A Review of The Ecology of Spirituality by Lucy Bregman

Abstract

Upon completion of The Ecology of Spirituality: Meanings, Virtues, and Practices in a PostReligious Age (Bregman 2014), and eager to talk about it, I shared the book with a friend, a life coach with a spiritual bent who walked away from institutional religion years ago and aligned himself with Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory and other formulations of postmodern spirituality critiqued by the author. My friend called Lucy Bregman’s book Ba lesson in humility and a revelation,^ saying, BThe uncovering/revealing of assumptions in my spiritual thinking and functioning doesn’t tweak my path, it wrenches it. This book is a kick-ass corrective and substantiation of my own explorations and practices.^ A spirited conversation ensued. We use the term Bspirituality^ for everything today, both within and outside of religious contexts. The personal identifier Bspiritual but not religious^ commonly implies that one has kept all the deep, personal, and beautiful elements of religion but left behind the dogma and fundamentalist rules of the institution. In The Ecology of Spirituality, Bregman explores how spirituality has evolved as a concept and challenges the ways it is being used by a wide variety of individuals and groups, including corporations, associations, and religious organizations. Her goal is an Bunglowing analysis^ for the purpose of understanding this ill-defined concept, now promoted as a cure for so many personal and societal problems. She argues that many North Americans are very comfortable with the term Bspirituality,^ despite its ambiguity, because of its positive connotations, and she calls out the use of the word by those who are Blargely clueless about its intellectual antecedents or implications^ (p. 4). Bregman wants people to clarify and to understand what is actually meant when Bspirituality^ is talked about and applied in so many diverse ways, and she is concerned that its uncritical and unexplored use will end up leaving a legacy of Bmush and confusion^ (p. 5). Bregman first traces the origins of the numerous (92 and still counting) definitions of spirituality. She frames her exploration in the intellectual ecologies of psychology, religious studies, and the sociology of religion, defining ecologies as the Benvironment and configuration of interacting species^ (p. 61). In the second section, she explores three Bniches^ where spirituality is being called on today to solve very real problems: health care, the workplace, and recreation. Pastoral Psychol (2015) 64:903–905 DOI 10.1007/s11089-015-0662-4