Spiritual but not religious? A Lutheran Response (Ep. 25)

More people than ever describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious." They believe in God, pray occasionally, or seek a deeper purpose in life, yet they avoid organized religion and church membership. Why has this become so common? Is there something valuable behind the desire for spirituality? And what might be missing when faith is disconnected from Christ's Church?

Join Pastors Chris and Tony as they explore the rise of the "spiritual but not religious" movement, examine it through the lens of Scripture, and discuss why Jesus did not call people merely to a private spirituality, but into a life of faith centered on His Word, His Sacraments, and His people.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Often if you are scrolling online, you will see people who present themselves as spiritual but not religious. This isn't a new idea. There have been people for a long time who held to the idea of having some religious connections, but they were against the idea of being connected to formal religion. So today we want to confront that question of is it okay for someone to approach their relationship to God as I'm spiritual but not religious? This is Double Portion, a podcast where twin Lutheran pastors discuss Christian living and studying scripture. My name is Chris Flugheft from the Pastor Grace Lutheran Church. I'm joined by Pastor Tony Flugheft from Christ the Vine Lutheran Church in Temecula, California. So Tony, have you seen that ideology presented online before about being spiritual and not religious? And maybe what's the core of what they're getting at?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I see it all over, and I hear it in person as well, this idea that people can have some sort of faith and belief that isn't even explicitly Christian. Sometimes it's kind of Christian, but it doesn't need to be holding to some sort of higher power, but then it's not really going to manifest itself in being part of an organized religion, or even holding to a specific religion, uh, one versus the other. And so I think there's a couple of different ways that we need to consider this first before we address how to talk to people who speak like this and how to confront their different arguments. One would be, is this person saying, I believe in a God, but you can't really know who God is because that's in the realm of things that you can't know? Or is this person asserting that they're a Christian, but they're just saying, I I'm not religious, I'm just a Christian who's not going to practice? Or is this person from a branch of Christianity that just likes to talk like that because they're hip and edgy and don't want to be legalistic or something? Yeah. So there's kind of three different categories that I think this conversation would be directed towards. So maybe do we want to address those categories, or would we rather just establish from scripture that like there is religion and that's a good thing? I think I would lean towards the let's talk about the different categories and then we can kind of talk about Christ's establishment of the church and the call for the Christian as we go through these different things.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah, I think the last one would probably be the easiest to confront because if you have a person who is a faithful Christian who is reading God's word often, who is praying often, so they're they're following the instructions of what God says to pray without ceasing, uh, to come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. They're listening to these instructions, and then they're even involved in a local gathering of believers and following that instruction of do not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, to recognize that person may think there's baggage with the term being religious, and they will want to rede redefine it as not religion but relationship, and say, perhaps even in the dialogue of this world, I understand your caution and your desire to do that, because there are people who present false religions, and you want to say, This isn't just a false religion, this isn't just going through the motions, this is a real connection to the God of the universe, to say, I understand where you're coming from. However, you are not able to redefine words and deny labels that everyone else would give you, and labels found in scripture, like James chapter 2 says this is the religion that pleases God.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

And and so this idea of religion describing Christianity is a biblical term that and so you're saying, like, oh, I'm not religious and Jesus wanted a relationship. Well, Jesus said, like talking to Peter on this rock, which we're gonna say is not Peter himself, but his profession of faith and this reality of Christ, uh his identity, I will build my church. The Bible is filled with religion language, and people look at what you're doing, they're saying this is a religion. So as much as you might want to deny it, it's like, well, this is what it is, it's it's a religion, and you're gathering together with other believers. There is a formality and structure, even if you like to act like it's not as formal as others, the people are not just randomly showing up. And I remember seeing a TikTok about it was like everything that happens at your church is planned out to manipulate you or whatever. And it's talking about just like how they practice. Well, of course. And so if there's Christians who go to some sort of relaxed church and think things are not rehearsed and practiced, that's I mean, that's just not realistic.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah. So then if you're if your church it has a relaxed atmosphere and presentation and the the pastor leading the assembly wears a hoodie and maybe athleisure clothing, although you would say this is the sign of relationship rather than religion, you're you're maybe running away from terms that other people would still assign to you. Yeah. Like even if it is a quote unquote going back to the early church of the house church model, which I don't think is an accurate term anyway, but even if you do that, there's still structure to it, and it to the truest sense of the word, it is still religion. So if you're a faithful Christian and you like the idea of relationship rather than religion, some of the biggest critiques that we would bring towards this idea of being spiritual and spiritual and not religious, we're not bringing it towards you. You're redefining terms in a different way than we're gonna define terms. And we're gonna say if you're part of a regular gathering body of believers, you're part of religion. Yeah. Even if they don't have the the purchased building, even if they don't have the formal right that they follow.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

