Litonjua-SPIRITUALRELIGIOUSUNTANGLING-2016

SPIRITUAL, BUT NOT RELIGIOUS: UNTANGLING A SEEMING PARADOX
Author(s): M. D. Litonjua
Source: International Review of Modern Sociology , Spring 2016, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Spring
2016), pp. 21-55
Published by: International Journals
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44510075
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International Review of Modern Sociology volume 42, Number 1, Spring 2016
SPIRITUAL, BUT NOT RELIGIOUS:

UNTANGLING A SEEMING PARADOX
M. D. Litonjua
College of Mount St. Joseph
Religion and spirituality are traditionally linked together, with the latter bein
more profound aspect of the former. With the growing disaffection from
institutional religion and the more expansive understanding of spirituality
growing number of people are saying that they are spiritual without necessar
being religious, a seeming paradox. Charles Taylor, in his magnum opus
Secular Age, does not understand secularization as the inevitable declin
disappearance of religion, but as the emergence of pluralism in the ways of huma
flourishing or fullness, including exclusive humanism. Thus, being spiritu
without being religious is a subject and an experience that can stand on its ow
and has its own integrity.
"' am spiritual, but not religious." I have been hearing it mo

more, from academic colleagues, from students, from friends
acquaintances. The first time I heard it, I thought it
contradiction: for one to be spiritual, you have to make
religious resources. I always thought that they were more or
same, that spirituality was just a deeper dimension of religi
Religion is about reaching out toward transcendence; spir
about delving into interiority. To be spiritual, but not relig
therefore a paradox, a statement that contravenes common
that is opposed to received wisdom, a seemingly self-contra
statement that may well turn out to be true.
What does the sociology of religion say about this? In try
answer this question, we will take a look at some contem
trends in American religion, at the traditional understan
religion and spirituality, at the institutional problems that r
has and is experiencing, and at the insightful contribution of
Taylor in the understanding of secularization, after wh
hopefully will arrive at a renewed understanding of spirituali

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22 International Review of Modern Sociology
necessarily as opposed or even conjoined to

a subject, an experience that can stand on its
will be the Christian religion and Christia
most conversant with. What I say of th
mutandis, to other religions and spiritualit
Contemporary Trends in Religion

To start off, it is necessary to take a look at
trends in American religion that are relevant
Mark Chaves (2011) draws on two importa
trends in diversity, belief, involvement, lead
decline, and polarization. I will call attentio
helpful in untangling the seeming paradox
not religious.
First, Chaves (2011:5, 2-3) documents the
in American religiosity between 1972 and
"recent religious trends mainly are slow-m
slow-moving does not mean unimportant, a
change still can be profound social change.
change, but we also should not allow the c
American religion to blind us to the real
and is occurring." In fact, a major summar
in the midst of substantial continuity in A
signs of change in the direction of less re
More emphatically, Chaves (2011: 15) states
religiosity in the United States in recent
Foremost of these signs is the dramatic
of people with no religious affiliation, th
joke about the increase in "nones," but th
1957, only 3 percent of Americans said th
affiliation; by 2008, 17 percent said so. Th
what Chaves calls "diffuse spirituality," am
people, especially young people, who say th
not religious. Religious leadership is a less
than it used to be, and public confidenc
declined precipitously. "All things consider
lost ground on several fronts in recent de
Liberal Protestant denominations are the o
that have experienced significant, sustain

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Spiritual, but not Religious: Untangling a Seeming Paradox 23
of ideas, religious liberalism steadily has gained ground in the United

States" (Chaves 2011: 14). Lastly, "actively religious Americans are
more politically and socially conservative than less religious
Americans. . . . Rather than being associated with a particular type
of religion, certain kinds of political and social conservatism have
become more tightly linked to religiosity itself" (Chaves 2011: 14).
Again, Chaves (2011: 110) repeats his straightforward general
conclusion: "no indicator of traditional religious belief or practice is going
up
should not be mistaken for an increase in traditio

Earlier, he (Chaves 2011: 38-40) pointed out that "pe
sign of a growing diffuse spirituality is the small b
in the percentage of people who say that they are
religious.'. . . The vast majority of people - approxim
- describe themselves as both spiritual and religious
growing minority describe themselves as spiritual b
. . This trend is more pronounced among younger
percent of people under 40 now [in 2008] descri
spiritual but not religious, up from about 10 percen
In light of this, Mark Chaves (2011: 113) is conce
the hollowing out of some traditional beliefs and prac
tentative increase in a generic spirituality - could point to
American religiosity may be less grounded in institutions.
high levels of religious belief and some kinds of practice, rel
may or may not find ways for people to express their religi
to-face gatherings and local organizations to the same ext
the past. If half of all social capital in America [as Putnam (2
- meaning half of all face-to-face associational activity, per
and volunteering - happens through religious institutions, th
institutions influences more than American religious lif
institutions would mean a different kind of American civic life.
In their study of how religion divides and unites us, Robert Putnam
and David Campbell (2010) arrive at the conclusion that the
American religious landscape has experienced three seismic shocks.
In the 1960s, religious observance plummeted. Then a conservative
reaction in the 1970s and 1980s produced the rise of evangelicalism
and the Religious Right. But by the 1990s, young people, turned off
by the marriage of conservative religion and conservative politics
in the Republican Party, have abandoned organized religion. "A
growing number of Americans, especially young people, have come

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to disavow religion. For many, their aversio

unease with the association between reli
politics. If religion equals Republican, then
religion is not for them" (Putnam and Cam
Thus, a new religious fault line has op
society that has led to religious and s
polarization has not resulted in religious seg
religious polarization, there has been a count
in religious pluralism. Americans have incr
work with, live alongside with, and marry
different from theirs - or people with no reli
to demonize the religion, or lack of religio
and, especially those you love. Indeed, inter
are so common that most Americans probab
and consider them unremarkable. But their commonness makes them
remarkable indeed" (Putnam and Campbell 2010: 6).
One result of the backlash against politicized religion is the
growth of people who report no religious affiliation, those who have
come to be called the "nones." "The third .largest 'religious' group
in the United States [after Evangelical Protestants and Catholics] is
actually defined by the absence of a religious affiliation - the 'nones.'
There are more nones (17 percent) than mainline Protestants (14
percent), a striking fact given that the mainline wing of Protestantism
once represented the heart and soul of American religion and society.
Significantly, the ranks of nones have been growing while the
mainline Protestants' share of the population has been shrinking"
(Putnam and Campbell 2010: 17).
Putnam and Campbell (2010: 96-97) also take into account the
emergence of people who considered themselves spiritual, but not
religious.
The long Sixties also saw unprecedented religious experimentation outside
traditional denominational channels. Some boomers, interested in what they
called the "spiritual," but disdaining conventional religion, were soon dubbed
"seekers," looking for new spiritual homes. "Personalism," "situational ethics,"
and "multiple truths" became hot topics in theological debates. Much less
highfaluting but more evocative was the emergence of "Sheilaism," named
after a woman quoted by Robert Bellah and his colleagues in their bestseller
Habits of the Heart.
All of these, Robert Putnam and David Campbell (2010: 550) situate
in "a flourishing religious ecosphere, in a never-ending process,

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[where] many different variants of religion emerge, adapt, evolve,

and innovate. In America, religion is not static but fluid. Not only
are religions changing, but individual Americans themselves
frequently undergo religious change - finding religion, dropping
out of religion, or switching from one religion to another."
Religion and Its Discontents

