In recent years, the United States has been characterized not only
as a highly religious nation, but as one undergoing a resurgence of
spirituality. There is much discussion in both the media and
academe about what this means. ""Religion"" is usually understood
to be social, collective, and institutionally-based.
""Spirituality,"" on the other hand, is considered as an emotional
and individual practice that borrows from a variety of religious
traditions to create a unique devotional system. While scholars
have long recognized the importance that religion and religious
organizations have played in social activism, they have typically
seen spirituality as a private matter with few practical
implications. In ""Engaged Spirituality"", Gregory C. Stanczak
challenges this assumption, arguing that spirituality plays an
important role in the making of activists and has the potential for
changing the social order. As an integral aspect of everyday life,
spirituality is a feeling, an experience, a relationship, and a
connection of intimate practices that, much like other feelings or
relationships in our lives, takes on the texture and color of what
is going on around us. While some are more familiar with the
concept of spirituality as an alternative means of self-discovery,
there are just as many individuals for whom it serves as a driving
force to address the injustices they find in their communities and
beyond. Based on over one hundred interviews with individuals of
diverse faith traditions, the book shows how prayer, meditation,
and ritual provide foundations for activism. Among the stories, a
Buddhist monk in Los Angeles intimately describes the physical
sensations of strength and compassion that sweep her body when she
recites the Buddha's name in times of selfless service, and a
Protestant reverend explains how the calm serenity that she feels
during retreats allows her to direct her multiservice agency in San
Francisco to creative successes that were previously unimaginable.
In an age when Madonna studies Kabbalah, Methodists create home
altars with Kwan Yin statues, and the internet is bringing Buddhism
to the white middle-class, it is clear that formal religious
belonging is no longer enough. Stanczak's critical examination of
spirituality provides us with a way of discussing the factors that
impel individuals into social activism and forces us to rethink the
question of how ""religion"" and ""spirituality"" might be defined.
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