And maybe one critique for that category of people is they'll often say, like, Jesus was anti-establishment and he was against the religion of his day. And and so they might not say it, but often what they're really directed against is Roman Catholicism and perhaps like confessional Protestantism, organized. The reason I say confessional Protestantism and not mainline Protestantism is because mainline Protestantism has become so biblically liberal that uh um they're in their own category. But uh structured confessional Protestantism or Roman Catholicism, where there's clear hierarchy, structure, uh, pastor, and and order of service that they're gonna follow. And often they're speaking against that, and they'll say, well, Jesus was against that structure and that hierarchy and all of that. And and so they'll even point to Old Testament passages where God rebukes the ritualistic and formalistic worship of the Old Testament. But when we consider these critiques that God gives of His Old Testament people and what Jesus is doing, we need to understand it as to what's actually being recorded. Who was it that gave the worship system to the Old Testament people? Who gave the priestly class and the Levites who instructed these sacrifices? It was God. And and so the problem was not the system itself, it was the abuse of the system. And abuse of a truth does not negate the truth itself. God gave that system. The problem wasn't that they were doing it, it's their approach and their lack of heart of faith behind it, but their lack of proper understanding of what God desired. When Jesus is critiquing the Pharisees and and Sadducees, he's also going into the synagogue and and reading scripture and and he is observing the the festivals that they are called to observe. So we need to understand the critique properly. It wasn't the system itself. And then we understand that Jesus fulfills the the law, and these are a shadow of the things to come, but then he doesn't say, now it's a free-for-all, go do whatever you want. He says, again, on this rock I build my church. Uh we see Ephesians 4 says that it is Christ himself who gave pastors and teachers and evangelists. And then we also see like the example of the New Testament church in Acts is that Paul goes, he proclaims the gospel, and he establishes elders. And so you think Acts chapter 20, it's like the shepherds of the church of God, of which he bought with his own blood, like establishing local elders to watch over things in the in the congregation, or we might say pastors. And and so we want to understand like the critique that's levied. Let's make sure that we're doing it at as scripture actually speaks.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Yeah. Because when Jesus has his confrontations with the Pharisees, or when the prophets have their confrontation with the priests, the problem isn't the existence of organization and structure within religion, but it is the abuse of the positions that they hold. The the problem with the Pharisees is they were to be leaders of God's people, and they were leading people astray from God, and that is why God's calling them. The same with the priests, they were to be leaders of God's people, and they were leading people astray. It's just interesting as you think about how people approach this and how they think about it, because some would very much think, no, Jesus was against organized religion. But as you said, Jesus was engaged in organized religion. Not only did he engage in the things that were commanded by God in the Old Testament, such as the Passover, Passover festival, or when he when he went to the temple, but it was also the structures that were created, but traditions that were helpful, such as the synagogue. So you had mentioned already that Jesus would he would go to the synagogue for the reading of the word. Now the idea of the synagogue isn't directly from the the old testament, but it's this concept that arose from what God had taught them to do. So then we see in Matthew 9 35, Jesus went through all the towns and villages teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. So we see Jesus acknowledging and using well this organized system of religion. It makes me think about this one time where I saw a clip of the show The Chosen. Yeah. And this a person was using it as a talking point. But how some things can be misrepresented or misconstrued to bring a point that's not necessarily true forward. So it showed Jesus doing a healing on the Sabbath during the middle of one of the teachings. Yeah. And just say that's that's a step too far. We see Jesus teach on the Sabbath. If there were false teachers presenting false teachings in the town in the synagogue, I think we could be fairly confident that Jesus would call that out. But the idea that Jesus was interrupting teaching by his healing is kind of a leap in logic that would come from someone with a perspective of Jesus was against organized religion.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah, or maybe someone might point to the cleansing of the temple as an example. Like, see, Jesus was not in favor of what they were doing in the temple. Well, yeah, he was he was not in favor of what they had turned it into, and he talks about them turning his father's house into a den of of thieves, but it wasn't the temple itself that was the problem, it was what they were doing. And so we need to be intellectually honest with the critiques that Jesus is presenting. It wasn't the organized and structured religion itself. And so whether you're a Christian who's saying that, or that category I talked about, like the Christian who's involved at a church, or the category that I said they're not involved at a church, and and they're they're talking against organized religion in a sense, whether they actually are really involved in an organized religion, they just don't like to like that label, or they aren't at all. That that our conversation is is gonna be pretty similar with both of them, of saying, well, this is what the Bible says. Let's look what Jesus actually says, let's look at the book of Acts, let's look at the call of First Corinthians 13 to live as a body of believers. Like, what is this functioning functionally gonna look like? Let's look at the the passages that talk about the giving of pastors and teachers or the guidance for elders, like what we see with with Timothy. There is very much a structure and organization, and so whether you don't like the term the term religion or you don't like the structure, it's very much there. So um if we're gonna say we believe Jesus, then we believe what he says. And he and he speaks of scripture being about him, the old testament's about him. Now, if if people are gonna say, okay, I don't believe the New Testament, and that's a I guess a different conversation. Uh I just believe the red letters, I don't I don't believe the rest of Scripture, then then there's kind of a breaking down point, and and maybe we can't have this conversation with that person. We need to talk about scripture itself. But if they're gonna say, yes, I believe the Bible, I'm reading the Bible at home, then it's very simple to say, here's call after call after call to gather, here's the structure that's given, these things aren't just these things aren't just made up.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Okay. And then I would like to think further about that person who is a Christian, and they're not just adverse to the idea of calling this religion, but they they don't want to go to church. They don't want to be part of that local body of believers. Not just this is commanded in scripture, but I would like to examine what you are against.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

