The reason for the growth of unaffiliated spiritual aspirants in America is really quite obvious, and if the Pew researchers ask the right questions, the data will bear out the following assertion: We have lousy religious leaders and teachers and most Americans are savvy enough to know that, or at least intuit it. What most of “the people” realize these days is that our religious educators and leaders don’t know anything more than they, the followers, already know.

 

Our leaders are masters of the information contained in their religious heritages and can quote chapter and verse backwards and forwards, and they are also experts in defending the turf of their traditions. But all their information is not the same as wisdom, and that is what the populace is craving. Since few, if any, of our contemporary religious teachers in America have truly been touched by true wisdom, they have little or nothing to transmit that is “radically amazing,” to cannibalize the great AJ Heschel’s term. And people know this!

We humans all abide in what I call “the divided self.” Not enough of us are pursuing the wisdom disclosed by an experience of “the undivided self.” In this day and age, we need teachers whose lives and messages are informed by this kind of knowing. The authentic ones won’t be talking about turf, or who is right and who is wrong. Of that you can be certain.

This is why there is a vast “unaffiliated” pool of spiritual seekers in America these days.

Michael Faber

Jewish Chaplain

Director, Muller Chapel