I'm SBNR....Kind of

SBNR, or Spiritual But Not Religious, is a phrase which I use (at times) to describe my spirituality. Only, it comes across as anti-Religion (read anti-God in the Bible Belt) whereas I surround myself with religion, all sorts of religion. I use SBNR as a short hand to sum my my on-going fluid spiritual journey which is nigh impossible to pin down in a specific set of beliefs. Because, to be honest, sometimes I believe in contradicting beliefs and other times I believe in none of them. It's not about dogma, rituals, or communal identity, it's about discovering oneself.

SBNR's tend to come across as some New Age mystic movement but from what I've seen it is an incredibly diverse group mainly because of its sincere openness to question, seek out, and discover life itself. Some have labeled SBNR as Burger King Spirituality, "having it our way", picking and choosing what one wants from the various world religions.



The reality is that even the most conservative believers of any faith pick and choose elements to follow and embrace. To me the issue isn't how closely one follows their faith, but how does your personal experience with your faith and God lead you to a higher plane of self-cultivation? How are you growing in your faith? I believe that is the disconnect between religious believers and the Nones (which includes the SBNRs) described in the video. Most believers opposed to SBNRs are under the impression that they (SBNRs) have given up all forms of self-cultivation (my new favorite word) and refuse to follow any sort of higher moral authority. Equating lack of belief in a higher power to immorality is a load of baloney! A belief in and allegiance to a supreme being is not a magical cloak of morality. People will choose how moral they want to be regardless of their beliefs. SBNRs embrace life itself for what it is refusing to box it into a single narrative. This doesn't make them amoral, in fact it's quite the opposite. SBNRs embrace and respect the people behind the religion because it's the people not the dogma which is important. I hear so many evangelicals state how it (life) is all about giving glory to God. Yet this intense focus on a theistic Father God sometimes translates into hating what the God of the Bible hates. What do our actions and words really say about the marginalization of the least of these (homosexuals, Muslims, women, the poor, other non-believers, etc)? What do our actions and words say to our neighbors when we say we "love" under certain conditions? There is a disconnect when I read that the Bible has over 2000 verses on the poor and all I hear in church is how we should be giving more to the church.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying SBNRs are better people they just don't get caught up in dogma drama (as much as others). Their focus is on connecting with their fellow man and understanding their role in the universe, in the here and now. I'm careful when I use the term SBNR because although it describes me to a degree it just sounds oppositional. I'm not against anything religious, in fact I LOVE talking about and (at times) experiencing our religiousness. I love the story and symbolism in religion but most of all I go crazy for the wildly creative interpretation of scripture, like this for example. I've considered telling people I'm SBNER, Spiritual but not Exclusively Religious, but even then that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. So now I try to avoid boiling down my spirituality to an acronym and ask my interrogator if they'd like to sit and talk about it over lunch. When you get to know someone on a personal level it's difficult to hate them for their beliefs.