What about the church are you against? We can talk about church hurt, we can talk about uh times that people have had adverse experiences before, but just like on that high level, I'll I'll think about my congregation and what aspect of this would you be against? Believers who confess the same thing, joining together to encourage each other through that mutual confession, through singing through God's word. Yeah, I mean you go from the service from the beginning to end and uh the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins, the exposition of the teachings of scripture, the administration of the sacraments within that worship service itself. I I can't see anything that you would you as a Christian would be against. But then you even have the external trappings of a local Christian congregation, and you have the one hour of fellowship after the service, you have the Bible study. I guess I don't know if I'd say that's an external trapping, but you have the Bible study before the service, and then like what what about that would be what would you be against? That gathering with other believers to study books of the Bible or various teachings from scripture or application to life today, and then just spending time with the fellow believers to get to know each other. There would be just so many facets of that that you would have to ask, what about this would say I don't want to be part of that. I I can't, I honestly can't un understand if you are informed by God's word, what would lead you to say, no, I I I just want to have this relationship. Yeah, I don't want to be part of that religion.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah, so I want to take people's words and actions in the kindest possible way. This is the Luther's explanation of the eighth commandment. At the same time, we we need to be as innocent as doves and as shrewd as vipers. And when someone tells me I'm reading the Bible, but they don't go to church, I just I have such a hard time believing that. Because if you're reading the Bible, then you're gonna hear what it says. And and there's that constant call. And like you're saying, what about going to church would a Christian not want to be a part of? Like what what about this? And like you're saying, okay, maybe someone has had bad experiences, or maybe they have crippling anxiety and going with a group of people, okay, I let's maybe remove those rare occasions, and let's talk about just the average Christian. Like, what are what is it that they wouldn't want to be a part of? And if you kind of like break it down as to what we're actually asking of people, it's really not that much. Like you like you said, there's an hour-long service, some fellowship after, maybe and then hopefully Bible study before. So Sunday morning, two and a half hours. And then we would hope and pray that they would come during the week for Bible study once. So we're talking three and a half, four hours a week. Like there's that's actually not that much time. And and and then obviously it's gonna fill the rest of your life in different ways, but we're like we're talking about the actual organized structure of our congregation. We're we're talking three and a half, four hours a week. You you likely watch more TV than that. You you likely spend more time on your phone than that. Uh many people go to the gym more than that. Uh so it's not really asking that much. So what is what is someone opposed to? Because I would get if some I would get if we're saying, okay, you need to come to church every single day. And it's like, well, that's kind of a lot. Like, although then we should again check our hearts. But I could get how someone would say that that's kind of a lot. Like, we also have other vocations, areas of service to God. We don't have to be at church to serve God, we can serve God in other ways. But when you're talking about what a local congregation is actually asking of their members, it's not actually that much when you consider the time. And so my my thought is what the problem might be is that they're trying to avoid accountability. There's maybe some sort of sin problem they don't want it addressed. Maybe it's alcohol, maybe it's sex, maybe it's an ungodly living situation. That would be my my initial hunch, is there must be some reason that they're avoiding the mutual consolation of the brothers. There's some sort of reason that they're avoiding having a relationship with a pastor. That's why they don't want to be in an organized religion. If it's as simple as like Sunday mornings are my time to sleep in, like it if you break that down as a Christian, that that's that is not a good reason. Like that that just simply isn't is not a good reason. So I I think you're you're right in asking the Christian, like, what what's going on would you not want to avoid? Well, maybe someone will say like it's just like it's too uppity and too religious or something, they just naturally don't like those types of things. Well, consider the kind of respect that we'll show our military with like a military funeral, or think of the kind of respect that we will show at a wedding. If your reason is you don't like structure and like sacredness or something like that, then you then there's maybe some soul searching that. One needs to do to consider well, why can I show respect in these other realms of life, but I don't want to show it to God.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Yeah, and I think there could be room to better teach submission in various realms of life, and to say Christians, it's good to submit. Like it's good to submit to authority. There's authority within the government, there's authority within church, there's authority within the home, there's authority within the workplace, and it's good to submit to these things. And sometimes I wonder if the aversion to some of that structure is because people don't like to submit. They don't like the idea of like, I don't run the show, I'm told what to do. I want to also approach another angle that I think can be important for the church to wonder like where's our role in this? And it's something that has caused a lot of concern for me, not within our church body, but within a lot of church bodies now that Facebook's algorithm seems to really want to push the conversations of other church bodies to me. Yeah. The airing of dirty laundry and the politicking within churches, I think that can do a lot of damage. I think there's some people who can see the dip the at times vicious debates over who's going to be a leader in that church body, or over people who are advocating for false doctrine within the church body.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

