Spiritual Resurgence: Cultural Transformations and the Spiritual But Not Religious

Religious studies scholar Terry Shoemaker adeptly traces the ways in which the emergence of our present Information Age has contributed to the rise of the Spiritual but Not Religious demographic in American life. Defining "spirituality" as a type of position, posture, and set of practices competing with religion in contemporary American society, Shoemaker analyzes how information overload, ideological polarization, and the cooptation of established religion by politics and capitalism increasingly prompts individuals to seek out the spiritual.

Resisting any urges toward oversimplification, Shoemaker notes that the moniker "Spiritual but not Religious" itself indicates the ongoing significance of "religion" as that against which the "spiritual" must be defined. Among other benefits, the label of "spirituality" permits individuals to resist the still-suspicious labels of "secular" or "atheistic." A cogent critic of where religion is compromised and where individualized spirituality may stray from its civic duties, Shoemaker theorizes that as society has experienced a collective untethering from cultural establishments and norms, it is replacing those norms with a new type of hyper human-technology tethering.

Spirituality may function in ways that attempt to mitigate the negative effects of information overload, a divided society, and unhealthy economic and political structures--but, drawing on the endless flow of resources the Information Age makes available, rarely will any two spiritualities look identical. Will contemporary expressions of spirituality become coopted by religious institutions? Shoemaker posits that the seemingly endless array of options the Information Age presents may foreclose this from occurring. In any event, Shoemaker astutely demonstrates why we need to take contemporary spirituality seriously.