Feeling Religious?

Feeling religious? Probably not (that word is very much out of vogue, but I say ‘bring it back’. Sorta Ol Skool, whisky and cigar style). More likely you’re feeling spiritual. That’s the good stuff because it feels so good. Apparently. Religion on the other hand doesn’t feel good at all. Apparently. How do we know? Because one feels good and one doesn’t feel good. That’s how you know anything isn’t it? Not quite. Problem is we have to sift the pearls from the swine (wait… mixed metaphor, but your smart). We are asking what is true and authentic spirituality. And our only guide for authenticity is this vague sense that one feels more spiritual than the other. But we do love to define things by using the same word when defining in the definition. Makes life easier. But less definite.

Imagine a world where spiritual matters were the talk of the town seems crazy, but! Past, present and future – that will always be the case. We call them ‘revivals’ when the popular talk of the town is overall positive. But charge the force negatively and you get what people write in the Sydney Morning Herald – spiritual but not religious.

In our churches, we might say that a mix of the two is present. We are spiritual and religious people. I’m not even sure what that means any more, that’s because it’s kind of a vibe. We come to church out of a sense of duty and obligation, and yet at the same time church and associated faith maters are things we deeply desire to do.

But God is at work in us when we are dutiful and when we are zealous. Equally, God can very well not be at work in us when we are being dutiful or when we are being zealous. Spiritless obligation, and misguided emotion.

The religiously spiritual or spiritually religious person is someone who experiences a deep and penetrating conviction of sin, and, someone who upon trusting in the Lord, also has a deep and penetrating sense of God’s love, mercy, and saving grace in the Lord Jesus.

Those are the experiences of the Christian. Some stress to themselves wondering if they go to church merely out of duty. But if you know those two experiences just mentioned, I think there’s very little to fret about. If you are in a period of life where you are zealous about the things of God and emotionally close to Him, and experiencing both those two conditions prior mentioned, again, I think there’s very little to fret about.

For the dutiful Christian, absolutely, seek to stir up the emotional charge that comes from the great doctrines and be stirred within. For the zealous Christian, seek to add to your zeal, the steady duty of obedience. One does not quench the other. Rather both add life to the other. A poor and unbalanced Christian is merely dutiful. A poor and unbalanced Christian is merely full of emotional zeal.

What are some principles to keep in mind for the Christian who seeks to be authentically religiously spiritually religious about spiritually religious matters ( I hear you asking in those exact words)?

First, focus on the enlightenment of your mind. Learn and grow in your knowledge of God. You do not trust God in a vacuum of knowledge. You trust God because of your knowledge of who he is. You don’t ‘feel your way to truth’ guided by the emotional light of ‘good vibes’. The Christian journey is always a battle, the right tools for the job of warfare are required. And that tool is a good thought life of doctrine and humble faithful submission.

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

(2 Cor. 10:4–5)

Secondly, persevere. Time tells many things in retrospect. Authenticity is not judged in the moment but in the whole of the measurement of life. This puts the emphasis more on the duty of a Christian than the experience of a Christian. I think that is fair and wise. Indeed, dutiful obedience will provide oxygen to the emotional fire of the Christian. The cult of Pop-psych would teach us that we should not wait until we ‘feel’ to ‘do’ but rather that our ‘doing’ will strongly impact how we ‘feel’. And so with the spiritual life. Our ‘doing’ fires up our ‘feelings’. So persevere in the doing.

Related to the second point, is that over time, what we do becomes a habit. When we do good things over and over again we call those characteristics “virtues”. Oppositely, when we make a habit of action that is unwholesome, that habit becomes a “vice”. To judge our obedience and our emotions in the moment is to use a smaller sample size. Character is determined over time. To be growing in grace and godliness as a Christian is to show that over time, we produce fruit. Measuring in the moment is to do poor measurement and won’t pass peer review in the fictitious and analogous “spiritually religious Journal of religious spirituality”.

So, be spiritually religious as you seek to dutifully grow in your knowledge and persevere in a life lived for Christ. In so doing, you will find that your religious side will provide fuel for your spiritual side (whatever that means…)