I d I don't know. You you see the current social media rhetoric about things going on with fellow Lutherans and Lutheran Church Missouri Synod about their presidential election, or like the Southern Baptist Convention just voted voted against female pastors, and you see the vicious debate going on going on online. And I understand why someone looks at the debates going on online, and they're like, why would I want to be a part of that?

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yeah, because some although they they they may view this is the best place to get the widest audience, but in some ways it can just put the absolute worst presentation on a church to be having these these debates and sometimes like not totally honest presentation of these things and and and presenting it as if like, oh, I'm the person who who's being more cordial, that person's not, but then it's like you're the one bringing this onto YouTube. Yeah. Are you sure that you're not just as guilty as that person? Yeah. And I get that you need to call out sin, but to think about there is a time and place and there is a proper procedure, and for the sake of the gospel ministry, to not have uh some of these internal debates be a stumbling block. Yeah. I think that's something that the church should be.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

It reminds me of Paul giving the advice about Christians not not giving into lawsuits. And it's like, do we do we need someone who's not part of a church to help decide our debate? And when you take these things to social media, it almost seems like that. Like you're going to the court of public opinion to to solve this debate instead of solving it in-house amongst the body of believers. Because I know that you're saying, well, I this gets a wide range of people, but there's also all sorts of people who have nothing to do with it that are just seeing the debates. And I'm not gonna say that our denomination's perfect, then and pe we do have obviously sinful people involved. I'm not saying that that we're perfect, I do think that our our doctrine is is wonderful, and there's a reason I'm a Wells pastor. But this is one thing that is actually really nice about the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutherans in it, is that we don't really have these online debates. So some might say like maybe we could do better of talking about things more or whatever, but it is really nice that we don't have these online debates, and we do just have churches functioning as churches, not concerned about the debates of church polity of the denomination. Like that is actually a really good thing. I think it's a really healthy thing in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah. So so sometimes the the people within the church can do things that would make people say, I don't want to be part of that. Yeah. I I just want to have my relationship with Jesus. And that's where we as the members of the church and leaders within the church can r reflect on our actions, reflect on our words, and say, Is there anything that we have done that is inappropriate that would lead someone to have such an approach? And it doesn't just happen on the synodical level, it happens on the local level.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

