The term spirituality is at the center of much debate on the shape and meaning of religion in the modern, or postmodern, world. Yet the term defies an easy or singular definition—it is an "attitude or principle that inspires, animates, or pervades thought, feeling, or action," to quote Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (2nd ed., 1997). It is worthy of note that both the verbs and the spheres of activity to which the verbs point in this definition vary. Beyond spirituality’s broad sweep in thought, feeling, and practice, all pointing to the inner, subjective world of religion, spirituality is also viewed as having emerged, as Ursula King points out, as "a general code word for the search of direction, purpose, and meaning related to the deepest dimension of human existence" and is thus "no longer exclusively based on an a priori theological standpoint, but is rooted in a search, in experimentation, questioning and exploring" (1998, p. 96).
Writing more than a century ago, the American psychologist William James (1842-1910) privileged this inner space in his classic definition of religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." James distinguished this personal, experiential element within religion from the "theologies, philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations [that] may secondarily grow up" around the experience ([1902] 1985, p. 31).
Viewing religion broadly as a transcendent and often transforming experience, he left open the form of the experience itself and the devotional object at the center of that experience. Spirituality is thus the primary and motivating quality of religion—"whether the religion in question," writes Catherine L. Albanese commenting not specifically on, but in keeping with James’s outlook, "is organized or of movement status or mostly individual; and whether it involves God, or other-than-human guides and spirits, or the center of the Self, or an almighty Nature, or an Ideal held to be worth living or dying for" (2001, p. 11).
Spirituality thrives in the context of a living religious tradition; indeed, the latter’s constituent elements of symbol, doctrine, myth, ritual, text, and story all shape an experiential religious world. Belief and practice embedded within tradition "keep alive" a sense of transcendence, sacrality, and ultimacy. Put differently, religion is a symbolic and linguistic system that by its nature is powerfully evocative—it triggers experiences and emotions and at the cognitive level defines a meaningful universe including proper strategies of action. Encoded signs and symbols are the means by which experiences not only are generated but are described, even recognized and labeled, as religious. Historically, the major world religious traditions have relied upon symbolic forms for breaking outside of the profane world and into an alternative reality known only through its ecstatic qualities and interpretive frames. Even within contemporary, more secular social settings, research suggests that those persons most involved in their religious traditions are more likely to report having strong religious experiences (Yamane and Polzer 1994, pp. 1-25).
More appropriately, we should speak of spiritualities—emphasizing the plural—since they vary by tradition and social and personal circumstance. Monotheistic, and typically highly monarchical religious traditions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam image God as a distant powerful being, as a male, kinglike lawgiver and judge, and locate the central human problem as one of sin and guilt as measured against divine standards. Emphasis is upon what Marcus J. Borg describes as a "performance model" of spiritual practice, of trying to meet the requirements God expects (1997, pp. 62-71). Hence the dominant God is somewhat more distant as traditionally conceived. But in the many Hindu and Buddhist traditions with their numerous gods, male and female, or no god, stress is upon devotion and meditation in quest of inner peace, joy, and liberation. There are many spiritual paths toward a higher consciousness through the cultivation of experiences of connection, belonging, wholeness, and selflessness. Eastern spiritual diversity thus stands out in contrast to the more monotheistic Western styles.
Religious symbols, belief, and community generate spiritual energy, but social factors shape the form the spiritual dynamic will take. As Max Weber (1864-1920) observed, the spiritual styles and theodicies for ruling elites differ markedly from those who are either weak and powerless or socially mobile. The spiritual dynamics of elites typically focus more upon the blessedness and naturalness of the existing order; the powerless on otherworldly rewards that should come in the next life; and the socially mobile on the importance of getting ahead and doing well. Metaphysical spiritualities acknowledge these same features of the natural order but usually without full blown justifications for dominance. Minorities are often, though not always, characterized by otherworldly spirituality. At times they are motivated spiritually by religiously inspired ethical ideals to engage in struggles against oppression and inequality, an obvious example being the civil rights movement led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968). Rooted in the African American Christian experience, King exposed the gap between ethical ideals and social injustice; addressing a deep psychological dissonance between ideals and practice, he thereby mounted a "spiritual protest" without having to resort to the use of violence as a means of bringing about constructive social change.
In the contemporary world, spirituality takes increasingly diverse forms in response to changing social and cultural realities. One emerging pattern is described as post-traditional, characterized by the searching and experimenting Ursula King speaks of. Individuals acting with a great degree of autonomy explore spiritual truths from many sources, mixing and matching elements to their own choice. High levels of exposure to religious diversity contribute as well to a mixing of the codes. Cross-national research in Western countries suggests that this pattern holds broadly for the post-World War II (1939-1945) generation (Roof et al. 1995), and especially so in the United States. Seeker-oriented spirituality is compatible with life in modern, rapidly paced societies. Also, in these settings, ties to faith traditions are often weak. Social and religious conditions thus make for a thriving "spiritual marketplace" where innovative entrepreneurs compete with one another in defining spiritual needs and in supplying meaning and practice—all intended to assist the individual in his or her spiritual journey. Drawing upon the spiritual resources available to them, both within and outside of organized religion, people assume a considerable amount of self-direction in cultivating their spiritual lives.
A distinction between spiritual and religious is becoming more commonplace in advanced modern societies. Within the United States, for example, the number of people claiming to be "spiritual but not religious" is estimated variously (but with differing empirical measures) as 14 percent (Roof 1999) and 31 percent (Wuthnow 2005) of the adult population. To be religious implies faith in God or the divine, participation in institutionally based practices, and respect for the teachings of a tradition; to be spiritual puts emphasis upon the experience of connectedness, relationship, or oneness with God/Christ/a higher power/the sacred/nature and appreciation for personal growth and inner awareness in one’s life journey. Various empirical measures of self-rated religiousness and spirituality are increasingly used by social scientists as a means of taping these differing responses. Self-rated religiousness is related to attendance at religious services and orthodox belief, whereas self-rated spirituality is associated with mystical experiences and New Age beliefs and practices, particularly among those with higher levels of education and income. An expanding body of research links these two to a broad range of social, psychological, and behavioral correlates, particularly in areas of psychotherapy, child-rearing philosophy, and lifestyle research (see Zinnbauer et al. 1997).
Research suggests that the vast majority of those claiming to be religious are also spiritual—indeed, the spiritual lies at the core of religious life. But if the post-traditional spiritual quests described above represent shifting styles of individual religious expression, a second pattern might be called retraditionalizing, or the deliberate cultivation of spiritual meaning through committed religious life and practice. Described as engaged spirituality, this effort is deeply grounded within congregational religious life and thus is less individualistic in style, and seeks to combine spiritual depth with social concern and responsibility (Wuthnow 1998; Stanczak 2006). A third, quite different pattern is the neotraditional response, or the attempt at reconstructing and enforcing older religious beliefs and values throughout a sociopolitical order. Protesting the erosions of modernity, efforts such as these typically arise in close alignment with political ideologies and mass movements, as with the mobilization of the Religious Right in the United States or the rise of radical Islamic militants in various parts of the world. Spirituality of this kind arises out of a remythologizing of narratives of God, people, and nationality in search of religious certainty and a more secure moral universe.
