I was prepared to launch into the story of how we, our Christian society, got here in this hyper-spiritual age. However, I think I need to provide a bit more explanation first.

I have been writing about the problem I see of the dwindling Church in America. My own church denomination, Presbyterian USA, had 3.1 million members when it first formed in 1983, but now has fewer than 1 million members. One of the reasons that people are leaving the Church, and not even the biggest reason, is the loss of objectivity in this new hyper-spiritual age. But it is for this group that I write. No, I do not expect to convert anyone in the established Christian culture to suddenly change their views and listen to me. And as I’ve said before, I do not approach this as a religious person would, with the attitude that if you do not think like I do (believe the dogmas), then you are a bad person. Nope, as I’ve said many times, I see the people at my church as wonderful, and I have only one measure: how they love the most unlovable. With this measurement, I am low in the rankings of the people at my church.

But for those with one foot out the door of the church, like me, I hope to reach them before they leave theism and Christianity for good.

The other problem, from my humble perspective, is that with the loss of objectivity, the American church is making some terrible choices. It won’t be the first time the church has wandered into absurdity. But I believe that the closer you live to reality, the better your life is. I have also learned, for myself, that the closer I live in intellectual and emotional honesty, meaning the more resonant I am with reality, the better my relationship is with the creator of that reality.

One of the impetuses for me wanting to write more clarifying things today is something I saw last night. I follow several philosophical and religious YouTube or Facebook channels. My interest in them varies a lot. One that I had not followed that closely, something along the lines of “Contemplations in Philosophy and Religion,” had an interesting post last night, one I had to respond to. The poster, who self-labels as a “spiritual influencer and podcaster,” wrote, “If the church doesn’t fully commit to misticism [sic], the church will certainly fail.”

I had to write back, “No, in my humble opinion, one of the reasons the church is failing is that it is over-committed to mysticism, spirituality, and subjectivity. That the church needs to return to rationalism and objectivity to survive.”

Let me insert here, in contrast to mysticism, that I have found the mystery (a related word) of God is far more profound through a truly objective approach, such as the scientific fields of biology, math, particle physics, and cosmology. Why? Because it is something real, based in the external world, not just in our personal emotional experiences.

Because this sense of spirituality is so deeply ingrained within our present twenty-first-century American Christianity, anytime I challenge it, I am met with aggressive and demeaning words such as “You are working for Satan.”

It is exactly the same societal behavior as when I was beaten up in the tenth grade for not wearing blue jeans. The deeply held societal belief, not just in my school but across the country, was that you were cool if you wore jeans… and an idiot or evil if you didn’t.

This is why we rationalists don’t feel welcome in any church right now, because objectivity or rationality is not cool. It is not that we reject the Church people or think we are better, but that they have rejected us. If we do try to stay with the church, just like if I tried to stay with my group of high school friends in the 1970s and never donning jeans, you must accept being relegated to the lowest possible position in the church, in what I call the position of “Children of a lesser god.” No one is interested in what you have to say, and they assume, at least, that you are a weirdo, or that they are far better Christians than you. So, it is like being invited to join a group where being very tall, blue-eyed, and blond (like Erling Haaland) is highly esteemed. But you are short, with black hair and dark eyes. Why would you?

Let me clarify some terms, at least how I am using them, before I move on. Mystic is from the Greek root word mýein (μύω), which means to close your eyes and mouth. To hide a secret, in other words. The secret is a subjective experience that you either don’t want to talk about or find too mysterious to discuss. I suspect that most prefer the latter definition.

The second word I use is spiritual. The official definition is easy, but the connotation, more complex. Spiritual is from the Greek root, spiritus, which means “breath.” For example, in medicine, the test that we use to measure breathing or lung capacity is spirometry. Two of the connotations are that we are a spirit because we breathe or have life. If we stop breathing, the spirit has left our body.

But the buzzword in today’s Christianity is “spiritual,” which assumes a supernatural experience with God. A natural or objective experience, deemed as “of the flesh” and worthless. Thus, the lust for spirituality. I will make a bold statement here that will prove to some that I am the devil, and that statement is that there is no human way to distinguish between the spiritual and the emotional. They are identical from the human perspective… when we are being honest.

I attended a church service once and wrote about it in my book, Butterflies in the Belfry, which was touted as the most spiritual experience you could ever have. It certainly was the most of something. But the whole group was worked up into such an emotional frenzy, with people dancing and falling over on the floor. The term that floated through my head, in the midst of this experience, was “spiritual or emotional masturbation.” It was all about the self. Not about God, and certainly not about loving other people. The pastor leading this mess abused people left and right during the program (screaming at a woman that she is a witch, when she did not respond to his healing of her back pain). Ironically, the following week, the friend who took me to this service took me to his house, where we walked in on this pastor and his gorgeous mother having sex. Both married to other people. Afterward, this friend said, “I know that looked bad, but the pastor is the most spiritual man I know.”

A total disconnect between godliness, spirituality, and the simple message of Jesus being the truth, factual truth, and love. Not trickery and self-centered acts.

I wish, and boy do I wish, that the church would accept us who think rationally. Not agree with us, but respect us at the same level we respect them. That alone would keep many rational, objective people from leaving.

This brings me to the last words I want to define: subjective and objective. Subjective simply means, in the way I am using it, without evidence… just a feeling or a hunch. Ojective is something that is based on evidence, something you see with your senses. To be a good Christian,  it must all be subjective.. right? Isn’t that what the churches are saying? But that’s not the way we live our everyday lives. If you think so, I challenge you to do so the next time you drive a car, subjectively. Wear a blindfold and ear protectors, and just turn the wheel as the subjective spirit leads you.

This is getting long, and I have a little bit more to say on the topic, so I will finish this thought tomorrow and THEN move on to the history of thinking and how we got to this present fad of thinking spiritually.

Respectfully, Mike