(CN) — A study on Americans’ spiritual beliefs released Thursday morning by the Pew Research Center found that 7 in 10 U.S. adults describe themselves as spiritual in some way, including 22% who are spiritual but not religious.
The results show that while the number of those describing themselves as a member of a particular religious sect have declined, the number of people describing themselves as spiritual remains high.
“Research done by us and others have tracked the decline in religious affiliation and many have tried to make sense of that,” said Pew Senior Researcher Becka Alper, who led the study, said in an interview. “Is the U.S. public becoming more secular or are they becoming more spiritual? And part of what motivated this research was to explore and try to better understand spirituality among Americans, and spiritual beliefs and practices and experiences.”
The survey found that 83% of all U.S. adults believe people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body and 81% say there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we cannot see it.
The survey also found that 74% say there are some things that science cannot possibly explain, 45% say they have had a sudden feeling of connection with something from beyond this world and 30% say they have personally encountered a spirit or unseen spiritual force.
Of particular interest are the 22% of U.S. adults fall into the category of spiritual but not religious. These Americans are more likely to see spiritual forces at work in nature than religious-and-spiritual Americans. For example, 71% of this group believe that spirits or spiritual energies can be found in parts of nature like mountains, rivers or trees and 59% say that being connected with nature is “essential” to what being spiritual means to them.
“We asked a lot of new questions,” Alper said. “We've tackled this topic before, but this is the first time we really dove deep.”
The study found that many (45%) in this 'spiritual but not religious' category do claim a religious affiliation, although they don’t consider themselves religious or say religion is very important in their lives. They express more negative views of organized religion than religious-and-spiritual Americans, with 42% saying that religion causes division and intolerance.
Zach Lambert, a pastor at the Restore Austin church in Austin, Texas, is not surprised by the findings.
“We're not losing people in the church, we're not having this mass exodus, because people are somehow less spiritual than they have been before,” Lambert said in a phone interview. “We're losing them for another reason. And so, I think we just have to interrogate what that reason is, and be honest about it.”
Benjamin Cremer, a pastor at Cathedral of the Rockies in Boise, Idaho, said the findings are an indictment on the state of Christianity.
“Within America, where we have become so hyper preoccupied in what a person cognitively believes, that we have separated these incredibly formative and important aspects of holistic people,” Cremer said in an interview. “Human beings are soul, spirit, mind, body, you know, we are a collection of these really important aspects. And so, when you reduce people to just what they cognitively believe, you're missing a whole aspect of the human experience that I think a lot of people are craving. And they're going to find that in nature or yoga or other really physical activities where they can engage their whole person, not just their cognitive abilities.”
Cremer said worship in Eastern Christianity incorporates chants, breathwork and even smells and sounds to engage the entire person.
Politics and social issues such as LGBTQ and women’s reproductive rights may also play a part within the spiritual but not religious group.
“I’ve seen very, very few people who have a problem with the person that is or the teachings of Jesus,” Lambert said. “People aren't leaving Christianity because they find Jesus's teachings too difficult to abide by or they find the theological beliefs outlandish. They're leaving, because the Christians they encounter are so unlike the Christ they profess and they're leaving to find maybe where Christ is actually working more. And I think they're seeing the way of Jesus made manifest in spaces outside of organized religions so many times ... It's that organized religion, especially Christianity in America, has become a net negative to pursuing the way of Jesus for a lot of people.”
Cremer said the current social issues that many Christians are wrestling with may require a different approach from the pulpit.
“Shaping sermons around, hey, you may be scared about this political issue, you may be scared about this cultural shift, how do we maintain joy or loving our neighbor well in the midst of that issue, so that we can relieve people's fear and then maybe we can get to more conducive dialog once those fears and pain is addressed, because so much of our anger is rooted in fear and pain,” Cremer said. “Yet sermons are not coming alongside people and addressing those things. It's saying which side you should be on to be right or wrong.”
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