Read: Acts 2: 42-47
One of the popular adage both in social network like Facebook, Twitter and also
popular refrain from many people is that " I am spiritual but not
religious". There are some others who also proclaim "I love Jesus and
not the Church". This refrain is catching up on people and many people
seems to blindly subscribe without thinking of the implications of the
statement, or whether this statement has any biblical support or perspective.
But what actually made me to take serious look into this popular adage is a
recent article written by Dan Merica and published in CNN last week, which had
a very surprising finding. The article was about a research done by Michel King,
a professor at University College, London and published in this month's edition
of British Journal of Psychiatry. According to this research, people who
claim to be spiritual but not religious are likely to face more mental health
issues. According to King, people who have spiritual beliefs outside the
context of organized religion are more likely to suffer mental health issues
like neurotic disorders, mixed anxiety or depressive disorders or depression.
King has been criticized severely for the finding of this research by people
across the globe. But then it is difficult to define what it means to be
spiritual and not religious as both these terms are intermingles and many
concepts overlap in both spiritual and religious realm. What King wanted to
reiterate through his research was that people who have a spiritual
understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework may be more
vulnerable to mental disorders than people who are connected to an
organized religious framework. This study is something similar to many other
studies conducted whether religion or religious framework was good for
individuals. Tanya Luhmrmann, a psychological anthropologist at Stanford
University states that organized religion provides three benefits and they are
1. Social support, 2. Attachment to a loving God and 3. Organized practice of
prayer. But more than benefits of being attached to organized religion, or
whether the spiritual people or the religious people are more prone to mental
health issues, my question is whether an individual who claims to be
spiritual live without any religious framework or can we equate our
spirituality to pure individualistic outlook and living without any
connection to any organized religious framework?. At his juncture I think
it is important that we define what it means to be spiritual and religious and
also look to the Word of God as to what the Biblical understanding of both
spiritual and religious means. Personally in a Christian perspective, the
understanding of a person who is spiritual denotes a person who has intimate,
daily, dynamic and living relationship with Jesus Christ and a person who is
religious strictly seems to be that he/she belongs to a church or a member of a
church. Thus can we say that those who belong to the church are not spiritual
or people who are spiritual need not be members of the church or is it ok that
the so called spiritual people need not associate with any church or community
of faith thus living and claiming that spiritual living is only connected to
ones relationship with Jesus Christ?
In the book of Acts, we find the first group of spiritual people. Who were
these group of spiritual people. These were individuals, families and also
children who believed in the message of the gospel, in the promise that was
given to them by the Lord [ Acts 2: 38, 39]. The number of individuals
who became "spiritual" or believers who responded to the preaching of
Peter, according to Acts 2 :41, were three thousand. Thus it was three thousand
people who had a transformation in their life when they believed on the message
of the gospel. Now when we read Acts 2: 42- 47, we find a new insight as to
what the spiritual people did after they believed on Lord Jesus Christ. These
spiritual people or believers [ let us remember that they were not called
Christians at that time], devoted themselves to apostles teaching and to the
fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and spent time in prayer. They also
did something unique. They always came together, had everything in common and
shared with people who were in need. It is these verses that show how the
spiritual people in the early church lived their new found faith or their
spirituality. The emphasis was on 1. Fellowship of believers, 2. Fellowship through
communion and 3. Fellowship through the sharing of the burden and pain of
others. Thus we see in Acts that spirituality is not something that we express
not only in our personal life our personal realm but a conscious faith action
done through fellowship, building up of relationship and in celebration of
fellowship through the partaking of communion. So also being spiritual means
that I cannot be blind and deaf to the cry of my neighbours and my people in
the community. Being spiritual means that I am connected to the people in pain
and suffering and that I need to be part and channel of healing and alleviation
of pain and suffering of others. Thus if I need to express my spiritual beliefs
I can do that only in a community, in an organized set up so that actions are
more organized and beneficial to others. I understand that when we stress
on more organized set up we may tend to focus could more on
structures rather than practical ways of witness and serving, but yet with all
these negativity associated with an organized religious framework, I
would still want to affirm that if I need to be truly spiritual I need to be
connected with a community of believers, I need to be connected with the
community outside my personal world, I needed to be connected with some sort of
organized religious framework so that we are accountable not only to the Lord
but also to each other.