Contemporary Spirituality and Study of the Bible: Introducing a Relationship

Transmission Spring 2014 Contemporary Spirituality and Study of the Bible: Introducing a Relationship It is in one sense yesterday’s news that so many people a distinct academic discipline and as a sub-discipline wish to identify themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’. in other fields suggests that there is more to talk of This phenomenon, however, continues, to dominate spirituality than simply a feel-good Esperanto that the current scene, as the recent report from the Theos could be shared by anyone. Major books and series think tank and the media company CTVC, entitled have been published,2 academic journals in the field ‘The Spirit of Things Unseen’, confirmed.1 It found that have proliferated,3 universities and colleges offer both despite the decline of formalised religious belief and modules and whole degree courses in Spirituality, and institutionalised religious belonging over recent decades, new academic societies have been created.4 a spiritual current runs as powerfully, if not more so, It should occasion no particular surprise or worry that in Andrew through the nation as it ever did. A post-religious nation, such academic discussion ‘spirituality’ remains a slippery the report concluded, is by no means a post-spiritual one. Lincoln term whose definition is debated. The same is true when Andrew Lincoln Any introduction to the relation between this broad and it comes to defining what constitutes a religion. What, continues as hugely contested area of contemporary spirituality and then, do the more serious writers on the subject, whose Professor of New the equally large and complex entity of study of the concern goes beyond such matters as the use of crystals Testament in the University of Bible is bound to be inadequate at best. What follows or Tarot cards, mean when they talk about spirituality Gloucestershire, can, therefore, only be a preliminary and highly selective and do not see it as necessarily religious? The recurring having held the account of the nature and origins of present-day interest themes here are the lived experience of those values that Portland Chair in in spirituality with some brief observations and questions go beyond pure materialism, the fostering of individual New Testament about how serious study of the Bible might interact and communal well-being and wholeness, a sense of from 1999–2013. He has published with it. connectedness with the earth and the planet, and the widely on New contemplation and actions that can bring about the Testament topics, Spirituality as aspiration for fulfilment awareness and demonstration of such values. including John’s Gospel, Ephesians For a long time spirituality, in a variety of forms to be One of the more helpful resources for thinking about and Hebrews. sure, had always been attached to a particular religious such spirituality and how it functions in a predominantly tradition and imbued with its beliefs and practices. secular society is the work of the Canadian philosopher, Detached from such roots, a more general spirituality Charles Taylor, particularly in his influential book,A is, for some, at best the object of suspicion. Not only Secular Age. In his extensive depiction of how a secular does the term conjure up a dualism of spirit over against age is the result of what has happened to the spiritual matter but it also appears to encourage an obsessive over the last 500 years of Western civilisation, he navel-gazing and cultivation of non-verifiable esoteric treats the spiritual as the sense of the aspiration for inner experiences. But the emergence in the 1980s a flourishing existence, whether experienced against of the study of spirituality in its broad sense both as a transcendent background or within an immanent 5 Transmission Spring 2014 framework. He tackles the big question of how we in the living with suffering and evil, humanitarian solidarity, West have moved ‘from a society in which it was virtually justice and reconciliation, a fixation with attempting to impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, capture ethical decisions in codes, facing death and the even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility spectre of meaninglessness.9 For Taylor the dilemmas among others.’5 For Taylor, what has not been sufficiently mean that there can be no easy certainties for either recognised in this major shift is that the conditions side in the dialogue and that contemporary Christians of our experience of and search for the spiritual have in their advocacy of a transcendent source of life should become decisively different. He thinks that in a secular not think of themselves as simply offering solutions but age both those who understand their lives as believers rather as providing intimations and anticipations of how and those who understand them as unbelievers are the dilemmas might be overcome. One of the reasons in a new situation. One of the reasons for this is that that expressions