SPIRIT BRAND

SPIRITUALITY for the 21st Century

Spiritual-what does it all mean?

I have been interested in the area of spirituality for a while.  There are numerous books that deal with this topic.  The current revival of interest in spirituality tends to look further east, although, there are resources that are available and nearer to home.  I find that history bears a solid foundation for the understanding the realm of spirituality and what it means to be spiritual.  Of course, the followers of Christ back then did not approach the topic with the same vocabulary as the 21^st century.  For example:

George Herbert, A Priest to the Temple or The Country Parson His Character, and Rule of Holy Life, writes sixty pages of short essays on the life, ministry and character of a rural pastor in a country parish. The year is 1632. The setting is the English countryside in an English country parish. The Anglican Church (just a hundred years old) was formally under the leadership of newly crowned King Charles I, (1600-1649), who reigned from 1625 until he was executed in 1649. The title “parson” originates from the Latin “persona,” or serving “in person,” representing the people who are the church.

Herbert stresses that the Church is the primary arena for exploring the Christian life, thereby; the Church must be seen in part as a mirror of the emerging Anglican Church and the society at large.  We ought to note that the Church of England was the only religious option in the early seventeenth century.  Herbert saw the reading of the daily Offices as a basic devotional practice in its corporate and public aspects as the center of all Christian spirituality.  Herbert’s stress on the role of the visible Church represents a shift away from Anglican focus on society as the arena for Christian living.  In other words, Herbert places a greater emphasis on the value of corporate religious life for its own sake.  The Christian life and spirituality can be seen within the context of the corporate life of the Church. 

Much like the seventeenth century, our paradigm for living out spirituality is the society and the present culture.  Herbert challenges this paradigm and offers a different view.  How do I become spiritual?  What does being spiritual look like?  Herbert would ask, does that mean in the Church or in the world?

I fear that some might even question the dichotomy of the question.  We are, of course, inclusive, integrated, and open-minded.  In Herbert’s mind, this would not be an either/or proposition, but merely, a change in emphasis.

This is essential in light of the burgeoning of religions and concepts of spirituality available to the postmodern audience in the 21^st century.  Can you allow the audience to define spirituality?  Or is it possible to change the terms in which the audience is defined? 

I offer this essay as an introduction for our discussion in the area of spirituality.  Spiritual-what does it all mean?