Modern Religious Belief Equally Spirituality

A summary of:
Lynch, G. (2007). New Spirituality: An Introduction to Belief Beyond Religion. I.B.Tauris: London.
Chapter four – Progressive Spirituality together with Modern Religion inward the West (101)

I this section, Lynch traces the development of the Progressive Spirituality, referencing diverse prominent sociologists. Here’s a rapid overview, summarizing the big names that lead maintain contributed to this give-and-take inward the past.

1. Durkheim argued (in Suicide) that modern societies are increasingly individualistic: “Originally, guild is everything, the private nothing… homo [sic] is considered alone an musical instrument inward its hands… But gradually things change. As societies… increment inward complexity, run is divided, private differences multiply, together with the 2nd approaches when the alone remaining bond amid the members of a unmarried human grouping volition live that they are all (102) men. Under such weather the trunk of collective sentiments inevitably attaches itself alongside all its pull to its unmarried remaining object… Since human personality is the alone affair that appeal unanimously to all hearts, since its enhancement is the alone aim that tin lav live collectively pursued, it inevitably acquires particular value inward the eyes of all. It thence rises far to a higher identify all human aims, assuming a religious nature” (103). This “cult of the individual” signaled to Durkheim a novel historic menstruation of secular religion, where, Lynch says, “the private would inevitably mail away all older religious traditions, which would non hold upward the passage into modernity” (104). But interestingly, Durkheim did non encounter this every bit the kickoff of amorality; rather the private would serve every bit the foundation of a novel emergent morality: “Unlike these dying religions, Durkheim claimed that the growing cult of the private was the alone possible cast of collective faith that could serve every bit a rational footing for modern life, whilst, at the same time, stimulating powerful moral sentiments” (104). This seems to lead maintain come upward true, inward the sense that ane of the tenets of progressive spirituality is the sacrality of the human self. And Durkheim famously said – together with nosotros tin lav maybe lead maintain this every bit a alert – that “‘the erstwhile ideals together with divinities which incarnate them are dying because they no longer response sufficiently to the novel aspirations of our day; together with the novel ideals which are necessary to orient our life are non soundless born’” (104 inward Lynch). In other words, that which is non relevant to our needs together with does non brand sense inside our worldview volition kicking the bucket extinct. Presumably, this could lead identify alongside technologies, too.

2. Similarly, Troeltsch commented that spirituality was overtaking faith because “the ‘cultured classes’ of artists together with intellectuals who no longer constitute the Church an adequate spiritual or intellectual home” (104).

3. Artists such every bit Kandinsky together with Mondrian who developed abstract fine art were also influential inward shaping spirituality, because their fine art emphasized “direct mystical appointment alongside spiritual truth” (105).

4. Simmel argued, similar Durkheim together with Troeltsch, that people were increasingly “alienated from traditional Christian beliefs together with symbols” (105). Yet, “their religious impulses persisted” (105), so, similar Heelas et al argue, “Lacking whatever external belief-system to which such impulses could live attached, …these impulses instead became focused on the subjective experience of life. Or, inward his words, inward this novel mysticism, faith becomes ‘a agency of living life itself’, without whatever reference to an external God. As a lawsuit the whole of life becomes sacred. The religious, or mystical, life is no longer the pursuit of God, but the pursuit of a detail character of life characterized yesteryear a sense of depth together with wholeness” (105).

5. Sorokin: “He predicted that the nigh futurity for western guild was bleak – to live marked yesteryear a loss of shared populace values, greater exploitation inside the capitalist system, diminishing freedom, the ascent of mediocrity over genuine inventiveness together with growing levels of anxiety together with depression. Unlike demoralization theorists who mightiness encounter these exactly every bit symptoms of a civilization inward decline, Sorokin saw these to a greater extent than every bit nativity pangs of a novel ‘ideational’ (that is, spiritual) culture, shaped yesteryear a shared commitment to ‘eternal, lasting, universal together with absolute values’” (106).

6. Luckmann “was ane of the initiatory of all sociologists to refer to this novel religious landscape inward price of a consumer marketplace, inward which individuals brand choices nigh which groups, resources together with practices volition live most useful for developing their lives” (107). Spirituality is commodified to a degree.

7. Berger took Luckmann’s ideas further, tilt that nosotros are straight off “‘faced alongside the necessity to select betwixt gods’” (107). Lynch explains, “By pluralism, Berger meant non alone an increased awareness of dissimilar religious together with cultural traditions brought nigh yesteryear immigration together with the shrinking of the reason through travel, volume media together with novel communication technologies, but also the growing attain of choice at the lever of everyday life” (107).
And the outcome of these trends is that people kicking the bucket less certain of at that spot beingness whatever ane truthful faith the to a greater extent than they are exposed to alternative religions (“an opened upward religious marketplace has replaced whatever traditional religious consensus” (108)), forcing people to brand their ain meanings, to make upward one's hear for themselves what feels right, what’s meaningful. “Such choices encourage a procedure of ‘subjectivization’, inward which people kicking the bucket much to a greater extent than self-conscious nigh their thoughts, feelings, needs together with aspirations” (108). And here, nosotros come inward ane time to a greater extent than at Heelas et al’s ‘subjective turn,’ where people gather their ain religion/morality, e.g. “Sheila-ism” (122).

The betoken of all this is to demo that spirituality is the adaptation of faith to modernity (126). Lynch writes, “Indeed progressive spirituality tin lav live seen every bit an active effort to resist the modern pressures of secularization…. Progressive spirituality addresses the challenge of the privatization of religion, inward part, yesteryear embracing it…. At the same time, progressive spirituality endorses forms of faith which are outward-looking, positioning the self every bit a responsible thespian inward an unfolding cosmic drama together with inspiring people to engage inward diverse forms of social activism” (126).