"I'm spiritual, not religious"; not so much

On airplanes, Lillian Daniel, a pastor, says she dreads it when the passenger in the next seat learns what work she does. "I'm spiritual, not religious," the other passenger often says, in a line I myself have heard dozens of times from people explaining their spiritual disconnectedness.

It doesn't impress Daniel:

Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself. 

Amen! As a Christian, I believe that Jesus Christ founded His Church as a community for those who follow Him not only to be comforted and reassured, but also challenged and set straight.

If you're not connected to a church community, there's little chance that you're spiritual. You're just someone with a few hobby horse ideas and nobody to tell you that you're full of it.

Read Daniel's short article.

[Thanks to Pastor Eric Swensson (@KinderEric) for turning me onto this article.]