Modern religion as spirituality

A summary of:
Lynch, G. (2007). New Spirituality: An Introduction to Belief Beyond Religion. I.B.Tauris: London.
Chapter 4 – Progressive Spirituality and Modern Religion in the West (101)

I this section, Lynch traces the evolution of the Progressive Spirituality, referencing various prominent sociologists. Here’s a rapid overview, summarizing the big names that have contributed to this discussion in the past.

1. Durkheim argued (in Suicide) that modern societies are increasingly individualistic: “Originally, society is everything, the individual nothing… man [sic] is considered only an instrument in its hands… But gradually things change. As societies… increase in complexity, work is divided, individual differences multiply, and the moment approaches when the only remaining bond among the members of a single human group will be that they are all (102) men. Under such conditions the body of collective sentiments inevitably attaches itself with all its strength to its single remaining object… Since human personality is the only thing that appeal unanimously to all hearts, since its enhancement is the only aim that can be collectively pursued, it inevitably acquires exceptional value in the eyes of all. It thus rises far above all human aims, assuming a religious nature” (103). This “cult of the individual” signaled to Durkheim a new age of secular religion, where, Lynch says, “the individual would inevitably displace all older religious traditions, which would not survive the passage into modernity” (104). But interestingly, Durkheim did not see this as the beginning of amorality; rather the individual would serve as the foundation of a new emergent morality: “Unlike these dying religions, Durkheim claimed that the growing cult of the individual was the only possible form of collective religion that could serve as a rational basis for modern life, whilst, at the same time, stimulating powerful moral sentiments” (104). This seems to have come true, in the sense that one of the tenets of progressive spirituality is the sacrality of the human self. And Durkheim famously said – and we can perhaps take this as a warning – that “‘the old ideals and divinities which incarnate them are dying because they no longer respond sufficiently to the new aspirations of our day; and the new ideals which are necessary to orient our life are not yet born’” (104 in Lynch). In other words, that which is not relevant to our needs and does not make sense within our worldview will go extinct. Presumably, this could happen with technologies, too.

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

3. Artists such as Kandinsky and Mondrian who developed abstract art were also influential in shaping spirituality, because their art emphasized “direct mystical engagement with spiritual truth” (105).

4. Simmel argued, like Durkheim and Troeltsch, that people were increasingly “alienated from traditional Christian beliefs and symbols” (105). Yet, “their religious impulses persisted” (105), so, like Heelas et al argue, “Lacking any external belief-system to which such impulses could be attached, …these impulses instead became focused on the subjective experience of life. Or, in his words, in this new mysticism, religion becomes ‘a way of living life itself’, without any reference to an external God. As a consequence the whole of life becomes sacred. The religious, or mystical, life is no longer the pursuit of God, but the pursuit of a particular quality of life characterized by a sense of depth and wholeness” (105).

5. Sorokin: “He predicted that the near future for western society was bleak – to be marked by a loss of shared public values, greater exploitation within the capitalist system, diminishing freedom, the rise of mediocrity over genuine creativity and growing levels of anxiety and depression. Unlike demoralization theorists who might see these simply as symptoms of a culture in decline, Sorokin saw these more as birth pangs of a new ‘ideational’ (that is, spiritual) culture, shaped by a shared commitment to ‘eternal, lasting, universal and absolute values’” (106).

6. Luckmann “was one of the first sociologists to refer to this new religious landscape in terms of a consumer marketplace, in which individuals make choices about which groups, resources and practices will be most useful for developing their lives” (107). Spirituality is commodified to a degree.

7. Berger took Luckmann’s ideas further, arguing that we are now “‘faced with the necessity to choose between gods’” (107). Lynch explains, “By pluralism, Berger meant not only an increased awareness of different religious and cultural traditions brought about by immigration and the shrinking of the world through travel, mass media and new communication technologies, but also the growing range of choice at the lever of everyday life” (107).
And the result of these trends is that people become less sure of there being any one true faith the more they are exposed to alternative religions (“an open religious marketplace has replaced any traditional religious consensus” (108)), forcing people to make their own meanings, to determine for themselves what feels right, what’s meaningful. “Such choices encourage a process of ‘subjectivization’, in which people become much more self-conscious about their thoughts, feelings, needs and aspirations” (108). And here, we arrive again at Heelas et al’s ‘subjective turn,’ where people assemble their own religion/morality, e.g. “Sheila-ism” (122).

The point of all this is to show that spirituality is the adaptation of religion to modernity (126). Lynch writes, “Indeed progressive spirituality can be seen as an active attempt to resist the modern pressures of secularization…. Progressive spirituality addresses the challenge of the privatization of religion, in part, by embracing it…. At the same time, progressive spirituality endorses forms of faith which are outward-looking, positioning the self as a responsible actor in an unfolding cosmic drama and inspiring people to engage in various forms of social activism” (126).