Spiritual Revolution In This Age 

There is a spiritual up-rising, sweeping through the land and its happening amongst the non-religious post-modern youth of this age.

We are now livings in a time of ‘all-inclusive universal spirituality.’ This happy state of affairs is a fortunate derivative, a spirit freeing spin-off, if you will, of the political and cultural phenomenon known as post modernity. 

We are now livings in a time of ‘all-inclusive universal spirituality.

The Post-modern mode is a complex socio-political theory that seeks to promote and explain the mass movement in western societies away from hierarchical institutions and the collective control and certainty that they provided. In their place is an embrace of a more fluid, less fixed, subjective individuality, where ultimate control is exercised by the individual unshackled from institutional doctrine and domination.¹ 

The implications of this dramatic shift in the zeitgeist for institutionalized religions have been stark. There has been a mass exodus, and it doesn’t look like the folks who made their escape are coming back anytime soon. 

Now there are a few old codgers, like me, who are still hanging to the mysterious beauty of the old rituals and that is all to the good. But in terms of much needed spiritual renewal the situation is beyond dire. Put simply, young people who are the lifeblood of any spiritual movement have moved on and are now shaking it up spiritually in entirely new and exciting ways.

Some scholars have labeled this new spiritual paradigm as nothing short of a tectonic shift in the sacred landscape, “a spiritual revolution.” ² Post-modernity, with its implicit rejection of top-down authority, which some predicted would produce mass atheism and the demise in all things spiritual. Has rather, been the fertile ground in which a spirituality of the twenty-first century is coming into vogue. 

As David Tracy wrote nearly two decades ago, 

“In the present global culture, with the need for common values and visions in a multicultural and plural world, the time is propitious for the discovery of a universal spirituality. To this end, not dogmatic religion but mystical and poetic vision is needed to release the potentials of spirit in an increasingly secular society. Spirituality is by no means incompatible with religion, but it is existential rather than creedal. It grows out of the individual person from an inward source, is intensely intimate and transformative, and is not imposed upon the person from an outside authority or force.” ³

The embrace now is a revolution that involves a democratization of the Spirit.

In a recent tweeted quip of mine I said that, “religious doctrines are a product of their time and are fine and dandy as far as they go. But usually by the time they become entrenched, God has already left the room.”⁴

It is not incidental that the image that heads up this post is the ancient remains of an old prison gate. The mystics of every age have always known that the Spirit cannot be found in black belt rule making. In this age the new mystics are emerging outside of any formal religious exposure, where the rule makers have for so long been in the ascendency. 

The embrace now is a revolution that involves a democratization of the Spirit. It is about radical inclusivity, it’s about finding the sacred in all things including the body, nature, the feminine, multi-modes of sexual orientation, and the environment.⁵

The non-religious but profoundly spiritual post-modern youth of this age intuitively know all this and adopt it as a given. It is they who now hold the sacred space! It’s up to old codger mystics like me, to get on-board the revolution train and begin learning anew. Because, make no mistake, that’s where the Spirit now dwells. 

1. Dominika Motak, “Postmodern Spirituality and the Culture of Individualism,” Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis. 21 (2009): 129- 141. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326886199_Postmodern_spirituality_and_the_culture_of_individualism [↩]
2. Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead, Spiritual Revolution. Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality (Oxford: Blackwell 2005), 2. [↩]
3. David Tacey, The Spirituality Revolution: The Emergence of Contemporary Spirituality (London: Harper Collins, 2003), 7. [↩]
4. https://twitter.com/CormacStagg/status/1313659262040645632 [↩]
5.  Tacey, The Spirituality Revolution, 4. [↩]