- Author
- Year
- 2010
- Title
- From religion to spirituality: megatrend in contemporary society or methodological artefact? A contribution to the Secularization debate from psychology of religion
- Journal
- Journal of Religion in Europe
- Volume | Issue number
- 3 | 1
- Pages (from-to)
- 34-67
- Document type
- Article
- Faculty
- Faculty of Humanities (FGw)
- Institute
- Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA)
- Abstract
-
After a short discussion of important issues concerning the secularization debate and the three meta-narratives involved in this debate (decline, transformation, rise), the following question is addressed: in modern societies, has 'religion' given way to 'spirituality' on the individual level? After a critique of different conceptualizations of spirituality for empirical research and a sample discussion of survey data (results of the European Values Study for the Netherlands between 1980 and 2000), the answer is negative. The suggestion is that spirituality appears as a megatrend in the mass media marketing commodities and in the publications of social scientists trying to attract a broader audience. But the so-called spiritual trend at the level of individual 'religious' orientations is the result of a questionable terminological construction or a questionable interpretation of survey data or arises from a combination of the two.
- URL
- go to publisher's site
- Language
- English
- Permalink
- http://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.330147
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