Religion is found in all societies. It is a basic social institution,
together with marriage and the family, education, the economy, and
the political system: the five basic institutions of society. A basic
institution is one that meets a fundamental need of society, that solves
a basic problem of group life; it is a foundational social arrangement
that enables a group to live together as a group. Thus, marriage and
the family solve the problem of the reproduction of members;
education performs the socialization of the young into the culture
of the group; the economy answers the questions: how do we provide
ourselves with food, shelter, and clothing?; and the political system
meets the social need for law, order, leadership, and governance.
Religion tackles the questions of the group's origins and destiny, of
life's meaning in the face of disease and death. To religion are given
things and events that are incomprehensible, mysterious, beyond
human understanding and comprehension. Thus, disease and death
were at the beginning incomprehensible, so it was the task of religion
to explain them. In the seventeenth century, science discovered the
biological basis of disease and death, which gave rise to the social
institution, but not a basic institution, of medicine.
The best understanding of the empirical reality of the social
institution of religion is derived from Emile Durkheim: religion is a
system of beliefs, rituals, and practices related to the sacred that
unites believers into a moral community. Durkheim is often criticized
for being a functionalist, and it is true that Durkheim understands
and explains religion primarily in terms of the functions that it
performs for the individual and society. But the Durkheimian
definition of religion captures the four essential components of
religion as a social institution, its four c's: creed, cult, code, and
church.
Creed refers to the system of beliefs that defines a particular
religion and differentiates it from other religions. The problem is
that belief has replaced faith. Faith is the response in trust and love

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of the believer to the God who reveals his love. Belief is the
intellectual adherence to a set of propositions laid down by the
church. In the case of Christianity, after the death and resurrection
of Jesus, it was all about following the way of life set by Jesus himself.
"Go and do likewise," was Jesus' admonition after narrating the
parable of the Good Samaritan. The change came with Constantine
who legalized Christianity. Constantine envisioned the unity of the
empire to be based on the unity of faith, i.e., belief. The church, in
turn, took advantage of the empire to unify belief. Thus, the sword
wielded by the empire and the cross hoisted by the church worked
hand in hand to unify the empire and the belief system.
Now, it all became who and what Christ was in order to worship
him, no longer what Jesus taught and did in order to follow him.
One cannot help but be astonished at the theological debates that
ensued. It seemed like it was a competition and conflict between
mathematical formulas: one or three persons, the same or similar in
nature, one or two natures, Mary as Theotokos, mother of God, or
Christotokos, mother of Christ, the Spirit descended from the Father
or Filioque, and from the Son, justification by faith alone or salvation
through faith and works. Constantine, the emperor himself,
convoked the first Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325 to work out
some order and clarity to the confusion of theological positions and
the rancor of theological debates. The result was the formulation of
the first official creed of the Christian Church, the Nicene Creed,
later affirmed with modifications by the Council of Constantinople
in 381, so it has come to be known as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan
Creed.
Comments Robin Meyers (2009: 14):
Consider this: there is not a single word in th[e] Sermon [on the Mount] about
what to believe, only words about what to do. It is a behavioral manifesto, not a
prepositional one. Yet three centuries later, when the Nicene Creed became
the official oath of Christendom, there was not single word in it about what to
do, only words about what to believe!
The controversies and conflicts over theological propositional beliefs

were played out not only on the ecclesiastical terrain with the tools
of ëxcommunication and exile, but were fought with the might of
empire and the political instruments of torture, execution, heresy
trials, inquisitions, crusades, death, and destruction. The history of
Christianity is, for this reason, violent and bloody. Bitter conflicts

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Spiritual, but not Reugious: Untangling a Seeming Paradox 27
over propositional theological beliefs have resulted in schisms, splits,

and divisions that are a scandal to Christian unity.
The Council of Chalcedon in 451, considered the greatest of the
first four general councils of the Church, which defined that there
are two natures in the one person of Jesus Christ, marked the first
big split of Christianity. Eastern Christianity, made up of the original
Apostolic churches and which therefore was closer historically and
geographically to the life and times of Jesus, could not and did not
accept Chalcedon. It was accordingly pejoratively labeled
"monophysite" (single nature), although, to respect sensitivities, it
was later replaced by "miaphysite (one nature) (MacCulloch 2010:
227-28). Eastern Christianity would spread from Syria and Iraq
through Central Asia and along the silk roads to India, Tibet, and
Tang dynasty China. The histories of these Eastern churches have
until recently been almost unknown in the West. And yet, as
Diarmaid McCulloch (2010: 284) comments, "before the coming of
Islam utterly transformed the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean
and Asia, there was a good chance that the centre of gravity of
Christian faith might have moved east to Iraq than west to Rome."
The ancient Christianity of the East later succumbed to Muslim and
Mongol invasions. The Christian West did not lift a finger to help
their beleaguered brethren in the East, who anyway were heretics.
The more familiar breaches in Christianity were the split between
Orthodox and Latin/Roman Christianities in 1054 and between
Catholicism and Protestantism in the sixteenth century. The main
theological issue involved in the former was whether the Holy Spirit
was descended from the Father alone or Filioque, from the Son also,
whereas in the later, it was whether salvation was by faith and works
or justification by faith alone.
Today Christianity continues to insist on orthodoxy, correctness
and conformity in belief, instead of orthopraxis, correctness and
conformity in practice and behavior. It continues to teach and preach
propositional formulas that a believer must adhere to, even though
such formulas contain philosophical terms that do not mean much
to the modern mind, like nature and person, substance and accidents,
matter and form, consubstantiality and transubstantiation, etc. What
is of utmost importance is the intellectual assent to the truths
contained in the propositions. "We can believe something to be true
without it making much difference to us, but we place our faith only

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iri something that is vital for the way we li

points out. The Age of Belief which replaced
Constantine commandeered Christianity
coming to an end. The new age is as yet
suggests the Age of the Spirit. Dietrich Bonho
from a Gestapo cell of a future "religio
Christianity of faith and witness, liberated
The second institutional component of re
not the popularly understood small group
who have been brainwashed. Cults as ne
designated today as new religious movem
ritual, religious worship. For Catholic Christ
worship is the Eucharist or, as it was called
1965, the Mass was celebrated in Latin with
towards the people. They did not understan
mere spectators at something happening at
their rosaries, prayed their novenas, or
impassively until it was all over. The men
during the sermon to smoke a cigarette. Th
introduced reforms to the Eucharistie celebration. It was now
celebrated in the local language. The altar was turned around so the
priest now faced the congregation. The principle underlying the
changes, "the aim to be considered before all else," the Constitution
on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosantum Concilum, declared, is the "full,
conscious, and active participation of all the faithful in liturgical
celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy"
(no. 14).
In July 2007, Benedict XVI, who as Joseph Ratzinger was a peritus
at Vatican II, allowed the restoration of the Latin Tridentine Mass as
a valid option for those who desired it. It was completely against
the fundamental principle of liturgical reform of Vatican II and was
opposed by the majority of bishops. The reasons behind Benedict's
decision were not entirely clear. Was it to appease the antiquarian
nostalgia of traditionalists, or was it to pull the rug under the
schismatic followers of Marcel Lefebvre, whose first complaint
against Vatican II was the abolition of the Latin Tridentine Mass
prescribed by Pius V following the Council of Trent? But the question
becomes: Have the liturgical reforms of Vatican II become a subject
of political contestation?

