Spirituality and Religious Education Marisa Crawford and Graham Rossiter In 1939, the Australian Catholic ‘Green' Catechism, used in primary schools until it was replaced in 1963, talked about the spiritual side of human nature as follows: “A spirit is a living being without a body, having free-will and understanding.” (Lesson 1, Q. 8.) “Man is one of God's creatures composed of a body and soul, and made in God's likeness. I know that I have a soul because I am alive, and because I can think, reason and choose freely. I am made to God's likeness in my soul. My soul is like to God in being a spirit and immortal, and in being able to know and love him.” (Lesson 2, Q.1-4.) At the time, for most Catholics , there was no doubt that being spiritual was equivalent to being religious. The word ‘spirituality', came to be used to refer to the spiritual life of Christians – prayer, and spiritual exercises that included spiritual reading and activities like retreats, and up to the 1960s, the spiritual life in religious orders was the dominant model for Catholic spirituality. Since then much has happened in the development of Catholic spirituality, and Christian spirituality generally. While there are significant variants within contemporary Christian spirituality in · An emphasis on prayer and reflection. · Strongly informed by Scripture and Theology, and religious traditions. · Often supplies a spiritual-psychological interpretation of life experience. · Involves activities to promote the ongoing development of spirituality. In the broader cultural context, spirituality as a term has acquired a cachet beyond its specific religious dimension; it has become a catch phrase sitting comfortably as a term that encompasses a certain lifestyle, a personal philosophy or even a way of doing business. As well, a distinction has been drawn between the spiritual and the religious – and in some cases even a divergence between the two, which has consequences for what is understood as spirituality. Dr. Robert Coles who has done extensive research on the way children understand the meaning of God and the nature of religion has shown how children have an understanding of their spirituality but do not necessarily see themselves as religious, even though they are aware of their religious background. I have worked with boys and girls who go rarely or never to church, to synagogue; who may not in any way consider themselves religious; indeed, who shun such a word as utterly inapplicable to themselves; and yet who ask all sorts of interesting, even stirring questions about the nature of this life, and who can be heard sweating over and playing with ideas that are clearly spiritual in nature -- wondering about the meaning of life, expressing their own sense of what truly matters. (R. Coles, 1992. The Spiritual Life of Children. Harper Collins, Religion no longer is seen to have a monopoly on the spiritual, with the words spiritual and spirituality being appropriated and used by a wide variety of groups, as illustrated below. [Some of the world's leading psychologists] . . have all agreed that the “farther reaches” of the unconscious connect humanity with a wider spiritual environment. This quest for higher states of consciousness has been an enduring theme in . . [the] pursuit of spiritual awakening. (R.C. Fuller, 2001. Spiritual, but not religious: Understanding unchurched America, Oxford University Press, Using our Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) means stretching the human imagination. It means transforming our consciousness. It means discovering deeper layers of ourselves than we are used to living. It requires us to find some grounding in the self for meaning that transcends the self. D. Zohar, and Sport cannot equal the sacred traditions as a means of cultivating the inner life. But, as this book makes clear, sport does possess its own unique genius for revealing and opening to people the spirit's ‘gem-like flame'. Although sport is a most secular activity in a highly secularised world, in its ability to provoke wonder, to elicit deep feeling, to grace our lives with glimpses of timeless beauty and freedom - in these and other ways sport is, though not religion, something religious. (M. Murphy, cover comments, and A. Cooper, 1998. Playing in the zone: Exploring the spiritual dimensions of sports. Shambhala publications, Thought Field Therapy: The most powerful technique you will ever experience. Learn how to eliminate fear, anxiety, stress, trauma, guilt, anger, phobias, jealousy, procrastination, addictions, lose weight and increase confidence and energy in minutes!! (E. Piccinotti, 2004. Nova: Keeping body and soul together, 10, 12, 40. Nova is a Perth/Sydney based Australian magazine “committed to exploring leading edge ideas, services, practices and products that help foster a more liveable world.”) The new buzz word spirituality is being used with reference to education, medicine, business, and by diverse groups from the religious to the New Age. The understandings and definitions of spirituality have been expanding to accommodate these developments. However, the broader and more generic the definition, the more that everything in life seems to become a part of spirituality. Much has been published worldwide about the spirituality of children and youth. In the Spirituality has always been a central concern of religious education. What then are religious educators to make of all these developments? What are the implications for religious education in church-related and public schools – especially with regard to the increasing prominence of non-religious spirituality? Perhaps one thing that religious educators need is some perspective on the ‘geography' of contemporary spirituality. They need some framework for interpreting the development and diversification of spirituality and its relationships with religion. They need to ask questions about what sort of spirituality is being offered today. Is the recent interest in spirituality a resurgence of religion? Or is it a substitution for religion? Or is it the articulating of spiritual dimensions to areas of life previously not associated with the spiritual or the religious? How appropriate are many of the contemporary offerings of spirituality, and what is the role for religious spirituality? The appraisal of spirituality is not just a task for religion teachers. It has pedagogical implications for the classroom. Children and young people also need to explore spiritual offerings through similar challenging questions. It would seem appropriate at this time to promote a discussion about such an important and complex term, which along with the clarifications such a discussion may generate, may stop it from sliding into the realm of clichés and hyperbole, as can be seen in this offering by Christian minister and self styled “stealth evangelist”, Rick Warren! “I'm not a bureaucrat…I'm a spiritual entrepreneur,” he maintains - and promises to “reduce your stress, focus your energy, simplify your decisions, give meaning to your life and …prepare you for eternity.” As the article noted, This Editorial, and the follow up article in this issue of the Journal, are intended to promote efforts to develop a critical, evaluative perspective on spirituality to inform religious education. Religious educators need to honour the rich religious heritage to spirituality while addressing the diverse manifestations of spirituality that have arisen from outside organised religion. The Journal invites further contributions on spirituality and religious education Marisa Crawford (Our Lady of the Sacred |
||||
