“I want God, but I don’t want organised religion.” It sounds fine. Who, in their senses, wants to be like those poor saps on the parochial church council? But, sorry, you cannot have it that way; God is simply not available on those terms.
Your private religion may afford you a brief satisfaction; there is, no doubt, such a thing as a spiritual placebo effect. But for the real thing – the true encounter with God – there is nothing else for it; you have to roll up your sleeves and get out your diary, not to mention shouldering that rather disagreeable bit of penal apparatus, the cross.
Hard? Yes. But this is the way to enlightenment, glory and joy. There is no other.
Yes there is another way. The non-Colin Sedgewick way.