{"id":4480,"date":"2010-06-04T23:55:01","date_gmt":"2010-06-04T23:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html"},"modified":"2010-06-04T23:55:01","modified_gmt":"2010-06-04T23:55:01","slug":"burger-king-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html","title":{"rendered":"“Burger King spirituality”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"t1largspiritual.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
\nThat’s how one author is describing the pick-and-choose, “have-it-your-way” spiritual life that is becoming increasingly popular — and it’s sparked some lively debate: <\/a><\/p>\n

\n“I’m spiritual but not religious.”<\/p>\n

It’s a trendy phrase people often use to describe their belief that they don’t need organized religion to live a life of faith.<\/p>\n

But for Jesuit priest James Martin, the phrase also hints at something else: egotism.<\/p>\n

“Being spiritual but not religious can lead to complacency and self-centeredness,” says Martin, an editor at America, a national Catholic magazine based in New York City. “If it’s just you and God in your room, and a religious community makes no demands on you, why help the poor?”<\/p>\n

Religious debates erupt over everything from doctrine to fashion. Martin has jumped into a running debate over the “I’m spiritual but not religious” phrase.<\/p>\n

The “I’m spiritual but not religious” community is growing so much that one pastor compared it to a movement. In a 2009 survey by the research firm LifeWay Christian Resources, 72 percent of millennials (18- to 29-year-olds) said they’re “more spiritual than religious.” The phrase is now so commonplace that it’s spawned its own acronym (“I’m SBNR”) and Facebook page: SBNR.org.<\/p>\n

But what exactly does being “spiritual but not religious” mean, and could there be hidden dangers in living such a life?<\/p>\n

Heather Cariou, a New York City-based author who calls herself spiritual instead of religious, doesn’t think so. She’s adopted a spirituality that blends Buddhism, Judaism and other beliefs.<\/p>\n

“I don’t need to define myself to any community by putting myself in a box labeled Baptist, or Catholic, or Muslim,” she says. “When I die, I believe all my accounting will be done to God, and that when I enter the eternal realm, I will not walk though a door with a label on it.”<\/p>\n

BJ Gallagher, a Huffington Post blogger who writes about spirituality, says she’s SBNR because organized religion inevitably degenerates into tussles over power, ego and money.<\/p>\n

Gallagher tells a parable to illustrate her point:<\/p>\n

“God and the devil were walking down a path one day when God spotted something sparkling by the side of the path. He picked it up and held it in the palm of his hand.<\/p>\n

“Ah, Truth,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Here, give it to me,” the devil said. “I’ll organize it.”<\/p>\n

Gallagher says there’s nothing wrong with people blending insights from different faith traditions to create what she calls a “Burger King Spirituality — have it your way.”<\/p>\n

She disputes the notion that spiritual people shun being accountable to a community.<\/p>\n

“Twelve-step people have a brilliant spiritual community that avoids all the pitfalls of organized religion,” says Gallagher, author of “The Best Way Out is Always Through.”<\/p>\n

“Each recovering addict has a ‘god of our own understanding,’ and there are no priests or intermediaries between you and your god. It’s a spiritual community that works.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s much more to chew on this “Burger King spirituality” at the link.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s how one author is describing the pick-and-choose, “have-it-your-way” spiritual life that is becoming increasingly popular — and it’s sparked some lively debate: “I’m spiritual but not religious.” It’s a trendy phrase people often use to describe their belief that they don’t need organized religion to live a life of faith. But for Jesuit priest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us","category-this-that"],"yoast_head":"\n"Burger King spirituality" - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Burger King spirituality" - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That’s how one author is describing the pick-and-choose, “have-it-your-way” spiritual life that is becoming increasingly popular — and it’s sparked some lively debate: “I’m spiritual but not religious.” It’s a trendy phrase people often use to describe their belief that they don’t need organized religion to live a life of faith. But for Jesuit priest…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-04T23:55:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/t1largspiritual-thumb-400x225-14550.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Burger King spirituality\" - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Burger King spirituality\" - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"That’s how one author is describing the pick-and-choose, “have-it-your-way” spiritual life that is becoming increasingly popular — and it’s sparked some lively debate: “I’m spiritual but not religious.” It’s a trendy phrase people often use to describe their belief that they don’t need organized religion to live a life of faith. But for Jesuit priest…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2010-06-04T23:55:01+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/t1largspiritual-thumb-400x225-14550.jpg"}],"author":"jmcgee","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html","name":"\"Burger King spirituality\" - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/t1largspiritual-thumb-400x225-14550.jpg","datePublished":"2010-06-04T23:55:01+00:00","dateModified":"2010-06-04T23:55:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/t1largspiritual-thumb-400x225-14550.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/t1largspiritual-thumb-400x225-14550.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/06\/burger-king-spirituality.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“Burger King spirituality”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150","name":"jmcgee","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","caption":"jmcgee"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/jmcgee"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}