The uniqueness of Religion and
Spirituality

Is there a
difference between ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’? It all depends on the context
where we are discussing the issue and how we define the two words. ‘Religion’
according to Patterns is “a system of
meaning embodied in a pattern of life, a community of faith, and a worldview
that articulates a view of the sacred and of what ultimately matters.” (1).
As for ‘Spirituality’, Wikipedia put it as “concerns
itself with matters of the spirit. The spiritual, involving (as it may) perceived
non-physical eternal verities (or even abilities) involving humankind’s
ultimate nature, often contrasts with the earthly, with the material, or with
the worldly.”.

 ‘Religion’, with its widely ambiguous meaning
is very difficult to define it monothetically. Patterns, while trying to define
‘religion’, adopted the idea of an Open definition (9), that is, the meaning of
‘religion’ depends on the context of where it is defined and why it is defined.
This is further confirmed by a simple search on Merriam-Webster Online, where the
word ‘religion’ itself has multiple meanings, some of them are “a personal set or institutionalized system
of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices”, “the service and worship of God or the supernatural” and “commitment or devotion to religious faith or
observance”.

‘Religion’,
considering its patterns, practices, system and believes, can be mere actions
and commitments, without concerning the spiritual-self of a person as all. Therefore,
‘spirituality’, which basically means matters that concerns spirit, is taken so
as to distinct itself from this notion of ‘religion’. But ‘spirituality’ is not
entirely mutually exclusive to ‘religion’. If an open definition of ‘religion’
is conceived, like what Patterns has described it to be, that ‘religions’ are
concrete communities of faith with distinctive beliefs and practices, that
there is no common definition for the wide range of ‘religion’ available, that
there’s no ultimate definiton of ‘religion’ (9), then ‘spirituality’ is possible
to exist in ‘religion’ itself, where the actions and commitments of faith are
truly actions that comes from within, concerns the spirit-self and in a more
personal level. Thus, depending on the context situation, ‘spirituality’ and
‘religion’ can be totally exclusive of each other or in another case,
‘spirituality’ does not entirely equal to ‘religion’ and well exist under big
umbrella of ‘religion’.

Christianity and
Confucianism are very good examples in discussing the differences between
‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’. Christianity is not a mere-‘religion’, with
repetitive religious practices. Meanwhile, Confucianism is no where near
‘spirituality’, with its focus on achieving ideal human virtue (jen) through works (li). Therefore, to understand the differences between ‘religion’
and ‘spirituality’, Christianity and Confucianism are the best candidates.

The basis as
example

The basis of
Christianity lies within ‘spirituality’. Some say that Christianity is about a
close-spiritual-relationship with God (McDowell). But it is not enough just to
have a close-relationship with God but rather it is a whole lifestyle of living
by His spirit as originally intended by God, living for the glofication of God.
This is well connoted by Fowler,

"Christianity is not religion;
it is the reality of Jesus Christ as God coming in the form of His Spirit to
indwell man in order to restore him to the functional intent of God whereby the
character of God is allowed to be manifested in man’s behavior to the glory of
God.”

The fact that God’s intention of
wanting to indwell His spirit in man, so much so as to sacrifice His one and
only son Jesus for mankind’s salvation, clearly shows that He really want to
have a proper spiritual-relationship with us. God approaches us first and
besides accepting God’s Grace, as a response Christians express gratitute, awe
and honour to God through daily devotions, prayers, liturgy, and sacraments.
This two-way interaction became the platform in building a consistent
relationship with God. This by itself is spiritual in nature, it is not mere
practices, mundane rituals or rites, rather it is a true eagerness of wanting
to get hold of God more and know God better. It is spurned from within a
motivation to fulfill God’s original intention of us manifesting His character
in the whole.

