You know you've heard the trite phrase, "I'm spiritual, not religious". Usually said with nose pointing skyward and meant mockingly of anyone foolish enough to believe in tradition, orthodox faith.
Francis Cardinal George answers the arrogance:
It’s somewhat fashionable these days to describe oneself as “spiritual but not religious.” This is
supposed to mean that one is open to an experience beyond the commercial or the political but not tied to “institutional” religion. One claims an experience of transcendence that is bound by no one else’s rules.
People can always make claims to any kind of experience. The question is always: Who cares? Why should anyone care where someone else gets a spiritual high? Because no one really cares, the claim to be spiritual but not religious is always safe. It’s never a threat and can be dismissed quite easily. The claim to be religious is different. It is a claim that God himself has taken the initiative to reveal himself to us and tell us who he is and who we are. Religion binds us to God according to his will, not ours, in a community of faith that he has brought into existence. Being religious can therefore be threatening.
supposed to mean that one is open to an experience beyond the commercial or the political but not tied to “institutional” religion. One claims an experience of transcendence that is bound by no one else’s rules.Threatening indeed.
Read more of Cardinal George's counter-cultural words and be strengthened for strength I think is needed, will be needed, for the days to come.
No one, it seems, is more threatened by the cultural elitism that reigns today than those who have the audacity to believe in that which has a 2,000 year history.
Stand up to the threats, and for your beliefs.
They are under attack.
