If Religion Were Spiritual

The American suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton once said, “The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation.” Quaker pastor Philip Gulley agrees—institutional religion remains a stumbling block not only for women’s emancipation, but for human emancipation. The answer? Spirituality. In this latest book Gulley, known as the voice of small-town America, lyrically and powerfully explains why spirituality, and not institutional religion, is the true pathway to ultimate meaning and purpose.

Religion, at its worst, tells us we must love God, we must obey God, we must obey the priest, the Imam, or the rabbi. Religion, at is worst, is an arranged marriage gone bad, the powerful telling the powerless what to do and who to love. Spirituality, on the other hand, is our right to find our own way, to seek our own truth, free from compulsion and control. Unhealthy religion attempts to manage that which can never be managed—the movement of Spirit and the mystery of love.

The goal of spirituality isn’t to change someone else, but rather to change the self. Having dedicated itself to self-growth, true spirituality has neither the time nor inclination to monitor others. True spirituality is the friend of freedom, refusing to impose its values and priorities upon others.

In lifting up the virtues of spirituality, while also describing the dangers of religion divorced from spirituality, Gulley does not denigrate his fellow religious followers or institutions—he simply shows where institutional religion, flawed and fully human, has forgotten its way.

With the voice of a poet and the conviction of a prophet, Philip Gulley is making his most important and controversial claims about discovering what is truly important in life: our search for significance.