Abstract
This chapter analyzes the five main aspects of the on-going relationships between spiritualities and religions: (1) early spirituality as a radicalization and “Easternization” of liberal Christianity, (2) ritual, esotericism and nativism in Christianity and spirituality, (3) New Age and its parallels with charismatic-evangelical Christianity, (4) the holistic turn in spirituality and its links to “lived” religion in the West; (5) contemporary neo-Paganism and its links with Christian tradition, ritual, and place. Woodhead observes on the one hand the interactions between what could be called by traditional categories “the religious” and “the spiritual,” and then pays particular attention to aspects of power relations between the two, not least those that relate to gender.
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Notes
- 1.
Research in Kendal, UK (2000–2002) carried out as part of a team comprising Paul Heelas (PI), Ben Seel, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Karin Tusting, supported by the Leverhulme Trust; and research in Asheville, North Carolina (2006) carried out in collaboration with Helen Berger, and supported by a British Academy grant.
- 2.
A significant number did indeed have a Unitarian background, but rejected Unitarianism in order to pursue a more thoroughgoing unitarian understanding of the divine that gave no special place to Christ (or viewed Christ as a cosmic principle in which we all participate), and moved in a more monist or idealist direction. Thus “God” becomes “the divine” or “spirit.”
- 3.
- 4.
Data available at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/projects/ieppp/kendal/.
- 5.
One wealthy, middle-aged evangelical man I interviewed interpreted it as the work of Satan, and a sign that the end times were coming – that society was falling into a state of pagan sinfulness and openly embracing witchcraft, sexual licence and diabolical practices.
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Woodhead, L. (2011). Spirituality and Christianity: The Unfolding of a Tangled Relationship. In: Giordan, G., Swatos, Jr., W. (eds) Religion, Spirituality and Everyday Practice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1819-7_1
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