After a spiritual journey of more than fifty years, I recently came home. I came across a spiritual movement that deeply resonated with all that I have read and experienced over the many years of my quest. I would like to thank Matthew Fox for bringing the Interspiritual Movement to my attention. (1) This movement has the potential to solve two major problems facing the Christian faith; ie, the fact that the church has been an overall failure in helping to solve the major crises facing the world and the rapid decline in church membership among all denominations in America.
In 1999, Br. Wayne Teasdale published a pathbreaking book entitled The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions, which pointed to a new way of thinking about religion. The defining idea of the movement is that there is an important difference between religion and spirituality. Religion is about belief systems, scriptures, mythical stories, ritual practices, dogma, and end-time scenarios. Some religious traditions claim to possess absolute truth. These different religious traditions have been a major source of conflict over the last 5,000 years.
In contrast, spirituality has nothing to do with an established religious institution or belief system. Instead, it is about deeply held values of love, kindness, forgiveness, mercy, tolerance, compassion, a deep sense of oneness and nonviolence, and the importance of working toward economic and social justice. The Interspiritual Movement claims that all religions are one when looked at spiritually. The differences occur with their accompanying problems when religious doctrines are taken into account. Beneath their religious baggage, the common spiritual values of these religious traditions are produced by the inner life experiences that all humans share.
I can best explain this inner life that all humans share by looking at my own spiritual encounters. Over the years, I have had several encounters of deep love and the oneness of creation from spending time in nature. These experiences could not be planned or timed. I remember experiencing deep peace one afternoon, sitting on the bank of a river watching the water flow by. My awareness was flooded with a loving energy as I stared at a doe with her two fawns grazing in a meadow not far from the home of my son and his wife in Lebanon, New Hampshire. I sensed wonder and awe one night as I gazed at the stars and thought about the magnificent universe we all share. My awareness that night was flooded with a deep sense of peace and the oneness of all creation. As I witnessed our second child come into the world, the operating room became flooded with light, and deep love surged through me. When the doctor handed Molly to my wife, I could see from my wife’s face that this love was surging through her. Watching the snow fall produces for me a peace that really does pass all understanding.
These experiences from nature are mysterious. They cannot be willed, planned, or controlled. They are essentially unpredictable. A major focus of the human ego is control. It functions as a gatekeeper, regulating experience and information from the outside environment with the goal of protecting us. These nature experiences of transcendence puncture the ego’s control, which provides us with glimpses into a higher level of reality. These glimpses are transforming.
They also communicate a message. I did not learn that Jesus died for my sins or that he rose from the dead in three days. Instead, I sensed that life is beautiful and good, that love is real, a part of the created universe, and that in some strange way everything is connected. Each experience took me to another place. I sensed a reality that was so much greater than myself.
The experiences described above have enabled me to glean brief glimpses into this higher level of reality. The Interspiritual Movement posits that a more sustained unity can be achieved by the disciplined use of contemplative practices. All religious traditions recommend the use of such practices to clear away the clouds of one’s egocentric perspective, which enables that person to enlarge his or her understanding of reality. The quiet and inner peace brought on by the disciplined use of these practices helps to reduce the control of our inner defense mechanisms. Such work enables us to view our insecurities, resentments, anger, and other faults in a calm, nonjudgmental way, which reduces their control over our awareness. As the Buddha taught, cleaning the windows of one’s perception opens one up to experiencing higher levels of reality. Once our awareness is enlarged beyond self, inner transformation takes place. We are no longer ruled by our feelings and desires. This enables us to better see and serve the needs of others.
The goal of the Interspiritual Movement is not to create one world religion or to encourage people to leave their religious tradition for another one. Instead, the goal is to encourage members from all faith traditions to enter into a real dialogue with members of different traditions. The hope is that such a dialogue will lead to the real growth of the participants stemming from a deep sense of our shared humanity. As individuals grow spiritually through the use of contemplative practices that all religious traditions share and as they sense their deep connection to all of creation, a change in consciousness will occur. This higher consciousness will emphasize we over me, cooperation and partnership over domination. It will be love-driven rather than ego-driven, a way of thinking that places the common good ahead of personal gain.
Christian churches that join the movement will place less emphasis on salvation in heaven and a greater focus on helping their members encounter genuine religious experience. Imagine a service at night under the stars where a cosmologist from the local university gently speaks about the universe story. This half-hour meditation on the grandeur of the universe was followed by a potluck supper. Or imagine a service with no sermon, creeds for recital or Bible reading, but instead begins with a quiet group meditation with gentle background music led by the church leader. The meditation was followed by the singing of several songs with congregants holding hands and hugging their partners and neighbors. Next came a group discussion of an important issue. The congregation would be divided into groups of from seven to ten members, and the goal would be for each member to be listened to and heard. The group meetings would be followed by a potluck lunch. Each worship service would focus on helping members of the congregation attain genuine religious experience with a shared common meal at the end to build community and to engage in loving fellowship.
