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Inspired
Inspired is the nation's leading public radio show about faith, ethics and spirituality. Each week we offer you analyses of the big headlines alongside lesser-told stories – those of Orthodox Jewish artists and African-American atheists, Muslim feminists and spiritual seekers. Through these stories, a rough sketch of our country’s religious landscape begins to emerge. It’s a marketplace of beliefs and ideas too complex for sound bites, and too important to ignore.
This week on Interfaith Voices:
Don’t call them cherry-pickers: Exploring the lives of ‘spiritually fluid’ people
Religious identity and practice are complex. While many people identify as religious, not sure, or non-religious, it’s not typical to hear someone say they belong to various religions, that they mix and match, or as some would call it “cherry pick.” But the truth is, religion is a lot more complicated than a single identity or practice, and many people are rethinking how we categorize the way we live out our beliefs. A new book details the lives of spiritually fluid people, those who practice several religions at the same time. Our guest says, it’s an increasingly common practice that’s still in the shadows.
Duane Bidwell, professor of practical theology, spiritual care, and counseling at the Claremont School of Theology in California, and the author of When One Religion Isn’t Enough: The Lives of Spiritually Fluid People
New method groups Americans by how they practice, not what they believe
Are you a Sunday Stalwart or a Religion Resister? The Pew Research Center has developed a new way to categorize religious practice that goes beyond affiliation with specific traditions. Its study released last August is called The Religious Typology, which offers new insights and labels. Instead of grouping Americans by religious affiliation (or lack thereof) such as Christian, Jewish, Atheist, etc, they decided to design a different survey which examines the way in which people practice spirituality (or don’t).
Becka Alper, lead author of The Religious Typology from the Pew Research Center
Who are the ‘spiritual but not religious’?
After going on her own nuanced spiritual journey, a researcher realizes that there are a lot of misconceptions about people who identify as “spiritual but not religious,” namely that they aren’t serious about their beliefs. Our guest says that couldn’t be further from the truth. She conducted hundreds of interviews with so-called SBNR’s to let them tell their own spiritual stories – and compiled her research in a book called “Belief Without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual But Not Religious.”
The Rev. Dr. Linda Mercadante, senior professor of theology at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio
