Moving past religion

Modernisation

Those seeking to be spiritual not religious need to re-appropriate and re-imagine faith, distinguishing it from belief and religion.

Every nation, and almost every people group, has been significantly changed by modernization. The West modernized, secularized and globalized which resulted in:

1. A generation that no longer believed in traditional Western religion but continued to practice it
2. A second generation, one that neither believed nor practiced
3. A third generation, rejecting the “empty religion” (beliefs and practices devoid of corresponding personal experience) of their forebears and enabled, through education and technology, to visit and explore other places (notably the East and Africa) in search of true and authentic spirituality (where people actually experienced, through their traditions and practices, what they believed).

However, as Africa and the East have likewise modernized, secularized and globalized the same trend has taken place there. Where westerners could easily trade in their religion and culture for another now those very same peoples are doing the same.

Today we see the same trend:

1. When someone dresses like a traditional Hindu at home . . . but changes their clothes and behaviour to identify with Western culture and trends on the train to school
2. When someone undergoes circumcision and rites of passage and visits the Sangoma at home . . . but receives a Western education, pursues a Western career, and abandons the Sangoma for the doctor
3. When someone romanticizes Primal Spirituality . . . but abuses peyote recreationally and holds nothing in common with the rest of Native American Indian spirituality or heritage
4. When someone practices Yoga . . . but reduces it to a set of exercises alone and defines that as spirituality

Rather than critiquing religion these examples illustrate that no religion has been left untouched by modernization, secularization and globalization. In the first example one lives two lives – one traditional and the other Western. In the second, one trades in one culture for another. In the third, one begins to appropriate elements of other cultures and faith traditions. In the fourth, one appropriates and redefines another cultures practice.

All 3 Actively Search

We are way past a romantic infatuation with Eastern and Primal spirituality. Many people, especially those who through parenting or choice are religiously unaffiliated still experience a stirring within them, the need to live by higher standards or experience deeper meaning in life. They’re challenged, from within, to develop their spirituality. In the past one could simply change allegiance, adopt a new culture and faith. Now one can’t do that and still maintain integrity. There’s a need to re-define, re-appropriate, and re-imagine what faith means.

We’ve moved past religion as something we simple receive from our forebears. We’re now faced with a mutual cross-pollination of religion and culture. People from every culture are now on similar footing, no longer able to simply receive their religions as handed down and equally needing to actively search after meaning, truth and something worthy of their ultimate commitment. To do so we need to revisit what faith means.

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