Lesson 9: Meaning and Purpose
Although I’ve gone all over the place with this study, I’ve found only vague descriptions of spirituality. Let me humbly attempt my own.
Traditionally, people have spoken about five areas of the human life: physical, mental, emotional, ethical, and spiritual. Although they overlapped, you could assign functions to each. The spiritual dealt with meaning and purpose. It connected to something greater than oneself, such as the community, a cause, or the divine. This relationship supplied the beliefs that directed the other areas.
Throughout most of human history the spiritual was informed by an established religion. It provided the spiritual values considered necessarily for a society. In Western Civilization, that was the Christian Church for most of the last 2000 years. Spirituality had to do with the Holy Spirit operating in this world and history.
After the Enlightenment, spiritual focused mostly on the human community. Even though some nations maintained state churches, religion was considered a private matter. Nonetheless, most families sent their children to Sunday School believing they received values important for life there.
All of this started to break down in the middle of the 20th century. Spectacular religious revivals seemed to indicate the only purpose of this life was preparing for another existence after death. Popular Christianity had a hard time providing meaning for living in modern society, focusing almost exclusively on opposing abortion and homosexuality.
Powerful evangelical leaders declared believers had to become more aggressive politically if secularism was to be stopped from destroying Christianity. Their movement presently calls believers to control every part of society.
In reaction, many citizens want nothing to do with organized religion. Some claim they are still spiritual and even Christian, because the long history of Christendom has permeated every area of society. American values are Christian values.
My kind of Christian regards faith, hope, and love to be the spiritual values. We understand them from the tradition found in church community. Participating regularly in its liturgy enables us to profit from the past and find guidance for the future.
If spirituality finds meaning and purpose beyond oneself, this dimension of life seems to be disappearing from modern society. Radical individualism has replaced meaning and purpose with wellness. To sacrifice for a higher cause is regarded as unhealthy.
Let me examine the role of community in spirituality in the coming weeks.
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