"Spirituality" as Privatized Experience-Oriented Religion: Empirical and Conceptual Perspectives

Recent empirical studies demonstrate that a growing number of people contrast “spirituality” and “religion,” self-identifying as “spiritual, but not religious” or as “more spiritual than religious.” This shift in everyday semantic preference, from “religion” to “spirituality,” has also affected the terminology of the scientific study of religion, producing some uncertainty and ambivalence regarding the conceptualization of spirituality. This is critically discussed. To inspire reflection, the article refers to some classics in philosophy, psychology and sociology of religion. The aim is twofold: first, to take the self-description “spiritual” very seriously, and inspire more thoroughgoing and sophisticated research; second, to call into question the necessity of conceptualizing ‘spirituality’ and to suggest that the concept of ‘religion’ is sufficient, because “spirituality” can be understood as privatized, experience-oriented religion.