Hood Jr. Ralph W. - Semantics and Psychology of Spirituality: a Cross-Cultural Analysis

Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

Heinz Streib 1 and Ralph W. Hood Jr. 2

Abstract

Since the enormous shift in the everyday semantic from religion to spirituality has also affected the terminology of the scientific study of religion, it appears necessary to explain the position taken in the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study on Spirituality to the question: Should spirituality be used as scientific concept? Attempts to substitute religion with spirituality are critically discussed in this chapter. To ground and inspire reflection and suggest a conceptual framework for the chapters of this book, we refer to classics in philosophy, psychology and sociology of religion such as Schleiermacher , James , Troeltsch , Tillich and Luckmann . Thus the conclusion of this chapter is twofold: first, we call into question the necessity of establishing spirituality as scientific concept (etic term) in contrast to or as substitute for religion; instead, we argue that the concept of religion is sufficient, because spirituality can be understood as privatized, experience-oriented religion. Second, we strongly suggest taking the self-attribution as spiritual very seriously as emic term and thus open the perspective for the chapters to follow, which are committed to the thoroughgoing empirical study of spirituality as self-description of the persons who identify themselves by that term, whether in conjunction with religion or not.

Keywords

No one in the scientific study of religion can ignore the spectacular increase in popularity which the self-identification of being spiritual enjoys these days. Of course, a majority of people in the United States and a considerable number in Europe use spirituality in association with religion. But an apparently growing number of people contrast spirituality and religion, self-identifying as spiritual, but not religious or as more spiritual than religious (Hood, Hill, & Spilka, , this volume).

This relatively new shift in the religio-semantic field from religion to spirituality has also affected the terminology in publicationsand lead to considerable uncertainty. A growing number of authors use religion and spirituality side by side or use a slash between these words. Many simply omit religion and use spirituality instead. Especially in areas such as health, articles are now more likely to refer to spirituality rather than religion (Miller & Thoresen, ).

There is, however, a qualitative difference between the semantic preference for spirituality by the people on the street who are or may become our research participants, on the one hand, and scientists/researchers exchange of religion for spirituality, on the other hand: While the former do notand need notnecessarily engage in reflection and justification of their terminology, the latter are required to reflectively care for their (system of) concepts and define them in respect to the best expertise possible. Viewed from this perspective, one may be surprised about the easiness of filing away the concept of religionand ignore a centuries-long controversial debate. Thus, we suggest engaging instead in serious reflection about concepts, and here we add our own contribution to the debate.