Spirituality

Spirituality
The term spirituality has now gained considerable currency in American culture.

Celebrities avow their spirituality orientation, politicians justify their actions on spiritual grounds, an bookseller stock their shelves with little volumes of “daily affirmations.”

But the use of the term has only recently become part of popular parlance, and only in relation to our contemporary pluralistic culture.

In previous generations people found transcendence in the sectarian religious denominations into which they were born.

The trappings of other religious groups were dismissed as misguided and dangerous.

“Spirits” were associated with séances ghosts and the netherworld. Nor does spirituality appear in anthropologic studies.

“Spirits” are conjured up s ancestral figures that wield power in what some might call “primitive” societies.

They are associated with shamanistic practices that we see as being quite different from our own.

The contemporary perspective on spirituality became evident following the radical cultural transitions that took place in the United States over the latter part of the twentieth century.

Traditional social moorings were shaken and dislodged, and people’s need for transcendence emerged in new form.

Gender roles and sexual behaviors were also dramatically transformed. Widened access to contraceptive led to acceptance of premarital sexual intercourse,

The women’s movement began to erase distinctions between the sexes that had defined home life and work life for generations.

Another dramatic change had taken place in how people assumed their identities of mature adults, as the developmental; norms for adolescent were evolving.

When the twentieth century began, people ended their education to begin work at a relatively young age.

By the latter part of the century, adolescent was prolonged as parents ceded their children to liberal educational institution where youth could devote themselves to contemplating their direction in life, even their life’s very purpose.
Spirituality