{"id":2216,"date":"2020-11-13T23:28:11","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T05:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/?p=2216"},"modified":"2020-11-15T16:16:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-15T22:16:35","slug":"religion-vs-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/religion-vs-spirituality\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion vs. Spirituality…."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Regarding the contrast between “religion” and “spirituality,” Carl Jung once wrote: “One of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.” The use of rituals, ceremonial laws, customs, the establishment of a hierarchy of believers (i.e., professional clergy), and so on, devises a layer or buffer to avoid personal encounter with God… As Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) once said, \u201cThe most pernicious of all evasions is\u2014hidden in the crowd, to want, as it were, to avoid God\u2019s inspection of oneself as a single individual, avoid hearing God\u2019s voice as a single individual, as Adam once did when his bad conscience fooled him into thinking that he could hide among the trees\u201d (Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits). Likewise religious dogma (or theology) can create a belief system that encourages a sense of “us” against “them” that leads to the quintessential prayer fo the hypocrite: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men” (Luke 18:11). Again Kierkegaard insightfully notes that theologizing can serve to excuse people from the duty to live in genuine faith: \u201cAll this interpreting and interpreting and scholarly research and new scholarly research that is produced on the solemn and serious principle that it is in order to understand God\u2019s Word properly — look more closely and you will see that it is in order to defend oneself against God\u2019s Word. It is only all too easy to understand the requirement contained in God\u2019s Word\u201d (For Self-Examination).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Man-made religion establishes fixed practices, often based on rationality, with a goal of attaining a state of perfection of some kind. Rewards and punishments are emphasized to keep the system running. Other religious expressions are considered threatening on some level, at least from the perspective of those who have power within the religious system itself…. Openness, uncertainty, questioning, are generally discouraged, and the role of paradox, wonder, and mystery are set aside for doctrines. All this is dangerous to the way of the Spirit. As Gregory of Nyssa said, “Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols; wonder makes us fall to our knees.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong>: Regarding Carl Jung’s statement (i.e., that formalized religion serves to “protect” people against a direct experience of God), a case could be made that religion does not mediate the ordinary to hide<\/em> the extraordinary, but on the contrary, it mediates the extraordinary to reveal<\/em> the ordinary!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regarding the contrast between “religion” and “spirituality,” Carl Jung once wrote: “One of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.” The use of rituals, ceremonial laws, customs, the establishment of a hierarchy of believers (i.e., professional clergy), and so on, devises a layer or buffer to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-dvar"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2216"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2220,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2216\/revisions\/2220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}