Presbyterian News Service: To church or not to church
PC(USA) researcher studies the ‘spiritual but not religious’
LOUISVILLE — One of the first and most frequent statements Americans hear when conversation turns to religion is “I’m spiritual but not religious?”
Growing alienation of young people from organized churches and the general decline in church membership in the country have many denominations scrambling to find new ways to reach out to the unchurched.
The Rev. Linda Mercadante, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister who teaches theology at Methodist Theological School in Ohio, has moved beyond speculation and conducted extensive research on what people mean when they say “I’m spiritual but not religious.” ...
...So why aren’t these spiritual but not religious people in the church?
One of the common assumptions — that many spiritual but not religious people had bad experiences in the church — is simply not true, she said. “I was surprised, but there was very minimal reporting by people that they had been hurt in or by the church.”
In fact, Mercadante said, spiritual but not religious people “start in many different places but they all seem to have arrived at close to the same place.”
That place, she continued, is marked by “stereotypical arguments against organized religion and the claims of churches.” They include:
LOUISVILLE — One of the first and most frequent statements Americans hear when conversation turns to religion is “I’m spiritual but not religious?”
Growing alienation of young people from organized churches and the general decline in church membership in the country have many denominations scrambling to find new ways to reach out to the unchurched.
The Rev. Linda Mercadante, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister who teaches theology at Methodist Theological School in Ohio, has moved beyond speculation and conducted extensive research on what people mean when they say “I’m spiritual but not religious.” ...
...So why aren’t these spiritual but not religious people in the church?
One of the common assumptions — that many spiritual but not religious people had bad experiences in the church — is simply not true, she said. “I was surprised, but there was very minimal reporting by people that they had been hurt in or by the church.”
In fact, Mercadante said, spiritual but not religious people “start in many different places but they all seem to have arrived at close to the same place.”
That place, she continued, is marked by “stereotypical arguments against organized religion and the claims of churches.” They include:
- churches claim to “exclusive truthfulness — that they have a corner on the truth market”;
- churches demand that personal beliefs be abdicated;
- churches demand conformity to a “corporate mentality”;
- joining a church means a loss of personal integrity;
- churches demand commitment “to things that have no meaning”’
- churches demand commitment to disagreeable codes of conduct; and
- churches profess arbitrary or implausible beliefs.
“I heard the same arguments over and over again,” Mercadante said of her research. “I don’t know where this script comes from — no one knows any real churches that fit this profile or stereotype.” ...
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