This post was submitted by Chris

“I guess it would be nice to give my heart to a god / But which one, which one do I choose?” – of Montreal, “Gronlandic Edit”

After deciding I wasn’t a Christian less than one semester into my undergraduate degree in Religious Studies, I suddenly felt overwhelmed by choices.

There were so many religions, and each offered something equally exciting and different. I felt like the cocky star high school quarterback with his pick of the litter, unsure whether to ask the head of the cheerleading squad or the rumored “easy” girl to the prom. Sure, the cheerleading captain had prestige, but the known jezebel would probably put out. And like my imagined quarterback, I wasn’t exactly looking to get married anytime soon.

I wanted it all! I wanted Jesus and Buddha and Confucius and Darwin. But I felt the victim of the medieval dictum that “every choice is a renunciation” – that choosing to follow one spiritual path meant that I had to forsake every other. After all, wasn’t that part of why I had left Christianity? Because, to me, it felt limited in its scope?

A lot of people in my generation like to try on different identities for a bit and then move on to something else. While my friends were trying out being “goth,” “emo,” “punk” or “hipster,” I was trying on “Jew,” “Christian,” “Buddhist,” and “Unitarian Universalist.” My life was one big church search. I kept putting out to each new religion I came across, afraid to commit to any for more than a few months.

As soon as I recognized the limitations of one, I was on to the other. “Being a Sikh sounds like fun,” I’d think to myself, “except I don’t really want to have to carry a sword on my person all the time.” “Being an Orthodox Jew has a certain appeal,” I’d muse, “but I’d really rather not get circumcised.” But beneath each of these superficial qualifiers, there was something bigger at work. I was afraid of getting stuck.

And so I settled into calling myself “spiritual,” with the qualifier that spiritual did not mean religious. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “I’m not religious – I’m spiritual.” Maybe you’ve even said it. Lord knows I have.

With time I’ve come to suspect that this “new spirituality” grows out of a desire to have our cake and eat it too. We don’t want to commit to an identity, so we leave the back door wide open. But I believe that this represents a more significant way of “being stuck” than adopting a single religious tradition does.

Some of this wide-openness is symptomatic of the interconnected world we live in and the diverse set of narratives we’re exposed to as a result. I won’t argue that that is a bad thing – in fact, I think it can only increase our opportunities for dialogue across lines of difference.

But I think the rampant “spiritual, not religious” we see in the queer community is also a byproduct of the paradigm shift we queers undergo when coming out. Often times queer theology is overly universalistic because once you’ve had to deconstruct one normative narrative, it seems only natural to apply that mode of critique to others.

Yet there is a danger in this, too. Sometimes we “queer” our understanding of the world so fundamentally that we reject anything that seems even remotely normative – such as selecting a single religious identity to represent oneself. The hazard is that we risk becoming as dogmatic as the fundamentalism we’re critiquing.

I have come to believe that it is vital to have a religious operating position. Whether we like it or not, I think we will struggle to engage in the world if we do not align ourselves with a set of values. It may feel limiting at times, but giving people an immediate sense of “who we are” allows them to approach our stories in a contextual framework that opens a window for more in-depth story sharing.

There are some who argue that there is no such thing as secularism – that “religious” and “secular” represent a false dichotomy. The claim that atheism is a religion onto itself is quite popular, and even has a good deal of legal precedence.

I’m beginning to buy it, but I do not call myself an atheist. To me, that just signifies that I do not believe in god. While it may be true that I don’t believe there’s a big man upstairs tsk-tsking me for last Friday night, I think the more important question is not about the existence of god but about discerning the most ethical way to live. So I call myself a secular humanist. Where atheism and “spiritual, not religious” are deconstructive – only calling out preexisting belief systems they react against – secular humanism has plenty to say on how to live a good life and encourages the construction and cultivation of an ethical system.

Is secular humanism a religion or not? The answer may be a little of column A, a little of column B. But, again, I don’t think that is the right question. Call me religious, call me secular – it doesn’t change what I believe. I’m happy to accommodate whatever language allows me to engage with the widest set of stories. If that word is “religion,” I’ll take it. Arguing until I’m blue in the face about semantics will get me nowhere. I’d much rather establish a common language that allows others to better understand my experience.

I used to fear that if I were to dare to even suggest to some of my queer cohort that I was religious, I’d be cast out. This, to me, represents the aforementioned rejectionist understanding of religion. But I think that even the claim that religion has nothing to offer me as a so-called secular person is also bogus.

As a secular individual, I’ve still found the parables and stories of those texts inspirational and formative. Are some portions of them problematic? Sure. But I also didn’t particularly care for Grizzly Bear’s “Veckatimest” and that doesn’t mean that “Yellow House” isn’t still the shit (because, well, it is). You don’t have to agree with everything about a text to find some merit in it.

To me, this is the beauty of a pluralistic worldview. It acknowledges that I can’t have it all, but that I also don’t have to limit myself to gleaning from the teachings of one tradition alone. In this sense, it’s like the notion of “the middle way” that I picked up during my stint as a Buddhist.

The fact of the matter is that I don’t have enough time to read the entire Bible, Koran, or all of the Sutras. But I have Christian, Muslim and Buddhist friends who are more familiar with them than I. It’s why we specialize. I can’t grow vegetables in my apartment, so I go to the farmer’s market for fresh produce. Similarly, I turn to the experiences of my religious friends for insight.

I’ve stopped identity-hopping and adopted the label of secular humanist because I think it best represents my best understanding of the world. And what I’ve found is that I’m more open to the wisdom each unique religion has to offer than I’ve ever been before.

Look at me learning to commit. I think this is what they call “growing up.”

Maybe I’m finally ready to graduate from high school with secular humanism on my arm. I’m sorry I can’t take you to the prom, Jesus. I still like you and hope we can be friends.

Chris’ column, The Non Prophet, runs Wednesdays at 2 PM. For more on Chris, visit his website.

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