Greetings! And welcome to the Northern Illinois Synod's
discussion of When "Spiritual but
Not Religious” Is Not Enough: Seeing God in surprising places, even the
church by Lillian Daniel. For your information, here is the bio
on Daniel from the book's page on amazon.com:
Lillian
Daniel has served as the Senior Minister of the First Congregational Church of
Glen Ellyn, United Church of Christ, in the Chicago area since 2004. An editor
at large for Christian Century Magazine, and a contributing editor at Leadership
Journal, her work has also appeared in The
Huffington Post, Christianity Today, Leadership Journal, Books and Culture, and in The
Journal for Preachers. She has also
hosted the Chicago-based television show 30 Good Minutes. Her Huffington Post article "Spiritual but Not Religious?
Please Stop Boring Me" gained widespread interfaith attention after going
viral on the Web. Daniel has taught preaching at Yale Divinity School, Chicago
Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago Divinity School. In October
2010 she received the distinguished alumni award from Yale Divinity School for
"Distinction in Congregational Ministry." She is the author of two
previous books: Tell It Like It Is: Reclaiming the Practice of Testimony, and This Odd and Wondrous Calling: The
Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers,
and she contributed to Gifts My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-One Women on the
Gifts that Mattered Most.
Our discussion will be facilitated by me, Pastor Jamie
Wallace of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Compton, and Pastor Brant Clements of
St. Paul Lutheran Church in Nachusa. I will facilitate the odd numbered
sections (Me? Odd? No!) and Brant will handle the evens. I'll let Brant
introduce his own thoughts next week, but for my sections the thoughts and
questions I share are meant only to provoke thought and get the conversation
started. Please feel free to share further thoughts and/or pose new questions
for discussion. Also, don't feel like your response needs to address every
single question or thought I have raised. That being said... Here we go!...
The title of this book is, When "Spiritual but Not Religious" is Not Enough, yet in
this section of the book the concept of Spiritual but Not Religious (SBNR) is
only addressed directly in the first chapter, which is a retelling of Daniel's
now familiar caricature of people who identify themselves as SBNR. (Perhaps we
could also substitute the now infamous "nones" for SBNR.) The rest of
the section (and the rest of the book) goes on to give us some other places to
look for God besides the sunsets and trees of the SBNR. I'm curious about
what's going on in our own congregations. In the places where we worship and
serve is there any room for dialogue between those who find God (a god?) in
sunsets and those who find God in the more ancient and traditional practices of
the truth? If not, should it? If so, how can we get that conversation started and
toward what end should the conversation lead? Toward the conversion of the SBNR
to real faith? Toward the opening of our own hearts and minds to see God
working in ways that the church has missed for a few thousand years? Both?
Neither? Somewhere else? Discuss.
And while we're discussing, let's not forget that many
people, perhaps even most of the people, in our pews are a lot more likely to
find God in sunsets than in hospital rooms. There are SBNR tendencies in folks
who claim to be both Spiritual and
Religious. How do these folks fit into the conversation? How can we help
spiritual folks, whether they claim to be religious or not, deepen their faith?
This first section of the book focuses on the quirky ways
Daniel has seen God working through opportunities for prayer. To which of her
stories did you most easily relate? How have you seen God working or felt God's
presence in either your own individual prayer life or in opportunities for
communal prayer? Share your own story and perhaps also share how your story
could fit into the conversation described above.
Ready...Set...Go!
The question of how to start the conversation and then to what end it should lead is a meaningful one. I am a detail person and the logistics of when to start a conversation is also another question I have. Logistically, time is needed to have a good, serious, deep conversation. Do we start a conversation at fellowship on a Sunday morning? Or outside the church walls with our coworkers. What would be the goal of starting such a conversation?
ReplyDeleteI tried to picture myself starting this conversation with a SBNR person. It scared me. I don’t know what I would be able to accomplish! The author says on page 10: “… that person with the self-made religion will use his God- given brain and the wisdom of hard experiences and start asking angry and provocative questions about this spirituality of status quo.”
I think starting a conversation and finishing it would need to be more listening rather than trying to convince the person what you believe is right. On page 21 she mentions that it would be a time for testimony rather than debate.
I laughed out loud reading “so hard to sit still” chapter and her tension in yoga class. I can really relate. She says that there is a tension between action and meditation in every spiritual tradition. I agree.
I love what you said about listening because I think you hit the nail on the head. I don't get SBNR, but I'm guessing there must be more to it than sunsets when you scratch beneath the surface. If SBNR is as prevalent as Lillian Daniel makes it seem we've got a lot to learn, and perhaps our listening will be mutually beneficial. We can gain understanding and maybe even find out what we've done to alienate these people from the community of the church that so many of us, like Daniel, find life giving and beautiful. And perhaps as we listen deeply the SBNR folks will find themselves digging deeper than sunsets and recognition of privilege.
DeleteI did chuckle at her comments about SBNR person refelcting back on similar conversations I have had. Most often they would revolve around "You don't need to go to chuch to be a Christian". My reply is that " we can worship God anywhere at anytime. But it is is church where I hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and I am confronted with my need to be more like him.'Karl Otto
ReplyDeleteThis morning, at the monthly meeting of the Central Conference, we heard a sermon that quoted from Bonhoeffer's Life Together. Bonhoeffer had some pointed things to say about the messy reality of living in community. I think that people who claim to be SBNR very often have mistaken ideas of what community is.
ReplyDeleteI think that Lilian Daniel may be preaching to the choir. Those of us who enjoy her work already know the value of community. It doesn't hurt to be reminded, however, that the Body of Christ needs its many parts.
Lilian Daniel may not be as profound as Bonhoeffer, but she is a good deal funnier.
When you first mentioned this book to me I downloaded it thinking it would be a book about SBNR people. I was wrong. Basically it's a book about the ways the church and, more importantly, the community provided by the church really are life-giving. While I absolutely agree with Daniel that SBNR, at least as she describes it, is somewhat lacking I find myself wanting to know more about SBNR people than what Daniel tells us when she makes fun of them in the first chapter of the book.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the book Daniel describes the need for community in the practice of faith, could the Internet be undermining religious community? Consider this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130107120542.htm
"Some of this (lack of affiliation) is due to the individualizing experience of accessing religion and spirituality via the Internet," Wittberg said. "On the Internet, seekers can pick and choose what kinds of doctrines appeal to them -- with little or no consideration of the official teachings of any church -- and they can join and leave religious online 'communities' much more easily."
Disclaimer: not necessarily the best written article you'll ever read,mount thought provoking nonetheless.
If this is real how do we use the Internet more wisely?
Chapter 3 involved a discussion of the Mary and Martha story and the tension between being busy and sitting still. I have read and studied this story with some of the same reactions as the author. There is a wonderful book by Joanna Weaver titled "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World" that goes deeper into that fragile balance between sitting still and listening to your heart and being busy with the work of life and the church. I like the author's words of Rich and Full and Still and Strong to describe the Mary and Martha in all of us.
ReplyDeletePrayer was described in chapter 4 as our way to connect with God and how He reveals "all kinds of ways we might connect with the people we love."
The short Chapter 5 about God as our perfect Father. God's power is already taking care of the "things" and issues of our lives.
I am trying to figure out why Daniel wrote those 4 chapters after her discussion of SBNR people in chapter one. Maybe she is trying to reveal or enlighten us or reinforce in us what we believe as Christians, so as to help us with all the SBNR people in our lives. I'm not sure.