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For Advent 2011, the Vatican ordered a new English translation

of the Mass, one that was a more literal translation from Latin. While
seven out of ten Catholics interviewed considered the new translation
of the Mass "a good thing," two out of three Catholic priests
evaluated the new translation as "awkward and distracting"
(McElwee 2013). Attendance at mass continues to be low. The pastor
of the church I go to told me that at a maximum only a quarter of the
parishioners are at mass on a weekend. It is true that Catholic
spiritual life is not confined to participation in the Eucharistie liturgy,
nor does the sacred liturgy exhaust the entire activity of the Church.
But if participation in what Vatican II calls "the summit toward which
the activity of the Church is directed" ( Sacrosantum Concilum, no.10)
is low, what does that say about the sustenance for their religious
and spiritual life that the Catholic faithful derive from the central
official cult of the Catholic religion?
Code refers to the ethical demands or moral precepts of any
religion. In the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, the Ten
Commandments occupy the foundation of its ethics or morality.
Christianity derives its moral teachings from the bible and tradition
that stretches from the earliest Christian writers to Christian
theologians like Augustine and Aquinas and more recent moral
theologians. But ultimately what passes for official teaching is one
that is taught by the official teaching authority, the magisterům, of
the church. Dissent from, rejection and violation of the officially
mandated official teaching in morals merit condemnation and
penalties, the extreme form of which is excommunication, ejection
from the Christian community and communion.
There are three major difficulties with official Catholic teaching
on morality. First, the Church is absolutist on sexual issues, but urges
prudence on socio-political issues of justice and equity. There is no
parvitas materiae, no venial sin in sexual matters, everything is grave
matter. In socio-political matters, however, church authorities can
waffle depending on the political orientation they adopt and the
political goal they wish to achieve. The U.S. Catholic Church for
much of its history was known for defending and promoting issues
on labor, immigration, and healthcare. But they opposed Obamacare,
allegedly on the grounds that it permits and funds contraception.
Asked about the universal right to healthcare that they had always
fought for, Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia, replied: "Health is

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a basic human right; we have a right to

declaration on the part of the Church that i
through government intervention" (Pentin
the right to healthcare become a right to be
Second, the teaching of the Church on se
an outdated biologism; it is simply based on
of the sexual organs. Thus, there are two poi
sexual morality do not budge from: one, th
and therefore is allowed only in marriage,
every sexual act must be open to procreatio
experiences of contemporary men and w
findings of modern psychological science. Ca
to rethink the meaning of human sexual
Salzman and Michael Lawler (2008) and of M
are simply condemned for not being faithfu
Of course! How can theological advances a
you do not question first but simply regur
down?
Third, the Church seeks to impose its teaching on sexual matters
through political means as laws of the land. The First Amendment
of the Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Religion and church have a role in the public square: they can voice
their opinions, argue for their positions, compete with other
arguments. But they cannot demand that their teachings be legislated
and made the law of the land. This is exactly what the Catholic
hierarchy in the United States and the Philippines are doing with
regard to their opposition to contraception, a moral issue that most
Catholic moral theologians dissent from and that most Catholics
simply ignore in practice. The Catholic Church has not learned from
its history the lesson that its alliance with politics corrupts both
religion and politics. The use of religion as a political weapon is also
what most turns off young people from religion (Domke and Coe
Ž010).
Church is the last institutional but the most important element
of religion. Thomas O'Dea (1961) had posited that "religion needs
most and suffers most from institutionalization." Religion must be
institutionalized for the sake of its continued survival, maintenance,
and expansion. But institutionalization is the surest path to religion

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becoming pathological, and it becomes so when the reputation and

interests of the institution and its hierarchy come first before its
mission, when, in other words, people are sacrificed for the sake of
the institution. This is most clear in the institutional handling of the
global pedophilia crisis that engulfed the Catholic Church. The crisis
was less about the rape, assault, and abuse of young people by
members of the Catholic clergy. It was more about the silence, the
secrecy, the cover-up by their superiors, from the diocesan bishop
to the Cardinal-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Church to two successive popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
John Thavis (2013: 69-116) devotes an entire chapter of 47 pages
to the sordid story of Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the
Legion of Christ religious order. He abused young seminarians of
his order, whose confessions he heard to ensure their silence, had
three children from two women, used five different identities, had
associated properties, trust funds, and bank accounts scattered all
over the world, secret personal assets estimated to be worth close to
$30 million. The Vatican knew about his depravities as early as 1976,
but ignored them. John Paul II had personal esteem for him for
attracting significant numbers of new priests. He had cardinal-
protectors in the Roman Curia whom he showered with cash. John
Thavis (2013: 109-10) writes:
[A] final reason Benedict hesitated to deliver a decisive blow to Maciel's
minions, one that became obvious as soon as the depths of the founder's
depravities were confirmed and publicized: The scandal highlighted the failings
of Pope John Paul II. This was a black mark that came into focus as the much
beloved Polish pontiff's sainthood cause was approaching the first big hurdle,
beatification. It was increasingly apparent that John Paul had for many years
turned a blind eye to credible accusations, preferring to trust an organization
that flattered and applauded him, that delivered funds for the church's good
works and that brought fresh vocations into the priesthood. . . . Was it really
the time to beatify a pope who had mishandled a high-profile case of sex abuse?
In the eyes of the world, if Maciel was evil incarnate, John Paul II was his
enabler.
Moral theology today has accepted that sin cannot only be individual
and personal but also social and institutional. Sin becomes social
when the sin is embedded in the ideology, the consciousness, the
social structures, and the collective decisions of an institution. An
example of social sin in society is segregation that existed in the
American South before the civil rights era. An instance of social sin
in the Catholic Church is the anti-semitism that was built into its

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teachings, liturgy, morality, laws, and social s

II. Thus, the church can be not only a church
a sinful church (Litonjua 2014). While not ri
sin and making the church a sinful church, th
by Catholic priests and its cover-up by bish
the social structures of religion - church - mea
existence and to facilitate its mission and witn
an arrogant patriarchal leadership and outda
The result is that church became fatal to the liv
of the young victims it was meant to protect.
Diana Butler Bass (2012: 76-83) notes the pl
affiliation across the breadth of Christian denominations. In
particular, she considers 2000-2010 the "horrible decade" for religion.
"Five major events revealed the ugly side of organized religion,
challenging even the faithful to wonder if defending religion is worth
the effort, and creating an environment that can rightly be called a
religious recession."
1 . 2001 : The September 1 1 terrorist attacks. Both the attacks and
responses to the attacks showed the faces of violent, life-
ending religious fundamentalism and of unthinking religious
hyperpatriotism.
2. 2002: The Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal. Two statistics
became connected with the scandal: roughly a third of
Catholics left the Catholic Church, and clergy with bankers
(post-Wall Street crisis) experienced the greatest decline in
ranking.
3. 2003: Protestant conflict over homosexuality. The nastiness
of the controversy, the low spiritual tone of the discussion,
the scandal of churches suing their mother denominations
over property were appalling.
4. 2004: The religious Right wins the battle, but loses the war.
The greatest victory of conservative evangelical religion was
the reelection of George W. Bush, who in effect became also
the leader of the religious conservative movement. But the
real victory was to alienate an entire generation of young
people.
5. 2007: The Great Religious Recession. The first years of the
21st century marked a swift and shocking reversal of the

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religious mood of the 1990s. By the time the economic

recession happened, American Christianity was already in a
mess.
Dimensions of Spirituality
How is spirituality traditionally understood? The ro
the word "spirituality" springs is the Latin word sp
means, clearly enough, "spirit." Thus, spirituality ha
do with spirit, is connected with spirit, takes it meanin
Lawrence Cunningham and Keith Egan (1996: 6) po
when the founding editors of the multi-volume ency
Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Q
to attempt to define spirituality, they had to provid
description to do justice to the widely divergent for
quest they hoped to survey. They settled on this
spirituality: "... that inner dimension of the person c
traditions 'the spirit.' This spiritual core is the deepe
person. It is here that the person experiences ultima
Thus, Cunningham and Egan (1996: 6) proceeded
spirituality as referring to "that dimension or dimen
experience which provide the spiritual aspect of
enriching and giving 'thickness' to our ordinary ex
Spiritus and spiritualis were Latin translations of S
pneuma and pneumatikos which he set against sarx (f
and sarkikos (fleshy; Latin carnalis). Later developm
contrasted spirit and spiritual to body (Greek soma
and bodily (Greek somatikos ; Latin corporalis ), as w
(Greek hyle; Latin materia ) and material. "The oppos
is not between the incorporeal and the corporeal
immaterial and the material, but between two ways
one's body and one's psychic soul (Greek psyche ; La
like one's spirit, be spiritual if led by the Spirit, an
mind, or will can be carnal if opposed to the Spirit"
931). But the mistranslations led to a deformation o
understood as meaning a disdain for the body and a
world. Asceticism involved practices that aimed at ta
of the body and at avoiding the temptations of the
and superiority of virginity and the rise of monast
life resulted, to a certain extent, also from this distorte

