By JAMES K. FITZPATICK
I don’t know exactly when I first started hearing people say that they were “spiritual but not religious,” but, if I had to guess, I would say it was about 20 years ago. At first I would hear it only from some of the aging hippies who taught with me in a high school in the suburbs of New York City. Nowadays, I hear it from a wide variety of folks: older suburban club women, gals and guys in ponytails at crafts fairs, earnest young folks in diners and pubs.
My problem is that I never know the people who favor this expression well enough to explore with them what they mean. I have frequently wished that I could pull them aside and ask them what “spiritual things” they are drawn to? And what aspects of organized religion they find unattractive?
My search is over. I recently stumbled across an interview that Frank Sinatra gave to Playboy magazine back in February of 1963, a section of which focused on Sinatra’s views on religion. We can’t assume that Sinatra’s views on this matter are representative of all those who describe themselves as spiritual but not religious, but I would wager that they are. See what you think.
The Playboy interviewer starts with the question that has always intrigued me about the “spiritual but not religious” crowd: Where does God fit into their understanding of life? It turns out that He doesn’t, at least not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God the Father revealed to us by Jesus.
“Do you believe in God?” the Playboy interviewer asks.
Sinatra responds, “I’m like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life — in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I don’t believe in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or a natural on the next roll of the dice. I’m not unmindful of man’s seeming need for faith; I’m for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle.”
I think it safe to say that Sinatra’s “witch doctor” includes the Catholic Church: “The witch doctor tries to convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell out to Him what we need, even to bribe Him with prayer or cash on the line. Well, I believe that God knows what each of us wants and needs. It’s not necessary for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach Him. You can find Him anyplace. And if that sounds heretical, my source is pretty good: The Sermon on the Mount.”
The interviewer then asks Sinatra if he has found “any answers for yourself in organized religion?”
“Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace,” Sinatra answers, “but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion and I’ll show you a hundred retrogressions.” Sinatra points to the “Inquisition in Spain” and those “who burned the witches at Salem,” to the Hindus who “worship white cows, monkeys, and a dip in the Ganges” and Muslims who “accept slavery and prepare for Allah, who promises wine” and accessible virgins in the afterlife.
Sinatra is quick to add, “Now don’t get me wrong. I’m for decency — period. I’m for anything and everything that bodes love and consideration for my fellowman. But when lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday — cash me out.”
I think Sinatra was a musical genius, but this is shallow stuff. It illustrates the weakness of the “spiritual but religious” frame of mind. His musings make clear that those who repeat this trope are looking for a way to hold on to the dignity and purpose for living that comes from religious belief, a way to escape Macbeth’s contention that life is nothing more than “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing” — while at the same time escaping the duties and self-denial that are central to Christianity.
Living “my way,” as Sinatra sang proudly, is their goal, not doing God’s will. There is nothing noble about “doing it my way.” It is synonymous with self-indulgence and opportunism.
Archbishop Sheen is famous for asking those who professed their objections to organized religion, “And what is your sin?” I doubt that he ever had the opportunity to put that question to Sinatra, but it would have been appropriate. I submit that Sinatra’s approach to religion stems from his desire to hold on to meaningfulness for life found in Christianity, while at the same time enjoying his life as a man-about-town living the high life in Hollywood and Las Vegas. He was looking for a way to convince himself that he could be a good man on the basis of his appreciation for the beauties of nature and the arts and his self-defined humanitarian impulses — without practicing any of the self-sacrifice that is required of Christians. (At least that is what comes across in this 1963 Playboy interview. I have no idea what Sinatra’s religious beliefs were later in life.)
The Jesus who preached the Sermon on the Mount — for whom Sinatra professed his admiration — was the Jesus who called for us to take up our cross and follow Him — not to “do it our way.” The bottom line: It is the Lord’s call to come follow Him, rather than our self-interests, that the proponents of a “spiritual but not religious” understanding of life seek to escape. They want to do what they want to do. Period. And then call it praiseworthy.
Sinatra talks of the “blood shed” in the name of Christianity. Come on. It is a trickle in comparison to that shed by the atheist totalitarians of the last century, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, for example. As well as by the pagans of earlier times motivated by greed and blood lust.
Sinatra’s professed sense of awe for the beauty of nature, for “the birds, the sea, and the sky”? That sense of awe is neither a reflection of moral virtue, nor an inspiration for high-minded behavior. I would bet serious money that Charles Manson is fond of sunsets and seagulls and that Hitler was enthralled by the vista of the mist-covered forests that spread before him from the windows of his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps. They also say he loved dogs and could be brought to tears by the majesty of Wagner’s operas. He was spiritual but not religious. It did not make him a good man.
It can be argued that it is better to be “spiritual but not religious” person than an advocate of a dog-eat-dog materialism. Fair enough. But it remains the confused philosophy of life that Jesus came to Earth to liberate us from. He offered Himself to us as the Word, the Truth, and the Life, not as a selection on the smorgasbord available for those seeking meaning in life.
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