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A New Trinitarian Idea
Stephanie and I were talking about spirituality and it's relationship to theology and religion. We determined that my theology led to my religion and my spirituality, whereas her spirituality led to her religion and theology. It seemed like these three things had different relationships to one another, and it is an idea that I think calls for exploration.
When asked to define spirituality, I could only define it in terms of the other two. My answer then was that they were related: Spirituality comes first, an experience of the sacred that later is partially explained and examined. This explination leads to theology, which I defined as "rules for the sacred." Religion is the practice of this theology. Of course I didn't start life with a spiritual experience that I can remember, but was raised in a religious tradition, so I have had to back pedal a bit over the years to define my theology and then understand my spirituality. I was comfortable in the first step and only recently began to understand the importance of the second step.
These definitions are not complete and I don't want to make that claim. I was starting with Theology and defining religion and spirituality from that point. Starting with theology was easy with the philosophical background I had in my return to the church
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