By David G. Bonagura, Jr.

It's the paradigmatic statement of belief in the twenty-first century: "I'm spiritual but not religious." That captures both man's irrepressible longing for the supernatural and today's individualistic distrust of institutions. And all the data report the same: church attendance is down and 28 percent of Americans are religiously disaffiliated. Yet of the disaffiliated, half call themselves spiritual and three-quarters believe in God or a higher power. The trend is clear: the spiritual person prefers to relate to God on his own terms; the religious person, who prefers to relate to God through an organized religion, is fading into minority status.

Some new data complement this picture: Bible sales jumped 22 percent in 2024 while church attendance has continued to drop. The Wall Street Journal report on the former included an embedded video from an "artist and influencer" who pronounced the esprit du siècle: "I've never studied [the Bible] or read it. And now at 28 years old I've been finding myself having this deeper craving for really understanding what it means to walk with God and I think that definitely starts with reading and studying the Bible."

We thank God for her craving, which resembles the Ethiopian eunuch's efforts, recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, to read the prophet Isaiah. He did not understand the book, so he asked the apostle Philip for instruction. "Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture he told him the good news of Jesus." (Acts 8:35) The eunuch was so enlightened that he asked to be baptized on the spot.

Will this young influencer, who is also a church-goer, come to the same realization: that to read and study the Bible, she needs someone knowledgeable to teach her?

That teacher is religion. Without it, the individual veers from the path of false self-confidence into a murky solipsism where truth cannot penetrate. Instead of finding God, the spiritual but not religious person finds only himself - and it is himself whom he ultimately worships. At his own peril.

Today's alleged wall of separation between the spiritual and the religious brings the pursuit of both to a halt. This is an unnecessary tragedy, for spiritual and religious are not only complementary realities. The religious presupposes the spiritual; it would not exist otherwise.

Taking the words by their definitions, a person is spiritual if he lives conscious of his soul and of his connection to God; a person is religious if he exercises his soul and connection to God through an established way of worship, belief, and morals.

The individualism that has bifurcated the spiritual from the religious values freedom from all constraints - religious, familial, societal, biological - so that each person can seemingly create himself anew with every decision he makes. This perspective is contrary to human nature, which is inherently dependent on biology, family, and society to live in a healthy and happy manner.

Our longing for the supernatural is also grounded in human nature: we are hardwired to seek things higher than ourselves, and to bend our knees in worship of them. Religion guides the spirit so that we worship the correct thing, God, and do so in the proper way.

Those who prefer their personal spirituality over religion are quick to identify the multiplicity of religions, and their sins, as signs that they are better off on their own. But critically, the individual is destined to reproduce these same problems on the micro level and will only, therefore, succeed in worshipping himself.

The human need for family and community offers the best approach for bringing the spiritual and the religious together today. Family and community provide for our material and spiritual needs throughout our lives, especially in the first two decades. Religion, which we practice in community, nurtures our spiritual needs according to the practices of our ancestors, whose wisdom teaches us and whose sins warn us....