This book examines what people mean when they say they are "spiritual". It looks at the semantics of "spirituality", the visibility of reasons for "spiritual" preference in biographies, in psychological dispositions, in cultural differences between Germany and the US, and in gender differences. It also examines the kind of biographical consequences that are associated with "spirituality". The book reports the results of an online-questionnaire filled out by 773 respondents in Germany and 1113 in the US, personal interviews with a selected group of more than 100 persons, and an experiment. Based on the data collected, it reports results that are relevant for a number of scientific and practical disciplines. It makes a contribution to the semantics of everyday religious language and to the cross-cultural study of religion and to many related fields as well, because "spirituality" is evaluated in relation to personality, mysticism, well-being, religious styles, generativity, attachment, biography and atheism. The book draws attention to the - new and ever changing - ways in which people give names to their ultimate concern and symbolize their experiences of transcendence.

aAn exceptional book in that it tells the story of the failure of a faith-based movement rather than its success. In a richly textured narrative, the authors describe the limitations of religious charisma when it confronts the harsh reality of a business-minded board that requires accountability. This book is fascinating reading for anyone who wants to understand the interplay between spirit and flesh, vision and economic reality.a
--Donald E. Miller, Executive Director, Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California

What does it mean to live out the theology presented in the Great Commandment to alove God above all and to love your neighbor as yourselfa? In Blood and Fire, Poloma and Hood explore how understandings of godly love function to empower believers. Though godly love may begin as a perceived relationship between God and a person, it is made manifest as social behavior among people.

Blood and Fire offers a deep ethnographic portrait of a charismatic church and its faith-based ministry, illuminating how religiously motivated social service makes use of beliefs about the nature of Godas love. It traces the triumphs and travails associated with living a set of rigorous religious ideals, providing a richly textured analysis of a faith community affiliated with the aemerging churcha movement in Pentecostalism, one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic religious movements of our day.

Based on more than four years of interviews and surveys with people from all levels of the organization, from the leader to core and marginal members to the poor and addicts they are seeking to serve, Blood and Fire sheds light on the differing worldviews andreligious perceptions between those who "served in" as well as those who were "served by" this ministry.

Blood and Fire argues that godly love -- the relationship between perceived divine love and human response -- is at the heart of the vision of emerging churches, and that it is essential to understand this dynamic if one is to understand the ongoing reinvention of American Protestantism in the twenty-first century.