Lent 5 B – Spiritual But Not Religious

Dear Partner in Preaching, If there was ever a text for the “spiritual but not religious” crowd, this may be it. Before jumping into John, however, perhaps a word or two on SBNR is in order. In general, we use this term rather broadly to indicate variously those who no longer affiliate with religion, the “nones” who seem open to spirituality defined broadly, and those who actually checked the SBNR box on a survey. Which means that SNBR can mean almost anything, and at times seems to encompass a little bit of everything. So here’s how I think of it: SBNR denotes those folks who are indeed open to a sense of mystery, curious about...