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Another deformation of spirituality arose

structure of the Christian religion and chu
split-level spirituality, a higher and a lowe
for bishops, priests, and religious who wer
to a special holiness, and another for or
pinnacle of this higher spirituality was mystic
who were called to a life of perfection, a lif
God. Popular religiosity, on the other hand
conversions, low levels of general education
[that] promoted religious experience charact
magic under the guise of sacraments, pilgr
travel, and thinly veiled paganism" (Conn 1
There are many spiritualities, of course. B
spirituality. As generally understood, our sp
depth-dimension of our religious expe
experience is always rooted in a particularit
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, H
starters, Cunningham and Egan (1996:
spirituality is the lived encounter with Jesu
that sense, Christian spirituality is concern
doctrines of Christianity as with the ways
as individuals who are part of the Christian
the larger world." One immediately notices
spirituality is rooted in and is derived f
doctrines of the Christian church. But if on
institutional features of the religion and/ or t
deepen, expand, and enliven his religious ex
in and derived from those institutional features? Some of these
institutional features of religion which have become problematic
and unconducive to spirituality were discussed earlier.
Luther and the Reformation shook the Catholic Church to its
foundations and questioned many of its institutional features. Joann
Wolski Conn (1987: 977) points out that Protestant experience of
aspects of medieval tradition led to a new understanding of
spirituality.
Monasticism was no longer desirable as the special place to experience God;
rather, God was free to be present intensely in all of life. Celibacy was no
longer the privileged state of life in which to achieve union with God; instead,
marriage was valued, and in some cases became almost an obligation for clergy.
In this move women lost the advantages of convent life, among them

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independence from patriarchal marriage and the opportunity for higher

education; instead they received a new role-expectation: the pastor's wife. . . .
Contemporary Catholics, on the other hand, can appreciate Luther's insights
and notice relationship to the great Spanish mystics that neither Luther nor
Teresa nor John consciously intended.
Nearer our times, Vatican II in all its documents reflects concern for
a renewed spirituality. Some of the ideas that have impacted the
renewal of spirituality in the aftermath of Vatican II are: the universal
call to holiness, undermining the traditional perspective of higher
and lower ranks of spirituality; the participation of every Christian
in the mission of the church which gradually became translated in
the language of ministry has resulted in the declericalization of
ministries, such as spiritual retreats and retreats, once assumed to
be the prerogative of priests; the value of the world is affirmed, and
the church can learn from the world by receptively reading "the
signs of the times;" Christian spirituality therefore becomes more
authentically biblical, discerning God's presence in the midst of the
events of history as well as in the movements of one's inner spirit;
openness to all religions with respectful attention to what they can
contribute to Christian spirituality, which has meant an
unprecedented outreach in interreligious dialogue, but also an
awareness and appreciation of diversity within Catholic spirituality,
African American, Mexican, Filipino, Puerto Rican, etc.
However, Joann Wolski Conn (1987: 981) notes:
Openness to diversity and critical evaluation of the past has, in fact, created
not only possibilities for enrichment and shared gifts, but also divisiveness
and polarity. In summary, the perspective of Vatican II has generated either a
holistic spirituality which adheres to God at the center of everything and seeks
to cooperate with God in bringing God's reign into every sphere of life; or, for
some, a defensive spirituality that values certitude more than understanding.
Another development that has contributed to a more comprehensive

understanding of spirituality is liberation theology. Gustavo
Gutierrez (1984), the father of Latin American liberation theology,
taught the necessity for a spirituality of liberation in the task and
work of liberation. Gutierrez is significant because his discussion of
the spiritual journey of Latin America's poor, while deeply traditional
in the best sense of the word, is at the same time profoundly radical
in the true sense of the word. He articulates the need for spirituality
while working with the poor, while fighting for justice, while trying
to make the world a better place for the poor to live in. These two

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topics and endeavors were usually seen as c

opposed. He also develops a spirituality
experience of the poor people of Latin Ameri
affirm their human dignity and claim their
daughters of God. Spirituality was usually und
path for an initiated few.
Gutierrez (1984: 52-53) proposed that "ever
begins with the attainment of a certain level
follows reflection on this experience, thus
propose it to the Christian community as a wa
It is a three-stage process. First, while the initiat
it starts with a lived experience of a person o
moment, in a particular historical context,
experience takes place, as it did with St. Ignat
and Manresa. Such an experience is not only a
but a permanent wellspring of life. Thus, the exp
Christian community have left an indelible m
and imagination of the church as having been
of grace, discovery, searching, and life - bot
with brothers and sisters. Second, theology c
second moment, spiritual experience becomes a
it is "theologized," turned into theology. "To
on a spiritual experience means to work throu
the word of the Lord, to the thinking of one's
ways of following Jesus." Third, thus theolog
it is easier to communicate experiences as
discernment regarding it. "A spiritual experi
reflection on it are not the end of the line; th
their very meaning. On the contrary, they are o
community as a way of being Christian. As a,
Christian. A spirituality is only one expressio
charisms in the church." In other words, they
Christian tradition. This threefold process Gu
articulating the spiritual experiences of the p
in reflecting on them, and in offering th
community.
Cunningham and Egan (1996: 6-7) considered this three-stage
process as a handy schema for understanding the background and
development of Christian spirituality, the traditional formation of a

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Christian spiritual tradition. Jon Sobrino (1988), on the other hand,

points out what is radically new in Gutierrez's exposition: that it is
historical, that it is popular, that it is of the poor. General truths
become real only in the act of being historicized, inserted into history.
There is no spiritual life without actual, historical life. It is impossible
to live with spirit unless that spirit becomes flesh. Spirituality must be
"popular," the spirituality of a people. Elitism has gone by the board.
Religious experience opens the road to a spirituality of an entire
people, and not an isolated person. The irruption of the poor
occasioned a totalizing spiritual experience. The irruption of the poor
is a mediation of the encounter with the Lord. Thus, many Christians
in Latin America today have come to the conclusion that for them
the following of Jesus will entail an incorporation into the spiritual
experience of the poor.
Sobrino (1988: 50) writes that all of this is suggested by the title
of Gutierrez's book, Beber en su proprio pozo (Drinking from one's own
well).
The basic image here is that there is a "well" in Latin America that is filled
with the water of life, filled with the faith, the hope, the love, the dedication
and joy, and often enough the tears and the blood, of Christians who have
committed themselves to the liberation of their own poverty-stricken peoples.
Thanks to this well of Christian life, there can be a new spirituality. And thanks
to the fact that so many drink of this well - first the very poorest, for it is theirs,
and then those who have approached these poor persons and devoted
themselves to them - there is a new spirituality. Gutierrez's book, therefore,
unlike so many other books on "spirituality," is not a book on the history of
spiritualities of the past. It is a book on spirituality as current reality.
Wrapping up his comprehensive historical survey of Christian

spirituality throughout the ages, Richard Woods (2006: 274-79) lists
six characteristics that any spirituality for a possible future must
manifest. He asserts: "Foundational to such a vision is the belief
that the human race is on its way somewhere, not just anywhere,
but towards it own essential transformation into a people truly of
God. Spirituality for a possible future is just another way of speaking
about the way to get there. . . . Christian spirituality is 'only' human
spirituality in its universal, inclusive, and progressive expression."
It must be
• Holistic
• Biblically grounded
• Developmental^ oriented

