Abstract
This chapter presents a discussion of key terms used in the discourse about religions and spirituality –spirituality, spiritual experience, religion, religious experience – critiquing the ways in which they are often used which is, it is argued, frequently so non-specific that many aspects of human experience could be carried within them. In the interest of informed scholarly conversation, we need to have clear conceptions of what these terms mean, and this chapter attempts to provide this. Moreover, it sets upon this task against the background of research into the spirituality of teenage boys that was carried out by the author in 2004–2006. In revisiting this research, the author seeks to bring greater conceptual clarity to its findings in light of the analysis and definition of the four key terms listed above.
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Notes
- 1.
A detailed analysis of the sources for this definition and a justification of it are given in Engebretson (2007) Chapter 1.
- 2.
The National Catholic Life Survey shows that only 5% of Catholic young people between the ages of 15 and 19 attend Church regularly (Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference: 1996), although this rises to about 18% of Catholics over 40.
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Material in this section has been published in a different form in Engebretson, K. (2006). God’s got your back: Teenage boys talk about God. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 11(3): 329–345.
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Engebretson, K. (2013). Teenage Boys and Life Experience: Towards a Theory of Spirituality and Religiosity. In: Gross, Z., Davies, L., Diab, AK. (eds) Gender, Religion and Education in a Chaotic Postmodern World. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5270-2_19
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