Ryan Burge, in his new book entitled The Vanishing Church, points out that there is a significant disconnect between the pulpit and the pew in mainline churches. They are not speaking the same language. He finds that members of the clergy from these churches identify as politically liberal by large majorities, while few in the pews identify themselves in that way. These lay people hold views that are pragmatic, which places them slightly right of center on the political spectrum.
This suggests to me one of the greatest weaknesses of all the scholarly writings on Christian ethics. Few, if any, of these writers talk about the need for transformation. Living the love required to honor Jesus’s teachings requires transformation, the achievement of an expanded awareness that enables one to see beyond a self-centered perspective and to then act in ways that serve the needs of others. Contemplative practices from all the world’s religious traditions provide the necessary tools to help one expand their awareness. A major focus of Christian churches that join the Interspiritual Movement will be to introduce these contemplative practices to their members, which, over time, will help the church to finally become a partner with God in making the world a better place.
Moving to the second crisis within the Christian faith of declining church members in the United States, this decline can best be understood as generational. For Gen Xers (born 1965-1980), Millennials (born 1981-1996), and Gen Z (born 1997-2012), traditional religion clashes with how they have come to view the world. In 1972, 60% of the Lost Generation (WW1) and the Greatest Generation (WW11) reported attending church regularly. By 2021, only 20% of the three younger generations mentioned above reported attending church regularly. By 2010, Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) also became part of this decline. Average worship attendance in U.S. churches declined from 137 people to 65 people in the last two decades. On an average Sunday, only 22% of Americans attend church. If you take out the South, that number declines to 10 percent.
The statistics
documenting this decline in church membership among mainline Protestants
from 1960 to 2010 are both stark and depressing.
Disciples of Christ—79%
United Church of Christ—70%
The Episcopal Church—65%
The Presbyterian Church USA—62%
The United Methodist Church—58%
Evangelical Lutheran—53%
American Baptist—50%
As
a result of this decline in members, the National Council of Churches
estimates that 100,000 churches will close in the coming years. That’s
25% of all churches in America. Thom Rainer, researcher and former
Lifeway CEO, speculates that when the numbers for 2025 are in, 15,000
churches will have closed. Another 15,000 will move from full-time to
part-time pastors. This downturn is not confined to any single faith
tradition or region of the country. (2)
Christian Smith concludes in Why Religion Went Obsolete that the decline in traditional religion in America will not be reversed. Hopeful clergy should not expect a religious revival to rescue their declining membership. The decline will eventually plateau, but when that happens, the traditional church will be greatly marginalized. The cultural forces behind the decline are just too powerful to be reversed.
It is possible, however, that the Interspiritual Movement may eventually bring younger generations back to the church. While the vast majority of millennials can’t find transcendence in traditional religion, they are looking for it elsewhere. Many claim to be spiritual, believing in a God of love. By large numbers, younger Americans distrust religious institutions and authority figures. Instead, they place their trust in experiences that come from nature, music, art, and sex with a committed partner. Many are impressed with Eastern Religions. In interviews conducted by Smith, they describe them as cool, while they see traditional religion as boring. If there is such a thing as religious truth, it is found by an inward search. Many practice meditation as a way to sense oneness. All of the preferences and inclinations listed above for younger Americans are compatible with the Interspiritual Movement. (3)
As they grow older and some of their institutional distrust dissipates, younger Americans may again look for loving religious communities. Interspiritual churches are about the spiritual growth of their members. They take seriously the idea that each person has their own spiritual path. Such an approach resonates well with the way younger Americans see the world.
The Interspiritual Movement offers much promise to enable the church to finally play a constructive role in making the world a better place and to bring lost generations back to the church. Sadly, however, established institutions have great difficulty undergoing change. Maybe, as church leaders ponder the impending death of their cherished organizations, they will see the need for a totally different approach to religion. The Interspiritual Movement provides for such a change. One can only hope that church leaders will begin moving in that direction.
Notes
- See Matthew Fox, “Interspirituality, Deep Ecumenism, Shared Wisdom: The Future of Humanity,” Progressing Spirit, November 13, 2025. The essay that follows only scratches the surface of this wonderful movement. Readers interested in a more thorough discussion should consult Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Heart, Kurt Johnson, editor, Interspirituality: The Heritage Vol. 1, and Kurt Johnson, editor, Interspirituality: The Future, Vol. 2.
- I thought of footnoting the several sources from which these statistics on church membership decline came, but the problem is well-documented in many sources. Readers interested in confirming these numbers should Google Christian membership decline and Christian church closings for the many articles on this subject.
- This discussion of the religious preferences of younger Americans comes from Smith’s book, Why Religion Went Obsolete. If you are interested in understanding the why of this membership decline, I recommend Smith’s book highly.
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Dr. Rick Herrick (Ph.D., Tulane University), a former tenured university professor and magazine editor, is the author of six published novels and two works of nonfiction. His latest books are The Writing of the Christian Gospels, Toward a Post-Biblical Christiany Future, A Christian Foreign Policy, A Man Called Jesus, Jeff’s Journey, A Second Chance, and Moving Beyond Belief. His musical play, Lighthouse Point, was performed as a fundraiser for the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. Herrick is currently retired, living in Bluffton, SC. He is married with three children and seven grandchildren.