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• Life-affirming
• Socially proactive
• Ecologically responsible
As far as the discipline of spirituality is
Schneiders (1989), for whom "spirituality is th
attempts to investigate in an interdisciplinary
experience as such, i.e., as spiritual and as e
four characteristics that distinguished the d
fields of study. First, it is interdisciplinary, so
use whatever approaches are relevant to the
Second, it is a descriptive-critical rathe
normative discipline; it is not the practical ap
principles to concrete experience; it is the
experience. Third, spirituality is ecumenic
cross-cultural, for which the context for stu
inclusive. Fourth, spirituality is a holistic
limit itself to explorations of the explicitly r
all the elements integral to spiritual e
psychological, bodily, historical, social,
intellectual, and other dimensions of the hum
experience.
For her part, Joann Wolski Conn (1987: 982) observes:
The methods and content of recent books and journals in spirituality
demonstrate at least five significant trends in this field: sustained attention to
issues; concern for the link between prayer and social justice; reliance on
classical sources for answers to current questions; recognition of the value of
developmental psychology and its understanding of "the self"; and agreement
that experience is the most appropriate starting point.
Conn (1987: 983-86) ends by emphasizing that "the issue of 'the self'
is the focal issue in contemporary spirituality's examination of the
relationship between psychology and religion and between grace
and nature," adding that "a synthesis of these trends sets the future
agenda for Christian spirituality: a discipline that is rooted in
experience, attentive to the issue of the self, nourished by history,
and concerned for social justice especially by promoting genuine
mutuality and equality between men and women."
It will be observed that the entire discussion of Christian
spirituality assumes a link between spirituality and religion:
Christian spirituality starts with religious experience, brings religious

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resources to bear on the experience for its examination, discernment,

systematization, and communication, and offers it to the Christian
community for it to enter the broader Christian tradition. This being
the case, the traditional understanding and discussion of spirituality
do not clarify the contention of being spiritual but not religious, does
not explain how that could happen and be possible, and does not
point to any reconciliation or accommodation of the position of being
spiritual but not religious with the position of being spiritual and
religious.
Spirituality in a Secular Age

Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor (2007) has written a magnum
opus of 874 pages with the simple title of A Secular Age. It is in many
ways a difficult and confusing book, because Taylor branches out in
many directions and diverse pathways which he pursues assiduously
that he can leave the reader lost. It is also a tiring and tedious read
since Taylor examines each pathway so meticulously and minutely
in detail that one feels that the vehicle has blown a tire or is stuck in
the mud. Which means that A Secular Age is not one straight narrative
that moves from beginning to end, nor that it can be read in one
sitting however long it is. It is to be read and savored piecemeal,
allowing Taylor to lead you, however meanderingly, through the
thicket of historical musings and meditative reflections that will
result in a big intellectual payoff of understanding. I will take some
thoughts from Taylor that hopefully illuminate the topic at hand,
the exposition of which, I also hope, is faithful to his overall
enterprise.
Taylor (2007: 1) starts by asking: "What does it mean to say that
we live in a secular age?" By secularity he does not the mean the
evacuation of God and religion from the state and public places nor
the falling off of religious belief and practice in many countries over
the years, people turning away from God and no longer going to
Church. The shift to secularity he is interested in is the move from a
society where belief in God is unchallenged and unproblematic, to
one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and
frequently not the easiest to embrace. It concerns therefore the
conditions of belief and unbelief. It is the change of lived experiences,
of experiences as places of fullness. It is a titanic change in our
western civilization. "The change I want to define and trace," Taylor

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(2007: 3) repeats, "is one which takes us from

was virtually impossible not to believe in God,
even for the staunchest believer, is one huma
others. . . . Secularity in this sense is a matter of
understanding in which our moral, spiritual o
and search takes place."
Secularization is a controversial and de
sociology of religion. Rob Warner (2010) under
and competent overview of the topic, but
recognize how novel and consequential Taylor
calls typical explanations of secularization "
against which his book makes a continuing po
introduction, Taylor (2007: 22) he writes:
Concisely put, I mean by this stories of modernity in g
particular, which explain them by human beings havi
or liberated themselves from earlier, confining hor
limitations of knowledge. What emerges from this
secularity - is to be understood in terms of underlying
which were there all along, but have been impeded b
Against this kind of story, I will steadily be arguing
including its secularity, is the fruit of new inventions,
understandings and related practices, and can't b
perennial features of human life.
Unlike in 2000, the world in which it was im

in God, say in 1500, had three features in favo
world, part of the cosmos, testified to divine
God was also implicated in the very existence o
described then, of polis, kingdom, church, or
in an "enchanted" world, a term derived from Max Weber's
"disenchantment" as a description of the modem condition.
Taylor (2007: 26) remarks:
The rise of modernity isn't just a story of loss, of subtraction. The key difference
we're looking at between our two marker dates is a shift in the understanding
of what I called "fullness", between a condition in which our highest spiritual
and moral aspirations point us inescapably to God, one might say, make no
sense without God, to one in which they can be related to a host of different
sources, and frequently are referred to sources which deny God. Now the
disappearance of these three modes of God's felt presence in our world, while
it certainly facilitates this change, couldn't by itself bring it about. Because we
can certainly go on experiencing fullness as a gift from God, even in a
disenchanted world, a secular society, and a post-cosmic universe. In order
not to be able to, we needed an alternative.

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And so the story I have to tell will relate not only how God's presence receded
in these three dimensions; it also has to explain how something other than
God could become the necessary objective pole of moral or spiritual aspiration,
of "fullness". In a sense, the big question of what happened is, how did
alternatives to God-reference of fullness arise? What I will be concerned with
is the Entstehungsgeschichte [history of origins] of exclusive humanism.
To put it crudely, it must be said to its celebrants that secularization

is not the liberation of the true self from religious delusions and
oppression to human dignity and freedom, the fullness of human
authenticity. To its detractors that secularization is not secularism,
the expulsion of God from society nor the loss of faith, meaning,
and salvation, of the fullness of life. Instead, it must be emphasized
that religious faith and exclusive humanism are frameworks among
many in a secular age. Of course, even in the modern age there can
be aberrations of both religious and secular faiths, people who would
exclude and kill in the name of their religion, as well as, people who
would equally maim and kill in pursuit of their secular dreams. This
is the grand narrative that Charles Taylor dares to undertake, long,
complex, and complicated; it is not single, straight-forward, and
continuous transformation. It is a series of departures and changes,
in which earlier forms of life, individual and communal, are
destabilized and dissolved, and new ones are created and emerge.
The result is a multiplication of choices, religious, spiritual,
humanistic, and even atheistic, which individuals and groups seize
on to make sense of their lives and give meaning and shape to their
aspirations.
In these series of transformations, religion, especially
Christianity, itself played no small role. I remember very well my
first insight into secularization and secularity - not secularism - that
Judaism and therefore Christianity may well have started us on that
road. Unlike the nature religions that then proliferated, Judaism and
Christianity taught Yahweh or God as "the wholly other," thus
distinguishing the deity from secular reality - from saeculum, the
world of ordinary time - and endowing it with its own integrity.
Unlike the contempt for the body and the flight from the world that
characterized medieval spirituality, Vatican II, especially in its
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium
et Spes, has a positive attitude toward "the world," the arena of
human life on earth, putting the Church itself in service to the world
as it upholds human dignity and freedom, as it seeks solutions to its

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problems, as it enhances the common good of th

Its opening lines continue to inspire: "The joy
and anguish of the people of our time, especia
or in any way afflicted, these too are the joy
and anguish of the followers of Christ. Noth
human fails to find an echo in their hearts." Of
Joseph Ratzinger, once in power, would label Jo
et Spes "naively optimistic." Contra Ratzin
distinguish between secularity, the reality of
temporal, and secularism, the ideology th
everything religious, as well as, relativity, the p
different perspectives, various points of vie
interest, and relativism, the cynical attitude t
I do not dare summarize the stupendous br
of Taylor's book. Nor can I chart all the high
digressions, explorations, investigations -
journey of musings and reflections. Perhaps
handle on A Secular Age is to go back at how
that is, how he juxtaposes 1500 and 2000. In
not to believe; in 2000, it is possible not to
Taylor's own terminology, because we went f
in 1500 to the "buffered self" in 2000. The
divine, enchanted world in which the fullness
from the outside and from above, from natur
the buffered self - opaque, bounded, ro
shielded - is rendered impervious to an en
in a disenchanted place, a disciplined and f
by a multiplicity of choices for the fullness
can choose. It constitutes "the epochal shift f
in the cosmos to constructing an order withi
2007: 114). The book is the journey from que
the story is not an easy read. What Taylo
account, one full of unintended circumstanc
For every step forward in the journey, Tayl
side-trips: repetitions of strands of the stor
view, explorations of positions, responses,
alternate perspectives. They are argument
nuance where the richness of the book reside
or synopsis can possibly convey.

