One of the in, but characteristically meaningless phrases that fall effortlessly from the mouths of Anglican Bishops, is that people these days are spiritual, but not religious.

The implication is that anything, so long as it is “spiritual”, is meritorious, especially when contrasted with institutional religion with its foibles and failings.

The Bishop of Bath and Wells reckons that, while rioting is a criminal activity – for which he blames capitalism, not the rioters – it is also “spiritual”. Although Bishop Peter Price sounds just like any other run-of-the-mill barmy bishop, he may have inadvertently stumbled onto something: the rioting was evil and evil has its roots in the “spiritual”. The point is that not everything that is spiritual is good, a fact that has been fairly obvious to two millennia of Christians, but one that has now been obscured by the church’s ceaseless toiling to be inclusive, trendy and relevant.

From here:

Not that Anglican leaders do not deserve the scorn they attract; this year’s award for silliest comment must surely go to the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who said that last August’s riots were a “spiritual experience”.

Bishop Peter Price told the Synod: “I have no intention of being sentimental about the people, mainly young people, who took to the streets last August and destroyed property, ruined other people’s lives and walked off with looted trophies.

“Riots embody appalling evil and criminality and those who get drawn in often display great wickedness.

“But as the Passionist priest, the late Fr Austin Smith, said after the Toxteth riot in the 1980s, rioting can be, literally an ecstatic spiritual experience.

“Something is released in the participants which takes them out of themselves as a kind of spiritual escape.