They have people fought over the color of the carpet, and someone had such a bad taste in their mouth from going to church because they're like, I started reading the Bible, and Jesus is wonderful, and I see this awesome picture of the church in Acts, and they're sharing with one another, selling property to care for one another, and I come here and people maybe are using just this crazy small amount of power to lord it over other people because they want to pick the color of the carpet. Like, come on.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah. So then that I think there's that personal reflection to say, is there are there things we can do to help avoid situations like that? Yeah, where m a divisive personality can cause destructive things. I mean, the Apostle Paul does give the encouragement to remove such a person. At the end of the day, if someone is being divisive in the voters' meeting for very small reasons, there is a per a point where you're going to have to ask, is this sin that needs to be repented of?

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Yeah. Maybe a little bit of a tangent, but I know like John Mark and Paul and and their group split ways on mission work. Is there a point where it's legitimate for Christians to just say, like, maybe we should just go our separate ways and you can go to this type of church and and I can or not type of church. You can go to this church in our fellowship and and I'll stay at at this church in our fellowship. Is that a legitimate point of saying, like, I just don't know if we can work together? I don't know if we can serve together, if we can go to church together, and and we're gonna not hold it against each other, we're not gonna like it's certainly following the advice of the leave your gift of the altar and make amends, but saying, I just don't think that this works well together. I think with the example from Acts, I I feel like you maybe could say that that's a possibility. And so maybe the person had a bad experience at that church that they went to, and they just something happened. Maybe the church leaders were fighting about things, and there's like, I can't, in good conscience, just like submit here anymore. It just is it's shaded my view of this congregation. It's actually harmful to me. So I'm gonna just go to the sister church down the road. Yeah. Do you think that's a legitimate option for someone who has a problem with the local congregation?

SPEAKER_01 29:45

I I think part of the conversation is we can talk about forgiveness. We we can we can talk about reconciliation, uh, we can talk about the fact that Christ came uh to bring healing to the sick. Yeah. That's the spiritual sick. So as the church, we don't come as a pretense of saying we are all sinless people. But on the other hand, that there may be interpersonal aspects to say the best approach here is that you go to that church now. Don't go to a false teaching church.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

But you go to that church now, I'm gonna remain here, or I'm gonna, I'm gonna go and you remain here. To have such an approach like that, I think can be beneficial. And not only for the the leaders of a congregation, for but for pastors to think about this as well. Because I've had conversations with people before, not not to say where or when or why, but there have been people who have said things like this. It came to the point where I just felt I couldn't receive the sacrament from that man's hands. And to say, like, as a pastor, let us be careful that we do not have a such a divisive approach to things and such a hard-nosed approach to things that are not commanded in scripture. Uh right, the fruit of the spirit is gentleness, so then we can approach these things with gentleness so that our our actions do not cause it to be in a situation where someone says, like, you know, you're not a false teacher, you're forgiven for that time that I that we had that our heads butt, but I need to go to a different church. Like, we do want to avoid that.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Yeah. Yeah. So now maybe we could transfer transition to kind of that last category of people who just think religion, Christianity is in the realm of things you just can't know about, and and would be maybe the the purest definition of spiritual but not religious. How do we address that person and their concerns? How do we witness to that person? Uh, do you have any thoughts of how you would address this? I mean, statistically, this is a growing population. I at our recent district convention, they shared the stat that of something like only three percent of people think positively.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

86% think positively about Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah. And so there's a lot of people who think very negatively of the church, and I think this is the number. Only 3% of the people out there in society um think they probably should be going to church but aren't. And so I was saying it used to be a third of people were like Christians who just weren't going to church yet and kind of realized they probably should be going to church, and we could do outreach in a way of uh hosting a soccer camp or handing out flyers, and we might reach these people. Uh that number has shrunk to like three percent. And so a lot of people think negatively of the church, uh, but they're okay with Jesus. And so, how do we reach this spiritual but not religious group? What are some thoughts that you have on this matter?

