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Religion and Spirituality: What Are the Fundamental Differences? HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies ISSN: (Online) 2072-8050, (Print) 0259-9422 Page 1 of 11 Original Research Religion and spirituality: What are the fundamental differences? Author: Some Victorian evolutionary thinkers, such as James Frazer, theorised that humanity’s mental 1 brimadevi van Niekerk stages are characterised by magic, followed by religion, culminating in science. Put another Affiliation: way, the notion of humanity’s encounter with the sacred in society will eventually retreat, 1Department of Christian giving way to secular conditions, and that science and rationality would triumph as a more Spirituality, Church History, persuasive means of satisfying human needs. In this first foray in explorations on spirituality and Missiology, University of and religion, this article asks what the fundamental differences between religion and South Africa, South Africa spirituality are, and will examine the aspects of spirituality that are freely accessible and freely Corresponding author: chosen and that are uneasy with religion, by looking at some of the constructed borders that brimadevi Van Niekerk, result in religion becoming narrow, rigid, prescriptive and less attractive. The article then [email protected] examines how the phenomenon of spirituality is creating new paradigms of consciousness. Dates: It draws on the literature on religion, spirituality, sociology and anthropology, and concludes Received: 14 Feb. 2018 that religion will not go away despite the efforts of secularisation. Accepted: 14 Mar. 2018 Published: 30 May 2018 How to cite this article: Introduction Van Niekerk, b., 2018, Some Victorian evolutionary thinkers, such as James Frazer, theorised that humanity’s mental ‘Religion and spirituality: What are the fundamental stages are characterised by magic, followed by religion, culminating in science. Put another way, differences?’, HTS Teologiese the notion of the human encounter with the sacred in society will eventually retreat, giving way Studies/Theological Studies to secular conditions, and that science and rationality would triumph as a more persuasive means 74(3), 4933. https://doi.org/ of satisfying human needs. Durkheim (1915) also predicted that modern society will ultimately 10.4102/hts.v74i3.4933 have no need for religion and that rational thinking and secular institutions would replace Copyright: religion. Modernity, he argued, would be taken over by rationalisation and as religion declined © 2018. The Authors. society would develop into a more complex form. Well, they were wrong. Many modern scholars Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the continued to predict that with growth in literacy, travel, diaspora movements, advancements in Creative Commons technology, mass media and communication, religion would decline. However, while the effects Attribution License. of modernity may have undermined the cohesive force of religion, we now know that religion is here to stay and that the sacred presents itself in ‘new’ ways. The religious mind has a certain uneasiness with the notion of spirituality as a concept standing by itself or being observed and studied in an independent way. What is this uneasiness? Is it that it suspects spirituality of Pelagian notions of human beings which deny the doctrines of original sin and predestination, and lays claim to a moral perfection which is attainable in this life through human free will without the assistance of divine grace? Is it, also, because humans and their own affairs are given centre stage? Another difficulty with the concept of spirituality is the pursuit of any attempt to distinguish it as a distinct form of identity from religious identity. Why exactly are people, who were once-upon-a-time religious, dissatisfied with religion, and what are they converting to? Over 100 years ago, the consequences of the French Revolution culminated in the law of 1905 which created a separation of church and state. Unlike the Enlightenment in Germany, the brand of Enlightenment produced in France was ‘uncompromisingly secularist’, epitomised in philosopher and encyclopaedist Denis Diderot’s call: ‘Have the courage to flee from the yoke of religion so that one may regain one’s humanity, be oneself’ (quoted in Cassirer 1968:135). While religion was not officially suppressed in the West, there was a general attitude that the world would secularise and adopt rationality as a more persuasive means of Read online: satisfying human needs. Weber (1963 [1922]:270) argued that the character of the modernised, Scan this QR bureaucratic, secularised society was one where scientific understanding would be more code with your smart phone or highly valued as the society moved towards rational goals. This