The Emerging Meanings of Religiousness and Spirituality: Problems and Prospects

This article examines traditional and modern psychological characterizations of religiousness and spirituality. Three ways in which religiousness and spirituality are polarized by contemporary theorists are examined: organized religion versus personal spirituality; substantive religion versus functional spirituality; and negative religiousness versus positive spirituality. An alternative approach to understanding religiousness and spirituality is presented that integrates rather than polarizes these constructs, and sets boundaries to the discipline while acknowledging the diversity of religious and spiritual expressions. Directions for future investigations of these two constructs are presented. Psychological investigations of religiousness and spirituality date back to the turn of the century (Coe, 1900; James, 1902/1961; Starbuck, 1899). From these pioneering efforts to the present, a number of theories have been developed, many empirical studies have been conducted, and considerable knowledge about religious and spiritual belief, experience, and behavior has been accumulated. With the approach of the new millennium, popular and scientific interest in religion and spirituality continues Journal of Personality 67:6, December 1999. Copyright © 1999 by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK. Correspondence concerning this article should be directed to Brian Zinnbauer at the email address [email protected] or c/o the Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403. to expand. Spirituality, in particular, has been the focus of a number of recent books, journal articles, and conferences. The past 30 years have seen a number of changes in religious and spiritual expression in the United States. Accordingly, approaches to religiousness and spirituality by psychologists have shifted. These shifts, however, have not been entirely benign for the psychology of religion. Increased religious individuality in the United States has manifested itself in terms of greater disagreement among social scientists and among respondents about the meaning of religiousness and spirituality. Further, current characterizations of these two critical constructs have lost important aspects of traditional ones. Relatively broad and balanced conceptualizations of religiousness and spirituality have given way to narrower and more biased perspectives. As a result, the psychology of religion as a field is in danger of losing its focus. The purpose of this article is to describe the increasingly biased and polarized ways in which religiousness and spirituality are currently understood by psychologists, to explore the implications of this trend, and to propose an alternate way to approach religiousness and spirituality that brings these terms into greater focus. To begin, it is necessary to describe the cultural context in which this trend has developed. A Changing Landscape In the years since World War II, the nature of religious membership, belief, and behavior in the United States has undergone numerous changes. According to several sources (e.g., Bruce, 1996; Mead, 1994; Princeton Religious Research Center, 1993; Roof & McKinney, 1987; Turner, Lukoff, Barnhouse, & Lu, 1995), mainline religious institutions have declined in strength in the past 25 years, and confidence in religious leadership has similarly eroded. With the notable exceptions of conservative religious denominations (Kelly, 1978) church membership has dropped since the late 1940s, and religious denominations such as the Episcopal and Methodist churches have lost at least 38% of their memberships in the past 30 years (see Shorto, 1997). The 1960s and 1970s in particular witnessed a large-scale decline in organized religious involvement, particularly among “baby boomers.” Roof (1993) found that 60% of the baby boomers he surveyed dropped out of active religious involvement for 2 years or more during this period. In the last three decades, organized religion has been labeled as “irrelevant,” “an obstacle to 890 Zinnbauer et al.