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Well, I think you can narrow in and say, okay, you you you think Jesus is a positive figure. What makes him a positive figure from your perspective? So if you're if you're a Christian, you're gonna say, well, because he is the God who took flesh out of love for me to save me, and I'm gonna listen to the things that he says. And what does he say? He says things like John 14, 6, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Or in his prayer in John 17, 17, sanctify them by the truth, your word is truth. So a Christian's gonna say, I like Jesus, Jesus likes religion, I want to be part of Jesus' religion. But to explore further those people who say, I like Jesus, but I don't like the church, and just maybe dig a little bit harder into do you really like Jesus? Do you know the true Jesus? Are you holding on to a caricature of Jesus? So the I would go to what started as a trilemma became the quad lemma, I think, connected to C. S. Lewis, I don't know who did the trilemma, but the C. S. Lewis one is the I is that fourth option. Like who is Jesus? Is he a liar? Is he a lunatic? Is he a legend or is he Lord? So if you if your view of Jesus is not that he is the Lord of of all creation who has come to be your savior, and everything he says is true, well then when he says before Abraham I was I am, he was lying, or he was saying things that he he believed but were not true, or he was made up by his followers. Like if you say I like Jesus, but then you do you really like him if you would have to have those qualifications and saying, Well, those things that are said about him aren't true, or his words weren't true, or he was intentionally deceiving people.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Yeah, so I think that's one thing of digging a little deeper, what do they like about Jesus? And and then I think often what you'll find out is that they're not really holding to a biblical idea of Jesus, and that's why you don't see it played out in their in their lives. So then you have this conversation and dig a little deeper, and I think often what ends up happening is they've bought into this idea of religious relativity. You believe what you want to believe, and I'll believe what I want to believe. Let's just be nice people, and and how could I even know? How could anyone know what's true or not? And and that's where we have to, I think, kind of stand against this like postmodern relativistic viewpoint, because there is truth out there. So postmodernism has led people to think that truth is relative, but functionally speaking, people can't live that way. So when it comes to time, everyone knows that time moves forward, you can't just be relative. Well, time moves forward for you, but it moves backwards for me. Like that's nonsense. Or no one's gonna just say, like, well, maybe gravity pulls you down, but I can jump off of a building and I'll go up. Like, that's nonsense. You can't live that way. So then people kind of relegate this relativistic thinking merely to religion and morality, and that's where we kind of have to push back against that a little bit. Religion can't just be true for you and and true for me. It doesn't work that way because these religions hold contradictory claims. The Christian religion and and the more Muslim religion and religions about karma, like they hold contradictory claims, they can't all be equally valid or a different vantage point on the same truth. They are different, they're saying different things. So let's be intellectually honest about that. They are different. So then it is our job to find out what is right. So someone might say, well, like, how could anyone possibly know what is right? And that's where we have to dig a little deeper. Well, do you believe in a God? And I think with these conversations, I've had a lot of conversations with people who do believe in a god. They they look at the creation, the world around, and they're like, you know, it just seems like there must be a creator. This didn't all just happen by chance. They they look at the uh the pain that people face in this world, and they they like the idea of a an accountability of saying, like, hey, you there's hell for those evildoers. They they like that idea, and so then if you believe that there's a God, there needs to be a way for us to find out who he is. If he truly is a loving being, you he's gonna reveal himself to us. And so that's where we can really point them into like some forms of Christian apologetics or reading scripture and saying, so you believe that there's a God, it's your responsibility now to find out who he is, and and they can't just all be right. So which one is correct? And so if you analyze the different religions, a lot of religions are are certifiably false, but then you look at the central claim of Christianity about Jesus' death and resurrection, and if you analyze this claim, there's a lot of historical validity to this because it did actually happen. This isn't just some often never never land in a fairy tale. This is saying this actually happened. There were real people who recorded this, saw this happen, and they testify to the reality of these truths. And you think 1 Corinthians chapter 15 talks about Jesus appearing to 500 of the brothers, and and he's Paul's kind of making that argument saying there's a bunch of people who saw this, they're still alive, you can go talk to them. Did this happen or not? And so I'd really encourage someone. So if you're gonna be spiritual, you believe there's a God, and these things can't all be true, it is your responsibility, I suppose, to figure out which one's true. And and if you think that this God exists, he's not gonna obscure himself in such a way so that no one can know who he is. So analyze the claims. What which ones hold up? Christianity holds up, the others do not.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Yeah. And if you're gonna notice Christianity holds up, what you're gonna notice is other forms of spirituality are not a good thing, right? Sometimes it can seem like a pious idea in our culture to commend people for their devotion to their spiritual ideologies. And even Christians might do this at times, but that is not how the Bible talks. And so spirituality apart from the Holy Spirit is a bad thing. I think of as the Apostle Paul, he confronts these idol feasts, and he's saying, like, if you participate in the Lord's table, then you should not be a person who is participating in these. You don't want to be part of the bad demons, you want to be part of the the the good spirituality, which is the Holy Spirit, which is that connection to God through true religion. So we let's not talk about spirituality, like, oh well, that that person is doing a good thing by connecting with their spiritual side.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Yeah, yeah. And so one thing I I would encourage someone who feels this way is basically there is bad stuff out there, and there is the the greatest thing, and and maybe following that example of of Philip, come and see, come and hear about Jesus, come to church, read the scriptures, but but then also encouraging them, like you can't just sit on the fence. These are matters of of life and death, quite literally, heaven and hell. And and so uh although you might think it makes you cool in this world, is I mean, frankly, that's kind of what it is, is like, oh, you're you're cool, you're so accepting. Although it makes you cool in this world, you either like those who believe in Jesus go to heaven, those who don't go to hell, this is what we believe, this is what scripture reveals to us, this is what is true. So you need to to figure this out. And and so then now kind of this is all presenting it from like a a human point of view. Now, of course we know that God is the one who works through his word to make the unwilling willing. So I'm going to try to get this person in contact with God's word, understanding that God is gonna bring them to faith. But we're we're I'm really trying to speak to their perspective right now. So now I am also gonna keep on doing everything I can do to preach the gospel to them, to share God's word with them, knowing that that God will work when and where he pleases, and that the word will do what it has been sent out to do. But just also understanding that to the the human who is unsure of these things, just saying like, Well, believe me, because God's word said so might not be a sufficient answer at that time. So, how can we try to get them in contact with God's word? And that's where I would tell them, like, you need to figure this out. You can't just be indifferent to this.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

