Thank you so much for this article!  It was a great reminder after hearing that quote from a loved sports’ figure.  Thank you for clarifying it all so nice and neat.

Bravo, Mark!  As usual, I want to send your column out around my virtual world, but will attend Mass instead, pray for conversion for this sad, moribund world of secularists and lukewarm Christians and self-anointed pastors of the churches of one or two or three.  The Communion of Saints will get this message to where it’s supposed to go!

I do not know what “nondenominational evangelicalism” he encountered but it does not resemble in any way, shape, or form the kind of “nondenominational evangelicalism” that I have experienced in any of the evangelical communities I have encountered.  Our pastors’ opinions do not carry the weight of “papal dogma” and they better be able to back up their opinion with sound doctrine and study before they even say it; and we celebrate the Eucharist and baptism, albeit it is a baptism with the person capable of professing faith in Jesus Christ and asking for the baptism. Mr. Shea also references “speaking in tongues” which I have NEVER experienced in an Evangelical church.  That is not to say it couldn’t happen, but it has not been a part of my life. That is a Pentacostal thing in my experience. Do we believe in the ‘gifts’ that Paul refers to?  Oh yes, but like I said, I have never experienced tongues, much less had it happen in a service like clockwork every Sunday, and I am 59 years old.  While Mr. Shea blogs for NCR and I understand blogging has less of an ‘accuracy’ requirement, he should be more careful of what he says about a movement that he apparently has a very limited experience with.

Very interesting testimony.

I got some stern looks once for describing such a spirituality as very akin to gnosticism.  The inner special secret knowledge, and the rejection of the material world and the integrated nature of humanity seems very Manichean.  Not to mention that it rejects the teaching of St. Paul regarding the resurrection of the body, albeit glorified.  And it misses the final message of great hope and joy found at the end of Revelation regarding the new heaven and new earth.

Not to be harsh, but it seems in retrospect, as a former evangelical, a sort of spiritual escapism, a shirking of responsibility, similar in some respects to moral relativism in the secular world, wherein objective truth is malleable, at the very least.

Mark,
As a convert since 1949, I have always been interested in how others came to reach the truth, and the Roundtable discussion on Journey Home on EWTN last night was interesting and enjoyable. For some reason, I have never understood, My journey was somewhat different.  I was raised in a Protestant family with an uncle who was a Methodist archbishop. On the way back from occupation duty in Japan with the U.S. Navy in 1946 we came through the Panama Canal and had liberty in Panama City.  My best friend was a Catholic and we decided to Visit the famous St. Joseph’s “Golden Cathedral” there. That turned out to be a life-changing event. I was not really thinking about God, but when I entered the sanctuary his strong unmistakable presence completely overwhelmed me with awe.  When I came back to my senses, I looked around, and I could tell everyone else seemed to knew he was there as well because of their reverential attitude.
That led to my conversion in 1949 after I met and started dating a Catholic girl and had to beg her to introduce me to a priest. We loved each other 63 years.  Our 58th wedding anniversary would have been last November. I lost her last April. God found me and gave me a wonderful wife.  There is no way, I can ever thank Him enough.

“...an hour-long sermon riffing on a favorite Bible passage….”

Sometimes, I get a little frustrated when it seems like the Priest of my parish harps on the same basic point in every homily for a month. But we are lucky, the readings, at least, change every day. So much so that we go over the whole bible in just four years. Because most protestants don’t have a system of doing thier readings, it is inevitable that the pastor is going to choose a set of readings that make the point of what he wants to teach that week. Nothing wrong with that, but becuase obscure verses arn’t going to pop into his head when he things about what he wants to say, they will probably never be covered through no thought of his own. Sometimes I wonder if one of those obscure things that never pop into thier heads is the book of James. It is plenty small, but it is in the NT, for cying out loud! Why dose it always seem when I talk to protestents that they wern’t even aware it was there till I took thier bible and showed them?

