The Difference Between Religion and Spirituality

Last updated on: September 20, 2013 at 1:31 pm by Matthew Fox

The Difference Between Religion and Spirituality 2013-09-20T13:31:41-04:00 Matthew Fox

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

While the Christ Path blog goes through a re-visioning process, we will be sharing some of the thought-provoking videos and articles being published about Occupy Spirituality on the newly-launched Book Club…like Deborah Arca’s interview with Matthew Fox, for example…

(snip)

DB ….As you were listening to these young people, and as you know from your own experience, the interspiritual is very important too: that younger people are less concerned about following the doctrines, and less concerned about doctrines in general, but very much interested in bringing in different influences from different traditions that they find meaningful for them into their own spirituality. So there is something about interspirituality and also intergenerationality in this movement that you find compelling.

MF That’s right. To me what distinguishes religion from spirituality is experience. The spiritual dimension of religion is the experiential dimension. Another word for that is mysticism.As the Psalmist says, “Taste and see that God is good.” You have to do the tasting. So that is the dimension of spirit that’s brought into the struggle against injustice.

And we do find this generation is very ecumenical. And that’s one of the questions we asked in our survey, too. Time and again they talk about how they draw from many traditions. One 28-year-old young woman said that she was raised Protestant Christian but became Muslim – and now that she is Muslim, she feels freer to relate to Jesus. In fact, she said, “I call myself a Muslim whose Sheikh is Jesus.” Now that’s a whole new language; I’ve never heard a statement like that before! It shakes up Islam and it shakes up Christianity. And that’s where this generation is: they’re not tied to a particular orthodoxy, as you say. The doctrine does not come first. The practice comes first, the practice of justice and love…..

Previous Post

September 16, 2013

Occupy Spirituality: Creating Communities in the Service of Life

Next Post

September 23, 2013 Don't Just Read Occupy Spirituality - Live It!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Andrew Harvey Christ Path program Community Creation Spirituality Deep Ecumenism Gail Ransom Gospel of Thomas Historical Jesus Matthew Fox Mysticism Occupy Generation Occupy Spirituality Phila Hoopes Sacred Activism Uncategorized Via Creativa Via Negativa Via Positiva Via Transformativa

Select a Month September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which disciple was exiled to the island of Patmos?

Select your answer to see how you score.

John Thomas Paul Peter