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The journey takes Taylor to consider the cumulative effects of

Reformed Christianity, Catholic and Protestant, the Renaissance, the
Enlightenment, and the various revolutions that made up the modern
period. He also looks at advances in science, art, literature, manners,
philosophy, theology, and religious practice that gave us a richer
understanding of human nature. But Taylor's historical narrative is
not a history of theories and doctrines, but a narrative of the
background conditions that made various doctrinal and practical
ways possible. They constituted "lived experiences," how people
understood and felt the transformations they and world were
undergoing: the disenchantment of the cosmos, the autonomization
of nature, the rise of civility and the imposition of neo-Stoic discipline
on the self and society, the great disembedding in the Axial period,
which entrenched a new understanding of social existence, one which
gave unprecedented primacy to the individual. And once these lived
experiences ceased to be oriented to elites but were open to all human
beings, they became "social imaginaries," frameworks of moral
order, of belief and life for whole societies. His approach seeks to
show how various forms of human fullness of belief and unbelief
interacted with their social and religious contexts and with one
another in ways that constantly give rise to new forms of human
fullness, of belief and unbelief. The result is "a nova effect, spawning
an ever-widening variety of moral/spiritual options, across the span
of the thinkable and perhaps even beyond" (Taylor 2007: 299).
In fact, "we are now living in a spiritual super-nova, a kind of
galloping pluralism on the spiritual plane" (Taylor 2007: 300), from
which rose exclusive humanism as one viable option for the pursuit
and attainment of human fullness. It is human flourishing without
recourse to God or nature. It is human flourishing that depends on
the choices that the buffered self personally chooses. "The transition
can be conceived as one which takes us from an ethic grounded on
an order which is at work in reality, to an ethic which sees order as
imposed by will. . . . What moves us now is no longer a sense of
being in time with nature, our own and/or that in the cosmos. It is
something more like the sense of our own intrinsic worth; something
clearly self-referential. . . . The buffered self is the agent who no
longer fears demons, spirits, magic forces. More radically, these no
longer impinge; they don't exist for him; whatever threat or other
meaning they proffer doesn't 'get to' him" (Taylor 2007: 130-135).

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Taylor (2007: 300) adds:

To be a buffered subject, to have closed the poro
(thought) and outside (nature, the physical) is pa
disenchanted world. It comes about through a numb
above: the replacement of a cosmos of spirits an
universe, the adding of higher times, the
complementarities, which found expression, for
But these changes were furthered, and in turn inte
shifts in identity, like the rise of disengaged reas
wrought by disciplined self-making, including the
of intimacy, and Elias' "civilizing process." . . .
What did (does) this buffered, anthropocentric id
attractions are fairly obvious, at least to us. A sen
being able to order our world and ourselves. To th
connected with reason and science, a sense of ha
knowledge and understanding.
Exclusive humanism is a development of th

But it was anticipated by developments of th
What Taylor calls "providential Deism" mar
that made possible the transition to exc
intermediate stage that made exclusive hu
marked a narrowing of the purposes o
signaled an anthropocentric shift in severa
we owe God essentially the achievement of
of grace because the order designed by God
see; the sense of mystery fades because G
from the design of an impersonal order. P
an inward turn in culture, a shift in the ce
sensibility, a quasi-geological movement
society. In providential Deism, the divine or
is severely attenuated. God is the watch
natural order who is nearly dispensable. "T
further vocation for human being, beyo
atrophies in the climate of 'Deism'" (Taylor
buffered identity, capable of disciplined c
generated its own sense of dignity and
satisfactions, and these could tilt in favour
(Taylor 2007: 262).
Taylor also credits the expressive indiv
culture of the 1960s, which he titles the A
changes in the conception of agency and of

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exclusive humanism. With the development of a vital youth culture

and of a consumer society, the new culture no longer is the special
province of an artistic and literary elite but a mass movement, with
its focus on fashion, style, external display and outspokenness, and
on the protection of the rights of minorities. "The fractured culture
of the nova, which was originally that of elites only, becomes
generalized to whole societies. This reaches its culmination in the
latter half of the twentieth century. And along with this, and integral
to it, there arises in Western societies a generalized culture of
'authenticity', or expressive individualism, in which people are
encouraged to find their own fulfillment, 'do their own thing'. The
ethic of authenticity originates in the Romantic period, but it has
utterly penetrated popular culture only in recent decades, in the time
since the Second World War, if not even closer to the present" (Taylor
2007: 299). "The heart of this revolution lies in sexual mores" (Taylor
2007: 485).
Anent our topic of spiritual, but not religious, Taylor (2007: 487-
88) points out the result of this expressivist revolution on religion:
The religious life or practice that I become part of must not only be my choice,
but it must speak to me, it must make sense in terms of my spiritual
development as I understand it. This takes me farther. The choice of
denomination was supposed to take place within a fixed cadre, say that of the
apostles' creed, the faith of the broader "church". Within this framework of
belief, I choose the church in which I feel most comfortable. But if the focus is
going now to be on my spiritual path, thus on what insights come to me in
subtler languages that I find meaningful, then maintaining this or any other
framework becomes increasingly difficult. ... In the new expressivist
dispensation, there is no necessary embedding of our link to the sacred in any
particular broader framework, whether "church" or state.
The upshot of this is a bewildering array of positions - a super-

nova, Taylor calls it, in contrast to the nova effect after providential
Deism - that run the gamut from continued adherence to the old-
time religions to atheism and no religion. Taylor (2007: 513) writes:
But beyond this, the gamut of intermediate positions greatly widens: many
people drop out of active practice while still declaring themselves as belonging
to some kind of confession, or believing in God. On another dimension, the
gamut of beliefs in something beyond widens, fewer declaring belief in a
personal God, while more hold to something like an impersonal force; in other
words a wider range of people express religious beliefs which move outside
Christian orthodoxy. Following in this line is the growth of non-Christian
religions, particularly those originating in the Orient, and the proliferation of
New Age modes of practice, of views which bridge the humanist/spiritual

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boundary, of practice which link spirituality and t

and more people adopt what would earlier ha
positions, e.g., they consider themselves Catholi
crucial dogmas, or they combine Christianity wi
not being certain they believe. This is not to sa
positions like this in the past. Just now it seems to
it. In reaction to all this, the Christian faith is in t
recomposing itself in various ways, from Va
movements. All this represents the consequence
impacts on our world. It has created quite a new
This leads Taylor (2007: 542) to underscore tha

of the disciplined individual moves in a
where instrumental rationality is a key valu
secular," which makes up what he calls
adding that "this frame constitutes a 'natur
to a 'supernatural' one, an 'immanent' worl
'transcendent' one." However he is also at
"the closed world structures" of our secul
opposed and hermetically sealed to transce
and accessible to transcendence, "for
explanation, or spiritual transformation
(Taylor 2007: 594). He examines the conflicted
belief and unbelief, a field under cross pr
positions, and analyzes the dilemmas inv
He explores the spiritual hungers and tensi
including those that lead to violence.
In the buffered worlds of many choices f
possible to construct a purely humanistic a
life without explicit reference to God. Bu
demanding. It is now not just fitting do
cosmos, it is more a matter of finding meani
life as a project, of engaging in works to
place to live in. It becomes a matter of pe
parcel of the quest for personal developmen
can have the wisdom, the courage, th
commitment to make responsible choices. M
malaise of modernity, the "malaise at the d
of it as flat, empty, a multiform search f
beyond it, which could compensate for
transcendence, and this not only as a featur