would lead to secularisation mobile device and the decline of magic and belief. Traditional society, he argued, would ‘remain an enchanted to read online. garden’, where fetishist practices and rituals would continue. However, as religion became http://www.hts.org.za Open Access Page 2 of 11 Original Research more rational, the world would become exactly the His (Roof 1993) findings show that these baby boomers were opposite of enchanted; it would become demystified. a ‘generation of seekers’. As: Criticism of religion was also widespread in the academy diverse as they are – from Christian fundamentalists to radical from various disciplines, including anthropology, feminists, from New Age explorers to get-rich-quick MBAs – economics, psychology and sociology (Borowik 2011:175– baby boomers have found that they have to discover for 176). In central and eastern Europe after the Russian themselves what gives their lives meaning, what values to live revolutions of 1905 and 1917, religion was expressly by. (p. 6) suppressed by the state. This may be a broad generalisation because it was only after 1945 when the Soviets occupied It would appear that the catastrophe of the war had altered the eastern European states that the full suppression of the way in which religion was handed down from parents to religion in those countries was implemented. This largely children. That is to say, that the values and traditions were continued until the collapse of communism. In the West, not passively being accepted as a fait accompli – there was according to Borowik (2011:178), changes in attitude active appropriation. Roof (1993:8) concluded that these towards religion began in the 1960s. However, as Borowik boomers ‘value experience over beliefs, distrust institutions (2011:180) argues, the contemporary view of religion and leaders and stress fulfilment yet yearn for community, appears to have been reversed with a widespread view and are fluid in their allegiances – a new, truly distinct, rather that the sacred, whether expressed in religion or spirituality, mysterious generation’. is here to stay, prosper and flourish. However, while changes were taking place not only in how But as Susanne Hoeber Rudolf (quoted in Strenski people responded to the sacred but also in how they took 1998:131) argues, ‘modern social science did not warn us responsibility for that relationship, religion, none the less, that these transnational identifications would arise’. has persisted. Reinhold Niebuhr (1968) asked, ‘why has Instead, it asserted that religion would fade, then religious faith persisted for three centuries after the first disappear, with the triumph of science and rationalism, triumphs of modern science?’ ‘Religion’, he affirmed: but in reality religion had expanded explosively, stimulated is continually renewed out of the incongruous situation of man – as much by secular global progress – migration, he is a child of nature who yet transcends nature, a creature who multinational capital, the media revolution – as by experiences disorder and incoherence but who also thinks about proselytizing activity. It was unexpected, she says, and ‘its it and struggles with it. (Niebuhr 1968:x) expansion has been the answer to the deracination and threats to cultural extension associated with modernization Similarly, Preuss (1987:xviii) argues that the question of processes, religious experience seeks to restore meaning to why there is religion at all, its prevalence, its tenacity or life’. Although Peter Berger (1967:138–139), writing in the its ability to change modes are all questions we cannot do late 1960s, had already said that ‘secularisation brings away with. about a demonopolisation of religious traditions and thus, ipso facto, leads to a pluralistic situation’. And so we must ask, what is religion? It was Wade Clark Roof’s study, A Generation of Seekers (1993), What is religion? that made scholars aware that the religious landscape had The word ‘religion’, according to Ramsey and Ledbetter shifted yet again. The aim of his study was to examine how (2001:2), ‘is not a neutral, descriptive term but has strong boomers, since shortly after the Second World War, may be overtones of a political and moral nature’. Cicero derived transforming religion and spiritual life; how they related to ‘religion’ from relegere, to re-read. In other words, ‘that which the sacred; and what this would mean for the future trends of is re-read’, that which is passed along chains of tradition. religion (Roof 1993:6).1 Alternatively, Lactantuis traces religion to religare, ‘to bind fast’ or that which binds men and women to one another and Roof (1993:1) spelt out the different religious activities in the to the gods. Etymologically then, ‘religion’ has a strong decades beginning with the 1960s that show change
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