Mr. Shea, You went to an AWFUL - let me say this again - AWFUL, God-dishonoring, biblically inaccurate church.  No baptism?  No communion?  And believing the Second Coming already happened?  Wow!  WAY off base - biblically, theologically in every way, shape and form.  You absolutely SHOULD have run from that church!  Please don’t paint that picture as that is what all evangelical churches are.  You would be wrong, just as I would be wrong to paint all Catholics in a certain light.  Some do the “duty” of religion without the faith and heart behind it.  Some have great faith and genuinely love God. 

I’ve been at weddings where the priest has announced that since they took communion on Saturday night at the wedding mass, they didn’t have to go to church on Sunday.  That made me sad.  I don’t go to church to fulfill a duty.  I go because God instructed us in His word to not forsake meeting together, and because I love the Lord and my fellow believers and need to hear the teaching and receive the fellowship so that my life stays in tune with what God instructs.  I love to praise God through prayer, through music and I love to submit to Him through the hearing and application of His word.

There is much value to reverence and liturgy.  I think, with all the Catholic church has been in the news for, you would realize that there is an issue (in the Catholic church, in ANY church) that it is only the Holy Spirit, and our submission to Him, that will allow us to lived Godly lives.  Nothing else.

For some time now I’ve been compiling a list of the most popular utterly idiotic statements. “I’m spiritual not religious” is very near the top of it, head-to-head with “Do not judge lest you be judged” and “God is love”.

The Scorpion and the Fox
The scorpion ask the fox to carry him across a river. The fox is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the fox, the fox would sink and the scorpion would drown. The fox agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the fox, dooming them both. When the fox asked why, the scorpion said “It is my nature”.
Folks, it is Obama’s and his administrations’ nature to mislead the public always in their policy.
Caveat emptor.

mea culpa.
This reply should have been on Jimmy Akin’s bog.

LMS,
It’s certainly fair to point out that Mark’s church is far from representing the typical evangelical church.  I can understand how you wouldn’t want to be grouped together with them.

Not to be disrespectful to you, but I had to laugh at your second point.  You said that you don’t go to Church because it is your duty to go.  Then in the next sentence, you say that God’s word instructs us to meet together—in other words, it is our DUTY as Christians to meet together regularly because scripture tells us so.  So when it appears in the Bible, it’s a laudable instruction, but when the Church, following scripture, teaches her people that they need to meet regularly, it’s “saddening”?  It’s funny how the lenses we wear shape how we interpret things, eh?  But we’ve all been guilty of this at times…

And why does the Church want us in mass regularly?  Probably because she realizes (as you pointed out) that we all need to “hear the teaching and receive the fellowship so that our lives stay in tune with what God instructs” (and also to receive the graces from the Eucharist, but that is of course a difference between the two of us)!

I go to an Evangelical church, my experiences (of several churches) is not as you describe. We take communion, have baptisms, sometimes have tongues, words of knowledge or prophesy etc. Whilst our church has its own routine/format of the church, it is mostly so people know what to expect when they come, I’m sure we have ‘traditions’ of our own. Our church has done a study on James. I think for me the ‘spiritual living’ is about a relationship with God, not falling into the trap of going to church just because it’s what you always do. Jesus came to earth in a human body because that was God’s plan that he would become a human, live a human life without sin (not humanly possible for anyone else) so that he could be the spotless lamb, a sacrifice for sin as laid out in the OT. His resurrection was essential to show that he had defeated the powers of death, that Satan held no power over him. He ascended and the Holy Spirit came later. In terms of Jesus’ life on earth: He went to the temple to pray to the God He had a relationship with, not to use an intermediary but He also prayed in the garden and the desert too; He did not offer sacrifices because He did not sin, He only offered himself daily to the work the Father sent Him to do; He went to teach the people that relationship was more important than ritual, He was furious that the temple had become a place to make profit out of people’s requirement to bring offerings to God; He challenged the temple leaders because they were more concerned about paying the price than they were about knowing God and doing what he called them to, they were more concerned about how they looked in front of others by being very public about giving an exact amount instead of offering everything they had to the Lord. Church is about coming together as the body of Christ in fellowship and unity to learn about Him and to listen to His voice. I don’t doubt that I should know my scriptures better than I do, that I should have a better relationship with Him, I should listen to Him more; it is what I long for in my heart. Distortion is possible in any church of any denomination, our job is: to listen to God; try to correct those distortions; to live in unity with one another no matter what denomination because He taught us it was important to be a family, not hundreds of families. Whilst we approach matters in different ways, we all believe: that Christ died to take our place (for the punishment of sin is death) so that we can have a place in His eternal Kingdom; we are God’s chosen people called to do His will on earth; we can do all things with His help; prayer is our most powerful tool and weapon; knowing God is the best decision we ever made!

