True Religion Is Below the Surface
In an article for the Stillspeaking Daily Devotional UCC minister Dwight Lee Wolter, who did not enter church until he was 34 years old, noted that after visiting many different churches and religious and spiritual groups he decided he needed to grow some roots. As he puts it, he did not want to be a spiritual water skier, bouncing along on the surface from one faith experience to another. He realized that he needed to be a spiritual scuba diver, exploring faith in the depths. He believed it was necessary to explore deep into the well of one’s faith, rather than just skipping along the surface. Surface religion is often the kind of religion that is death dealing, whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or whatever. But the deeper we go the more life producing it becomes. Richard Rohr has argued that what makes something secular or sacred is determined by whether one lives on the surface of it or in the depths of it. He says, “Everything is profane if you live on the surfa...