Politics Divides Religion From Spirituality

There is an important distinction to be made between a religiously based versus spiritually based political impulse. While religion is a force that either creatively or noncreatively separates us, spirituality is a force that unites us by reminding us of our fundamental oneness. The religionization of American politics is dangerous; the spiritualization of our political consciousness is imperative.

When violence erupted last week over the Israeli opening of a tunnel near the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the clear difference between religious passion and spiritual passion was obvious. For three of the great religions of the world, this particular piece of land is holy: Muslims believe that Muhammad ascended to Heaven from there; Jews believe that it is the spot from which God created the universe, and Christians hold that Jesus walked alongside it on his way to the cross.

While a strictly exoteric religious perspective tempts us to compete for land, a genuine spiritual experience joins our hearts.

The authentic teachings of all the great religious perspectives reveal that it is not land that matters, but love itself. God’s call is not that we build his temple on a particular piece of land, but in our hearts. For that is where the Rock is.

Religion can be a confusing concept. The word itself comes from a root that means “to bind back.” The actual religious experience is an internal phenomenon, a “binding back” of our hearts to the truth within. An example of a spiritually based political force in America was Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement of the 1960s. Although emanating from King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, its call reached not only Christians but all people of goodwill, for its message was one of universal harmony and brotherhood. That’s what made it so radical, and also so purely religious. King’s goal was the achievement of a “beloved community,” a vision at the heart of not one, but all religious faiths.

Many people in the world today use religion to divide us. They cite a particular book, whether the Bible, the Koran or any other religious text, and claim that herein lies a universal prescription for all human behavior. Such fundamentalist mentality is more about God than of God, and the distinction between the two is one of the most important issues in world affairs today.