A big part of our mission at the Spiritual Edge is to understand: What does it mean to be religious or spiritual in America today?
To understand more, we created this survey. The 98 people who answered came from a variety of beliefs and practices. The results are not necessarily statistically valid, but we did learn some things.
The biggest takeaway is that “it’s complicated.” For example, 43 percent of people said religion has never been important to them, or religion was significant to them at one point but now is not. However, 56 percent of people said spiritual practice was important to them.
Read on for a more detailed breakdown of the results.
SPIRITUALITY VS. RELIGION
People were asked to rate how important religion was to them, with zero being the least and five the most important. Fifty-two percent of people rated religion as a zero or one in terms of importance. Conversely, 57 percent of people rated spirituality as a four or five in importance.
IDENTITY
Respondents came from a wide variety of beliefs and perspectives, including Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, pagans, agnostics, atheists and more. Participants skewed older and whiter — 59 percent of respondents were over 50 years of age and 63 percent of respondents were white.
Asked to describe their spiritual, religions or non-religious identity to to a friend, some respondents wrote:
- “Disconnected follower of Jesus.”
- “I dance among the traditions and alight on none.”
- “A non-practicing Christian. I agree with many of the ideas and values of Christianity, but am against extremism of any kind. I feel like ‘religious’ people are the most judgmental individuals ever (often openly judgmental as well). I have decided my version of Christianity is more of a relationship between God and myself; I don’t need to go to church to ‘prove’ my holiness to the masses.”
- “I believe that there is something that unites the universe. Is it energy? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s what people call God but I don’t call it God.”
- “My religion is kindness.”
Many people, 21 percent, identified as both religious and spiritual. Many respondents gave complex answers:
- “I would say spiritual and religious by preference, but traumatized by several churches so church is no longer in my life.”
- “Still connected, but I choose what to accept.”
The results showed a distance from organized religion. Forty-three percent of people said religion has never been important to them, or religion was important to them at one point but now is not. More pointedly, 32 percent of people said they didn’t like religion.
- “I don’t give it much thought and never really have. More important to be a good person than to believe in God was my families ethos.”
PRACTICES
Fifty-six percent of people said a daily spiritual practice is important to them. Forty-three percent said prayer was important to them.
- “I have one foot planted in religion and the other planted in spirituality. Together they dance. Otherwise I’m just hopping.”
- “I regard religious holidays as cultural or traditional rather than religious and think sharing traditional celebrations are important to a culture.”
- “I married a person of Greek descent and for cultural purposes we attended the Greek Orthodox Church when our son was young and I enjoyed it in many ways. However I do not now and did not then believe in a god. I’m sure church or synagogue attendance does good for many people but it is not for me.”
- “The sense of entitled, privileged, colonialist, spiritual hegemony that has informed the spiritual expression of Buddhist + Abrahamic faiths has left me to wonder if there is any other function of faith than its utility in social control.”
It’s not too late to take the survey. Click here or write to us directly at [email protected].