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which continues into ours" (Taylor 2007: 302). This sense of malaise
is captured by Peggy Lee's song, "Is that all there is?"
The galloping pluralism of buffered worlds, therefore, has
dowsides and evilsides. We are "cross-pressured" between
orthodoxy and unbelief, between the extremes of authoritarian
fundamentalism and militant atheism; we are cross-pressured to look
for third ways, for alternatives, which cross-pressures feed into the
dynamic of the super nova effect. Choices are difficult and the
difficulty can result in nostalgia for the porous self, for the
fundamentalism of certainty, for the doctrinaire that does not doubt.
Doubt stalks the buffered self even when he believes, and in anger
at the malaise of modernity can lash out in terror and violence. But
whatever particular solution or formula is arrived at, whether
believing or unbelieving, it will be fragile. The whole culture
experiences cross purposes because of the fragilization of socially-
constructed buffered selves and worlds. "This mutual fragilization
of all the different views in presence, the undermining sense that
others think differently, is certainly one of the main features of the
world of 2000, in contrast to that of 1500" (Taylor 2007: 303-04).
Thus, after dealing with the dilemmas and demands and the
cross-pressures faced by the buffered self of secular modernity, after
viewing certain sites of unease with the closed perspective of the
immanent frame - the value of ordinary living, the sense of time
and the past, the spectre of meaninglessness, and death - Taylor
devotes his last chapter to a look at some of those who broke out of
the immanent frame, who went through some kind of "conversion,"
who underwent an "epiphanic" experience. Vaclav Havel, Jacques
Maritain, Ivan Ulich, Charles Peguy, Gerard Manley Hopkins present
itineraries, old and new, the rich variety of paths in search for the
place of the spiritual in human life. Taylor (2007: 768-70) ends:
In our religious lives we are responding to a transcendent reality. We all have
some sense of this, which emerges in our identifying and recognizing some
mode of what I have called fullness, and seeking to attain it. Modes of fullness
recognized by exclusive humanisms, and others that remain within the
immanent frame, are therefore responding to transcendent reality but
misrecognizing it. They are shutting crucial features of it. So the structural
features of the religious (re)conversions that I described above, that one feels
oneself to be breaking out of a narrower frame into a broader field, which
makes sense of things in a different way, corresponds to reality. It can easily
be that an earlier sense of fullness is now given a new and deeper meaning, as
we saw with Bede Griffiths, who first read his school field epiphany in the

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light of a Wordsworthian Romanticism, and then ca

terms. . . .
Opening to transcendence is fraught with peril. But this is particularly so if we

respond to these perils by premature closure, drawing an unambiguous
boundary between the pure and the impure through the polarization of conflict,
even war. That religious believers are capable of this, history amply attests.
But atheists can as well, once they open themselves to strong ideals, such as a
republic of equals, a world order of perpetual peace, or communism. We find
the self-same assurance of purity through aggressive attack on "axes of evil",
among believers and atheists alike. Idolatry breeds violence. . . .
So, what does the future look like? Of course, this cannot be foretold in any
detail; and moreover, things will almost certainly work out differently in
different societies. But its general structure would be this: whatever the
equilibrium point which dominates in any milieu, it will always be fragile.
Some will want to move further "inward", towards a more immanentist
position, for all the reasons earlier rehearsed in this book, and some will find
the present equilibrium confining, even trifling, and will want to move
outward.
Charles Taylor has argued that secularization does not result in

secularism in which only the secular has existence, value, and
importance. The salient feature of the secular age in Western societies
is not the evacuation of God nor the irrelevance of religion. The
secular age is characterized by a plurality of forms of belief and
unbelief and their fragile and transitory status, where old beliefs
and views are destabilized and new ones formed. The buffered self
confronts this secular age of plurality, and has to choose which path
to follow to attain human fullness. A full human life must deal with
our incarnate status in a temporal world, in all its ambiguities. All
of which makes a variety of demands upon moral consciousness
and position. All of which involves challenges and dilemmas that
ethics and religion have sought to meet. Pluralism can produce
shallow options, but the pluralism of the secular age beats the
ossification of fundamentalism and allows for spiritual growth and
achievement.
In his extended commentary, Peter Steinfels (2008: 18-21) states
that "familiarity with Taylor's book is now the entry ticket for any
serious discussion of secularization. The ticket does not come cheap,"
referring primarily to its bulk and price. But more than that, "Taylor
adds immensely to our sense of what the differentiation process [Jose
Casanova's (1994) incontestable core of secularization in the West]
involved - namely, changes at the deepest level of our understanding

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of the self, society, physical nature, and time, changes posing

challenges far greater than simply learning not to make undue claims
about religion's competency in politics, science, economics, law, or
art." Citing Taylor's words that "we are just at the beginning of a
new age of religious searching, whose outcome no one can foresee,"
Steinfels ends: "He is right: no one can foresee the outcome. Bu
thanks to A Secular Age we have a much better idea of the terrain,
the impasses, the perils, and the possibilities."
Conclusion
What then can we conclude about "spiritual but not religious"

(SBNR)? That it is but one of the many options the buffered self of
contemporary men and women confronts as it embarks on the quest
to developing the fullness of life. The options include, aside from
SBNR, religious and spiritual, exclusive humanistic, and even
agnostic or atheist. As a first approximation in understanding SBNR
and differentiating it from other ways of spirituality, we look at the
characteristics or sources of traditional Christian spirituality. N.T.
Wright (2008: 271-89) briefly outlines six of them: new birth and
baptism, Eucharist, prayer, scripture, holiness, and love. SBNR and
the other varieties of new spiritualities depart slightly or significantly
from these sources. In departing from them, SBNR and the others
do not necessarily reject the traditional sources, but find and utilize
other sources, including practices from other religions, especially
Buddhism, lessons from the psychological and medical sciences and
arts, even insights from the occult and neo-pagan, not Satanic but
Wiccan.
This conclusion is validated by a working paper of the Social

Science Research Council (SSRC), written by Courtney Bender and
Omar McRoberts (2012), in which they recognize the growing
numbers of "religious nones" who have limited or no religious
affiliation, yet still claim to believe in some kinds of divinity - which
signals an unprecedented shift in the American religious landscape
- and that something like "spirituality" might capture an important
aspect of their outlook, if not their "identity." At the outset, Bender
and Roberts (2012: 2) note that spirituality is usually juxtaposed to
religion and defined by what it lacks. "In particular, spirituality
would appear to lack institutions, authority structures, community,
and even history - all of which are considered integral to religion."

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After pointing out that spirituality should

they review studies in this new and dev
on three focal points: the genealogy of
spatial localization and circulation, and
between academic and popular constructi
spiritual. Bender and McRoberts (2012: 9
stating that "'spirituality' is constitu
spatially, and historically situated; and
[Thus] they challenge predominant unde
premised in terms of inferiority, indiv
closure."
Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (2005: x-6) claim there is a
spiritual revolution brewing: "traditional forms of religion,
particularly Christianity, are giving way to holistic spirituality,
sometimes still called 'New Age.'" They situate their claim in the
context of the "massive subjective turn of modern culture," which is
"a turn away from 'life-as' (life lived as a dutiful wife, father,
husband, strong leader, self-made man etc.) to 'subjective-life' (life
lived in deep connection with the unique experiences of my self-in-
relation)." In fact, this turn marks the distinction between religion
and spirituality: religion is "life-as forms of the sacred which
emphasize a transcendent source of significance and authority to
which individuals must conform at the expense of cultivation of
their unique subjective lives," while spirituality is "subjective-life
forms of the sacred, which emphasize inner sources of significance
and authority and the cultivation or sacralization of unique
subjective-lives." Heelas and Woodhead (2005: 8-9) find "a robust
evidence of a pattern: a correlation between subjective-life spirituality
and growth on the one hand, and between life-as religion and decline
on the other," from a research-study at Kendal, Cumbria, in the north-
west of England.
Rob Warner (2010: 89-116) attempts to adopt a more balanced
assessment: no spiritual revolution, no desecularization or
sacralization, no absolute secularity or atheism, but continued
resilience of religion, albeit reconstituted as self-spiritualities, even
as post-Christian and post-theist ones. Atheism became more
emphatic after 9/11 in its polemics against religion and
fundamentalism. Desecularization, Peter Berger's (1999) volte face,
and Jose Casanova's (2006) public religion argue for the resurgence