As opposed,
Confucianism is a nontheist religion where its main focus is set to fulfill the
very notion of human existence. This is done by exercising proper ethical and
morality behaviour patterns, called li.
Confucianism stressed the faithful performance of li; li, if perform well
will create a civlised society and smooth operation of the government and
ultimately achiving the harmony of
Heaven and Earth(Patterns, 283). Everything dwells down to the constant work of
a person to achieve ideal virtue or jen (ren). It doesn’t involve a spiritual sense at all. In fact, Confucious
himself does not regard the Heaven that he believes as a personal being, but
rather as a sacred transcendent reality that gave him his teaching and gave him
protection. His view regarding transcend beings is clearly amplified in his
recorded sayings, “Till you have learnt
to serve men, how can you serve spirits?(Analects 7:20)”. Although
ancestral worship might be a part of Confucianism that deals with spirit, or
rather spirit of the deceased, it has to be known that the sole purpose of
ancentral worship is a li that
cultivates moral values like filial piety (Patterns, 290), provide a proper
channeling of natural feelings, strengthening family ties and provide for one’s
future in the present life and afterlife. In a nutshell, all the four functions
of ancestral worship have nothing to do with the individual spirit-self or
building of a spiritual-relationship. Therefore, it is not profound to state that
the basis of Confucianism is non-spiritual and it can only be classified as a
non-theistic religion.

The way in
achieving the final goal as example

Next, the
differences between ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’ are further exemplified by
the way to achieve the final goal in both religions. For Christianity, it is to
live a life that glorifies God in everything that one does, whereas for
Confucianism it is to attain the ideal virtue (jen), through the
practice of moral etiquette li or the
development of ‘personal culture’.

Christians – a
lifestyle of living sacrifice. Living a life that glorifies God in every sense
means for every single thing that Christian do, its intention is to please God.
Other than fulfilling the Great commission (Matthew 28:16-20) and obeying the
great commandment (Matthew 22:34-40), Christians should also fully utilise
their God-given talents (Parable of the Minas, Luke 19:11-28). Talents here
mean everything that a person has, abilities, financial, social status,
relationships, etc. In short, it means everything that a Christian does; it is
done solely for the Glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). Muchow said that the true
meaning of “worship is a physical expression of our spiritual relationship with
God”. In fact, Paul in his epistles to the Romans, appeal that a proper
lifestyle of spiritual worship is of a living sacrifice.

“Therefore, I
urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”
(Romans 12:1)

Thus, a Christian lifestyle is both
full of ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’. As maintaining a relationship is of the
spirit nature. But living the everyday life as a living sacrifice in response
to God’s grace and blessings is the physical expression, and it can be consider
as religious in nature. Therefore, through this simple example of Christianity,
it is confirmed that ‘spirituality’ doesn’t equal to ‘religion’ but rather it
can be a subset of ‘religion’.

In contrary,
Confucianism is totally opposed to the appeal of divinity. Confucious appeal
that human should focus on practicing moral etiqutte called (li) and ultimately attaining high virtue
of human-heartedness (jen). Li practice is applied in the Five
Great Relationship, that is, father-son, elder brother-younger brother,
husband-wife, elder-junior and ruler-subject. All of these practices are
dealing with fellow human and there’s nothing spiritual about it. Besides, it
is stated in the Analects that Confucious when answering his students question,
quoted from an old record saying that “He
who can himself submit to ritual is good.”, then he go on saying that look
at nothing, listen to nothing, speak of nothing, never to stir hand or foot in
defiance of ritual. This implies that Confucianism holds on tight to the proper
execution of rituals and practices and even though it is illogical or one
doesn’t understand, the practices are still to be executed. In short,
everything about Confucianism amplified the mundane and rigid structure of a religious
practices. Thus, in this case, ‘spirituality’ can be seen as totally seperated
from ‘religion’.

In conclusion,
it must be made clear that the definition of ‘religion’ is ambiguous, changes
contextually and provisionally, but the definition that is use in this term
paper adopted a wider meaning of ‘religion’ as stated in the book Patterns of
Religion (9). On the other hand, the meaning of ‘spirituality’ is clear, which
is matters concerning the spirit, including a relationship with God. Another concrete
point this term paper has made is that religion and spirituality, in a certain
context it is definitely different but there are cases where they are not
mutually exclusive, and ‘spirituality’ a subset of ‘religion’. Christianity is
the best example in showing that ‘spirituality’ is a subset of ‘religion’
whereas Confucianism is a clear example of mere-religion totally exclusive of
anything spiritual.