spiritual but not religious

The Pew poll revealed a significant number of Americans who, despite having no apparent reason to do so, identify as Jews.

So the ground is shifting beneath our feet—what else is new?

American Jewish history is the history of Jewish grappling with the American (and Protestant) category of religion. At the moment, it’s not working out so well.

Among other things, the Pew poll gives us the fascinating statistic that almost half of “Jews of no religion” are nonetheless believers.

Once again we obsess on the headlines but don’t bother with the details.

A viral CNN post by Rachel Held Evans argues that millennials are fed up with the church’s reactionary politics and just want Jesus, while Brett McCracken counters in the Washington Post that were they to listen to their elders they’d break out of their twitter-obsessed world and find meaning. But what if it’s not authentic faith they’re looking for at all?

Since the Rachel Held Evans post that launched a thousand responses everyone is talking about “millennials” leaving the church, but these conversations always seem to be missing an important question: Instead of asking why some people leave, can we ask why some stay?

So far as I can tell, nothing in our language or in our collective practice, digital or otherwise, holds space for such moments of spiritual pause, however secularized that spirituality might be.

The Pew Forum found that the nones overwhelmingly saw religious organizations as “too focused on rules,” “too concerned with money and power,” and “too involved in politics.” Not on the list: a desire for a stricter moral code.

But atheists not so much.