"Spirituality" as Privatized Experience-Oriented Religion

Abstract

Recent empirical studies demonstrate that a growing number of people contrast "spirituality" and "religion," self-identifying as "spiritual, but not religious" or as "more spiritual than religious." This shift in everyday semantic preference, from "religion" to "spirituality," has also affected the terminology of the scientific study of religion, producing some uncertainty and ambivalence regarding the conceptualization of spirituality. This is critically discussed. To inspire reflection, the article refers to some classics in philosophy, psychology and sociology of religion. The aim is twofold: first, to take the self-description "spiritual" very seriously, and inspire more thoroughgoing and sophisticated research; second, to call into question the necessity of conceptualizing 'spirituality' and to suggest that the concept of 'religion' is sufficient, because "spirituality" can be understood as privatized, experience-oriented religion.

Analiza strukturalna procesów dekonwersji w okresie dojrzewania – konstrukcja Skali Dekonwersji Adolescentów

“…Z jednej strony, od lat 60., opisywane są przez badaczy procesy sekularyzacyjne, wyraĪające siĊ w takich zjawiskach, jak wzrost liczby apostazji, kryzys instytucji koĞcielnych, porzucanie dotychczasowych toĪsamoĞci religijnych (por. MariaĔski, 2006MariaĔski, , 2013Streib i Hood, 2011;Streib i Klein, 2013;Zarzycka, 2009). Z drugiej strony postĊpuje proces desekularyzacji, charakteryzujący siĊ m.in.…”

A Commentary on the Relevance of Charles Taylors Critique of William James: Varieties of Spirituality and Religion and their Relevance to Psychopathology

“…However, Taylor misses the considerable empirical evidence that individual religious experience does often end in a liked-minded set of believers. Individual experiences identified in some totalizing aspect that is directly recognized -an event or episode that is "experienced" in response to a sense of ultimacy and transcendence [6]. This experience is often confused with standing only in opposition to a more dogmatic community of believers in the negative sense of the mere insistence of particular beliefs who often form the religious but not spiritual type that Taylor worries about.…”

A structural analysis of deconversion processes in adolescence: The construction of the Adolescent Deconversion Scale

“…On the one hand, since the 1960s, scholars have been discussing the processes of secularization, manifesting themselves in phenomena such as the increase in the number of apostasies, the crisis of church institutions, and the abandonment of the current religious identities (cf. MariaĔski, 2006MariaĔski, , 2013Streib & Hood, 2011;Streib & Klein, 2013;Zarzycka, 2009). On the other hand, a desecularization process is advancing; it is marked, for instance, by the emergence of new movements within the great religions, the creation of new (extraecclesiastic) religious identities (e.g., defining oneself as a "spiritual, but nonreligious" person), or the growth of interest in the religions of the East and in cults (cf.…”