Take four words: secularity, religion, faith, and spirituality. Picture what they represent in American culture today. Betting on the immediate future, in which would you invest? "Secularity?" That's as secure as government bonds, but unexciting. If they were stocks, "religion" would be for bears, steady old "faith" would be unsteady, but you would have to be bullish on "spirituality."

Thirty years ago the word and what it represented was so out of favor that it would not even have appeared on the cultural investors' big board. Lately, it has become so popular that critics are ready to dismiss it as fad, fashion, fancy—all of which it may be, though it most certainly is not only that. The word can stand for the deep down things of life, the reach of the human spirit, the creative imagination for searchers, the impeller of personal adventures and journeys, an invigorator of society, a judgment on the staid ways. At least two cheers, then, for all of the above.

We can take a clue from that familiar juxtaposing of "spirituality" and "religion" to discern some reasons why spirituality is "in" these days. Almost always its advocates make this clear about themselves: "I have nothing to do with organized religion, but I'm very spiritual." Religion then connotes the tired, repressive, and unpromising overlay that covers spiritual strivings. To some, religion recalls nuns' rapping of school children's knuckles. To others, it suggests boring synagogue or church services, and too many "dos" and "don'ts."

Yet religion is more than that to whoever has seen the positive values in congregations and communities, volunteer efforts to support mercy and justice, the solace a chaplain can bring to the sick room or a pastor to the bed of the dying, the joy of family rites and the holidays, the intellectual challenge of theology. But it does need jostling, and advocates of spirituality are today more effective jostlers than secularists ever could be.

Copyright Micah Marty

What about "faith"? That is a more congenial term, but for most people faith means "faith in" and that preposition usually points to God, a God addressable and expressible. Such pointing represents something more committal than many in the spirituality camp favor. They speak more readily of "energy," "connection," "in tune-ment," "harmony," or even "the god within" or "the god I am." Why favor such terms now?

Read the vast current literature on the subject and you will find that several explanations stand out. First, the ideologies of our century have given out or been questioned: fascism, communism, and even aspects of the more benign Enlightenment and modernism. Cultures abhor vacuums, and spirituality attempts to fill the current ones. Second, mere materialism does not satisfy everyone in our competitive consumer culture. Although some in the spirituality marketplace can be quite given to consumerism, we seek fulfillment in ways that the mall cannot, by itself, satisfy.

Add to this the understanding that the human at least seems to be homo religiosus, a creature who is innately, perhaps genetical-ly—certainly socially—obliged to seek meaning in a world of the random and chaotic. That impulse is not likely to disappear, but it is likely to keep taking on ever-changing forms. The spirituality theme satisfies today.

The voice of the cynic will say that spirituality belongs to a supply-side economy. Build a retreat center or a book store and they will come. Find niche markets that "secularity" and "religion" do not satisfy, and fill them.

Let the advocates and the cynics work on their balance sheets. For now, leaders in the "faith-health-ethics" world play with the cultural hand dealt them. They may not be content with their cards, but they know that the code-word "spirituality" does give them space and time and opportunity to summon from the depths resources that can contribute to healing.

The photographs in this issue of the Bulletin are reprinted by permission from When True Simplicity is Gained by Martin Marty and Micah Marty. The book is available in bookstores as well as from the publisher, Eerdmans, 1-800-253-7521.