Specifically Religious

I am in the midst of reading Kathryn Greene-McCreight's marvelous "Darkness Is my only Companion: a Christian Response to Mental Illness."

The book has been illuminating for me, and I would encourage Christians to read it, as this is an area where the church has not thought clearly, but needs to. I hope to write a review of it once I complete the reading.

While the book deserves a review that keeps its main points in view, a statement made by the author that I read this morning jumped out at me because of its wider applications. While hospitalized due to her mental health condition, she attended once a "Spirituality Group" led by the chaplain, but did not return. Explaining that decision, she wrote, "It was generically religious. I am not generically religious."

Better than I could have said it myself, that explains my indifference bordering on hostility toward the American civil religion that seems to excite so many people.  I suppose it means something to the generically religious.

I am not generically religious.