Spiritual but not religious

Historically, the words religious and spiritual have been used synonymously to describe all the various aspects of the concept of religion.[1] However, religion is a highly contested term with scholars such as Russell McCutcheon arguing that the term "religion" is used as a way to name a "seemingly distinct domain of diverse items of human activity and production".[7] The field of religious studies cannot even agree on one definition for religion and since spirituality overlaps with it in many ways it is difficult to reach a consensus for a definition for spirituality as well.[8][note 1]

The specific expression was used in several scholarly works, including an anthropological paper in 1960[9] and in Zinnbauer et al.'s seminal paper "Religiousness and Spirituality: Unfuzzying the Fuzzy".[10] SBNR as a movement in America was delineated by author Sven Erlandson in his 2000 book Spiritual but not Religious.[11][12][13] The phenomenon possibly started to emerge as a result of a new Romantic movement that began in the 1960s, whereas the relationship between the two has been remotely linked to William James' definition of religious experience, which he defines as the "feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine."[14] Romantic movements tend to lean away from traditional religion and resemble spiritual movements in their endorsement of mystical, unorthodox, and exotic ways.[15] Owen Thomas also states that the ambiguity and lack of structure present in Romantic movements are also present within spiritual movements.

According to a study conducted by Pew Research Center in 2012, the number of Americans who do not identify with any religion has increased from 15% in 2007 to 20% in 2012, and this number continues to grow. 18% of the US public and a third of adults under the age of 30 are reportedly unaffiliated with any religion but identify as being spiritual in some way. Of these religiously unaffiliated Americans, 37% classify themselves as spiritual but not religious, while 68% say they do believe in God, and 58% feel a deep connection to the Earth.[16] In 2017, Pew estimated that 27% of the population is spiritual but not religious, but they did not ask respondents directly on this designation.[17]

Increased popular and scholarly attention to "spirituality" by scholars like Pargament has been related to sociocultural trends towards deinstitutionalization, individualization, and globalization.[18]

Generational replacement has been understood as a significant factor of the growth of religiously unaffiliated individuals. Significant differences were found between the percentage of those considered younger Millennials (born 1990–1994) as compared with Generation Xers (born 1965–1980), with 34% and 21% reporting to be religiously unaffiliated, respectively.[16]

Demographically, research has found that the religiously unaffiliated population is younger, predominately male, and 35% are between the ages of 18 and 29. Conversely, only 8% of religiously unaffiliated individuals are 65 and older. Among those unaffiliated with organized religion as a whole, 56% are men and 44% are women.[16]

Another possible explanation for the emergence of SBNR is linguistic. Owen Thomas highlights the fact that spirituality movements tend to be localized to English and North American cultures. The meaning of the term "spirit" is more narrow in English than that of other languages, referring to all of the uniquely human capacities and cultural functions.[19]

Yet, according to Siobhan Chandler, to appreciate the "god within" is not a twentieth century notion with its roots in 1960s counter culture or 1980s New Age, but spirituality is a concept that has pervaded all of history.[20]

Some representatives of organized religion have criticized the practice of spirituality without religiosity. Lillian Daniel, a liberal Protestant minister, has characterized the SBNR worldview as a product of secular American consumer culture, far removed from community and "right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating".[27] James Martin, a Jesuit priest, has called the SBNR lifestyle "plain old laziness",[28] stating that "spirituality without religion can become a self-centered complacency divorced from the wisdom of a community".[29]

Other critics contend that within the "Spiritual but not Religious" worldview, self-knowledge and self-growth have been problematically equated with knowledge of God, directing a person's focus inward. As a result, the political, economic, and social forces that shape the world are neglected and left untended.[30] Further, some scholars have noted the relative spiritual superficiality of particular SBNR practices. Classical mysticism within the world's major religions requires sustained dedication, often in the form of prolonged asceticism, extended devotion to prayer, and the cultivation of humility. In contrast, SBNRs in the Western world are encouraged to dabble in spiritual practices in a way that is often casual and lacking in rigor or any reorganization of priorities. Sociologist Robert Wuthnow suggests that these forms of mysticism are "shallow and inauthentic".[31] Other critics take issue with the intellectual legitimacy of SBNR scholarship. When contrasted with professional or academic theology, spiritual philosophies can appear unpolished, disjointed, or inconsistently sourced.[32]

Wong and Vinsky challenge SBNR discourse that posits religion as "institutional and structured" in contrast to spirituality as "inclusive and universal" (1346).[33] They argue that this understanding makes invisible the historical construction of "spirituality", which currently relies on a rejection of EuroChristianity for its own self-definition. According to them, Western discourses of "spirituality" appropriate indigenous spiritual traditions and "ethnic" traditions of the East, yet racialized ethnic groups are more likely to be labeled "religious" than "spiritual" by white SBNR practitioners.[33] Wong and Vinsky assert that through these processes, colonial othering is enacted through SBNR discourse.