in Jesus' name - my spirituality tends to become a projection of what I already think and believe. It becomes a way to validate myself while insulating myself from any need to grow or change. I become my own judge of what is right and true. I create a god in my own likeness.

In my experience, when a person abandons religious practices and spiritual community, their spirituality tends to become stagnant rather than healthy, vibrant, and growing. They tend to be stuck in their spiritual development.

So, for me, a better statement is "I'm religious because I'm spiritual."