Yeah, and you you think of the example of the apostle Paul the uh with the unknown God. Like, oh, you you think there is this spirituality. It that's because God has allowed that natural knowledge to be there that leads you there. Now let me tell you who this is. Yeah, that God is spirit, but God is one. Yeah. And the God who is spirit is is mysterious in some aspects, but has revealed wonderful truths about himself.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

And let's see these wonderful truths of what he has done for you.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

And so I think we've kind of sufficiently addressed the different categories. To the Christian who is says they're spiritual but not religious, but they go to church. I understand your desire to speak against formalistic, heartless worship, but let's just be honest about what you're doing. You very much have a structure. This is this is a religion, and let's not be afraid to use biblical terms. Christians don't win points with society by shying away from the way the Bible talks. And then there's the the person who maybe says they believe in Jesus, but then is not involved. Well, what is it that's kind of leading them away from involvement in a Christian community? Is it the problems they've had with the church? Is it a hesitancy to be under the care of someone because of a sin problem? Is it ignorance about what God's Word says? Because again, the if they believe in Jesus and they are reading the Bible, it's pretty clear to say this religion is a good thing. So we kind of talked about that. And then there's that last category of spiritual but not religious, and to to make that claim, like, no, they're not all equally valid. Investigate these different things, look into the scriptures, because we have there there is a God who's given us that natural knowledge, uh, and and through that natural knowledge we we see that we need to know who our savior is. It's that convicting of the law for our failure to uphold the first commandment. It's kind of that use of the law that shows us our sin and shows us our need for a savior when we see the reality that there is a God out there.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Mm-hmm. So this might be some a comment you see in social media shorts. You might see it in the comment section on social media. I I think what this conversation does bring out is this isn't necessarily going to be a battle that is won in the comment section. Yeah. Having the response videos can be beneficial for engagement, but true engagement, like you meet these people online, you're going to have to move offline to have these real conversations, or maybe move from short form to long form. I guess you can have that conversation through a Zoom phone call as well. But to move from short form to long form, to have this real conversation about about them. What makes you say you're spiritual but not religious? What's your aversion to religion? What's your view on Jesus? And then in that conversation about Jesus, show them what Jesus says about true religion.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Yeah. Thank you very much. God's blessings on your day.