Mark,

I found your article interesting, but I believe the “no religion” and “spiritual” folks are rejecting and moving in the direction of “no institutional churches” - big C or little c - of ANY kind.  They have taken the Protestant revolution to its logical conclusion:  “me, myself and I” are the Church.  “me and the spirit” are ... no need for being grouped with other persons under formal labels, yet they do seem to realize they have a “spiritual” dimension (beyond being brute animals).  They believe they can find God (or something transcendent - whatever that may be) on their own, anywhere, and in many different ways, paths.  Relativism meets universalism, and usually very educated folks are the adherents.  They see via education the “humanity” (broken history, scandals, failings) of the Church (never their own limited humanity!) AND never reach the “divine” dimension of the Church.  It’s a cheaper, easier, more flexible faith that fits my lifestyle.  Hence, the problem is, and always will be, understanding that God willed a Church (a call to unity - oneness - of his people with leaders).

Denise: Mark is exagerating to make a point .. that being we humans need ritual and that when true sacrements do not exist, there are times when they are almost substituted for less sacremenatal efforts. In both of our cases, we need Church, we need religion. It it not an attack at you, but at those who fluff off religious activities superficially.

You both end on the same note. Thats Great!

LMS and Denise your right, we should not generalize, but this new video went viral with the young adults and kids and did generalize to all churches. Also, LMS it goes right into the heart of those that go to church with obligation. But Jesus knows this form of obligation at least has them in the church, but the video has a form that says in it’s own way, you no longer need to go, just be spiritual. Also, being a Catholic and engaging in non-Catholic conversation quite often with other Christians, I find it interesting in the evry discussion that Mark brings to this topic. Most don’t have any understanding of what the Catholic Church believes or teaches, even though they’ve heard about us in many ways. Christ set up a man made structure with Peter, the exact structure of Catholic “meaing Universal Christian” men that selected the readings in the bible 300 years later, he set up confession with his disciples(if we are so full of pride not to confess to man- why him), he offerred his body through bread and wine, not to form a religion, but to bring alive the spirit within us, and to santify our temples.

I too love to praise God through prayer, through music, and I love to submit to him with all my failures, but the spirit in me can’t wait to leap forward at communion and touch his body, and become one with him again as we renew his covenant. Is that religion, nope- but to the video it is.

As we study the Apostles and disciples, after Jesus’s death they returned to the temples, but with a different belief, and when they were ran out of the temples, they began worshiping in homes and forming the new church. Jesus never once said stop gathering, but he gathered, he strongly stated the meaning of “Eating his body” in Gospel of John where he lost many Jews and his own disciples- there was no confusion with them. As with your reference with the Catholic Church which is made with man and spirit, we fall as did Peter, but the spirit within it picks it back up to go forward. It’s through it’s own failings that it becomes stronger.

Many Churches teach by Gods Grace alone we are saved, but Jesus never taught that. Jesus’s death brings us that grace, but Jesus taught the beatitudes, he said to follow him will be hard not full of earthly pleasures, to renew our strength by receiving him “eucharist the covenant”, confess your sins to spirit filled men- remove your pride, he knows we must gatherer weekly to renew ourselves from our own weak nature of man, and that he wants to rejoin with us with our stuggling hearts

Isn’t it interesting that the 1st Beatitude is Blessed is the poor in Spirit “Pride”. Isn’t it interesting that Paul never saw a written Gospel, as his letters were all written before they were,and he gathered.

