TruthBook Religious News Blog

Updated February 25. 2008
By Molly Rossiter

As chaplain at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, the Rev. Catherine Quehl-Engel lives in a veritable potpourri of faith.

She may find herself offering guidance to the college's Jewish student group one day, leading a Catholic discussion group the next and guiding Hindu students through their spiritual journeys the day after that.

Quehl-Engel, 40, an ordained Episcopal priest, also finds herself talking with students and community members about a self-proclaimed "spiritual but not religious" identity, a spirituality that does not include organized religion.

"For some people, organized religion just doesn't speak to them or work for them. They'd rather create their own thing," she said.

According to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, 14 percent of Americans say they don't follow organized religion, and a 2002 Gallup Poll showed that 33 percent of American adults claimed to be "spiritual but not religious." As affiliation with organized religion drops — the ARIS study found only 8 percent of Americans reported no religious affiliation in 1990 — the number of those who claim a spirituality without ties to church doctrine and politics seems to be increasing.

"Part of me thinks that this has been around a lot longer than we think," Quehl-Engel said. "There are people in all traditions who value critical thinking, or they want to ask the big questions, but they don't know if they're allowed to."

Michelle Stafford grew up in a house where her father's family instructed her on the doctrines of Catholicism and her mother's family followed an American Indian spiritual path. Having experienced both sides of the spiritual spectrum, she said she felt free to follow her spiritual needs without an organized group.

"It was easy for me to live that spiritual life; it's much freer, much more loving," said Stafford, 34, of Hiawatha, who works as a spiritual director at Serenity, 5250 Park Pl. NE in Cedar Rapids. "I feel better going to a park and meditating and listening to God that way than sitting in a church, hearing that I'm a sinner and I have to confess my sins in order to go to heaven." Spirituality, she said, does not mean that a person does not believe in God. It's likely the opposite, she said.

"Someone who is spiritual probably does believe in God very much," Stafford said. "They don't need to feel confined by a building to worship God. Spirituality is all-encompassing because it can involve religion but is much broader and open." For some, the words "religion" and "spirituality" are interchangeable. For others, however, they are two different ideas.

For many people, the decision to follow a spiritual path rather than one entrenched in organized religion comes after years of belonging to a variety of religious groups or organizations. Sam Angell, 20, remembers being afraid to tell his mother, an Episcopal priest, that he no longer wanted to attend church youth group. The family had transferred to several churches for his mother's career, "and after three churches, I just didn't want to go to youth group anymore." "I was getting sick of having to re-meet a whole new group of people, find a community at a new church," said Angell, a sophomore religion and history student at Cornell College.

Angell describes himself as spiritual but not religious. He believes in "something greater than myself, something greater than mankind," and uses his studies and readings to get a better grasp on what that might be.

"I look around and I don't believe there's just a random chance of everything being there," he said. "I definitely believe there's something out there, even if I can't define it right now." He grew up in the Episcopalian church, attended Sunday school weekly and went to church camp in high school, but as he got older, his questions became bigger, he said. He was no longer sure he subscribed to everything the church was teaching.

As a college student studying various religions, he said he's had an opportunity to learn more about different faiths and what they believe.

Quehl-Engel said "spiritual but not religious" people prefer to examine faith and theology as a whole, looking at all the various components.

"The religions provide road maps and a language and a story. ... There's so many of them, a lot of us don't want to limit ourselves to just one story line," she said.

Labels: 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, 2002 Gallup Poll, Catherine Quehl-Engel, Molly Rossiter, organized religion, religiosity, spirituality