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Religions
Special Issues
Whither Spirituality?
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Whither Spirituality?

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 2511

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Morgan Shipley

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Religious Studies, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA
Interests: spirituality; secular spirituality; spiritual but not religious; New Religious Movements; social justice; mysticism and esotericism; entheogens; religion and American culture; pluralism; theories and methods

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the 21st century, amidst a global world still emerging from a shared pandemic, continually contending with increased reliance on technology, and persistently responding to a series of human-made catastrophes, what is meant by spirituality?

For many, spirituality remains a word wed contingently to religion, often emerging to describe experiential aspects of faith, belief, and practice within an established system of religion. In this usage, spirituality often connects to one’s relationship to the sacred, whether this be a transcendent truth or something more immanent, such as nature.

However, for a growing chorus of voices, spirituality increasingly speaks to secular realities—it is more and more a placeholder to describe the ongoing pursuit of meaning, the longing for purpose, and the hope for belongingness both within and beyond religious membership. Once the domain of religion, spirituality now emerges in relation to concerns regarding individual wellness and collective well-being, and in connection to areas ranging from medical care, professional development, and leadership skills to various cultural expressions, including the arts, sport, and technology. For individuals who now prefer the moniker spiritual but not religious, spirituality might signify an enduring commitment to belief but without the “baggage” of religious affiliation; for others, spirituality denotes a specifically secular ideal, one that demonstrates how humans continue to seek answers to the major challenges of life without the guiding hand of religious doctrine or authority.

This Special Issue of Religions seeks contributions that add to, challenge, and seek to complicate the ways in which spirituality emerges, is described, and is applied across both religious and secular landscapes. Is spirituality the experiential or cultural manifestation of religion? What are the results, implications, losses, and values of separating spirituality from religion? What becomes of spirituality within secularity? How do Western notions of spirituality impact global cultural knowledge? What occurs when spirituality and spiritual practices are appropriated in the name of wellness? How do digital spaces connect to spiritual practices and understandings? And what might all this tell us about both spirituality and the continued place of religion in our contemporary moment?

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Spirituality and Religion
  • Spirituality or Religion
  • Global Spirituality
  • Spirituality or Spiritualities?
  • Spiritual vs. Spirituality
  • Spirituality and Nature
  • Spirituality and Environmentalism
  • Spirituality and Justice
  • Spirituality and Culture
  • Spirituality and Digital Culture
  • Spirituality and Technology
  • Spiritual But Not Religious
  • The Nones
  • Spirituality and Wellness
  • Secular Spirituality
  • Problems/Limits of Definition(s)
  • Religion, Spirituality, Theology, and Processes of Classification
  • Spirituality and Philosophy
  • Spirituality and Public Life
  • Spirituality, Politics, and Economics
  • Spirituality and Appropriation
  • Spiritual Tourism
  • Spirituality and the New Age
  • Indigeneity and Spirituality

Dr. Morgan Shipley
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • spirituality
  • secular spirituality
  • spiritual but not religious
  • nones
  • spiritual
  • secularity
  • digital age
  • appropriation
  • public life
  • environmentalism
  • global spiritualities
  • spirituality and wellness

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 886 KiB  
Article
Spiritual but Not Religious? French Muslim Discourses on Spirituality
by Abdessamad Belhaj
Religions 2023, 14(10), 1222; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel14101222 - 23 Sep 2023
Viewed by 1034
Abstract
This article explores the possibility of a spiritual Islam in the West as a viable alternative to traditionalist and political Islam. It looks at the capabilities and limitations of two French Muslim voices, Abdennour Bidar and Éric Geoffroy, who are the most vocal [...] Read more.
This article explores the possibility of a spiritual Islam in the West as a viable alternative to traditionalist and political Islam. It looks at the capabilities and limitations of two French Muslim voices, Abdennour Bidar and Éric Geoffroy, who are the most vocal Muslim intellectuals in favor of spiritual Islam in France. A careful examination of their writings reveals that post-modernism, French secularism, and religious freedom all support the spread of spiritual Islam. However, because of its elitism, overemphasis on individualism, and lack of formal religious institutions for knowledge and practice, spiritual Islam struggles. Overall, spiritual Islam flourishes in a secular society, but it is too intellectual to truly oppose political and conservative Islam. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Whither Spirituality?)
12 pages, 244 KiB  
Article
Psychosocial Workers and Indigenous Religious Leaders: An Integrated Vision for Collaboration in Humanitarian Crisis Response
by David William Alexander and Tatiana Letovaltseva
Religions 2023, 14(6), 802; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel14060802 - 19 Jun 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 945
Abstract
Indigenous religious leaders can be the most trusted organic helping agents within vulnerable communities, but often lack orientation to the language and paradigms of the mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) professionals responding to their communities after a crisis. Similarly, MHPSS professionals work [...] Read more.
Indigenous religious leaders can be the most trusted organic helping agents within vulnerable communities, but often lack orientation to the language and paradigms of the mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) professionals responding to their communities after a crisis. Similarly, MHPSS professionals work within paradigms which do not always match the indigenous world views of the vulnerable people they seek to help and therefore can undermine community stability while attempting to provide a service. In parallel, the spiritual care offered by indigenous religious leaders does not always optimally intersect with evidence-based MPHSS interventions, although it is highly likely that both approaches to care provide important benefits to the community, some of which are missing or underemphasized in one or the other. Training approaches designed to orient religious leaders to the work of MHPSS are usually funded and delivered by MHPSS professionals and tend to leverage MHPSS assumptions and portray MHPSS interventions as the most important lines of effort in care. This may leave religious leaders feeling uncertain of their ability to contribute to multi-disciplinary efforts without migrating away from their own foundational assumptions about humanity, illness, and wellness. Often missing from the field is a parallel effort in training which offers MHPSS professionals insight into the efficacy of indigenous spiritual interventions of various kinds and how working alongside indigenous religious leaders can aid them in protecting against the well-known pathologizing tendencies present in their own models of care. The authors are experienced in working during and after community crisis with both MHPSS professionals and indigenous religious leaders and offer an integrated vision for combined training and combined support planning that may facilitate collaboration after crisis in vulnerable communities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Whither Spirituality?)
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