Spiritual but not Religious - the "none's and Quakerism.

I am aware as a therapist that many people consider themselves spiritual, but not religious.   I in fact have listened to people long for a spiritual home, but feel thwarted as to how to find such a thing.  In asking them questions about what it is they want, I often privately feel that they are describing Quakerism (and of course as their therapist it is not appropriate to try to present that to them.)  But they will say things like “I want community with other people who believe in God”.  “I want a place without dogma – where you can believe, but not be told what to think.”  “I want a place that takes action for social justice.”  And so forth.

Because of my feeling that Quakers need to learn how to do outreach to just such people, I got last year the book: Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but not Religious by Linda Mercadante.  She presents to us the fairly well know truth that the religion in America hit its high point in the 1950s with only 3% not affiliated with a religion, but that a huge decline began in the 60’s and 70’s.  Until by 2010  46 million Americans, or 1/5^th of all Americans had no religious affiliation.  (This is not across the board, some religions with immigration are actually growing in the US, as are evangelical religions.) Estimates vary from 1/3 to ¾ of young adults not choosing a church.  Increasingly young adults have not been raised with any religion, decreasing the likelihood of their choosing a church in adulthood.  65% of young adults have never attended a church service.  And there is more change of affiliation (2 or 3 times) for adults who are in religion than in previous generations.  And yet 90% of Americans, Gallop polls show still believe in God.

Certainly for many, many centuries of human history religion was the only game in town in terms of explaining why the world was the way it was.  With the rise of science there is another game in town for explaining the world.  But this also loosed the grip of superstition and the use of fear to keep people in churches.   The idea that one would fail or be outcast or die in hell all have loosened as religion became less prominent.   So if we assume that it is good that people who previously belonged to religions for those bad reasons no longer do, that still does not address the huge number of people who do not belong to a church because the obvious ones they know about are a wrong fit and they don’t have a good way of finding the right religion.  More Americans describe themselves are spiritual but not religious (SBNR) than ever. They are the "nones" the ones who write none on the checkbox that ask for religious affiliation. If they are seeing themselves as seekers, Quakerism as the original faith of seekers should be a good home for them.

Mercandante’s research shows that the SBNR very much reject dogma and see it as harmful.  If one reviews the history of religion, such chapters as the Inquistion and the many religious wars, the persecution of or discrimination against individuals for religious beliefs; it is no surprise that people would come to this conclusion.  Again it would seem that Quakerism offers a helpful stance here saying that we have no dogma or doctrine but that we engage in a lifelong search for the truth and can offer what we have found so far in the form of testimonies.  SBNR’s similarly believe that all religions have found the same core truths, and they see mystics of all traditions as transcending the specific practices they utilized.  SBNR folks tend to reject the title of religious, which they see as entangled in the downsides of churches, and favor the term spiritual instead.

Mercandante's interviewees she divided into 5 generational groups: the Great Generation (born 1901-1924), the Silent Generation (1925-1945), Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Gen X (1965-1981), and the Millennials born after 1981..  Both the Great Gen and the Silent Gen were pretty universally raised in some sort of church and would choose some sort of church because it was fairly unheard of to not do so.  The Silent Gen was more capable of leaving religion for spirituality - integrating what they had found.  Baby boomers were the largest group interviewed and where the largest percent of those who identified as SBNR.  They also tended to have been raised in a church and to remember that fondly. Their generations general tendency to question authority and to explore ideas and possibilities which made them spiritual seekers.  

The Gen X's were born into this cultural revolution and their parents tended not to raise them in churches - (less than half had formal religious upbringing) or to the expose them to a potpourri of possibilities which they found confusing.  They were left to make their own decisions and affiliations and most simply did not.  This generation is much less likely to feel a lack of religion and is also concerned for intellectual integrity in what they believed.  They can also come to religions with an open mind and with less preconceived notions.  Mercandante interviewed the smallest number of Millennials because she notes they were the least interested even in the idea of her project.  More than half had grown up with divorced parents which seemed to contribute to their not having been brought to church - even less of them had been raised in a Church than the Gen X folks.  She says:  "For this generation, they took for granted that they could affiliate or not, believe or practice whatever they wanted, or nothing at all, with little or not repercussions."  They seem however to have less theological concepts to even guide a search for religion.

Mercandante wound up categorizing all her participants (regardless of generation) into 5 categories: 1)Dissenters - those who either in protest, drifting or conscientious objection left the church.

2)Casuals - those who engage spirituality on a casual or "as needed" basis.  They taste or dabble across a wide spectrum and are not concerned about theological mismatch.  Half of all Millennials fell into this category.

3) Explorers- those with spiritual wanderlust - driven by spiritual curiosity and the desire for novelty.  She sees them as spiritual tourists who enjoy the journey but do not plan to settle anywhere.

