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Only option for fading churches is to again take up evangelization
Father Raymond J. de Souza - The National Post - Last Updated: Dec 25, 2012
Spiritual but not religious. That’s one finding of the new Forum Research poll of Canadians, commissioned exclusively for the National Post: some 65% consider of Canadians themselves spiritual, but only 50% would identify as religious. What are we to make of this?
First, there may be some ambiguity in the terminology. To ask someone if he is spiritual is akin to asking him if he is human. Even the late atheist-propagandist Christopher Hitchens spoke of the "numinous" element in human experience, as he termed the encounter with beauty in art, music and architecture. Anyone who thinks about liberty, desires justice or experiences love is a spiritual being, for those things cannot be measured out in crude matter. Yet 26% of survey respondents described themselves as not being spiritual, which, taken literally, would mean that a quarter of Canadians think of themselves as orphans from the great human patrimony of art, literature and philosophy, to say nothing of theology.
More likely, it means that a quarter of Canadians find that, to the extent they think about a purpose or mission in life, they are content with the necessary but superficial pursuits of commercial life. Perhaps this is the expected consequence of a culture largely devoted to consumption and recreation, as indebtedness levels and the time spent on TV, social media and surfing the web testify. It can make for a full, if not fully humanly satisfying, life. But for many, the unexamined life is convenient.
That segment which is spiritual but not religious (65% less 50%) constitutes another interesting chunk of the population, though I am surprised that it is only 15%. Anecdotally, I hear quite often people say that they are spiritual but not religious.
Is it possible to be so? It’s rather like saying that one enjoys listening to music but not any particular kind, or likes playing sports, but not any particular one. One cannot listen to music in general, but only a particular piece or song, just as one must play football or hockey, not generic sports.
It could be that saying one is spiritual but not religious is just a dodge by people not willing to declare themselves thoroughgoing materialists. Or it could be a further sign of the superficiality of our time, when for a good number of Canadians the perennial questions of philosophy are now peripheral.
Spiritual realities are realities, and religious truths describe what those realities are. Given that religious answers differ, one engaged in the search for truth has to decide in favour of one or the other, not in favour of not deciding, which is what being spiritual but not religious often means. It is hard even to see how such a person might meditate or pray, for these fundamental spiritual activities require some sense of both God and man – i.e., of religious truths. Is God the perfect being who creates all of nature from nothing? Or is god part of the natural world himself, the personification of natural phenomenon like the wind, or the sun, or harvest? It makes rather a difference.
One question in the survey asked respondents if they were more or less religious than their parents. More than half, 53%, said they were the same as their parents. A third, 32%, said they were less religious. And only 15% said that they were more religious than their parents.
That indicates that religion will become, over time, more marginal in our common life. That’s not good for religion, obviously, but it is also negative for our common life. We know that religious practice is favourably correlated to family stability, community involvement, charitable giving in terms of both time and money, and a host of other positive social outcomes.
That 15% who are more religious than their parents will be critical to whether those declining social indices can be reversed. Religious revivals, when they happen, are not widespread social phenomena at first – they are led by a small, highly committed and evangelistic group. Is 15% enough to accomplish that in the generation ahead? If not, the decline of religious practice will continue unabated, with the associated negative sociological consequences.
The task for the churches is clear enough. Simply managing a vibrant religious life is not an option – religious life is not that vibrant today. Simply managing decline is not really an option either – it is not only terminal, but tedious. The only option is to abandon managing a largely superficial spirituality in favour of a persuasive invitation to go deeper than the generation previous, to propose again the truths of faith in all their depth and complete with the demands they make. That’s called evangelization, and it was once what the churches did. They have to do it again.
National Post
source: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...-churches-is-to-again-take-up-evangelization/
Father Raymond J. de Souza - The National Post - Last Updated: Dec 25, 2012
Spiritual but not religious. That’s one finding of the new Forum Research poll of Canadians, commissioned exclusively for the National Post: some 65% consider of Canadians themselves spiritual, but only 50% would identify as religious. What are we to make of this?
First, there may be some ambiguity in the terminology. To ask someone if he is spiritual is akin to asking him if he is human. Even the late atheist-propagandist Christopher Hitchens spoke of the "numinous" element in human experience, as he termed the encounter with beauty in art, music and architecture. Anyone who thinks about liberty, desires justice or experiences love is a spiritual being, for those things cannot be measured out in crude matter. Yet 26% of survey respondents described themselves as not being spiritual, which, taken literally, would mean that a quarter of Canadians think of themselves as orphans from the great human patrimony of art, literature and philosophy, to say nothing of theology.
More likely, it means that a quarter of Canadians find that, to the extent they think about a purpose or mission in life, they are content with the necessary but superficial pursuits of commercial life. Perhaps this is the expected consequence of a culture largely devoted to consumption and recreation, as indebtedness levels and the time spent on TV, social media and surfing the web testify. It can make for a full, if not fully humanly satisfying, life. But for many, the unexamined life is convenient.
That segment which is spiritual but not religious (65% less 50%) constitutes another interesting chunk of the population, though I am surprised that it is only 15%. Anecdotally, I hear quite often people say that they are spiritual but not religious.
Is it possible to be so? It’s rather like saying that one enjoys listening to music but not any particular kind, or likes playing sports, but not any particular one. One cannot listen to music in general, but only a particular piece or song, just as one must play football or hockey, not generic sports.
It could be that saying one is spiritual but not religious is just a dodge by people not willing to declare themselves thoroughgoing materialists. Or it could be a further sign of the superficiality of our time, when for a good number of Canadians the perennial questions of philosophy are now peripheral.
Spiritual realities are realities, and religious truths describe what those realities are. Given that religious answers differ, one engaged in the search for truth has to decide in favour of one or the other, not in favour of not deciding, which is what being spiritual but not religious often means. It is hard even to see how such a person might meditate or pray, for these fundamental spiritual activities require some sense of both God and man – i.e., of religious truths. Is God the perfect being who creates all of nature from nothing? Or is god part of the natural world himself, the personification of natural phenomenon like the wind, or the sun, or harvest? It makes rather a difference.
One question in the survey asked respondents if they were more or less religious than their parents. More than half, 53%, said they were the same as their parents. A third, 32%, said they were less religious. And only 15% said that they were more religious than their parents.
That indicates that religion will become, over time, more marginal in our common life. That’s not good for religion, obviously, but it is also negative for our common life. We know that religious practice is favourably correlated to family stability, community involvement, charitable giving in terms of both time and money, and a host of other positive social outcomes.
That 15% who are more religious than their parents will be critical to whether those declining social indices can be reversed. Religious revivals, when they happen, are not widespread social phenomena at first – they are led by a small, highly committed and evangelistic group. Is 15% enough to accomplish that in the generation ahead? If not, the decline of religious practice will continue unabated, with the associated negative sociological consequences.
The task for the churches is clear enough. Simply managing a vibrant religious life is not an option – religious life is not that vibrant today. Simply managing decline is not really an option either – it is not only terminal, but tedious. The only option is to abandon managing a largely superficial spirituality in favour of a persuasive invitation to go deeper than the generation previous, to propose again the truths of faith in all their depth and complete with the demands they make. That’s called evangelization, and it was once what the churches did. They have to do it again.
National Post
source: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...-churches-is-to-again-take-up-evangelization/
