DISCUSSING “THE SPIRITUALITY REVOLUTION”

Notes Prepared for the Mission Studies Network, Melbourne, 21 October 2004, by Ross Langmead

David Tacey, The spirituality revolution: The emergence of contemporary spirituality (Sydney: HarperCollins, 2003).

This book argues passionately that a new approach to spirituality is growing in Western culture, particularly among the younger generation, and that it ought to be encouraged.

Tacey himself identifies as a Roman Catholic, but is a critical member. He believes that the Divine Spirit is active in all of life and in all people, not just in sacred places or available to members of a particular religion.

He believes that spirit is connectedness with God within and beyond, and is primal, coming before religion. It’s primarily internal, though it leads outward to community, tradition and the world.

Religion, on the other hand, is outward, in his opinion. Religion codifies the spirit, provides rituals to help us to stay in touch with the spirit, and tries to give shape to the ultimately mysterious divine reality that underlies everything.

But religion has tried to capture the spirit and is more often than not out of touch these days. Our worldview has changed radically in these postmodern days, and religion is like a fragile vessel that older people hope can be passed on to younger people but which is brittle and broken.

Tacey argues that secular society is also lacking, having chopped off the realm of the spirit. It denies meaning, mystery, depth and ultimacy.

So younger people are searching everywhere for what is missing. They try the occult, which falls short by trying to manipulate the spirit. They try the New Age, which is often the commercial and gimmicky edge of the new search. But they’re not going to try religion, which they see as generally several steps behind. Sometimes religion is trying to rally people around certainties or fundamentalist beliefs. At other times it is stuck in fixed tradition or liturgy or a desire to gather people into a sacred space.

What people are searching for is awareness and experience of the Spirit at work in relationships, in everyday life and in the mysterious.

There are likely to be many mistakes and it’s dangerous, because the spirit is a powerful and invisible reality.

But teachers, doctors and ministers have a great opportunity to open up to this new search for spirituality and ‘draw it out of’ people instead of pushing it onto them.

Some quotable quotes:

“[Chief among the ironies of this age is that] our secular society has given birth to a sense of the sacred, and yet our sacred traditions are failing to recognise the spiritual potential.” (20).

“In walking away from religious tradition, the modern seeker turns his or her back on the symbolic forms that provide or contain shared meaning, memory and the experience of belonging to a sacramental community.” (42)

“[Students these days] wish to be transformed, not only informed.” (59)

[On the body and sex:] “If religion is to survive in the future, it must deconstruct this dualism of God versus Life that destroys its own vitality.” (115)

“The God of old-style religion is remote, detached, interventionist and supernatural. The God of the new spirituality, however, is intimate, intense and immanent.” (163)

“Religion has stopped having a conversation with culture, and young people live under a cloud of darkness that the churches do not understand.” (177)

“Ecospirituality looms large for young people.” (181)

“A prophetic or spiritual response might find in this crisis an opportunity for new thinking, new ways of ‘doing’ religion and being religious.” (189-190)

“God is serious about incarnation, and is never content with ‘eternity’, but wants to risk an adventure in time and space.” (192)

“Our time is forced to be spiritual before it can become religious.” (193)

“What may be breaking down in our time is the old dualism between church and world.. The churches should regard dialogue with popular spirituality as part of their ministry and mission.” (195)

“[Churches should] become pubic voices for good and God in the wider community, giving people ‘permission’ to develop the natural spirituality that is within them.” (197)

“[Religion should be] offering guidance, support and spiritual discernment to the scattered community.” (197)

A few questions:

1 Is Tacey’s cultural analysis (what’s happening in society) basically right?

2 Is his vision of the universal spirit accessed through our inner self something Christians can affirm, must deny or can engage critically?

3 Exactly how can ‘collective’ religion serve what is essentially a ‘personal’ movement?

4 What are some ways churches can engage with popular spirituality?

5 He is dismissive of progress and liberationist ideologies (29) – where does this leave social justice and political engagement?

Ross Langmead, 21-10-04