4) Seekers are those she sees as actually seeking a spiritual home- these are the church shoppers (and whose stance most closely align with the Quaker belief that the Truth must be sought.)  She says "I heard a spiritual longing they could just barely define or articulate."   However she also says: "Religious leaders often assume that everyone experiencing with spiritual practices is a seeker.  In my work, I found fewer seekers than religious leaders hope for, but more than some research might predict".  She also points out that the highest percentage of seekers are Baby Boomers (1 in 4) or Gen Exers (1 in 5).  They are often looking for "believable" beliefs, rituals that consistently provide 'liminality', a trustworthy group, and good personal 'fit'.  

5) Immigrants are her final group: those who actually convert to a new religion.  She comments on how difficult most found this path to be.

A future post will again pick up on insights from Mercandante's work, but it clearly serves as a useful reference point for Meetings trying to do outreach.  It is helpful for us to put in perspective that we are part of the "Protestant mainstream decline" in church going folks and that the very obvious decline in Quaker membership is not specific to Quakers, but is part of an overall trend in the US where 25% of people do not have any church affiliation and where increasingly young people are being raised without church.  It is also probably noteworthy (but not particularly encouraging) to realize that Baby Boomer and Gen X's are the ones most likely to be actually seeking a Friends Meeting.   But bottom line it is important to realize that for those who are seeking we do in fact have that which they describe to be the picture they are seeking.

Listening to the Still Small Voice: Returning to Faithfulness - a guest blog

Guest Blogger:  Alice 

My daughter wrote this for a class assignment in a dance class where they were asked to do something kind for their bodies.   It is a writing about going beyond your light, and coming back to Center. Lynn

               I didn’t know this was my something kind until I did it, and perhaps this is counter-intuitive, but here it is: I quit “Megawatt” the PILOBOLUS dance piece that I’ve been a part of since August. It started by trying to set a boundary with my rehearsal director about tech on Sunday, that I need to go to Quaker Meeting for Worship and that is not something I’m willing to sacrifice as I have already sacrificed so much for this piece. I didn’t mean when initiating this conversation to withdraw from the whole thing. However, this statement lead to a conversation about how I’ve been feeling all semester. I ended up telling him that doing this work has been really hurting my heart in addition to my body, I was crying because authority figures intimidate me and it was an uncontrollable nervous bodily reaction. He reacted by saying we would phase me out. This was a surprise, but welcome as I had been considering leaving the piece for the spring. More importantly than the details of my exit: the reason.

                I was born, raised, and am a practicing Quaker. My faith has taught me to do nothing but listen to the “still small voice” inside us each, the fraction of God in each of us. And I believe that part of our collective job on this planet right now is learning how to listen to and follow ones heart/intuition. On the day of the PILOBOLUS audition the company members told us all about their philosophy of work, of pushing and going, of bigger and better. And that small voice whispered, and I shut my ears. As I went home that day my head was hurting, I was dizzy, and I was out of it. I was worried I was concussed. My body was speaking. In the intensive week one of the company members, whom I loved and appreciated dearly, told us horror stories of the things he and other company dancers have done in the name of this work. My small voice asked, “what for?” I left those 6 hour long days, with my head and body throbbing. My body was screaming. And I didn’t listen. My heart and body kept speaking throughout the process and I kept ignoring- I kept being unfaithful. I won’t recount all the greater impacts this had on other aspects of my journey. But finally there was no choice, but to listen.

I have been taught my whole life to listen. And I know that so much of my calling and work in this lifetime is about dismantling the paradigms of pushing and going, of bigger and better. Those paradigms are the narratives that have driven the colonization of the Earth and its Peoples. That is a mind frame that I cannot create or embody art within, because I make art to CREATE. I have watched this work destruct, many dancers, in different ways. And those convictions that I hold so deep could not stay hushed by my sense of loyalty to a previous commitment, or by a sense of obligation. 

When I came home that night one of my dear friends, who I meditate with often and knows my heart in a tender way looked at me and said, “Alice you look lighter, you look so much less stressed out.” He’s been asking me all semester in random moments, for reasons unapparent to me “are you okay? You looked stressed.” And I’ve always denied, not only to him, but myself. I asked him how he knew, and he told me it’s in my body language.  And that's how I knew this was my physical research.  My body is responding with relief, and the headaches I've been experiencing after every rehearsal during this process left.  My heart lightened.  And I feel the presence of the Divine in a way I alarmingly have missed for a long

time. I feel freedom.  

Out running Your Light: a Confession

Recently I was watching a tv show where a lapsed Catholic went into the confession booth and said: “Forgive me father for I have sinned, it’s been 13 years since my last confession.  I have…”  After a life time of just finding the concept of confession odd (probably because I did not and still don’t believe in sin) I watched this scene with a certain envy.   It seemed like a comforting idea to be able to go somewhere and confess that you have strayed from your connection from God, and to ask to have that connection restored.   I guess readers’ you will hear this Quaker’s confession.

Quakers have a historic concept of outrunning one’s leading, or one’s light – as I have explained in a previous post.   In that post I explain the idea that God can give us a leading but that Quaker’s of old had a clearness committee or now called anchor committee of elders appointed to support their ministry.   These elders were to hold them accountable and be a source for them to turn to for grounding so the ministry would not wander from its source, and become ego driven or over taken by worldly considerations.  The phrase out running one’s leading or light meant that you tried to do more than you were given light or divine direction about.

