Bogosity

I’ve read a bit further in The Spirituality Revolution and I’m starting to get what David Tacey’s on about (or was on about in 2002). He is arguing that the turning of society to spirituality goes hand in hand with post modernism. He says its first expression was in the sixties with the hippie movement and also the new age movement but that these were fairly underdeveloped. He also states the renewed interest in eastern religion, paganism and Celtic spirituality is an expression of society experiencing an up-welling of spirituality. Basically, any form of seeking a connectedness or transcendence in things outside of organised religion is identified by Tacey as part of this spirituality revolution.

In some ways I fit right into his profile of the person who seeks spirituality outside of religion – I’m a fairly secular thinking person, I don’t have much regard for the authority of the church and I don’[t mind looking outside of Christianity for meaning.

In other ways, I’m also part of a movement of renewal inside the church that seeks to allow expression of spirituality within Christianity without prescribing how that should take place. St Philip’s where I worship is quite traditional – we have hymns and an Anglican liturgy. But in our activities outside of the church service context, we express spirituality through environmentalism, social justice (though this is not happening much recently), meditation groups and worship in the style of Taizé. While our service is quite traditional, there is an emphasis on mysticism in the way we do the liturgy and participate in sacraments.