Derrick observes that many people are drawn to spirituality, yet repelled by religious organizations. While admitting his fundamental bias, he argues for organized religion and asserts that both the individual and the community have something to gain from engaging with each other fully. -Editor
"I am athletic, but not sporty."
"So you don't like group sports, but do you run?"
"No, running is too boring."
"So, do you swim or surf?"
"No, I don't like the water—I always feel like Jaws is going to chomp me from underneath."
"So, then you train at the gym."
"No, I bought a membership but never went, so I dropped my membership."
"So, is there anything you do?"
"No, I am just athletic."
This is an imaginary conversation, between two people about athleticism. It may seem a bit silly that someone would call themselves athletic and yet not do anything with it. I could imagine another sort of conversation about someone being musical, but not instrumental; creative, but not artistic; academic, but not well read. I also have heard this attitude expressed about spirituality: "I am spiritual, but not religious."
My understanding of why people say this is because they see the value of spirituality, but at the same time they also see the reality of the faults of the religious organizations that they come in contact with. I will come back to this at the end, but I believe the faults of a religious organization are part of the value they provide.
To offer full disclosure, I am a priest of the General Church of the New Jerusalem. It is my job to be spiritual and religious. I chose this profession in part because I believe in organized religion. And I would like to share with you why I think organized religion is valuable.
I can think of four benefits to organized religion off the top of my head. 1) Organized religion allows for a greater ability to help others. 2) It allows for the advantages of specialization. 3) Organized religion is implied by sacred texts. 4) It allows for the opportunity to grow personally.
Organized religion offers guidance in spirituality
Religious organizations exist to help people with spirituality. One way to view religion is as a spiritual path. To progress in spirituality, you must choose a path. Each religion will claim that it has a more direct path or that it will take you farther. For now, I will leave aside the differences in religion and why one might offer more value than another. What I would like to discuss is the idea that without an organization, a person must wander in the woods and see if he can find the path and manage to stay on it without any guidance. Organized religions offer the value of being able to pass along awareness of the dangers and also the great views that come when one walks the path.
Now you might say that mentorship will offer the same value. I would challenge that by saying you get the benefit of a breadth of many mentors in an organization. An organization offers the guidance and wisdom of many more people. This shared wisdom is of greater value than any one mentor could ever offer. Because your view can recieve the benefit of being challenged and improved by many minds, you actually have a freedom to pursue your interests in a way that would be dangerous on your own. That brings us to specialization.
Organized religion allows for specialization
Just like a community living together provides an opportunity for specialization in profession, an organized religion provides for the opportunity to specialize in understanding an aspect of spiritual life. All religions have teachings about how spirituality meets everyday life, how the divine or the universe interacts with people, what happens after you die, what spiritual practices have value, and how to perform them to effect. To neglect any particular area of spirituality puts you at spiritual risk of losing sight of the destination or the path.
However, as part of an organized religion, you have more freedom to follow an area of understanding that interests you. For instance, I am personally interested in spiritual practices. Because I am part of a religious organization, I am free to explore spirituality through this lens. If I were by myself, my interest could cause me to focus my religion too much on the practical. However, because I interact with others with a similar knowledge base, they can help me see the blind spots in my practical perspective. They can help me see the power of the Divine revelation or the majesty of the Divine apart from the limitations of my interest. If I were alone in my religion, I would have to be much more cautious about investigating this perspective so that it doesn't lead me astray.
To return to the profession analogy, it would be like a hermit gaining an interest in basket weaving. There is only so much time a hermit could devote to the art without beginning to neglect the other aspects of his life and ultimately endangering his survival. However, if the same person is a part of a community he could indulge this interest, and therefore provide an expertise to the community that can only be gained through a more intense interest and mastery of the craft.
Of course, as is also true of the analogy, each person needs to have some basics of life mastered. A basket weaver needs to be able to perform other basic functions like have enough familiarity with clothing to dress himself or enough culinary skill that he doesn't starve. Spiritually speaking we all need to have a working knowledge of the breadth of spirituality. However, in a spiritual community, we have more freedom to follow our interests and specialize.
Sacred texts imply organizations
My particular background is Judeo-Christian. The sacred texts I have studied all imply that there should be an organization of religion. To talk about priests, hierarchy, communal religious practices such as sacrifices or communion, and even a corporate body that has a relationship to God called a nation or church, implies a certain level of organization that involves more structure to spirituality than individual spiritual practice. If the Divine implies such an organization in sacred texts, I imagine He has a reason for it. One use I see for organized religion relates directly to its faulted nature.
Engaging with an organized religion causes spiritual growth
Social tension is often an uncomfortable thing, and yet without tension you lose an opportunity to grow. To try to gain strength without some form of resistance is impossible. To try to play a musical instrument without the vibration of some tension is impossible. The tension caused by trying to work with others creates the opportunity for spiritual growth. The tension caused by working with others creates the opportunity for harmony that would be impossible otherwise.
To take your opinion away from an organization leaves the organization at the mercy of those who disagree with you. To stay engaged with an organization forces you to come to terms with the tension between individual desires and the good of the whole community.
I ask you to engage with an organized religion because I firmly believe you and the organization will benefit, as long as both you and the other members of the organization seek to find a healthy, balanced tension between individual and community.