Purpose, Spirituality and Moderate Secularism: The Contribution of Religious Institutions to Purpose Development

Abstract

Building on moderate secularism, this article proposes a contribution that religious institutions could make to the common good of pluralistic societies, making more salient their relevance in the public sphere. In particular, based on the latest academic research on the many personal and social benefits of having a clear sense of purpose, it is explored whether religious institutions could contribute to identifying and developing the person’s purpose as a central aspect of spiritual growth, and how to take on this task with the specific means religious institutions have available. Purpose is understood as a superordinate/second-order aim that organises short-term or low-level goals in a way that they are interconnected and can be read teleologically, and which necessarily includes a self-transcendence or other-regarding dimension. Even though this transcendence has, for many nowadays, a purely secular/horizontal meaning, it is argued that religious institutions should get involved in deliberately fostering purpose in a well-informed way, since purpose is a component of spiritual development. In addition, this could help to widen participation and reconnect with those who have moved away from institutional religion but still have a clear concern for spiritual development: the spiritual ‘seekers’, regaining their interest. This poses the challenge of bridging the gap between horizontal and vertical self-transcendence.