Who Are the "Spiritual But Not Religious"? (#82)

Religion on the Mind

Religion, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 542 Ratings

🗓️ 14 September 2020

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you spend any significant time reading or listening to scholars of religion, looking at polling of religious groups, or anything like that, then you have probably heard the term Spiritual But Not Religious thrown out there. This will usually come with a sentence or two of description, something like, people who do not identify with any particular religion, or people who are neither religious nor atheist. But I wanted to go further and better understand this group, not least because many of this show’s listeners find themselves in this category. Another fact often included when the Spiritual but not Religious are mentioned is that they are the fastest growing religious group in America; yet another reason to take a longer peek under the hood.I’m joined by returning guest Terry Shoemaker, who is a researcher and professor of religious studies at Arizona State University. About a year ago he was on the show talking about what he calls culture war Christianity, and there’s a link to that episode in the show notes today if you didn't catch it.In addition to discussing the SBNR, we also talk about the possible future effects of both the pandemic and evangelical support for Trump on American religion.Terry’s episode from last year: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/to-escape-culture-war-christianity-16/id1448000113?i=1000434412065The Myth of Disenchantment - https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Disenchantment-Magic-Modernity-Sciences-ebook/dp/B0727LKR8CLosing Our Religion - https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Our-Religion-Unaffiliated-Children-ebook/dp/B010VIKQ0E/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=losing+our+religion&qid=1600044922&s=books&sr=1-1The End of White Christian America - https://www.amazon.com/End-White-Christian-America/dp/1501122320Terry.shoemaker@asu.edEdited by Scott CangemiJoin the Patreon for exclusive episodes (and more) every month: patreon.com/dankochEmail about the "sliding scale" for the Patreon: youhavepermissionpodcast@gmail.comYHP Patron-only FB group: https://tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98Website: youhavepermissionpod.comJoin Dan's email list: dankochwords.comArtwork by http://sprungle.co/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Dan Koch. Like many of you, I've been on a complicated faith journey for a number of years now.
0:10.8	And while I tend to find myself on the progressive side of Christianity, my goal is not to make liberal converts.
0:18.0	I want this show to be a resource for Christians to my right and to my left, as well as
0:23.1	former Christians and non-religious folks, anyone who finds themselves asking difficult questions
0:29.2	about God, science, prayer, fate, suffering, evangelism, and more. So many of us have been given bad answers to those good
0:40.4	questions, often by people with pure intentions. I want to say that you have permission to take
0:47.4	both Christianity and the modern world very seriously. And I hope to facilitate that by
0:53.6	introducing you to people seeking God across
0:56.5	the Christian spectrum, engaging hard questions in a multitude of ways. Thanks for listening.
1:06.0	I was trying to think of what kind of custom music I could compose for today's episode
1:13.4	about the spiritual but not religious.
1:16.1	And, you know, there's certain artists like if I could use Bonnevere music for free, I would
1:20.7	maybe do that.
1:21.6	But I thought maybe like an ambient sort of electronic thing works best like vaguely new age which is not all that different from
1:30.0	the music on this show in general but i tried my hand at it again because it's fun to write
1:35.7	these custom intro pieces so enjoy that i guess but i won't spend a whole bunch of a time
1:41.7	a whole bunch of time just playing it for you because ambient music is kind of boring if you pay close attention to it.
1:47.7	So rather, let's just get into the normal introduction here.
1:52.2	Now, if you've spent any significant amount of time reading or listening to scholars of religion or looking at polling of religious groups like a lot of Pew Research, etc. You have
2:02.0	probably heard the term spiritual but not religious. It's definitely come up sometimes on interviews
2:07.4	at the show. And this will usually come with a sentence or two of a description, right? Something like
2:12.9	people who do not identify with any particular religion or people who are neither religious nor atheist.
	...

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