of lived spirituality will be partial Taylor refuses any simple metanarrative of secularisation and provisional is that they are always embedded in NOTES whereby the spiritual increasingly gives way to the secular, particular cultures and their social imaginaries. The latter or where the spiritual shaping of the secular is ignored, are the taken for granted assumptions of a culture about 1. The Spirit of Things or where exclusive humanism is seen as the inevitable the world, our place within it and what is necessary for Unseen: Belief in Post-religious Britain conclusion of a rational process of the stripping away of a full and virtuous life, and they are most frequently (London: Theos, 2013). the superstitions of an enchanted universe.6 Instead, he expressed not in theoretical terms but carried in images, 10 2. E.g., and this is at pains to show in his own account how the position stories and symbols. There can be gains and losses for names but a few of exclusive humanism is as much a constructed reality as Christian spirituality as its tradition both participates in influential titles any religious belief and what forces were in play in this and yet reconfigures a particular cultural imaginary. almost at random, ed. EH Cousins, construction beyond any supposed empirical observation World Spirituality: An and scientific theorising. His story is one of how spiritual Contemporary spiritual concerns and biblical Encyclopaedic History and moral values were crucial in the development of the Religious Quest studies of secularism and of how spirituality within a closed (New York: Crossroad) What does serious study of the Bible that employs the – a 25 volume series; P framework is a distinctively post-Christian phenomenon Sheldrake, Spirituality that owes its strengths and weaknesses to its dialectical whole range of critical tools available for interpretation and History: Questions bring to this discussion? Although the Christian tradition of Interpretation and relationship to the Christian tradition. Method (London: in its various forms has always nurtured an emphasis on SPCK, 1991); K In sketching what constitutes this spiritual aspect of life spirituality rooted in the Bible and devotional reading of Waaijman, Spirituality: that both believers and unbelievers have to negotiate Scripture is a common practice, in the modern era few Forms, Foundations, under the common conditions of a secular age, Taylor Methods (Leuven: biblical scholars, until recently, have pursued their work by Peeters, 2002); argues that we all see our lives as having a certain moral making connections either with this tradition or present- P Heelas and L or spiritual shape revolving around our aspirations for a day interest in the broader phenomenon of spirituality. Woodhead, The full and flourishing existence.7 His shorthand term for such Spiritual Revolution: That situation has begun to change due in no small Why Religion Is Giving aspirations is ‘fullness’. In his own words: ‘Somewhere, in part to the influence of the pioneering work of Sandra Way To Spirituality some activity, or condition, lies a fullness, a richness; that Schneiders, who has advocated readings of Scripture (Oxford: Blackwell, is, in that place (activity or condition), life is fuller, richer, 2004). that respect contemporary criteria of interpretation and deeper, more worthwhile, more admirable, more what it yet at the same time reflect Scripture’s role in mediating 3. These range from should be … Perhaps this sense of fullness is something we 11 the multidisciplinary the experience of faith. In particular, asking questions journal, Studies in just catch glimpses of from afar off; we have the powerful about the spirituality presented in biblical texts and their Spirituality, to the intuition of what fullness would be, were we to be in that potential for transforming their readers’ lived experience Journal of Spirituality, condition, e.g. of peace or wholeness; or able to act on Leadership and adds a further dimension to academic study. From within Management. that level, of integrity or generosity or abandonment or their own framework how do such texts address issues self-forgetfulness. But sometimes there will be moments of 4. E.g. the founding of human flourishing and the longing for fullness? Here in 2009 of the British experienced fullness, of joy and fulfilment, where we feel accounts of fruitfulness, wholeness and peace (shalom), Association for the ourselves there.’8 and abundant life are obvious candidates for re- Study of Spirituality, involving not only Spirituality, on this view, takes in but is not reduced to examination, as are treatments of what have been named academics but also special experiences or the inner life, is concerned with earlier as pressure points for current spiritualities, such as professionals from the whether and how violence, asceticism and renunciation, fields of spiritual care both the presence and absence of that which fulfils us, and formation.

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