“She does it religiously.” Whatever “it” may be, she does it regularly rather than occasionally, and she does it faithfully with an apparent sense of commitment and purpose. This use of the word “religiously” implies a discipline.
My previous post led a friend to question whether I might have been too hard on my fellow Christians and too easy on those who reject “organized religion” in favor of a spirituality which may, for some or many, be far less than a discipline of life and mind. My friend is right, of course, that Christians have not all been smugly closed-minded and judgmental toward people who have struggled to fit into the churches without abandoning their own uniqueness and integrity. Neither are those who proclaim themselves spiritual without religion all nearly so concerned with being spiritual as with being simply not religious. I suspect, though, that the Christians who would be least offended by my call for the humility of recognizing and accepting our shared humanity would be those already least dismissive of the irreligious. Likewise, I suspect the non-religious who most seriously seek spirituality might be less easily dismissive of religion than their fellow “unbelievers” who more honestly just don’t want to be bothered with the quest for meaning in life or with the struggle for a more humane human community.
I do not, however, think the main concern should be with suspicions about the each other’s possible lack of integrity and serious-mindedness. Rather, let us look to our own houses.