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of religion in world politics and diplomacy; there is already one of

Islam and Pentecostalism.
Perhaps the future of religion is a dramatic configuration that,
following Heelas and Woodhead, involves four cultural shifts. First,
"novel emphasis on personal autonomy has become the dominant
force in religious beliefs and practices, overturning the parish or
community of faith as the centre of gravity. A religion of personal
choice has replaced a religion of communal givens." Second, "there
has been a rejection of associational religion: the new spiritualities
represent an a la carte range of commodified options for the
individual religious consumer." Third, "a hermeneutic of suspicion
has emerged toward organized religion, its institutions, creeds and
dogmas. The holistic milieu expressly favours individual spirituality,
experience and intuition." Fourth, women have always been the
primary participants in religion. However, in the context of feminism
and the rise of alternative spiritualities, women are increasingly
doing religion for themselves
ordained in the Church of England than men, it

that the church will not increasingly encounter
of its own" (Warner 2010: 92-94).
How do I personally make sense of all this? I
the secular age we are now living, religion and s
disappeared, even if they were mistakenly expec
a plethora of alternative spiritualities. I suppos
Mao Zedong of all people, "let a hundred flo
hundred schools of spirit contend." Henri Nouw
born Catholic priest and a prolific writer in Ch
was one of my favorite, because helpful, conte
matters spiritual, especially his Reaching Out: T
of the Spiritual Life, which Nouwen himself des
me than anything I have written." He wrote fr
Catholic tradition in spirituality but his framew
for me, in understanding what is going on in al
strivings for human fullness and flourishing, in
the innermost recesses of our beings, in all atte
subjective depths of our lives.
The spiritual life is composed of three movem
reaching out to our innermost self, the moveme
solitude. This is most important for two reason

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already indicated, the contempt for the bod

of Christian medieval piety, the negative a
sexuality, the secondary place that was given
reason is a lacuna in our understanding of th
of love of God and love of neighbor. The fu
12:28-31: "Which is the first of all the comman
"The first is this: "Hear, O Israel! The Lord
You shall love the Lord your God with all y
soul, with all your mind, and with all your
this: You shall love your neighbor as yourse
is a threefold commandment: you love y
neighbor, you love God. One of the distorti
question: What if my neighbor is a bad pers
lovable? The distorted answer is: Love him for the sake of God.
Nobody can love somebody for the sake of another body!
We quoted earlier Conn's (1987: 983) assertion that "the issue
of 'the self' is the focal issue in contemporary spirituality's
examination of the relationship between psychology and religion
and between grace and nature." This is especially so in an age of
"bowling alone" (Putnam 2000). It has to be so since spirituality is
about the self's human fullness, about the self's innermost
subjectivity, about the self's depths of being. It has to start with
the person's reaching out to his innermost self, accepting his
limitations and frailties, healing his brokenness, integrating the
different aspects of his personality, his various experiences, his
total history and memory of it. "We are all messed up," in the words
of popular parlance. And the first thing we need to straighten out
is ourselves. The resources for this task can continue to be the
traditional resources of religion. For alternative spiritualities, no
stone is left unturned in seeking and utilizing whatever resources
are available, which includes rituals and practices of Eastern
religions, Native American and Wiccan activities, various therapies,
psychological counseling and energy management, health and
healing techniques, physical dance and singing exercises, yoga,
massage, and many more. In fact, it seems to be that practitioners/
consumers of these new spiritualities reserve the right to explore
self-constructed syntheses of spiritualities. The uses of such non-
religious sources is what makes alternative spiritualities a reality
and an entity all their own.

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The second is reaching to our fellow human beings, the

movement from hostility to hospitality. The human person is a social
being, a being in relationships with others. His sociality, his
relationality is not something that is added, but is constitutive of his
individuality, his personhood. This is important because spirituality
is often accused of being too individualistic in the worse sense of
the word, that spirituality does not have culture, memory, and
history, that spirituality lacks community. But spirituality cannot
be isolated and lonely. It cannot be hostile, angry, and fearful of
others. It must be open and hospitable to others. This now means
hospitable to all types of people, of different races and ethnicities,
of different genders and sexual orientations, of different religions
and no religion. Liberation spirituality emphasizes taking an option
for the poor and the oppressed, standing with and working with
them for their own liberation. It also has to mean concern for the
planet as a living organism which must be protected and nourished
because our fate as humankind is tied up with the fate of the only
planet in which we reside.
The third is reaching out to our God, the movement from illusion
to prayer. God here refers to the deity of the three monotheistic
religions. It also goes by other names: the transcendent even in an
immanent frame, the ground of our being, the ultimacy of our lives,
the power greater than us that, for example, Alcoholics Anonymous,
pray to for serenity. Prayer in the traditional Christian understanding
is adoration, praise, thanksgiving, and petition addressed to the
deity. It connotes a recognition of, a reverence for, if you will, all the
things that are not of our making, life itself, the world in its diversity,
nature in all its abundance, the universe in its grandeur. I suppose
even agnostics and atheists would have no objection to that.
What I am trying to say is that, following Nouwen, spirituality
is reaching out to our innermost selves to achieve the integrity that
we need for human fullness, reaching out to others, especially the
poor or those in any way suffering, to the planet itself for tire common
good and community we all share, and reaching out to something
or someone higher, greater than us, acknowledging that we, human
beings, are not the be-all and end-all of all existence and creation. It
is moving from the loneliness of our lives, the hostility that often
marks our relationships to others, the illusion that we are only what
matters. This, for me, is characteristic of all spiritualities, the

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traditional ones and the newly emergent one

are spiritual, but not religious.
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SPIRITUAL, BUT NOT RELIGIOUS: UNTANGLING A SEEMING PARADOX

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44510075

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SPIRITUAL, BUT NOT RELIGIOUS:

"' am spiritual, but not religious." I have been hearing it mo

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necessarily as opposed or even conjoined to

Contemporary Trends in Religion

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of ideas, religious liberalism steadily has gained ground in the United

should not be mistaken for an increase in traditio

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to disavow religion. For many, their aversio

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[where] many different variants of religion emerge, adapt, evolve,

Religion and Its Discontents

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The controversies and conflicts over theological propositional beliefs

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over propositional theological beliefs have resulted in schisms, splits,

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iri something that is vital for the way we li

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For Advent 2011, the Vatican ordered a new English translation

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a basic human right; we have a right to

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becoming pathological, and it becomes so when the reputation and

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teachings, liturgy, morality, laws, and social s

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religious mood of the 1990s. By the time the economic

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Another deformation of spirituality arose

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independence from patriarchal marriage and the opportunity for higher

Another development that has contributed to a more comprehensive

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topics and endeavors were usually seen as c

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Christian spiritual tradition. Jon Sobrino (1988), on the other hand,

Wrapping up his comprehensive historical survey of Christian

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resources to bear on the experience for its examination, discernment,

Spirituality in a Secular Age

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(2007: 3) repeats, "is one which takes us from

Unlike in 2000, the world in which it was im

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To put it crudely, it must be said to its celebrants that secularization

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problems, as it enhances the common good of th

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The journey takes Taylor to consider the cumulative effects of

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Taylor (2007: 300) adds:

Exclusive humanism is a development of th

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exclusive humanism. With the development of a vital youth culture