From The Inside Out, SBNR-style

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

I don’t text or tweet but if I did, I’d have trouble with the acronyms. I like descriptive words that tumble off the tongue with conviction, layered with meaning. Shorthand doesn’t capture my imagination. In fact, it minimizes the importance of things. For instance, tongue in cheek, Stephen Colbert recently downgraded Christmas to Xmas, citing a conversation on FOX News where pundits supposed that Jesus would be considered a liberal today, probably a Democrat. Yes, they occasionally tell truth over at FOX, but only the kind their viewers are insulated against taking seriously. Evidently the Christ’s teachings vs. corporate Christianity is one of those topics. Trust Colbert to nail the argument, and brilliantly. He and Jon Stewart are valued as social commentators, but underrated as arbiters of decency and ethics.

FOX insists there is still a war on Christmas by the separation-of-church-and-state secular liberal hippy-types (me certainly, and maybe you). Their empty meme gets bumped into the agenda over and over by culture warriors like Senator Jim DeMint, who protested congressional meetings during the last week as an assault on the faithful who count their Christmas vacation sacred. Vice President Joe Biden, whom I suspect God/dess loves for his candor, suggested that it was a shame the nation’s business had gotten in the way of Jim’s Christmas shopping.

Another war I keep hearing about is the one going on between believers and atheists, with agnostics watching carefully to see who wins such an ideological battle (as if they’re waiting to hop the faster train.) Outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens is dying of cancer, and I’d bet that some Christian blogger has already mentioned how Gawd-His-Own-Self is orchestrating Hitchens’s demise as punishment for the gent’s blatant homosexuality and faithlessness. Apparently the Christian God has a cruel streak and doesn’t approve of most of us, certainly any of us who think for ourselves, let alone touch ourselves or each other.

But it’s not as simple as Us vs. Them in the Big Ideas Department anymore. Like the Republican party itself, Christianity is at war within its own ranks, with sect lining up against sect to see who wins the ultimate smack down. The originator of the Tea Party, Judson Phillips, recently went after Methodists as the “religious arm of Socialism,” calling Methodism “the first Church of Karl Marx.” Methodists, for heaven’s sake — calm, poised, uncontroversial Methodists, who must be shocked to find themselves singled out for any kind of spotlight, let alone one with fascist overtones. The religious conversation has gone wonky as the church implodes, much like politics, from the inside out. Still, a bad time for authoritarianism is always a good day for we, the people — so rejoice and be exceeding glad.

I doubt that even the Reader’s Digest, guide to all things culturally circumspect, could make sense of a Christmas unfolding against such a backdrop. When I ponder what all this has come to, I think of the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation from Robert Heinlein’s SciFi classic, Stranger In A Strange Land. Heinlein’s wicked parody of corporate religion, published in 1961, has come too close to manifestation for comfort in this century. Throughout the annals of history, governments and religions have wrestled for ultimate power, each claiming authority but seldom sharing with as seamless a melding as our current Republican option presents the public. Neither have they been so overtly devious and shallow.

Such behavior has invariably spelled disaster for humankind, lending credence to Denis Diderot’s statement that, “Mankind shall not be free until the last king is strangled in the entrails of the last priest.” The clerics of the world play fast and loose with Biblical lore as easily as politicians skew the Constitution . It isn’t difficult to think of Jim DeMint toasting his growing influence at the Fosterite Inner Circle holiday party, with mostly-nekkid ladies singing holiday carols as the balls spin on the Fosterite Casino gaming tables. He can and will say anything, true or not, much as Newt Gingrich confessed that he doesn’t have to stick to the truth but, as a conservative leader ‘called’ to say the things he does, has been given the authority to prevaricate by the Divine.

Woe to we, the people. Yet just when all seems lost and cynicism ready to swallow us in a black hole of hopelessness, enter the newest philosophical designation, something of a star shining in the heavens — SBNR. Spiritual, But Not Religious. Also known as the “unchurched,” this demographic includes a growing number of people who no longer identify with religion but do not see themselves as faithless. As many as 33 percent of Americans call themselves SBNR, and as the demographic polls younger, the numbers climb with Millennials claiming this their preference by 72 percent. A full third of the nation has spiritually matured; declared Republicans represent fewer Americans than that.