This video address’s “Pride” and that we can do it alone, with the spirit, and not partake in any form of religion- or worship gathering, and it’s exactly opposite of what Christ taught.

Christ set up a Church, he set up a man/spiritual structure, and it’s lasted for 2000 years. We can call it religion if we want, but it is spiritual, submissive to him, and allows us to live Godly lives.

So while both Mark and LMS end with similiar notes, so do I, I hope. The video seeks out our children, that they only need the spirit and don’t let the religious people, fathers and mothers, priests, or ministers guide them astray. This is not of the holy spirit, but one of division at a spiritual level. Satan knows he can defeat us when we are on our own, so we have to be careful in what we say, including this video.

Mark’s point is well taken and so is LMS’s and others, we all are on similar ground, defending our stances, but we need to remember the issue is the video.

Denise,K,LMS, Mark said he encountered a “species” of evangelicalism. He did not say that “all” evangelicalism is like that.

Wow! that was so good to read Mark. I was raised Catholic, part of me envies converts like you, who can see clearly that they have been given the gift of the faith I was born into. Maybe I envy the part you yourself played in finding the Truth that I was given by being born to most devout and deep parents.

Maybe it is instinctive to all of us deep down…to have a natural compass for the truth.

One of the the biggest Truths the Church teaches us is in fact that The whole truth is Mystery to us..]and will remain so, at least until the next life.

I think many great Catholic converts have been attracted and led to TOTC because the Humanity is always shining there.

My insight , for what it is worth…If God made us in his Image and Likeness…it is because our physical human body and the human nature in which He has endowed us, is how God can best manifest his own image as Creator, Father Mother and Child! We Truly are the envy of Angels and Demons because of our Human Nature, and Matter Itself is actually so significant to God…maybe even Intrinsic!

Always aware that private theological ponderings can lead to great heresy ... It is good to belong to TOTC who holds up the economy of truth we can be sure of!

ps TOTC = The One True Church!

Mark: How many do you think really got your intended message?

The question that needs to be asked of the hater of religion is just what he calls religion. 

To your question, Bob Rowland, I think Mark aptly makes the point that most of the “non-religious” followers of Christ actually do have a religion of sorts.  They need to ask themselves whether it is religion they hate, or a specific brand of religion that has been given that generic title.

Mark also makes the point that those who call themselves followers of Christ need to check Christ’s actual teachings.

Some of those I have seen and heard who make the claim of being spiritual without religion are merely being trendy and have no idea why they believe it.  There is a lot of that thinking in New Age and pagan circles and many of them are not particular about what spirit they contact or interact with when they claim to be “spiritual.” 

That is the danger to the merely experiential Christian as well.  Even within the Catholic Church there are those who make huge presumptions about the spiritual world in pursuit of the “experience” for its own sake.  But for those outside of Holy Mother Church, the risk of being deceived or deceiving themselves is that much greater.

LJ - Here, here. You are right about the ‘conjuring of spirits’ that comes with the New Age/Wiccan stuff.  It is awfully close to something dark at times, since so much of it is self-possessed and self-directed.  Spirituality without a core of clear values, doctrines, history and a consistent ethic of life, has no appeal to me as a member of the Body of Christ.

I have difficulty at times in ‘discerning evil’, and hope and pray for guidance in this area, even though I am steeped in Catholic spirituality and tradition, having returned to the fold of orthodox Catholicism after the normal travails and challenges of life.

“I’m spiritual, not religious” is sooooo 1970s.

Excellent explanation.  I have conversations with co-workers, who have say “I don’t need to go to Church, Jesus will meet me where ever I’m at.”    The points you made here will be helpful in conversations with them, too.