“I am not religious, I am spiritual”, Political Lies and other annoyances
Its been a nice summer off, but time to pick things up again here on Cowboy (ir)Reverend.
Okay, so this is a bit of a-round-about-way of getting into this idea.
But, I was inspired to write something here after reading Ryan Andersen’s thoughts on this topic AND after reading Canada’s Finance minister’s ridiculous claim that if opposition parties cause an election, that 400,000 jobs might be lost.
I have always been kind of annoyed by people who say “I am not religious, I am spiritual”. It is a populous idea… and I happen to be a professional in the field of religion. I can guarantee that those who make that claim do not have a very good understanding of religion. And “I read all the holy books and decided for myself” or, “I tried them all out” or “I grew up ______ and found out it wasn’t for me” do not count as good understandings, or understandings at all really (post a comment if you disagree).
However, my annoyance is starting to lessen. For you see, I am starting to realize that people who make that claim are actually looking for the things that I would say religion, tradition, and faith communities offer — in their best incarnation.
The loud voice of fundamentalist Christians coming form the US would drive me there too, if I didn’t know better. And the same kind of fear generating rhetoric is showing up in Canadian politics. Whether Jim Flaherty actually believes that an election will cause 400, 000 real people to loss their jobs, I have no idea. But the attempt at making Canadians fearful of this… well it is despicable. It’s no better than the kind of statements we hear coming from the south that claim: Obama is a muslim, illegal immigrants are abducting people in Mexico, or that the ‘not-mosque’ at ‘not-ground’ zero is a terrorist HQ.
If this is the voice that is speaking for “organized” Christianity, I would be “not religious” in a heart beat.
But let me say it: That is not religion. That is politics couched in religion. That is politicians taking the low road by terrifying and angering their constituents. It is playing with strong emotions that people have about their faith for political gain.
Its en vogue in the Church right now to be worried about attendance decline (and to hope that the newest magic bullet program will solve this problem). I don’t worry about that because its a symptom of a larger problem. As a North American society we are acting like 9-year-olds with ADHD. It doesn’t help that the news jumps from Lindsay Lohan’s arrest to Christine O’Donnel (Sarah Palin’s mini-me) to tax cut bills to blocking “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” repeal to the Facebook movie, like the Dog from Up notices squirrels. And this truly worries me. We are losing our ability to think deeply, to engage fully and learn reflectively about the world.
“I am not religious, I am spiritual” is a symptom too.
The disease is forgetting that we are on this planet together, and that life is bigger than 4 year election cycles or whatever reality tv crack is hip this week (and I am looking at you Dancing with the Stars). The disease is historical, cultural, and religious amnesia. The disease is that most of us think we know all we need to know about religion at the age of 13, and this probably goes the same for family systems, politics, economics and social theory. The world is much more profound than Facebook status update and figuring that out again is the first step of societal recovery. I don’t have the answers, but I know that Canadians won’t lose 400,000 thousand jobs for using their brains to decide our future.