Two and half years ago I founded a chapter of a climate change organization in the city I live in.  I had been operating under a leading to do climate change work for years, and the way the pieces fell together to start the group was also very clearly a leading.  It had all the hallmarks of way easily falling into place, doors opening before you could even ask, etc.  In the first year of the group we did amazing stuff and I had the peace and contentment one has when on the proper path.  The inner leadership of the group was an odd assortment of personalities, but I felt a little like Jesus who had collected a strange assortment of fisherman, prostitutes, and sinners, as his inner circle with which to do amazing work.  (I did not feel like Jesus, just to be clear, only that my process of collecting people felt as random.) 

But then to my heartbreak the infighting started.   Because I knew I had been lead to create this group and because I could already see the powerful difference the group could/did make I instinctively felt protective of it.   I would argue and fight with those on our leadership team who I felt were taking us in the wrong direction.   I only ever had 20 to 25 hours a week to spend on the group, while some members were spending 40+ hours on it.   So in my free time (the 20 to 25 hours) a week I would rush like a mad person – to the extent that my closest friend said in exasperation one day “No Lynn, it is not just getting through this up coming action/event…perhaps you have not noticed you have been going at this pace for over a year.  Being over busy is a form of spiritual disobedience.”  I heard her, but I still felt caught on a treadmill I could not exit.

As I prepared to write this blog I see the previous blog about outrunning one’s leading written a whole 10 months before.  I see the one I wrote about giving testimony where I recognize that I had spoken cleverly while giving public testimony,but not as lead.  In my July blog post I even spoke about my realizations that the ways in which I have learned to do Quaker process do not work well outside of Friends Meetings – and that was one of the many struggles I was having on how to be a faithful Quaker doing this work in a secular setting.  I go on to say: "I now have a better way, but I will need a Quaker committee of elders or anchor committee, so I do not get lost in ego or blindspots by this way of trying to lead.  In general the American public does not see the search for Truth as part of the work of life. "  But I did not do that.  Why?   This is not an excuse, but it is true.   Like many Meetings in America right now mine is of shrinking size.   The active members struggle to take care of a Meeting House, and to do pastoral care for our aging members increasingly in ill health.   How do I ask an over stretched Meeting to create an anchor committee for me?  But I am clear now that for any future climate work I do that I will have to…or again I will be over extended beyond my light.

So I sort thought about my experience as that I and one of the leadership were having a lot of fights.   (Looking back I wonder why I did not look for that of God in her despite her atheism.) I failed to notice till the very end that it was actually a power struggle.   That she was trying to pull certain things away from me, to go around me, and to minimize my position as coordinator of the group.   I reacted instinctively to protect, to defend, to deflect which I thought just meant I was always being pulled into conflict, but really meant I was in the power struggle just defensively and unconsciously so.  My brain was increasingly trying to figure out what to do, how to counter her next move…caught in a big chess game – something which in no way resembles a faithful walk.  

Increasingly, I was wearing armor whenever I was engaging my leadership team, which due to email meant many times a day in my own home.  When you have to put on armor that many times a day, it eventually does not come off. Thankfully, I can say I never became mean, vindictive or attacking.  But at some point I realized that I was becoming a different person because I was living inside my armor with my heart locked away, becoming a person I did not want to be. When it reached its height I walked away and left rather than demand that everyone take sides and engage in an all-out war.  Which meant I took the pain, and the loss on myself…and that I got to take the armor off.

Why was I outrunning my light?  I was returning to activism after a several decades long break to raise my child.  Activism was from a time in my life where mostly I did secular activities – my faith-life strongest in other times of my life.  These two parts of me existed separately and without integration.  I was lead to start a secular organization – a puzzling thing from the start.   But I don’t live on the East coast in a thicket of Quaker population.  There were in fact in my whole large city no Quaker’s I could even pull into my secular group.  Like so many Quakers whose work life takes place in a secular setting I just saw this as a natural development, but not as a danger to faithfulness.  And I think perhaps if I had done it a different way, it could have been done faithfully.  Looking back I can notice I would have needed to pray about everything I did, all my own personal decisions made within my group.  And I know I would have to have an anchor committee.

Right now I am in spiritual recovery.  I am slowing down enough to be able to hear a still small voice again.  I have stepped away from my group so that the chess game in my head will finally shut off.  I am noticing the nudges I had, but was completely distracted from by choosing other paths that the power struggle required.  I am divesting of tasks I took on out of duty or responsibility, but not out of leading.  I am deciding that like Quakers of old that would come to a cross roads and wait until they discerned which way to go, that I can take steps slowly and wait for the next step till I have Light.  Because while the planet melting has urgency, God’s timing is always deliberate and perfect. I am re-deciding that I will move at a pace that includes self-care, play and fellowship even if it means I get “less done.”  I suspect less will become more; that what I will do will be more effective.  Certainly if God is in charge it will be!