Even more encouraging, according to Wikipedia, “It is noteworthy that when studying differences between those claiming to be religious and those claiming to be spiritual, … God is viewed as loving, forgiving, and nonjudgmental by those who considered themselves spiritual, whereas those identifying themselves as religious saw God as more judgmental.”

Just as the mistake of the clergy has always been misuse of power, the mistake of religion has been to try to capture what is by nature transcendent and transient. As elusive as a butterfly, a real spiritual experience alighting on our shoulder is an unexpected rarity. Someone else’s experience is just a story that remains outside of us; what we experience ourselves has the potential to be a personal revelation. The church’s attempt at prepackaging such an experience has never been very successful, so they offer other enticements like community agreement, group thought and spiritual trappings, all designed to keep us “safe” from evil influence. What is evil is constantly reinforced to remind us how lucky we are to be “saved.”

SBNR folks aren’t so sure about the evil stuff. In their minds, the word God is interchangeable with words like Universe, the Great Mystery, I AM and even Life. Their concept of deity leaves all kinds of room for discovery. Their minds are open to a new revelation, an experience that might offer a sublime moment in which all separation dissolves and it is possible to briefly become one with something larger than themselves. In short, they’re teachable. In this particular season, with most of the world focusing its attention on Christianity’s most worthwhile attributes of love, peace and forgiveness, that’s what Christmas offers us: a profound possibility.

It’s been many years since I was religious, but I can still separate out the essentials about that experience to bring into my tenure as SBNR. Centuries ago, the Christ story changed the baseline of human possibility. Our having made a shambles of this philosophy is not proof that it is flawed. I think more likely it’s proof of how challenging a path Christianity truly is, a path largely gone untried. While not naming ourselves religious, then, we can mine all religious celebrations for wisdom. On Wesak, SBNR folk can celebrate compassion as Buddha’s legacy, and on Christmas we can fully immerse ourselves in unconditional love. It can’t be denied that the Christ message is still a game changer. And, as Conversations with God author, Neale Donald Walsch, has suggested, our evolvement must include a new understanding of our relationship to what we think of as God and ultimately to ourselves, if our world is to change.

Polarized, the Christocrats and the atheists both look askance at SBNR’s, thinking them either delusional, or willful renegades from the rock hard choices religion presents. Yet, as suggested by the Book they squabble over, there is a difference between the spirit and the letter of the law. Spiritual types understand that difference better than most, having broadened their view and widened their horizon. They’re more interested in the possibility that angels walk among us than if or when they dance on the head of a pin. They’re more inclined to wonder how they can help the world heal its pain than how to bring pain down upon its head for imagined evils or even real ones. The spiritual but not religious have learned the wisdom of experiencing life from the inside out.

Over a third of Americans, then, have the capacity to imagine shifting away from patriarchy, away from punishment and into love; away from faux-exceptionalism. They can imagine kindness to self and others as the purpose of life; they regard ethical behavior and self-respect as essentials for a successful passage. Imagine peace as our prototype instead of competition. Suppose we invested in one another, our ‘neighbor as ourselves,’ instead of trying for all the toys. Suppose we put away the childish and noticed that the star of Bethlehem is always shining high above us, calling us to witness the profound and asking what loving enterprise we will serve this day. Imagine the world we might create.

Let’s create that world today, then. Let’s practice conscious love. Whatever our traditions in this season, this day presents us a shining star of opportunity to fully experience a spiritual possibility. In our somewhat austere 2010 Charlie Brown Christmas, all that’s left is to let go of Christmas past and allow this Christmas present to be a revelation of the Mystery we all acknowledge, a SBNR template for a healed tomorrow and a loving future. As they say on the other side of the aisle, can I get an Amen?

And the congregation said, AMEN!