"Spiritual But Not Affiliated" (SBNA) began to be used to some degree by academics in 1960 [1]. By the turn of the Third Millennium the turn "Spiritual But Not Religious" (SBNR) became a category of choice for many. "What It Means To Be Spiritual But Not Religious" notes:
Because over 92 percent of religiously-affiliated Americans currently identify as Christian, most “spiritual-but-not-religious” people come from that tradition. The term SBNR took off in the early 2000s, when online dating first became popular. “You had to identify by religion, you had to check a box,” Hedstrom told me. “‘Spiritual-but-not-religious’ became a nice category that said, ‘I’m not some kind of cold-hearted atheist, but I’m not some kind of moralizing, prudish person, either. I’m nice, friendly, and spiritual—but not religious.’”
Many do not understand what is going on in this transition. They are not giving up on spirituality but trading it in for something more enchanting. Carl Teichrib points out in "Magical Re-Enchantment: Part 3: Spiritual Secularity and the Occulturing of Society [2]":
French theologian and social thinker, Jacques Ellul, said the following on the heels of the Cultural Revolution in the West: “Secularization is always an intermediate stage between a religious society on the way out and the appearance of a new religious structuring.”
If the 1960s and 1970s represented the revolutionary seedbed for a new spiritual outlook (see chapter 6 in Game of Gods [3]), the 1980s and 1990s were the decades of blossoming. In my view, this 40-year window was a critical time for the Christian church in the West. Alas, the year 2000 and onward would see both a harvest and re-seeding of spiritual alternatives; fresh shoots are flourishing in the soil that had been tilled during those key decades.
We have entered the Age of Re-enchantment.
It isn't exactly an abandonment of logic, reason, and science [4] but an attempt at melding them into a new way of knowing. It is a sort of scientific mysticism. For Christians, especially churches, it will mean investing in regaining the type of apologetics style the Apostle Paul used in the First Century in order to be able to use the material the newly enchanted are drawing from in order to point them to Christ and salvation [5] through Him.
https://mailchi.mp/2ad66b102db9/taming-jesus?e=169825fd77 [6]
Links:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_but_not_religious
[2] https://carlteichrib.substack.com/p/magical-re-enchantment-part-3
[3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1999492900?linkCode=ssc&tag=onamzmidchrou-20&creativeASIN=1999492900&asc_item-id=amzn1.ideas.2DHGCXXCFXEGX&ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ons_d_asin
[4] https://www.thebereancall.org/taxonomy/term/58/science
[5] https://www.thebereancall.org/taxonomy/term/57/salvation
[6] https://mailchi.mp/2ad66b102db9/taming-jesus?e=169825fd77