The Ecology of Spirituality

Lucy Bregman is Professor of Religion at Temple University. She is the author of several books, including Preaching Death: The Transformation of Christian Funeral Sermons. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Introduction: The Making of Contemporary Spirituality 1 Definitions of Spirituality: Ninety-Two and Still Counting 2 How Do I Become Spiritual?: Practice as a Category 3 Virtues and Values of Spirituality 4 The Intellectual Ecology of Spirituality: Psychology 5 The Intellectual Ecology of Spirituality: Religious Studies 6 The Intellectual Ecology of Spirituality: Sociology of Religion 7 Niches for Spirituality: Health Care and Rx Spirituality 8 Niches for Spirituality: Spirituality in the Workplace 9 Niches for Spirituality: Recreation to Escape the Iron Cage Conclusion: Spirituality Brings the Change: A Critique Notes Bibliography Index

"A skeptic and scholar with a sense of humor and deep insight, Lucy Bregman takes on the mission of parsing the indefinable, making the journey personal and helpful along the way." -- Dr Terry R Bard, Rabbi, Managing Editor, JPCP Inc "Lucy Bregman provides a stunning intellectual tour of a most important cultural development in global culture--the wild spreading of the concept of spirituality far beyond its original boundaries within "religions". The Ecololgy of Spirituality ranks in the tradition of intellectual archeology pioneered by Michel Foucault and his History of Sexuality -- Christopher Ross, Associate Professor of Psychology and Religion, Wilfrid Laurier University "Lucy Bregman has turned her rich scholarly background, wide reading, excellent analytic skills, and down-to-earth good sense to look at the meanings and roles of 'spirituality' in contemporary culture. The word seemed to appear out of nowhere in the 1980s, and suddenly it was, and has remained, ubiquitous. Bregman looks at the nearly one hundred attempts to define spirituality, the academic environments that facilitated spirituality's emergence, and the wide array of fields and activities where the word has found a niche: psychology, healthcare, recreational sports, business. Bregman once called spirituality a useful glow word in search of a meaning. In this book she shows where the glow comes from and the meanings to which it has been attached." -- Dennis Klass, author of The Spiritual Lives of Bereaved Parents & co-author of "Dead but Not Lost: Grief Narratives in Religious Traditions" " The Ecology of Spirituality is a brilliant critique of the shifting historical meanings of "spirituality," a protean term that today conjures everything and nothing. Bregman brings a sharp wit and special expertise in religious studies to the analysis of spirituality as a concept." -- Kelly Bulkeley, Visiting Scholar, Graduate Theological Union & author of "Dreaming in the World's Religions". "...a stunning intellectual tour of a most important cultural development in global culture--the wild spreading of the concept of spirituality far beyond its original boundaries within 'religions'... --Christopher Ross, Associate Professor of Psychology and Religion, Wilfrid Laurier University "A skeptic and scholar with a sense of humor and deep insight, Lucy Bregman takes on the mission of parsing the indefinable..." --Dr. Terry R. Bard, Rabbi, Managing Editor, JPCP, Inc. "...Bregman brings a sharp wit and special expertise in religious studies to the analysis of spirituality as a concept." --Kelly Bulkeley, Visiting Scholar, Graduate Theological Union, and author of Dreaming in the World's Religions "...Bregman once called spirituality a useful glow word in search of a meaning. In this book she shows where the glow comes from and the meanings to which it has been attached." --Dennis Klass, author of The Spiritual Lives of Bereaved Parents and co-author of Dead but Not Lost: Grief Narratives in Religious Traditions Bregman evidences keen intellectual intuition and constructive insight in staking out a path upon which others could productively follow and expand. -- Daryl Ellis, Vanderbilt University -- Practical Matters In this masterly overview and analysis of the roots and emergence of spirituality as a prevalent term within multiple contemporary discourses, Lucy Bregman lays out some key insights into the nature and development of spirituality within contemporary Western cultures and offers some important perspectives on what this phenomenon might be, why it has become what it is and what it might mean for society. -- John Swinton -- Religion and Theology