If Religion Were Spiritual

The American suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton once said, ＂The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation.＂ Quaker pastor Philip Gulley agrees--institutional religion remains a stumbling block not only for women’s emancipation, but for human emancipation. The answer? Spirituality. In this latest book Gulley, known as the voice of small-town America, lyrically and powerfully explains why spirituality, and not institutional religion, is the true pathway to ultimate meaning and purpose.

Religion, at its worst, tells us we must love God, we must obey God, we must obey the priest, the Imam, or the rabbi. Religion, at is worst, is an arranged marriage gone bad, the powerful telling the powerless what to do and who to love. Spirituality, on the other hand, is our right to find our own way, to seek our own truth, free from compulsion and control. Unhealthy religion attempts to manage that which can never be managed--the movement of Spirit and the mystery of love.

The goal of spirituality isn’t to change someone else, but rather to change the self. Having dedicated itself to self-growth, true spirituality has neither the time nor inclination to monitor others. True spirituality is the friend of freedom, refusing to impose its values and priorities upon others.

In lifting up the virtues of spirituality, while also describing the dangers of religion divorced from spirituality, Gulley does not denigrate his fellow religious followers or institutions--he simply shows where institutional religion, flawed and fully human, has forgotten its way.

With the voice of a poet and the conviction of a prophet, Philip Gulley is making his most important and controversial claims about discovering what is truly important in life: our search for significance.

Philip Gulley, a Quaker pastor in Danville, Indiana, near Indianapolis, is a publishing phenomenon who has become the voice of small-town America.

Gulley has written over twenty fiction and nonfiction books, mostly with HarperOne and Crown (through Convergent, its religion and spirituality imprint). His novels include the Harmony series (HarperOne) recounting life in the eccentric Quaker community of Harmony, Indiana, and his nonfiction works include the best-selling Porch Talk essay series. Gulley’s memoir, I Love You, Miss Huddleston: And Other Inappropriate Longings of My Indiana Childhood (HarperOne, 2010) was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

In addition, Gulley, with co-author James Mulholland, share their progressive spirituality in several other books published by Harper, If Grace Is True and If God Is Love, followed by Gulley’s books, If the Church Were Christian and The Evolution of Faith. An earlier book, Front Porch Tales was also published by HarperOne.

In Living the Quaker Way: Timeless Wisdom For a Better Life Today (Convergent/Crown, 2014) Gulley offers the opportunity to participate in a world where the values of the Quaker way bring equity, peace, healing, and hope. Living the Quaker Way invites readers to encounter the defining commitments of the Religious Society of Friends, which he defines as simplicity, peace, integrity, community and equality, and shows how those ideals can be incorporated in personal and public life to bring renewal and eliminate the clutter that is keeping us from deeper spirituality.

In his most recently published work of non-fiction, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe (Convergent/Crown, 2018) Gulley describes the process of spiritual growth, especially the re-interpretation of the earliest principles we learned about God. Gulley teaches the reader to let go, or unlearn these burdensome obstacles in their faith so that they can forge a more authentic relationship with God.

His video lecture series, PlainSpeech with Philip Gulley, reaches 20,000 viewers.

For more information, see https: //www.philipgulley.co/

Gulley’s articles appear in every issue of Indianapolis Monthly (200,000 monthly readers) and The Saturday Evening Post (350,000 bimonthly readers).